On June 11, NATO ambassadors gathered in an emergency meeting at Turkey’s request to discuss the rapid expansion of radical Sunni Islamist militants in northern Iraq in which they took control of Mosul and Tikrit. That same day, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), an al-Qaeda spin-off group fighting in both Iraq and Syria, seized Turkey’s Mosul consulate, taking the consul general and his 48 staff members hostage. Earlier in the week, ISIS also took 31 Turkish truck drivers hostage.
“Ambassador Fatih Ceylan outlined Turkey’s perspective of what is going on in particular in northern Iraq and concerns over the safety of the diplomats and children,” David Lute, US ambassador to NATO, told Al-Monitor June 12 in Ankara at a German Marshall Fund event on the upcoming NATO summit. “We did not gather under Article 4 or Article 5.”
