ISTANBUL — The attacks in Turkey came in rapid succession: twin bombs at a stadium, a Russian diplomat’s murder and then, just a few days later, a mass shooting at an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Eve.
The assaults, carried out over a three-week period beginning in December, were a stark reminder of Turkey’s dangerous proximity to the war next door in Syria, and the ways in which that conflict has steadily consumed Turkish domestic and foreign affairs.
Kurdish separatists attacked the Istanbul stadium, while the Islamic State asserted responsibility for the nightclub massacre, warning Turkey against military action in Syria. In Ankara, a police officer invoking the carnage in the Syrian city of Aleppo — but apparently working alone — gunned down the Russian ambassador on Dec. 19.