THE Turkish government’s decision to bomb the bases of Kurdish militants inside Turkey must look very odd to all those who were expecting Ankara to put its shoulder to the wheel and focus on the more important job of resisting the self-proclaimed Islamic State’s relentless advance.

Both the attack by the PKK on a Turkish military outpost and the government’s response threaten to undermine a ceasefire that has been under way since the two sides agreed to a peace process two years ago.

What led to the PKK attack on the military post can be guessed: Kurdish anger over the Turkish failure to join the US-led coalition against the IS. But the attack on the outpost wasn’t exactly the best way to express disgust as the Kurds aren’t the only ones angry over Ankara’s decision to sit on the fence while Kobane’s fate hangs in the balance.

The Alevi minority is also seething with anger, and there have been demonstrations across the country against the government’s shocking neutrality at a time when the entire Middle East is looking to Turkey and to powers beyond to help crush the IS, whose success threatens to create a new order that would undermine civilisation as we know it.

Evidently, Turkey’s priority is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s head. In fact, it has been criticised for allegedly allowing its soil to be used by militants as a transit route to Syria.

Ankara also feels that bombing IS forces will mean indirect support to Kurdish guerrillas fighting ‘caliph’ al-Baghdadi’s army. But the Kurdish problem has been there for decades, and it is the IS ‘blitzkrieg’ that has completely upset all other calculations, for Turkey must realise that if the extremist hordes aren’t crushed in Syria, they will sooner or later enter Turkish territory to wreak havoc on the Middle East’s most democratic and stable country.

Given the turmoil within, it is time Ankara reordered its priorities and realised the danger which the IS poses to Turkey itself.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2014