On October 23, in the middle of the day, a terrorist attack took place in the head office of Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. (Tusaş) in Ankara, in which a number of people were killed and others wounded. What is the reason for this attack?
Who is responsible for it?
Turkey, like most developing countries, still has a number of related internal and external problems of a political and economic nature.
Among the complex internal and partly external challenges which Turkey faces is the Kurdish question.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan initially allowed some democratization of Kurdish political forces in Turkey and brought Selahattin Demirtaş’s Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) into parliament. But with the aggravation of his personal conflict with the leader of the Islamic Gülen movement, led by Fethullah Gülen, who died in exile in Pennsylvania, in the United States on October 20, 2024, Erdoğan began to step up the political pressure on the Kurdish forces.
For Turkey, the Kurdish issue is not only painful, but also existential, in that it threatens the country’s territorial integrity. After the collapse of the USSR, it was the United States that became the main “manipulator” in Kurdish affairs, in a bid to advance its own interests in the region.
In Syria, Turkey failed, repeatedly, to gain US support for the occupation of Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan), but Erdoğan found an alternative “way in” to Syria after restoring good-neighborly relations with Russia.
As we have said, on October 20, the death of Fethullah Gülen was announced to the media. Some Turkish analysts have suggested that this event could bring about a rapprochement between Turkey and the United States.
The following day, on October 21, Özgür Özel, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition group, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), visited the leader of the pro-Kurdish HDP, Selahattin Demirtaş, who is currently in prison on charges of having links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). During their three-hour conversation, they discussed the issue of social peace and Özel recognized the head of the HDP as a likely political partner in resolving the Kurdish issue.
And then on October 22, the leader of the right-wing Nationalist Action Party (MHP), Devlet Bahçeli, who is an ally of Erdoğan on the Republican alliance in parliament, proposed to remove the isolation from Abdullah Öcalan and invite him to participate in the Turkish Grand National Assembly, so that he can publicly declare the dissolution of the PKK and open a new page in the history of Turkey. Öcalan agreed to this proposal, but was unable to comment further while in prison.
In turn, Erdoğan, before flying on an official visit to Russia for the BRICS summit, spoke in a meeting with members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), where he announced plans for a definitive solution to the problem of terrorism in Turkey. He said, “We expect everyone to understand that there is no place for terrorism in Turkey’s future. We want to build Turkey together, without terrorism.”
This statement by the Turkish leader was perceived as evidence of his support for Bahçeli’s proposal.
Less than a day later, on October 23, a group of three militants committed a terrorist attack on a defense industry facility in Ankara. The office of Tusaş itself was not seriously damaged, nor were its production activities interrupted. What was the purpose of the attack?
With the investigation still under way, Turkish Interior Minister claimed that there was evidence that the PKK was involved. But who in the PKK is in a position to defy Özgür Özel, who has agreed to seek peace with Turkey? Although the investigators did not complete its work in a day, the Turkish Air Force has already begun bombing alleged PKK targets and facilities in Iraq and Syria.
A couple of days before the start of the XVI BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, the British newspaper Financial Times published a report claiming that the Turkish authorities had imposed restrictions on the export to Russia of more than 40 types of American dual-use products. According to the report, Ankara was pressurized into this decision after Washington warned it of “negative consequences.”
It turns out that the United States is dissatisfied with Erdoğan’s position on the formula for peace with the Kurds. More precisely, the US is interested not so much in the fate of the Kurds in Turkey as in the prospect of Turkey joining BRICS and developing its ties with Russia. That is why some politicians and experts in Turkey have linked the terrorist attack in Ankara to Erdoğan’s visit to the BRICS summit in Kazan.
What are the implications of the US warnings for Turkey?
Despite a number of premature media reports about the immediate departure of the Turkish President from Kazan in connection with the terrorist attack in Ankara, Recep Erdoğan kept his cool and demonstrated commendable political wisdom in remaining for the substantive part of the BRICS+ Outreach Summit.
Of course, of the 36 representatives of foreign countries at the XVI BRICS summit, the President of Turkey was unique in that he was the only representative of a NATO member at this major international forum. Some allies of Ankara (for example, Germany and France) today envy Erdoğan and consider it a mistake of the United States to prevent members of the Collective West from attending BRICS events.
The terrorist attack in Ankara, and the resulting attacks on the Kurds by the Turkish Air Force in Syria may have been aimed at disrupting Russian mediation in the restoration of Turkish-Syrian relations.
The US attempts to “rein in” Turkey and make President Erdoğan its obedient ally will obviously fail, just like similar initiatives in the past. Nevertheless, it is clear that following the death of Fethullah Gülen, Washington is in search of a new political resource in Turkey in the face of the opposition CHP, which has the support of the Kurdish Democratic Party. In addition to putting financial pressure on Turkey and giving it numerous warnings, the US could also use the Kurdish issue as a political lever in Turkey itself.
The choice remains with the pragmatic Erdoğan, who in a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin again promised to resolve the issues of bank payments and make a decision on the gas hub issue. The time for promises is rapidly running out.
Alexander Svarants—Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
