Is Turkey toughening its position against ISIL?

Yesterday marked three important developments in areas related to the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). First, the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced that months-long talks between Ankara and Washington to train and equip the moderate Syrian oppositions have been finalized and have yielded a draft of a memorandum of understanding (MoU).

Spokesperson Tanju Bilgiç informed reporters that the MoU will be signed in the coming days and training will likely begin in March, although he did not give an exact time for either signing the document or the start of the program.

The program envisages the training and equipping of a total of 15,000 Syrians in Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia over three years. The program is seen as part of an international campaign against ISIL jihadists who occupy a considerable amount of territory inside Syria, but they will also undertake the mission of toppling the Bashar al-Assad regime - though this is not regarded as the primary objective at the moment.

Turkey and the U.S. have been talking to sort this deal out since last autumn, but the process was extended due to major disagreements between the two parties. The main point on which the two allies were thinking differently was the priority of such a campaign, with Turkey putting the ouster of al-Assad as the primary target and the U.S. describing ISIL as the biggest threat to the Middle East.

The second important development was the news that Turkey?s top soldier, Chief of General Staff Gen. Necdet Özel, was to represent Turkey at an important security meeting to be held in Saudi Arabia with the purpose of coordinating the joint military campaign against ISIL. The meeting comes right after Jordan and Egypt launched their...