WORLD AFFAIRS

Terror strikes in Turkey

JOHN CHERIAN

The Al Qaeda terror network is held responsible for the attacks in Turkey, a country that is a close ally of the United States and Israel.

THE series of suicide attacks in Istanbul in November have come as a rude wake-up call for the Turkish political establishment. The attacks, which bore the signature of the Al Qaeda terror network, were carefully planned. The first two took place on November 15 outside two synagogues. The second round took place on November 20 and was aimed at British targets - the consulate and HSBC Bank, which has its headquarters in London. The attack was timed to coincide with the high-profile visit of United States President George W. Bush to the United Kingdom.

AFP

The HSBC Bank building in Istanbul after the bomb attack on November 20.

The attack against British interests, which killed 27 and seriously injured over 400 people, was one of the worst terrorist incidents in Turkey, where only an attack by right-wing gunmen on a left-wing rally in 1977 had claimed more lives. The attack on the synagogues claimed 25 lives. Responsibility for these has been claimed by Al Qaeda and the Islamic Front of Raiders of the Great Orient, a fundamentalist Sunni group whose avowed goal is the replacement of the secular Turkey with an Islamic state. Two of the bodies that the Turkish authorities identified as those of the suicide bombers were of Turkish nationals.

For Al Qaeda, with its Islamist worldview, the synagogues symbolised Israel and Zionism. There is speculation that the Jewish places of worship could have also been attacked to highlight the atrocities being inflicted on Palestinians by the Israeli government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "The synagogues the other day, the British today. It seems that someone is trying to tell the Turks that they should be punished for the support to Israel and for the toppling of Saddam Hussein," Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said.

The spate of suicide attacks in the month of Ramadan have shown that there is a method in the madness. Significantly, the targets were troops and interests of countries closely aligned with the U.S. Italy, a close ally of the U.S., paid a heavy price, when its military base in Iraq was hit by suicide bombers on November 12. There are indications that these attacks, together with public opposition, have made the governments in London and Rome reappraise their roles in Iraq. Saudi Arabia and Morocco are among the other Muslim countries targeted by Al Qaeda, apparently because of their proximity to the U.S. One of the first targets to be attacked by a suicide bomber in Baghdad was the Jordanian embassy.

TURKEY became the first Muslim-dominated country to establish diplomatic relations with Israel as soon as the Jewish state came into existence in 1948. Turkey has also been an integral part of the pro-West axis since the early 1950s, trying to play the role of a buffer between Europe and West Asia and the Caucasus. It has been an active member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) military alliance. The Turkish-Israeli military alliance firmed up in the mid-1990s. An accord signed between the two countries in 1996 allowed the Turkish and Israeli Air Forces to use each other's bases in times of crises.

According to analysts, the accord gave Israel, otherwise isolated in the region, great strategic strength. What Turkey got in return was access to Israel's high-tech defence weaponry. In 2001, a large-scale military exercise, code-named "Anatolian Eagle" and involving U.S., Israeli and Turkish troops, was conducted on Turkish territory. Interestingly, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, during his visit to Turkey earlier in the year, had talked about the importance of a Turkey-Israel-India axis to fight terrorism.

The former Islamists who are now in power in Turkey have, by and large, maintained the status quo in foreign policy. In early 2003, only adverse public opinion in the country forced the government to backtrack on its commitment to allow the U.S. to use Turkey as the northern front for the invasion of Iraq.

However, in October, the Turkish government offered to send a division of its troops to Iraq to help the beleaguered U.S. forces, despite public opinion being overwhelmingly against such a move. The Turkish Army top brass, which wields a lot of influence on the government, was not happy with Parliament's veto against the use of their territory for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Despite the Iraqi Interim Council's outright rejection of the Turkish offer to send troops, the government conveyed to the U.S. its willingness to help it out in Iraq. This has infuriated not only Turkish public opinion but also the Arab street. More than 90 per cent of the Turkish population had opposed the war in Iraq.

Even after the terrorist attacks in Istanbul, public opinion in Turkey continues to be against U.S. policies in the region. At ceremonies held in the last week of November in Istanbul, young men were seen carrying placards that said that Turkey was paying with its blood for the atrocities committed by the U.S. in the region. Many Turks are calling for a fundamental review of the relations with the U.S. and Israel. They also fear that the Army would use the suicide bombings as an excuse to derail democracy once again.

The ruling party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), has a two-thirds majority in Parliament. The party's leadership continues to be wary of the Army. The AKP's support base is Islamist and is opposed to the Army's influence in the corridors of power. Meanwhile, politicians close to the Army are questioning the AKP's credentials to crack down on militant Islamists. The last time the military openly intervened in politics was in 1997 when Necmettin Erbakan, the moderate Islamist Prime Minster belonging to the Welfare Party, was forced to resign.

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