In the past few months, Turkey has watched in alarm as the PKK’s Syrian Kurdish allies advance on the other side of the border, fearing their territorial expansion will strengthen the PKK. The Turkish President told a supportive crowd that “operations against terrorist organisations will continue until the end”.
Advertisement
Armored vehicles of Turkish Armed Forces entered the Syrian town of Cobanbey in the northwestern Aleppo province as part of Turkey’s Operation Euphrates Shield to clear Daesh out from its border region, said military sources Saturday. Behind the message to ISIL lies a USA fear that it will lose a ground force that has so far proven its capacity to fight ISIL – all the more so when a possible Raqqa offensive is just around the corner.
They were angry and accused the United States of “betraying” Kurdish forces and supporting a Turkish intervention that has now clashed with the Kurdish-backed Syrian Democratic Forces between Jarabulus and Manbij.
The United States has been alarmed by Turkey’s offensive against Kurdish forces, which Washington has supported. Turkey has struggled to protect the area around Kilis from Islamic State rocket fire.
With the recent invasion, the US has aligned itself even more closely with Turkey.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday as he departed for the G20 meeting in China, “they tell us that YPG (a Syrian Kurdish force) has crossed east of the Euphrates”.
Within 14 hours on 24 August, Turkish-backed Syrian rebels recaptured the border town of Jarabulus from IS and continued to make gains in villages nearby. And as for maintaining red lines, any new cross-border operations run the risk of creating deeper problems as long as the Kurdish issue, which has acquired global dimensions, is not resolved.
Turkey hit out at the United States over the latter’s criticism of Ankara’s ongoing operations in Syria.
Turkey has taken in almost 3 million Syrian refugees since the start of its neighbor’s five-year war, and is under pressure from Europe to stem the flow of migrants trying to travel onwards illegally from its shores. “As Turkish forces pulled back during the night, tensions subsided”.
Such a strategy appeared immediately unlikely, he said, but added it could not be ruled out in the longer term.
According to Demir Murat Seyrek, senior policy adviser for the European Foundation for Democracy, Turkey’s military operations required Moscow’s blessing.
The city of Kobane is a strong Kurdish stronghold and was the site of the first significant victory over the Islamic State group when Kurdish forces liberated the city previous year. It accelerated the surrender of the gunmen in Daraya, forcing them to reach a deal with the government which fully evacuated the almost 4,000 people still living in a neighborhood that was once home to more than 200,000. The government looks at the town with unease because of its control by the Syrian Kurdish militia known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG).
Advertisement
“The fundamental Turkish red line is not Assad”, Stavridis, the former North Atlantic Treaty Organisation commander, said.
