Turkey has identified the attackers at the Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Eve. While the main suspect has not been described in the media, others have been. In addition to be described as Islamic State (the group which claimed responsibility), we are told they are from the former Soviet Republic of Dagestan in the Caucasus, and the Uighur region in China. With hindsight, the latter could have been gauged from the Chinese announcement of support to the Turkish terrorist hunt two days ago.

Attackers at Istanbul airport six months ago were reportedly from the Russian North Caucasus region too, and the former Soviet states: Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. That attack came immediately following President Erdogan’s letter of apology to President Putin. The New Year’s Eve attack came at a time when Turkey and Russia were putting forward their Syrian peace proposal, and ten days after the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey. There has been plenty of violence in addition, but these events have taken place on Turkish soil.

The recent attack is more intriguing in that it involves Uighurs. These Turkic-peoples are being oppressed more than is usual in China. This has recently included a ban on passports and travel for all 10 million residents of their region. There has also been a terror attack on a communist party office last week. Because of their ethnic links, China has drawn Turkey progressively into the Uighur conflict. This participation has become enshrined in an escalating amount of security cooperation – including energy and nuclear security agreements in September of last year.

Collaboration with the Chinese state against the Uighurs is highly unpopular in Turkey; since public sympathies lie quite squarely with the oppressed Turkic peoples, rather than the Han Chinese majority. Nevertheless, Turkey has been lured into these arrangements with the promise of technology transfer, and financial inducements. Recently the relationship has been used by President Erdogana as a convenient leverage point in tense discussions with NATO, Europe and the United States. President Erdogan has apparently decided to hedge with China as well as Russia.

It is however much more serious that simple political posturing. The ethos and title, if not the text, of the latest security cooperation policy between Turkey and China is bluntly incompatible with Protocol to the North Atlantic Treaty on the Accession of Greece and Turkey (1951). It conflicts because that agreement specifically precludes the use of Turkish sovereign territory against attacks on China. China is a relatively belligerent nuclear power, and NATO is – or at least should be – a nuclear deterrent arrangement. Any attack by China on a NATO member on the territory of Europe, North America, or the Mediterranean necessitates a combined response from NATO that must be able to involve Turkey if necessary.

The ‘game’ of nuclear deterrence is not one in which you can have your cake and eat it. The time will come for Turkey to decide where it stands. This discussion, and a firm outcome, will probably come sooner rather than later. In the interim, the Turkic peoples of China will likely continue to display their own displeasure at the Turkish government’s unnecessary participation in their conflict.