Sourced: Rand
By Ahmet S. Yayla and Colin P. Clarke
The decline of the Islamic State, nearly four years after its emergence, was the result of an aggressive military campaign to combat the group spearheaded primarily by the United States.
That has not stopped Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu from writing an article for Foreign Policy to take credit for the group’s demise, insisting that Turkey’s actions in northern Syria have helped lay the groundwork for a sustainable peace.
What he neglected to mention is that it was Turkey’s actions, or perhaps the lack thereof, that helped fuel the rise of the Islamic State in the first place.
The two most commonly cited factors leading to the growth of the Islamic State are the Syrian civil war and the government of former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and its persecution of Sunni Arabs in Iraq. But another significant part of this story is the negligence exhibited by the Turkish state.
Read more at: https://www.rand.org/blog/2018/04/turkeys-double-standard-how-ankaras-actions-contradict.html