OPINION | Dark Shadows on Erdogan by Federica Fanuli

By Federica Fanuli The worst massacre in the history of Turkey seems to be signed by ISIS. One of the two suicide bombers, Yunus Em...

By Federica Fanuli

The worst massacre in the history of Turkey seems to be signed by ISIS. One of the two suicide bombers, Yunus Emre Alagöz is the component of jihadist cell of Adiyaman, a town in the Turkish southeast, and he would be the brother of Abdurrahman Seyh Alagöz, kamikaze who  has killed a group of leftist activists of pro-Kurdish movement in Suruc. The second suicide bomber Ömer Deniz Dündar is the twenty-first wanted of the black list of potential suicide bombers in the hands of the Turkish government.

The suspicion is that behind all this there is Erdogan. The Turkish President has committed a series of missteps - the media censorship, the denied dialogue with the Kurds, the sad statement to expel Armenians after the European Resolution that has sanctioned the genocide of these people, consumed at the beginning of XX Century, in 1915/17 - and increases the mistrust that the electoral campaign is focused on the strategy of terror in order to win the elections on November the 1st. Election date that the Chief of Turkey and leader of the Islamic-conservative Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) can not lose, especially after the bad electoral result in the June. The early voting does not announce favourable, because the government in Ankara has relaunched the war against Kurdish separatists who leads the Kurdistan Workers' Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, PKK). The goal is the disposition of a nationalist front and a majority in Parliament. The demonstration, theatre of the tragic attack, was been organized to denounce the conflict that the Turkish government leads against the Kurds, but there is no evidence to confirm the complicity of the President. Investigations have instead led to the arrest of two young men belonging to the Islamic State. Probably, ISIS have not forgiven the ambiguous profile of Erdogan, who firstly has supported them to take out Syrian President Bashar al Assad, of which Ankara wants the downfall for a regional balance between Sunnis and Shiites, and then he has attacked them.

At the moment, the country is shocked. Turkey has experienced the worst attack in its history. Tensions are growing. Opinion polls predict the risk of un governability. The opposition tries in vain to hinder the dictatorial drift of Turkey and blurs the idea of an agreement with Kurdish separatists while the economy flounders. Dark shadows are gathering on Erdogan who has pointed his finger at the Islamic State as responsible for the attack to clean up his image. Even though it is not excluded possible links between ISIS and PKK, Erdogan has summoned the American and Russian ambassador to warn them about the delivery of weapons to support Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State in Syria. "Turkey will never tolerate armed aid to an organization affiliated to the PKK" as the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Demokrat Yekîtiya, PYD) that fights ISIS in Syria, considered an offshoot of the PKK, both considered terrorist organizations. These are the words of the Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, about the possible supply of military armaments to the PYD by the forces of anti-ISIS Coalition. According to Davutoglu, the Islamic State and the PKK could have had both a decisive role in the attack. Despite its controversial and often bloody past, it sounds ironic that the PKK, pledged to curb terrorism, is among the potential instigators of the massacre. All this only exacerbates the crisis between Ankara and the Kurds, another node that the November elections would dissolve, the decisive election date for the Turkey's future.

About The Author:

Federica Fanuli was graduated with honours in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Salento and she has obtained a Master’s Degree in Political Science, European Studies and International Relations at the same University. Foreign Affairs analyst, she is Editorial Manager of Mediterranean Affairs, a project aiming to provide analyses that cover the Mediterranean area. Columnist of the Sunday Sentinel, she is Editorial Board Member of Cosmopolismedia.it and Editor-at-large of IndraStra Global. She can be reached at her LinkedIn profile. / Thomson Reuters ResearcherID : M-9093-2015

Originally Published in Italian Language Media Site - CosmopolisMedia.

 The work has been translated by the author herself.

Image Attribute: Erdogan at WEF Davos 2009 / Source: Wikimedia Commons [Link]

AIDN: 001-10-2015-0343