By Xinhua
Ankara : tTurkish Chief of General Staff Yasar Buyukanit said Monday that it was difficult for nation states to fight against terrorist organizations on their own and without any international cooperation.
“Therefore, as nation states, we have to think internationally and take action regionally,” Buyukanit said in a keynote speech delivered at the two-day Global Terrorism and International Cooperation Symposium held in the Turkish capital.
“When we unite the common stance and position that we will set by international thinking with the effective measures we are taking in our own responsibility areas, I believe we can make great progress in fight against terrorism,” he said.
When nation states lose their balancing effect, more cleavages occur in social structure, he noted.
“New tensions and unstable regions — caused by these cleavages– help create suitable grounds in which global terrorist organizations survive,” he asserted.
“The biggest guarantee against this threat is the nation states with their strong institutions and the cooperation organizations established between these nation states,” he said.
Buyukanit also said terrorist organizations see nation state as the biggest threat against their survival. “The aim of terrorist organizations is to harm, shake and then destroy this structure,” he said.
“Terrorism is not the real face of an incident, it is the cover that hides it. What someone is trying to do cannot be understood unless this cover is lifted,” Buyukanit said.
According to Buyukanit, the impact of globalization on terrorism could be handled as exploitation of new capabilities that were introduced by terrorist organizations.
“One of the most important impacts of globalization is that it brings forth some organizations that are capable of affecting the policies and decisions of national states. Terrorist organizations are trying to change government policies by sending messages to governments and societies through violence,” said Buyukanit.
According to Buyukanit, another thing that increases global terrorism is the unbalanced rise in world population and related movements of population.
Illegal human trafficking had become a source of finance for terrorist organizations whereas immigrants faced integration and identity problems in the cultures of countries they migrated, said the general.
Buyukanit said production and share of income were two other things that had to be taken into consideration due to rise in population.
According to World Bank figures, 1.1 billion people in the world are surviving under the level of absolute hunger, Buyukanit said.
“This situation is misused by terrorist organizations, and in one sense it makes terrorism an area of employment,” he added.
Turkey has been fighting with the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), which took up arms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey.
More than 30,000 people have been killed in the over-two-decade conflict between the Turkish army and the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and the United States.