THE HINDU Editorial Vocabulary-December 13, 2016- Topic 2
Turkey is facing a multi-dimensional security crisis. Its forces are
deployed on two battlefronts — in the southeast, where most of the country’s 15
million Kurds live, to fight the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK); and in Syria
to face off threats from the Islamic State (IS) as well as Kurdish rebels. But
these operations have hardly helped the country secure its cities from terror
attacks, as seen in Saturday’s blasts in Istanbul that killed 44 people, mostly
police officers. The attack has been claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons
(TAK), a splinter group of the PKK, which said they were taking revenge for the
ongoing military operation in the southeast and the continuing imprisonment of
Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK leader. The unrelenting terror attacks over the past
few years show that something is wrong with law enforcement and security
arrangements in Turkey, a country otherwise known for functional institutions
and a tough security regime, or a deep state. Even at the height of the civil
war with the PKK, violence was largely confined to the southeast. So what went
wrong for Ankara? Part of the problem was the reckless handling of foreign
policy and internal security by the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The IS
grew in strength under the watch of the Erdogan government which, driven by its
hostility towards the Syrian regime, looked away as its border was being used
by the jihadists. By the time Turkey started focussing on the IS, it was too
late. It could still have launched a coordinated, focussed campaign against the
IS. Instead, the government abandoned a peace process initiated with the PKK
and opened another front.
Over the past year, the Turkish security forces have turned several cities
in the southeast such as Diyarbakir into battle zones. This exposes Ankara’s
security dilemma: whatever it does to defeat the Kurdish militancy is deepening
the crisis further. Even the ties between the TAK and the PKK are in dispute.
Though the TAK calls Mr. Ocalan its leader, it has severed organisational ties with
the PKK saying the latter’s “passive struggle methods” are not acceptable. But
Ankara is going after every Kurdish organisation whenever the TAK carries out
an attack, mostly on security personnel. In recent months, many Kurdish
politicians, including Selahattin Demirtas, leader of the largest Kurdish
political party, the People’s Democratic Party, were arrested. There is a
dangerous pattern in Turkey’s approach towards these security challenges. On
the one side it is complacent in the fight against the IS, perhaps because of
its geopolitical calculations; on the other, it is using collective punishment
tactics to deal with the Kurdish militancy. The current security situation will
vouch for this policy’s failure.
Vocabulary
Deployed: move troops into
position for military action.
Example: Forces were deployed at strategic locations
Synonyms: position, station, post, place, install, locate, situate, site
Revenge: the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an
injury or wrong suffered at their hands.
Example: Other spurned wives have taken public revenge on their husbands
Synonyms: vengeance, retribution, retaliation, reprisal, requital, recrimination, an
eye for an eye
Unrelenting: not yielding in strength,
severity, or determination.
Example: The heat was unrelenting
Synonyms: implacable, inflexible, uncompromising, unyielding, unbending, relentless
Enforcement: the act of compelling
observance of or compliance with a law, rule, or obligation.
Example: The strict enforcement of environmental regulations
Regime: a system or planned way of doing things, especially one
imposed from above.
Example: Detention centers with a very tough physical regime
Synonyms: system, arrangement, order, pattern, method, procedure, routine
Abandoned: having been deserted or cast off.
Example: An abandoned car
Synonyms: deserted, forsaken, cast
aside/off, jilted, stranded, rejected
Deepening: make or become deep or deeper.
Example: The crisis deepened
Synonyms: grow, increase, intensify, strengthen, heighten, amplify, augment
Dispute: a disagreement, argument, or debate.
Example: A territorial dispute between the two countries
Synonyms: debate, discussion, disputation, argument, controversy, disagreement
Approach: a way of dealing with something.
Example: We need a whole new approach to the job
Synonyms: method, procedure, technique, modus operandi
Complacent: showing smug or uncritical
satisfaction with oneself or one's achievements.
Example: You can't afford to be complacent about security
Synonyms: smug, self-satisfied, self-congratulatory, self-regarding, conceited