No one is eager to intervene militarily in Syria

Some people are trying to draw the picture that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) are eager to send Turkish troops into Syria.

Such suggestions are completely wrong and only serve to create an image that those currently running Turkey are war mongers, which to say the least is ridiculous. Neither Erdoğan nor the AK Party wants to draw Turkey into a war and thus makes domestic political gains for themselves. People have started to treat Erdoğan and the AK Party as if the two had nothing to do with the way Turkey was run in the past 13 years and that they are new to the political scene.Erdoğan knows well the bill to be paid for a war. Ahmet Davutoğlu has been the leading figure shaping Turkey's foreign policy over the past decade and knows well that Turkey has prospered over the years by remaining an island of peace and security in a volatile and unstable region. To suggest that these people would jeopardize all they have done is at best naïve.

Erdoğan, Davutoğlu, the government, the Foreign Ministry and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) are all alarmed with the growing instability and uncertainty in Syria. The fact that no solution can be seen on the horizon in Syria and that the situation in Iraq is worsening, is forcing Turkish planners to start taking new measures to avoid any disasters for Turkey in the future. Turkey is preparing for all contingencies as the mess across our borders becomes more and more complicated.

It is clear that shifting alliances in Syria is making matters even more complicated. The Basher Assad regime is at times forging alliances with the militant wing of the Syrian Kurds that are close to Turkey's PKK terrorist group simply to create more problems for Turkey. Assad also forges alliances with the radicals of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) against the Free Syrian Army (FSA). So at times the Syrian Kurds and ISIS, which are fighting each other, are in fact indirect allies through Assad. These shifting conditions make things very complicated in Syria. Thus Turkey has to bolster its intelligence activities in Syria and mobilize all its resources to obtaining quick and accurate information about the shifting conditions.

No one wants to send Turkish troops into Syria and make them sitting ducks for the ISIS hordes, for the Syrian Kurdish militants or anyone else. But Turkey does at times need to flex its muscle and this may well be in the form of shelling and aerial bombings.

The new government has to sit down with the Americans in earnest and discuss the growing threats against Turkey from Syria and thus find practical and meaningful solutions. A buffer zone, a safe haven where we can house Syrians Turkmens and the 2 million refugees that have invaded our southeastern regions have to established. Our Western allies and the U.S. in particular have to see that there is an unsustainable situation that is starting to create serious security threats for Turkey.