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By Michael Rubin
08.18.2011 - 2:30 PM
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been a cheerleader for Hamas, providing the vehemently anti-Israel and anti-Semitic terrorist group with aid and comfort. At the same time, he has roundly criticized Israeli efforts to protect her citizens, even accusing Israel’s dovish president Shimon Peres of being a murderer during the Turkish prime minister's widely-publicized temper tantrum in Davos, Switzerland.
Now, it seems the shoe is on the other foot. Over the last month, Kurdistan Workers Party [PKK] terror attacks have killed upwards of 30 Turks. Turkey has responded with air strikes across the Iraqi border and military action in civilian areas at home.
Now Namik Tan, Turkey’s ambassador in Washington, tweets “I strongly condemn the heinous terrorist attack perpetrated today by the PKK which took the lives of 12 Turkish troops.” Well, I do too. But since Tan has been at the forefront of urging dialogue with Hamas, why doesn’t he sit down with the PKK? After all, they have a front-office not far from the Turkish embassy in Washington, DC. If Hamas deserves the trappings of diplomacy, why not apply the same standards to the PKK?
Likewise, perhaps Namik Tan can relate why the Turkish military has been responding with disproportionate force to the PKK attacks? Perhaps this a problem better solved through the United Nations. After all, I’m sure Armenia, Greece, and Cyprus have some ideas they’d like to share, and why shouldn’t they? Turkey should just be thankful they don’t have the oil and gas to buy European, Asian, and South American votes. Perhaps Erdoğan might also be consistent and from an international soapbox tell the Turkish public that he really doesn’t believe it is legal to guarantee their safety.
For the record, I don’t believe any terrorist group deserves diplomatic niceties or the legitimacy that dialogue provides, and that includes both the PKK, its Iranian offshoot PEJAK, and, for that matter, the Mujahedin al-Khalq in Iran. But consistency also matters. Turkey—and Namik Tan especially—have made legitimization of Palestinian terrorists a cornerstone of their diplomatic agenda. I will also mourn those killed by terrorists regardless of their nationality, but it’s just as important for Turkey to recognize the precedent it set, and the blowback legitimization of terrorists brings.
