Why Is Turkey Refusing To Support President Obama's Strategy Against The Islamic State

BBC

Turkey Joins The Coalition Of The Unwilling -- Thomas Seibert, Daily Beast

With ISIS on its doorstep, the Turkish government balks at support for Obama’s strategy.

ISTANBUL, Turkey – A diplomatic crisis looms. Turkey, a key U.S. ally and the only NATO member that borders areas controlled by ISIS jihadists in Syria and Iraq, is in a prime location to hit the extremists next door. But it prefers not to.

Instead, Ankara is seeking a low-profile role – so low as to be almost invisible -- in the international alliance that Washington is building up against the so-called caliphate, and that fact is undermining the American strategy to strike back against the terrorists President Barack Obama deems “unique in their brutality.”

Washington, obviously aware of the problem, is working overtime to get some sort of concrete supportive commitments from the Turkish government for a strategy in which American airpower supports regional armies with boots on the ground to crush the ISIS forces. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel visited Ankara on Monday; Secretary of State John Kerry is expected in the Turkish capital Friday. But background briefings to the Turkish press suggest that president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government will refuse to give the United States more than the bare minimum of support: it won’t allow the Americans to attack from NATO air bases in Turkey and it will decline to let Turkish troops take part in combat operations.

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More News On Why Turkey Is Refusing To Support President Obama's Strategy Against The Islamic State

Turkey Will Refuse US Permission to Use Air Bases For Attacking ISIS -- The Tower
Islamic State Smuggles Oil Into Turkey—With Hostages as Insurance -- Bloomberg Businessweek
Kerry coming to Turkey to twist arms on ISIL cooperation -- Today's Zaman
Kerry to visit Turkey to bolster campaign against Islamic State -- Reuters
Has Turkey woken up to Islamic State threat? -- Mark Lowen, BBC

My Comment: Why the confusing signals from Turkey .... Semih Idiz, a Turkish political analyst and columnist for the Hurriyet Daily News .... is probably right in this observation .....

.... “They have no strategy, they have no plan, they only have the hope that other people will do the job for them,” he told The Daily Beast. Such is the sense of urgency that Turkish officials are now fretting over the problem “not on a day to day basis, but almost on an hour by hour basis,” Idiz added. “The whole Middle East policy is in complete shambles. They are paralyzed.”

In short .... President Obama is not the only one who is rushing trying to put a strategy together to counter the violence and spread of the Islamic State.

Update: At least Turkey is doing something .... Report: Turkey deported 830 Europeans trying to join Islamic State (Haaretz)