TURKEY

Overview:Turkey continued its efforts to defeat terrorist organizations, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and ISIS. On August 24, the Government of Turkey launched a cross‑border military operation, “Operation Euphrates Shield,” in northern Syria, which Ankara described as an effort to remove ISIS threats along the Turkey-Syria border. Turkey remained an active contributor in international counterterrorism fora, including the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF).

Turkey is a source and transit country for foreign terrorist fighters wishing to join ISIS and other terrorist groups fighting in Syria and Iraq. The Government of Turkey continued efforts to interdict suspected foreign terrorist fighters including: expanding its “Banned from Entry List;” deploying Ministry of Interior “Risk Analysis Units” to detect suspected foreign terrorist fighters at airports, seaports, bus terminals, and border crossings; sending additional personnel to reinforce military and civilian border units; deploying combat and surveillance equipment; and enhancing physical security measures along the Turkey-Syria border. In some instances, Turkey cooperated with source countries on information sharing and building investigative, prosecutorial, and administrative capacity to interdict the travel of suspected foreign terrorist fighters.

Turkey is an active member of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. It opened Incirlik Air Base and other sites to Coalition aircraft in support of counter-ISIS operations in Iraq and Syria. Turkey is a founding member of the GCTF, and served as its co-chair from September 2011 to April 2016. As the co-chair of the Coalition’s Working Group on Foreign Terrorist Fighters with the Netherlands, Turkey hosted an international meeting of the working group in Antalya on October 26-27. Turkey also co-chairs the GCTF’s Horn of Africa Capacity Building Working Group with the European Union (EU) and is a member of the Coalition’s Working Group on Counter-ISIS Finance.

The PKK continued to conduct terrorist attacks in Turkey during 2016. Turkish National Police and military forces continued counterterrorism operations against the PKK in Turkey’s southeastern provinces. According to Turkey’s semi-official news agency, the Anadolu Agency, the government killed, wounded, or captured more than 8,000 PKK terrorists in operations since July 2015. More than 750 government security personnel died in PKK-attributed attacks during this timeframe.

The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons/Hawks (TAK), a PKK splinter group, increased terrorist attacks targeting security personnel, infrastructure, and tourism facilities. Attacks by the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group with anti-U.S. and anti-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) views that seeks the violent overthrow of the Turkish government, continued.

The Government of Turkey has domestically identified several organizations as terrorist groups, including Turkish Hizballah (no connection to Hizballah), the Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist–Leninist (TKP/ML), and its armed wing, the Liberation Army of the Workers and Peasants of Turkey (TIKKO), as well as the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP). Turkey also considers the Syria-based Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), to be terrorist organizations closely linked to the PKK. The Government of Turkey continued to engage diplomatically with Hamas political bureau chief, Khaled Meshaal.

Turkey’s National Security Council designated the religious movement of self-exiled Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen a terrorist organization on May 26, referring to it as the “Fethullah Terrorist Organization” (“FETO”). The government asserts that the Gulen movement planned and led the July 15 coup attempt, which killed more than 240 people and injured more than 2,100 people, and included attacks on the Parliament. The government instituted a three-month state of emergency on July 21, subsequently extending it another three months on October 19. According to government sources, as of November 22, more than 86,000 civil servants were dismissed from public service via government-issued state of emergency decrees following the coup attempt for their alleged affiliation with, or support of, “FETO.” As of October 8, authorities had arrested nearly 35,000 suspects on charges related to Gulen affiliation. The Gulf Cooperation Council designated “FETO” a terrorist organization on October 13. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation did the same on October 19.