With its neighborhood up in flames, the region\u2019s borders about to be redrawn and an unspecified number of its own citizens held hostage, Turkey\u2019s leaders seem to be eerily relaxed.<\/p>\n
The prime minister continues to campaign for the coming presidential election in August; he even talks about rallying the troops for the 2015 general elections. There seems to be no let-up in his attacks against his political opponents in the country. He describes the main opposition party as \u201ca piece of rag\u201d; the other \u201ca monkey led by a slobbering leader\u201d. His Islamist rivals, the G\u00fclen movement continues to be the main target of his criticism. \u00a0Turkish diplomats and officials, who were instructed to promote them until less than a year ago, are still busy trying to get the Pennsylvania-based preacher\u2019s school network destroyed. The Prime Minister tells his party faithful that it is their duty to expose this \u201ctreacherous gang\u201d not only in Turkey but everywhere else in the world. \u201cThat\u2019s the reason\u201d he says, \u201cwhy he had brought the subject up during his meeting with the ambassadors of the European Union earlier this week and reminded the Europeans their own faults\u201d \u00a0in this ongoing saga.<\/p>\n
If the European ambassadors came to the meeting with the Prime Minister expecting to focus on the approaching threat by the Sunni extremists next door and a possible break-up of a neighboring country, they must have been baffled. \u00a0But not as much as the members of the Turkish Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Commission, who wanted to be briefed about the latest situation regarding the hostages held by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS) since June 10. The opposition members of the Commission were told in no uncertain terms that the Foreign Minister had no time for them. Snubbed and denied an explanation, they left the meeting in protest.<\/p>\n
Following the Prime Minister\u2019s demand that a news black-out<\/a> should be imposed on the subject of hostages taken in Mosul, a court in Ankara imposed a ban on reporting on the issue.\u00a0 \u00a0The Reporters Without Borders<\/a> called it \u201ca blatant act of censorship, violating the Turkish public\u2019s right to be informed about a subject of general interest\u201d.<\/p>\n Heavy hand of the law on their backs, the media stopped writing and talking about it.<\/p>\n It was not the first time the courts imposed a ban on the media reporting on issues of public interest. After the Dec 17 corruption inquiry; when some trucks belonging to the National Security Organization MIT supposedly carrying aid to Syria were stopped for a search near the Syrian border last year and following a high-level security meeting about Syria at the Foreign Ministry was leaked; similar gagging orders were issued.<\/p>\n Since the authorities insist the captives are not \u201chostages\u201d, safety of those abducted or the integrity of a possible rescue operation cannot be shown as the motive behind such a blatant censorship. There is, in fact, no attempt even to pretend. \u00a0One of the reasons given by the court for the reporting ban was \u201cto avoid the publication of inaccurate, unnecessary information that may reveal the weaknesses of the state\u201d.<\/p>\n On the day ISIS militants attacked one of Iraq\u2019s largest air bases, captured new oil fields and\u00a0 border posts; secured a pledge of allegiance \u00a0from Syria’s al Qaeda wing, the Nusra Front, Prime Minister Erdogan \u00a0accused<\/a> \u00a0Turkey\u2019s two main opposition parties for \u201ctrying to pressure the government \u201cto speak provocatively against ISIS.<\/p>\n After so many foreign policy failures and obvious mistakes; I am wondering whether the government is playing down the threat to Turkey and the wider region deliberately, or it does not grasp fully the scale of the crisis.<\/p>\n Could it be there is another game that we haven\u2019t been told about?<\/p>\n The complexity and the unpredictability of the situation in Iraq are getting greater each day. As European Council on Foreign Affairs briefing<\/a> rightly points out, a carefully measured response is needed. Focusing alone on the rise of ISIS and counter-terrorism or the removal of the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki would be a mistake.<\/p>\n