So it must have come as a shock to the Kurds when, just a few weeks after they fought a bloody battle to evict IS from the town of Manbij at America’s request, Biden showed up in Turkey and said the Kurds would need to withdraw from the town in order to accommodate the Turks, says Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.
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The Kurdish Democratic Union Party has condemned what it said was global silence regarding “Turkish occupation” of Syria, the Daily Mail reported.
Turkey launched an unprecedented cross-border offensive into Syria last Wednesday, saying it was aimed at ridding the frontier of both Islamic State (IS) group jihadists and a Kurdish militia.
“After intensified negotiations, and under the auspices of the global coalition under the leadership of the United States, and to curb the bloodshed of the innocents, we declare that we reached a temporary ceasefire. with the forces of the Turkish occupation”, the statement said.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter appealed to both sides to fight Islamic State, not each other.
The question now, Landis says, is whether this will affect future U.S. plans to use the Kurds as the tip of its anti-Islamic State spear, especially in the battle to take the group’s de facto capital, Raqqa.
A Turkish boy waves to Turkish tank convoy driving into Syria from the Turkish Syrian border city of Karkamis in the southern region of Gaziantep, on August 26, 2016.
Turkey suffered its first casualties last weekend, when a soldier was killed and three others injured by an anti-tank missile.
“Since Monday 4:30 pm local time, Turkish artillery shelled 21 terrorist positions in and around Jarabulus using Firtina howitzers”, the military said in a statement on Tuesday.
One Turkish soldier was killed and three were wounded in fighting Saturday.
He said he could understand Turkey’s concern about protecting its borders and fighting the Islamic State group, but criticized Ankara’s actions against Kurdish rebels allied with the USA -led coalition who are fighting the extremists.
“The YPG has to immediately cross east of the Euphrates River as they promised the United States and as they announced they would“, said Mr Cavusoglu.
The call was addressed equally to Ankara to freeze its military operations in Syria and to the Kurdish PYD-YPG militia to halt the flow of fraternal reinforcements for defending Mabij, the Syrian town the militia wrested from ISIS earlier this month with USA assistance.
In launching Operation Euphrates Shield, Turkey said it had the backing and cooperation of the US-led anti-ISIL coalition, despite Ankara also saying it meant to clear the border area of Kurdish forces.
There was no immediate confirmation from Turkey.
Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic said US criticism of the scope and aims of its offensive in northern Syria is “unacceptable” and that it has summoned the USA ambassador over the issue.
He described the agreement as “provisional”.
Ankara regards the YPG and PYD as allies of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since the 1980s. Turkey will leave the town in rebel hands, though it may also choose to keep its own troops there to deter or defend against Islamic State counterattacks.
The increased tensions between the Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon-backed Syrian rebels and Kurdish forces threaten to take resources and attention away from the campaign against the Islamic State.
Hajo’s comments came after a USA defence official told AFP in Washingtonthat Turkish and Kurdish forces in northern Syria had reached a “loose agreement” to stop fighting each other.
The Kurdish-led forces seized Manbij from IS earlier this month after a 10-week campaign. On the eve of the Victory Day holiday, President Tayyip Erdogan said the operation would continue until all threats, including that of Kurdish militia fighters, were removed from the border area.
The U.S.is scrambling to stop military hostilities between Turkish forces in Syria and the Kurds, a conflict that threatens to detract resources from the fight against ISIS.
Syrian rebels supported by Turkey have taken control of at least four villages and one town from Kurdish-led forces in the area. The SDF has support from the USA – which sees the group as an effective Syrian ally against ISIS, putting Turkey at odds with a fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member and further complicating Syria’s five-year-old civil war.
“Those multiple, contradictory interventions carry risks of a general flare-up”, he told a meeting of French ambassadors.
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He said he could understand Turkey’s concern about protecting its borders and fighting the Islamic State group, but criticized actions against Kurdish rebels allied with the US -led coalition against the extremists.
