Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s answer to the people’s rejection of him and his party, the AKP, in the June 7 general elections has turned out to be the choice of dragging Turkey into war. At the end of June, he massed troops on the Syrian border. At the beginning of July, he made a secret agreement with the retired General John Allen, Obama’s special presidential envoy for the coalition against the ISIL, and promised to let the US use the Incirlik Air Base. Taking advantage of the suicide bomb attack in Suruç, he put his war plan in practice. This is Erdoğan’s war in order to save his political career. This is the AKP’s war in order to maintain power on its own. The working class and the poor, laboring people should say “stop!” to this plan, which would turn the country into a new battlefield of the horrible fight in the Middle East.
Having supported the ISIL for years, having let them use the Turkish border for the traffic of oil, arms, new recruits, wounded militants etc., having rendered border towns strongholds of the ISIL, having thus supported it and other similar organizations hand in hand with Qatar and Saudi Arabia for years, why did the AKP suddenly effect an about-turn? Nobody should answer, “Why, it is of course Suruç”! Suruç was a reaction. It was a warning to Turkey concerning the latter’s assent to the U.S.A. at the beginning of July regarding the use of İncirlik Air Base against the ISIL, after having rejected it for almost a year. Just like Reyhanlı in 2013. The only difference is that this time the ISIL also had a political target. It attacked socialists in solidarity with Kobane, thus declaring that it will do everything in order to suffocate Rojava and reminded the AKP about their useful services.
Erdoğan and the AKP are aiming for an onslaught upon the gains of the Kurdish people by taking advantage of the atmosphere created by the Suruç attack. They plan to kill two birds with one stone: they hope to both get hold of positions against Rojava (Jarablus, to begin with) and soon might even attack it directly; and they aim to drag the PKK into the war, thus creating the impression that the HDP is an enemy of peace and trying to undermine the HDP and thereby tipping the scales in their favor in snap elections. Erdoğan wants to go to elections as the champion of the “national interest”. The strategic target of this war is the freedom of the Kurdish people. The ISIL is nothing but an excuse. After the so-called “resolution” process that has continued since 2008 with ups and downs, the airstrikes against the PKK camps last night (the night of 24-25 July) are unequivocal evidence of the real intentions. The raids against Kurdish patriots and socialists as well as the summary execution of one revolutionary militant (supposedly “captured dead”) are just another aspect of the same truth.
Erdoğan considered crossing with the U.S.A. too dangerous while he is still weak domestically. He decided to entrench his positions first. When he saw that the ISIL was not able to resist the Rojava People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) in Tel Abyad (Gerê Spî) under U.S. air strikes, he decided to bow before might. He made a deal with imperialism and started to attack the ISIL, which he had supported until recently. He provided new facilities to the U.S.A. and accepted its patronage. One Minute, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan! Who are you working for in the Middle East, tell it frankly!
The working class, the poor and the youth should understand that Tayyip Erdoğan is the partner of imperialism. Erdoğan’s current battle has nothing to do with “national interests”. He is serving imperialism for his personal interests! This is the naked truth!
Accepting the patronage of the U.S. is not the way to fight the barbarism of the ISIL. The ISIL is the creature, is the Frankenstein born of the hatred of Muslim peoples aroused by of the Gulf war (1991), of the Afghanistan war (2001), of the Iraq war (2003), and the attacks by Israel against Lebanon (2006) and repeatedly against the Gaza Strip (2008, 2012, 2014) and also of the sectarian fanaticism created by the Sunni-Shiite war provoked by the U.S.A. during its invasion of Iraq. U.S. aggression first created Al-Qaeda and then the ISIL. Tomorrow it will create other and even bigger troubles. Only the workers, the laborers, the peasants, the oppressed peoples, the oppressed women and the youth of the region can establish brotherhood in the Middle East. Only these forces can put an end to imperialism and takfiri sectarianism.
Vanguard workers, laborers, youth, all oppressed! Let us stop Erdoğan’s and the AKP’s war, aimed at saving themselves! This war is not against terrorism. This is a war against the people, who indicated that they do not want to see Erdoğan and the AKP in power!
Central Committee of the Revolutionary Workers’ Party (DIP)
25 July 2015