Retired Brig. Gen. Haldun Solmazturk, who spent many years serving with NATO, tells Al-Monitor, “If there was really a threat to Turkey from Syria, and if there was really concrete intelligence about it, it would go without saying that Turkey would propose putting this on the agenda for the [NATO] foreign ministers meeting.” Yet, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says that Turkey did not put any potential threat to Turkey from Syria on the official agenda when NATO foreign ministers held their regularly scheduled meeting in Brussels on April 1-2. 

Turkish officials, including Davutoglu, have been arguing for more than a month that they had received a credible threat to the Tomb of Suleiman Shah, 35 kilometers (24 miles) from the Turkish border inside Syria and the only Turkish territory outside Turkey proper. A recent controversial audio leak of top officials' conversations, however, revealed a different story about Turkish intentions. While Turkey blocked access to YouTube just hours after this leak occurred on March 25, and decreed that even discussing the leaked contents would be treason, there is an ongoing legal debate whether the Turkish government is really acting within the legal boundaries.

“Everyone in NATO well knows how serious Turkey is about these subjects. As a result, no one has expressed [his or her] view on these leaked issues so far,” Davutoglu said on April 2, referring to the leaked surveillance audio. “Our statements are satisfactory enough for everyone. None of my colleagues felt the need to express a thing on related issues.” Davutoglu also met on the sidelines of the NATO meeting with European Union Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Fule to defend Turkey’s ban of Twitter and YouTube. “Everywhere in the world, each and every country protects its citizens’ rights and takes the necessary precautions when its national interest is targeted,” he said.

In his victory speech in the early hours of March 31 after the local elections, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan echoed the same sentiment. “How could you threaten our national security?” Erdogan said. “Syria is now in a war against us. They are harassing our [military] jets. The Tomb of Suleiman Shah is our sovereign land. Any attack to that piece of land is no different than an attack on the mainland. How could we remain silent to something like that? The traitors are tapping into this meeting and then they serve it [via YouTube] to the world to listen to it.” He added, “Today, my great nation gave a message. They took a clear position against going outside legitimate political means to shape the direction of this country. It behooves me to stress this. The ballot box results are more about who lost than who won.”