Turkey to attend London meeting of anti-ISIL fight

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavu?o?lu will attend a meeting on countering the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) in London next week, British Ambassador to Ankara Richard Moore said via Twitter yesterday, Jan. 14. That tweet was in reference to my piece titled ?Turkey should not be excluded from anti-terrorism league? in the Hürriyet Daily News on Jan. 13. Implying that not all members of the anti-ISIL coalition have been invited to the London meeting, Moore stressed that Turkey was a ?vital and valued partner on ISIL.?

The meeting is planned to be co-chaired by the U.K. and the U.S. The foreign ministers of 19 countries, plus three high ranking officials, will attend the meeting. Those three officials are Nickolay Mladenov, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon?s Special Envoy for Iraq; Federica Mogherini, the foreign policy and security commissioner for the European Union; and John Allen, the special envoy of U.S. President Barack Obama for the fight against ISIL. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu is expected to be in London on the same day.

There is still no news on whether Turkey will attend the EU meeting in Brussels on Feb. 12, or the meeting in Washington, hosted by the White House, on Feb. 18.

But Turkey?s position regarding the fight against ISIL is heading toward a crossroads, especially after the Paris attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine that left 17 dead, (20 including the attackers), on Jan. 7-9.

In a message on Jan. 14, al-Qaeda in Yemen claimed responsibility for the assault and a female suspect, Hayat Boumediene, who has alleged links with ISIL in Syria, is still on the run. Çavu?o?lu had announced earlier that Boumediene arrived in Istanbul from Madrid on Jan. 2, leaving Turkey for Syria on Jan. 9. He...