The day after DAESH killed 10 people in İstanbul’s historic Sultanahmet district on January 12, 2016, SETA Deputy General Coordinator Muhittin Ataman on Al Jazeera stressed Turkey’s position against terrorist groups, DAESH and PKK in particular.

 -More cooperation with the International Coalition against DAESH;

-Opening the U.S. Air Force Base in İncirlik, Adana;

-Increasing security measures along the Syrian border;

-Training Peshmerga, Turkmen and Sunni Arab forces in Northern Iraq;

-Closing down half of the Syrian border for any trespassing, and

-Sending over 100 DAESH members to prison.

These are some of Ataman’s answers to “Why did DAESH (ISIL) target Turkey?”

 “With the emergence of DAESH at the scene, Turkey has begun to have some further measures against foreign fighters,” he said, “in the middle of Paris, seven different attacks were conducted at the same time. It is impossible to take a complete measure against any terrorist group in anywhere in the world.”

İstanbul is not different from Madrid, Boston, London and Paris for that matter.

As for Turkey’s fight with PKK/PYD, Ataman set the record straight about Turkey’s red lines: “Turkey is trying to recover and restructure its priorities in the Syrian crisis. For the first two years, it was the fall of the Asad regime, but now it is to prevent PYD from controlling the entire Turkish-Syrian border. This is a red line for Turkey.”