A Base for Al-Qaeda?

From Nevroz Algiç's restaurant one can taste the spicy local food while enjoying the best views over the front line, literally across the street. The fighting is so close that gunfire can still be heard over the arabesque music blaring out of the loudspeakers.

Located 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) southeast of Ankara, Ceylanpinar was once known for its gigantic agricultural complex. However, this city with a population of 40,000 is now yet another victim of the Syrian war. Since October 2012, four residents have been killed and dozens have been wounded by stray bullets, mortars and rockets.

"Before the new teachers would eat here and stay in this guesthouse but none of them wants to come here now. No one knows when the shooting will start or when will it finish," Algiç says. The bullet holes on these walls are a stark reminder of what's happening round the corner. Still, material losses are not that important.

"My husband was wounded by shrapnel, my 10-year-old son is traumatized by the explosions and the older one quit university," adds Algiç, sitting next to one of the broken windows. Behind her, a cargo train slowly moves across the no-man's land between Turkey and Syria.

It was actually the Orient Express railway, built in 1911, that would help draw the borders of Syria and Turkey 10 years later. Berlin and Baghdad were finally connected but the Kurdish town of Serekaniye was cut in two: the one in Turkey was called Ceylanpinar, its Syrian counterpart was named Ras al Ayn.

On the road to Paradise

Like most others here, Mehmet also has cross-border family ties. The civil servant, who prefers not to disclose his full name, claims that the situation started worsening on a particular night last October.

"That night I saw armed people getting out a caravan of buses. I immediately called the police but they told me not to worry and said that everything was under control," he says. Other residents also spotted armed men crossing the border into Syria. Apparently, they all got the same answer from the local security forces: 'everything is under control.'"

"We often see buses around with all their curtains drawn. I have no doubt that their passengers are Islamists on the road to Paradise," says Mehmet with a sad smile. He criticizes the "silence of the Turkish media on Ankara's dark moves," as he puts it.

"Here it's not about rebels fighting [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad, it's Jabhat al-Nusra – an armed group close to al Qaeda – and Syrian Kurdish fighters engaging in brutal clashes."

From the beginning of the uprising in March 2011, Syria's Kurds vowed a "third way" – neither with Assad, nor with the insurgents. Theirs is a neutral position that has led to clashes with both sides, but in July 2012 they took over their stronghold areas, in the north of the country.

The YPG – the main Kurdish militia group – and the Free Syrian Army signed a ceasefire on July 12 in Ras al Ayn but Jabhat al-Nusra distanced itself from the truce.

Many local residents said that Ankara is hosting Jabhat al-Nusra fighters in a camp near an unchecked border crossing west of Ceylanpinar.

Ibrahim Polat, a local journalist for the Dicle News Agency, says the allegations are true and adds that Ankara's alleged backing of Islamists goes even further:

"During the last months hundreds of fighters have been taken by Turkish ambulances from Syria to Ceylanpinar hospital and those with more serious injuries were taken to Balikdigol hospital in Sanliurfa, the provincial capital. Kurdish militiamen are systematically rejected in the local hospitals so they are taken to Qamishlo, Syria's main Kurdish city," he said.

Anonymous sources from both medical centers said that there are no wounded fighters in Ceylanpinar, but that several of them are still being treated in Sanliurfa.

"Dirty War"

From his office, Musa Çeri, District Governor and member of the AKP, the ruling party in Turkey, dismisses such claims as "false rumors".

"It is ridiculous to believe that Turkey could possibly back terrorist groups of any kind. My government would never do such a thing," Çeri said in an interview, adding that the government of Ankara is "only" struggling to address the ever-growing number of Syrian refugees on Turkish soil – over 200,000 according to UN figures. "Our religion, Islam, compels us to meet the people's needs," he says.

Nonetheless, he doesn't hide his concern for what he considers to be Turkey's "most pressing terrorist threat."

"The Syrian Kurdish fighters are nothing but a branch of the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party. If they finally get strong in their areas, they can easily conduct terrorist attacks against us across the border," he explains. One of Ankara's biggest fears, he says, is a Kurdish autonomous region similar to that in northern Iraq on Syrian soil.

Meanwhile, Ismail Arslan, Ceylanpinar's mayor, says his town is paying a high price for the war.

"There have been dead and wounded but people also move elsewhere, shops and business fold, property prices collapse." And there is another price to pay, he says. "In Ceylanpinar, 60 percent are Kurds and 30 percent Arabs while Assyrians, Turks and members of other nationalities comprise the remaining 10 percent. The nature of the conflict is fuelling mistrust among us and causing a split between our people."

Arslan says he prefers not to comment on the alleged camp nearby, but denounces Ankara's role in the area.

"Turkey claims to be a democratic country but it is involved in a very dirty war," he says. "I'm afraid our problems won't end until Ankara stops supporting al-Qaeda-affiliated groups inside Syria."

Karlos Zurutuza

© Deutsche Welle 2013

Deutsche Welle editor: Rob Mudge / Qantara.de editor: Lewis Gropp