Why Turkey wants to be in charge of securing Kabul airport

Ankara has a lot to gain from remaining a key player in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal.

Last month, Turkey offered to assume the responsibility of running and protecting Kabul’s strategic Hamid Karzai Airport – landlocked Afghanistan’s main gateway to the world – after American and NATO troops complete their withdrawal from the war-battered country. As an agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government continues to prove elusive, and the security situation in Afghanistan deteriorates rapidly, there is a need to explore Turkey’s motivations for making the offer. Turkey, the only Muslim-majority country in NATO, has long been diplomatically and politically influential in Afghanistan. It not only has deep-rooted historical, cultural, religious and ethnic ties with Afghanistan but also with Pakistan – the Taliban’s principal backer. In the past, it organised several summits between the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan in an effort to improve dialogue between the neighbouring nations.