Turkey pounding PKK more than ISIL: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Wayne Madsen, an investigative journalistin Tampa, Florida, to share his thoughts on the Turkish airstrikes against the ISIL hideouts in Syria and military positions of Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in neighboring Iraq.  

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: What is going on exactly? How do you see now this latest move of Ankara and attacking the PKK as well as what they say as ISIL?

Madsen: Well I would imagine if we were really able to see what is going on. On the ground the Turkish military is pounding the PKK more than they are ISIL because we know that the Turks have been tacitly supporting ISIL with not only weapons but the flow of Jihadist fighters from all around the world. These Salafists who have been taken in by this ISIL group, they pass through Istanbul on their way to the Syrian border. So they have been given a lot of support.

Now the only reason that the Turks decided to allow the US to use the Incirlik airbase to attack ISIL positions is because a Turkish military man was killed from ISIL positions inside Syria on the border. The Turkish military is probably the last bastion of Turkey Ataturk style of Turkish nationalism in Turkey, so President Erdogan and Prime Minister Davutogluhave to be very careful not to alienate the Turkish military.

Meanwhile, the Turkish intelligence service and the Turkish police as we heard from the PKK representative, yes, ISIL is pounding the Kurds and the Turks are helping ISIL and that has been the way it has been going in both Syria and Iraq for an awful long time.

Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have formed a Entente Cordiale and we know what they have been doing in support of ISIL and I am afraid they cannot keep up the charade, the Turks anyway that they are somehow involved in real significant military operations against a group that they nurture.

Press TV: Well in general we have seen as you talked about actually Turkey’s support for ISIL and also for those fighting the Syrian government and we have seen now some bombings have taken place inside of Turkey but overall how likely is this to backfire on Turkey when at one point in time it tried to show that it was actually a stabilizing factor or feature in the region, however we have seen it now be allied with extremist elements.

Are we likely to see it backfire even more on Turkey and why for a country that wanted to be secular originally, why have we seen it take such an extreme turn?

Madsen: Because I think President Erdogan has really opened up a can of worms with his policies and using any means including supporting ISIL to overthrow President Assad of Syria. And when we hear about the ISIL attacks inside Turkey I am afraid that it could be the same situation in Saudi Arabia. There have been ISIL attacks in Saudi Arabia all aimed against the Saudi Shias and I think the same situation could exist in Turkey. If we hear about ISIL attacks it is with a wink and a nod from Ankara just like in Saudi Arabia ISIL attacks were done with a wink and a nod from Riyadh.

Press TV