1. Turkey's involvement in the Syrian conflict extends to contingency planning for military intervention, although Ankara will not unilaterally initiate any action unless prompted by an insurgent attack on its sacred Tomb of Suleiman Shah, which lies inside Syria. 2. Turkey has been criticised for allowing foreign fighters to transit its territory to join the civil war in Syria, and Ankara has been accused of providing logistical and weaponry resupply to radical Islamist fighters. 3. Any direct Turkish intervention in Syria runs the risk of deepening the conflict, with inevitable combat casualties and a heightened risk of terrorist attacks inside Turkey. A recording of a conversation about Turkish plans for a military strike against the insurgent Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) if it attacked the Tomb of Suleiman Shah in Syria was leaked onto YouTube on 27 March.
展开▼
