Turkey has no choice but to implement a counterterrorism policy capable of addressing region-wide challenges related to the de facto unification of Syria and Iraq.

Ankara is firmly back in action as an emerging power acting proactively in regional and global matters

Operation Euphrates Shield has mobilized the Syria equation again and accelerated the political process. It also came to light that the quelling of the July 15 coup attempt intensified Turkey's counter-terror activities both in Syria and Northern Iraq

Although both are NATO members in the international coalition against DAESH, the U.S.'s insistence on supporting the PYD and YPG, which Ankara deems terror organizations, instead of Turkey, harms the trust between the two countries

The U.S.'s assumption that Syria's YPG will contribute to the international coalition in the fight against DAESH will put the U.S. into trouble due to the terror organization's separatist strategy in northern Syria and southeastern Turkey

For the last two years, there has been an increasing attempt by the YPG to take advantage of the situation in northern Syria and move its resources to these lands.

Muhittin Ataman: “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.”

The HDP made significant progress in the political arena, but it must keep in mind that a toxic mix of violence and cross-national alliances will not secure legal status for their voters.

Over the next decade, Turkey will have no choice but to deal with the consequences of the PYD's potential rise to power in northern Syria. As such, it is simply unrealistic to expect Turkey to negotiate with the PKK at this time.

Civil wars in Syria and Iraq are reshaping the Middle East, followed by issue-based alliances, thinking ahead and working on multiple scenarios.

The PKK faces an existential crisis of having unleashed hell on Turkey's Kurds, the organization finds it increasingly difficult to fuel nationalist sentiments by expanding its territory in Syria.

For Turkey, as a dynamic, emerging economy, to increase its growth it needs a renewed strategy for investments into the energy market, but this may require changing its current partners in the field.

The growing power of the PKK and the PYD in northern Syria will remain a source of tensions between Turkey and the U.S. until Washington starts to understand what exactly concerns Ankara

After years of opposition and months of heated debate, the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) began broadcasting in Kurdish today on TRT 6.  

Perhaps the most consequential and drastic decision in Turkish foreign policy in recent months was to engage in direct negotiations with Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq. This is significant because, since the onset of Iraq War in 2003, Turkey has sought to ignore or marginalize Iraqi Kurds, and has refrained from all acts that could be viewed as concessions or de facto recognition. Although the Iraqi Kurdish leadership has received red-carpet ceremony in Ankara in the1990s, Turkish foreign policy toward northern Iraq, since the war, has been stymied by anxiety and emotional rhetoric. Indeed, the fear of Iraq’s disintegration and the rise of an independent Kurdish enclave in the north, inspiring or even assisting separatist sentiments in Turkey, have appeared to cloud the possibility of rational evaluation of the pros and cons of policy alternatives. As a result, the policy of projecting illegitimacy to the Kurdish Regional Government has cost Turkey a significant loss of clout not only in northern Iraq but also in the wider Iraqi political affairs, as Kurds have come to occupy significant positions in the central government as well.

In an age of war on terror, Turkey pursues its own war against the escalating PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) terror. The dynamics that led to a parliamentary motion for a cross border operation into Northern Iraq will have implications for Turkey’s relations with Washington, Baghdad and other capitals in the region