Turkish Government to Take Important Steps to Fight Against Terrorism

Following the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) attack that killed 13 soldiers in Silvan two weeks ago, the government announced that it will be taking a new approach to combating terrorism. Preventing new recruits from joining the PKK and making sure that those who flee the organization are successfully reintegrated into society will be two crucial points Turkey will concentrate on in its fight against terrorism from now on.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan last week announced that his government was planning to use the police force extensively in counterterrorism efforts, with other government officials explaining that this won’t mean that the military will be out of the picture entirely.

Although the government has not yet presented a clear description of the police force’s new counterterrorism responsibilities, it said police units will be deployed to rural parts of the East and Southeast to assist in counterterrorism operations.

Most recently, National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Undersecretary Hakan Fidan met with the head of the National Police Department, Mehmet Kılıçlar, to discuss counterterrorism tactics. Sources said MİT will provide real-time intelligence to the police during anti-terror operations.

The police force will also be adopting policies of “information” and “prevention,” which will focus on curbing new PKK recruitment and ensuring the social reintegration of those who leave the group.

Fidan said MİT will support the police force in anti-PKK operations in both rural and urban areas. Sources said Fidan filled Kılıçlar in on the police department’s current intelligence capabilities as well as the state of its helicopter fleet in the eastern and southeastern provinces, where the PKK is most active.

Over the past few years, the National Police Department has recruited a large number of new personnel to its Special Ops Unit, the department in charge of counterterrorism operations. The unit currently has 6,700 officers, compared with 5,000 only two years ago. This unit will be crucial in the new era of fighting terrorism. There are plans to increase the number of officers in special operations to 11,000 before the year’s end.

The National Police Department’s Counterterrorism Unit, acting on the philosophy that armed security operations are only one aspect of fighting terrorism, is now planning to organize workshops for its officers in Gaziantep, Mersin and Antalya to create a standard view and understanding of the police force’s counterterrorism activities. In addition to special operations officers, members of intelligence units will also join these workshops. There will also be training courses for police officers to educate them on the profile of terrorists, the PKK’s methods of recruitment, their public relations methods and propaganda strategies as well as introductory courses on child and adolescent psychology as part of the police force’s strategy to keep young people from joining the PKK.

Opposition not happy about new police role

Since the government announced its intention to make extensive use of the police force in fighting terrorism in the days ahead, opposition parties have expressed concern about the plan. Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said relying on the police to fight terrorists will eventually amount to “a return to the ‘90s” when Turkey had to endure a terrorist attack almost every day, and where security forces often overstepped orders and the law while trying to combat terror. “No positive consequences came of those actions, and there were many unsolved murders,” Kılıçdaroğlu said. “Returning to that decade is not a good idea.” He said the Kurdish problem reached the level it did today because of the inability of Turkish politics to solve the issue.

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli also criticized the idea of using police more actively in terrorism. Speaking at a groundbreaking ceremony for an Olympic swimming pool in Ankara on Saturday, Bahçeli said, “I am curious what kind of results they [the government] hope to achieve by sending police officers, the extent of whose experience in this field is unknown, to Mount Cilo, and not utilizing the Turkish Armed Forces [TSK], which has extensive experience in fighting terror.” He said the government’s new strategy amounted to “accepting defeat” and “blaming the TSK” for it.

24 July 2011
SOURCE: TODAY’S ZAMAN