Gambling away its only remaining ally in the war-torn country, the United States is realigning its strategy with Ankara, at a time when the relationship between the two countries has never been worse, and the Turkish ability to successfully shift the dynamic in Syria and face the consequences of its decision never been so questionable.
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The surprise incursion to capture the town of Jarablus was a dramatic escalation of Turkey’s role in Syria’s war.
Turkey, which has Nato´s second biggest armed forces, demanded that the YPG retreat to the east side of the Euphrates river within a week.
Kerry stressed that the Syrian Kurdish forces “were in the process of retreating east of the Euphrates”, the officials said in reference to the Syrian Kurdish forces. They can not, and will not, get American support if they do not keep that commitment.
Ankara has demanded the Syrian Kurdish forces, known as YPG, pull east of the Euphrates River from the area of the town of Jarablus.
Turkey had made the case more strongly to Washington over the past few months, had patched up relations with Russian Federation, and had removed some of the Turkish commanders from their posts after finding they were involved in the coup attempt, paving the way for the operation to go ahead, the official said.
Backed by the US-led coalition against Daesh, the YPG has battled the jihadist group to secure territory equal to 18 percent of Syria, home to some two million people, about 60 per cent of them Kurdish.
As the civil war in Syria rages on, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that 11 children were among 15 civilians killed on Thursday in a barrel bomb attack carried out by government forces on Bab Al-Nayrab, a rebel-held neighbourhood in the city of Aleppo.
Here are key developments in Turkey’s involvement in the Syria conflict, after Ankara launched a major offensive aimed both at jihadists and Syrian Kurdish forces. This is because the PYD is a creation of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish insurgent group that has fought a decades-long war against the Turkish state.
The rebel factions have also advanced southward from Jarablus toward the city of Manbij, which was captured earlier this month from Islamic State by the US -backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance including Kurdish fighters.
He says that “for now, the withdrawal hasn’t fully taken place”. “We understand that there are financial difficulties in the Kurdistan Region, which is why we have made a decision to broaden our economic support”, Yildirim told reporters Wednesday.
Photo taken on August 24, 2016 shows Turkish military vehicles moving near the Turkish-Syrian border.
Turkish special forces, under a new commander, provided the backbone of the Turkish push into Syria, which also involved tanks and Turkish warplanes. But Syrian government forces recently opened up a new front against them, launching air strikes on the Kurdish held city of Hassakeh. “That would be a huge detriment to the anti-IS campaign”, said Chris Kozak, a Syria researcher at the Washington-based Institute of the Study of War, referring to the main US -backed Kurdish faction fighting IS.
That statement refers to an apparently separate pullout from the withdrawal that Turkey is seeking from the Kurdish forces. Turkish state media agency Anadolu confirmed Turkish forces fired upon the YPG after allegedly obtaining intelligence that Kurdish forces were advancing on the nearby city of Jarablus. Less than 24 hours after, by demanding the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Force (SDF) leave Manbij, the U.S. took the strategy it itself initiated, nurtured and supported, and dumped it into the trash. Most recently, the PYD – with support from US airstrikes and special forces – captured the strategic town of Manbij from the Islamic State.
But Civiroglu said Ankara could count on relative ambivalence from Damascus now because Assad’s government views “Kurds as threat, and Kurdish gains. have bothered them deeply”.
The Turkish government had “been working on a ground incursion for more than two years” which was “delayed” by several factors, the official told the French news agency AFP on Thursday.
The Turkish assault, launched in retaliation after a string of militant bombings in Turkey, adds yet another powerhouse force on the ground in an already complicated war.
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Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen told the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland newspaper group Wednesday the military would like to continue operating from Incirlik.
