Veysi Sarısözen
At the time of writing this article, Israel attacked Iran’s largest natural gas field. Thus, the aim of the war has become the economic collapse of Iran. This should lead us to consider that this is an important sign the war will continue.
It is not enough that we think about it. The Turkish state and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government need to think about it even more than we do. As in most wars, everyone must take into account the high likelihood that this extensive air strike will at some point turn into a ground war. Because while Israel may cause significant damage to Iran through airstrikes, Iran’s response might be weak. In such a case, Iran will either face the danger of regime change and fragmentation in the face of air attacks, or it will be forced to turn the war into a ground war, ultimately targeting Israel. For instance, by attacking the country from which some of the Israeli aircraft take off.
These are the possibilities that come to my mind. General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces and intelligence must be calculating more detailed scenarios, including ones involving Turkey.
Regardless of which scenario is calculated, these possibilities — which will stir all Middle Eastern states, even Pakistan and India, and subsequently Russia and perhaps China — should not lead to miscalculations or dangerous ambitions. For example, Turkey should not view the possibility of being dragged into a war with Iran alongside Azerbaijan under pressure from the US and Israel with adventurous eyes. It should not even entertain the thought of taking control of Bashur (Iraqi Kurdistan) and Rojava Kurdistan (northern Syria) before or during the war with Iran, in exchange for “services” rendered to Israel and the US. Because if it embarks on such an adventure, “on the way to seizing Bashur and Rojava, it could lose not only Bakur (southeastern Turkey) in its hand but also Northern Cyprus.” If the war spreads to Turkish territory, it may trigger internal uprisings among peoples facing death — and if this doesn’t result in a revolution, it will result in chaos.
If the majority of the Turkish public had been ready — not in the future, but during these critical days and months — to end [President] Erdoğan’s majority with the aim of turning toward democracy, I would argue in this article that the only solution to prevent a catastrophe for Turkish and Kurdish peoples is to urgently put an end to the Erdoğan regime, as Fuat Ali Rıza once said. However, the [main opposition] Republican People’s Party (CHP) lacks both the organisation and the intent to take even a single step from “rallies” toward a revolutionary democratic struggle. [CHP leader] Özgür Özel may take radical steps under pressure from the grassroots. But no one can guarantee that he will.
In this situation, the Turkish state and the AKP government must use the last chance offered by President Apo (jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan), steer towards the goal of “peace and a democratic society”, and stop waiting to see if anything will come of the Israel-Iran war. Therefore, instead of stalling the peace and democracy process, they must hurry. This time, “it is not the one who hurries who perishes, but the one who delays.”
I don’t know whether it will happen or not, but for example, Israel — which managed to eliminate almost the entire top brass of the Iranian army with Mossad’s operations — if it has planned a Turkey-Iran war, could stage such a sophisticated provocation at the borders of the two countries that Erdoğan could find himself in the middle of the war the next day.
In such a context, it should be CHP that first recognises that putting the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) “on recess” would be a huge trap for the entire opposition. In the very first minutes of such a provocation, before Parliament even gets the chance to intervene, the government — as known, under the “updated regulation” from last year — could declare mobilisation and war, thus transitioning Turkey into a “one-man regime without opposition or elections”. Whether there will be a war or not, something irreversible will already have happened.
Therefore, the thing to do now, at a time when hundreds of planes and ballistic missiles are flying just next door, is for the opposition to unite without delay, summon Parliament to an extraordinary session even if it’s on recess, and push the government — to strengthen the “domestic front” — toward political “normalisation” and toward “acceleration” in the peace process.
16 June 2025, Yeni Özgür Politika
