War on terror

Since the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7, the fight against international terror has become more acute than ever.

Turkey, as a NATO member, plays an important role. In particular, its borders with Syria and Iraq, where the "Islamic State" (IS) terror group is very active, make cooperation with Turkey indispensible. But public criticism has been growing in Turkey that the West has turned away from the country.

Turkey left out

The Turkish government has repeatedly been criticized by the West for not doing enough to combat IS and other terror groups that use Turkey as a transit route.

During his visit to Germany two weeks ago, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu defended his country's involvement in the war on terror. Turkey, he said, had a black list of some 7,000 foreign fighters with contracts to terror groups in Syria and Iraq. "Two thousand of these have already been deported to their home countries," he said.

Davutoglu said Turkey had provided timely information to French intelligence on a "suspected accomplice of the Paris attackers, Hayat Boumedienne, even before France requested the information."

"It is a contradiction," Murat Yetkin wrote in his column for the Hürriyet Daily News, an English-language newspaper in Turkey.

In early January, representatives from 11 countries met in Paris to discuss the heightened security risks following the Charlie Hebdo attack.

"However, Turkey, an important NATO member, was not invited to the meeting," Yetkin wrote, pointing to two other planned anti-terror conferences "on February 12 in Brussels and February 18 in Washington, to which Turkey had still not received an invitation.

Lack of trust in the Turkish government?

"It is still too early to claim that Turkey has been closed out of the anti-terror conferences," according to Fethi Acikel, a political scientist at Ankara University. But there appears to be a loss of trust in the Turkish authorities, Acikel told DW.

"There is a reason for this. There have been signs that the Turkish government has not made enough effort to cooperate with the EU and other Western countries in their fight against Islamist terror organizations," he said.

As an example, Acikel mentioned the ties between the AKP - Turkey's conservative Islamic ruling party - and al Nusra Front, a terror organization in Syria affiliated with al Qaeda.

"Fighters from the Nusra Front and its leadership were trained in various Turkish provinces. They were provided with logistical support in hospitals and other locations to fight the Assad regime in Syria," he noted.

IS fighters are also using Turkey as a "safe haven" before departing for Syria or Iraq, Acikel said. All of these connections, he explained, are reasons why Western countries have their doubts about working with the AKP.

"The unwillingness of the Turkish authorities to stop certain terrorists has apparently alarmed the West," he said.

'In Turkey, no one would be safe'

That the Turkish government maintains ties to al Qaeda networks has never been officially confirmed - neither by the US, nor other counties, said Mensur Akgün, director of the Global Political Trends Center at Istanbul's Kültür University.

"All Western countries have active intelligence services in Turkey; in other words, there is coordination between these countries in Turkey," Akgün told DW.

Akgün also criticized the expectations of the West: "There is a good reason why Turkey is not fighting IS in Syria or Iraq. Not because they sympathize with IS, but because Turkey borders these countries. These are neighbors. Confronting the terrorists militarily would be an invitation to terrorism inside Turkey itself. Turkey would no longer be safe," Akgün said.

Turkey is prepared to confront IS, "but there has to be a comprehensive strategy on the part of the West. How could Turkey march into Iraq or Syria without a strategy?" Akgün asked. He added that Turkey has provided training and safe border crossings for Iraqis, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and the Syrian opposition, who have been fighting against IS in Kobani.

One reason why the West has distanced itself from closer cooperation with Turkey in the fight against terror is that the West wants to avoid negotiating with Turkey on other issues, Akgün said.

"All these discussions and negotiations with Turkey go hand in hand with aspirations for EU membership - and that is the last thing many EU states want. So it seems easier to distance themselves from Turkey."

"But," Akgün warns, "I would certainly think twice if I were they - and would cooperate closely with Turkey in the fight against international terror. Turkey, after all, is strategically just too important."