Turkey’s President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan has announced that he is planning a new military offensive in
northern Syria directed against the Kurds.
If one
authoritarian leader can defy world opinion, invade the territory of
a sovereign state and incur only minor consequences, why not
another? This may well have been the reasoning that first led
Erdogan to send his armed forces into Kurdish occupied areas of northern Syria
in August 2016. His precedent would have been the invasion of Crimea by
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin two years earlier.
Erdogan’s first
incursion into Syria’s quasi-autonomous Kurdistan region – the area known as
Rojava and nominally part of sovereign Syria — resulted in Turkish forces
seizing and occupying Kurdish-inhabited territory. It also marked the
start of a more aggressive policy toward the Kurdish political faction Erdogan
fears the most – the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
Historically Kurdistan, although never an independent nation state, was a recognized entity in the world, and during the redesignation of the defunct
Ottoman empire after the First World War, the Kurds were promised a referendum
leading to independence – a promise that was never kept. Instead the
Kurdish people were arbitrarily assigned to four of the states newly created by
the League of Nations – Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
Kurds represent some 20
percent of Turkey’s 84 million population, and while many are content with
their minority status and contribute to the political process (now somewhat
restricted by Erdogan’s reforms), nationalist demands from the more extreme
Kurdish elements, which sometimes spill over into violence, represent a threat
to the integrity of the Turkish state.
The PKK, founded in
1978, is an armed political group seeking Kurdish independence. Claiming
to represent all people in historically Kurdish regions, its original objective
was to establish a socialist Greater Kurdistan uniting the Kurdish regions of
Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran – an aspiration that would have required the
redrawing of national borders. Mainstream Kurdish political opinion has
recently retreated from this extremist objective, in favor of seeking Kurdish
autonomy within the borders of states where Kurds are a minority.
The PKK was not averse
to pursuing its political ends by way of terrorist attacks within Turkey.
Erdogan’s counter-strategy was to proscribe the PKK as a terrorist organization
(a designation now widely adopted internationally), and to combat it externally
where it is strongest – in northern Syria and Iraq.
With the
Syrian civil war at its height, Erdogan decided to invade Kurdish-occupied
territory lying south of the Turkish-Syrian border, seize a stretch of land and
create a sort of buffer zone. The area was under the control of the
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) of which the Kurdish YPG militia was a major
element. Erdogan considered the YPG to be nothing more than an extension
of the banned PKK.
At the time the Kurds were in alliance with the US in a highly successful
effort to defeat Islamic State and chase them from Syria. The valiant
Kurdish Peshmerga forces were generally acknowledged to have undertaken the
bulk of the fighting on the ground. To the astonishment and condemnation
of much world opinion, then-US President Donald Trump, in an apparent deal with
Erdogan, withdrew US troops from the Turkish-Syrian border area just a few days
before Erdogan launched his attack.
That operation, and two subsequent efforts in northern Syria, obviously did not
satisfy Erdogan. On April 18, 2022 Turkey launched a new ground and air
offensive, named Operation Claw Lock, this time against Kurdish militants in
northern Iraq. Supported by helicopters and drones, Turkish jets and
artillery struck suspected targets of the PKK, and then commando troops crossed
into the region by land or were airlifted by helicopters. Turkey’s Defense
Ministry said the northern Iraq offensive was launched after it was determined
that the militants were regrouping and preparing for a large-scale onslaught on
Turkey.
The PKK has bases and
training camps in Sinjar and on the mountainous border with Turkey, and
this was far from the first attack by Turkey in the Kurdish region of northern
Iraq. These operations have strained Turkey’s ties with Iraq’s
central government. Iraq’s President Barham Salih termed the latest
incursion “unacceptable”, describing it as a threat to the country's national
security and a violation of its sovereignty. He is certainly not wrong
about that.
Turkey has launched
three military operations into northern Syria since 2016, seizing areas south
of its own border to create a so-called “safe zone” between Kurdish-inhabited
territory and Turkish soil. The third in 2019 was dubbed “Operation Peace
Spring”. Following 10 days of fighting, a deal was reached under
which the YPG pulled its troops 30km back from the border. Turkey sold the
operation as a diplomatic and military victory, and agreed with Russia to run
joint patrols in the area.
Now Erdogan has announced
that he is planning a new military offensive in northern Syria directed against
the YPG.
“We are taking another
step in establishing a 30 kilometer security zone along our southern border,”
he announced in parliament.
Erdogan took advantage of the meeting in Tehran on July 19 of three presidents (of Russia, Iran and Turkey), to seek support for his new military operation. Speaking to reporters on his return flight, Erdogan said he believed all three think alike as regards the YPG, but he had to admit that they differed on some Syria-related issues. In short, he failed to obtain a ringing endorsement of his latest invasion plan. Iran and Russia, none too delighted with Erdogan's deal with Trump in 2016, have previously warned against such operations.
There has always been an
ulterior motive for Erdogan’s adventures along his southern border – a desire
to rid Turkey of the millions of Syrian refugees who fled their country during
its eleven years of civil strife. His plan has been to resettle them below
the Turkish border in the so-called “safe zone” under Turkish security control,
namely in Syrian, or possibly Iraqi, territory. The refugees, however, are far
from keen to move to what is a heavily militarized and highly populated war
zone. Erdogan can scarcely force his resident refugees to relocate, and
it is difficult to envisage what sort of inducements he could offer.
If he carries out his
plan regardless, Erdogan will undoubtedly enhance his political standing at
home, ahead of the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for June
2023. So it is odds on that Erdogan’s new offensive will take place, and
that vast numbers of reluctant Syrian refugees will be relocated to his “safe
zone”.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-713580
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