On 19 November Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan began launching air, drone and artillery strikes on north-eastern Syrian towns and cities. Over four days at least 100 strikes were recorded, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the US-backed force in the area, began reporting military and civilian deaths. Erdogan has now announced that the air strikes were only the beginning, and that he is preparing to launch a land operation when the time is right.
“We are continuing the
air operation,” he said in a speech to his AK party members in parliament, “and
will come down hard on the terrorists from land, at the most convenient time
for us,”
He asserts that Turkey is
more determined than ever to secure its southern border by seizing a “security
corridor” running along it west to east –f territory that is nominally part of
sovereign Syria. “We have formed part of
this corridor,” he announced, and “will take care of it starting with places
such as Tal Rifaat, Manbij and Ayn al-Arab (Kobane), which are the sources of
trouble.”
The SDF, which
incorporates a large force of Kurdish fighters known as the YPG, is viewed by
Erdogan as an arm of his domestic Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. The PKK, a militant
political group seeking Kurdish independence, or at least autonomy, has not been
averse to pursuing its political ends by way of armed attacks within Turkey. Erdogan has been fighting it at home for
decades, and has proscribed it as a terrorist organization. For some years he has also been combatting
Kurdish militias in northern Syria and Iraq, drawing no distinction between
them and the PKK. What puts Turkey at
odds with much world opinion is that the US, the EU and many other Western
countries back the Kurd-dominated SDF in the common fight against Islamic State
(ISIS).
Although
Erdogan’s air offensive has clearly been planned for a long time as a
preliminary to a full-scale ground offensive, the trigger was a bomb attack in
the afternoon of November 13 in the center of Istanbul. Six people lost their lives. Official Turkish statements laid the blame
firmly at the door of the PKK and YPG, although both organizations have denied
any involvement in the incident. No
group has claimed responsibility. Meanwhile Istanbul's Chief Public
Prosecutors' Office has opened an investigation.
Erdogan’s first military
incursion beyond Turkey’s borders was in 2016, when his troops invaded Syria’s
quasi-autonomous Kurdistan region – the area known as Rojava. It resulted in Turkish forces seizing and
occupying Kurdish-inhabited territory which, he announced, was to be a sort of
buffer or “safe zone” protecting Turkey’s southern border.
That operation, and two
subsequent efforts, 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 Kurdish-occupied Iraq by land or were airlifted by
helicopters.
It was in August that Erdogan
announced that he was planning a new military offensive in northern Syria. He has lived up to his word.
Meanwhile the
US-supported SDF is braced for an assault by Turkish forces that Washington has
said not only risks a breach with its NATO ally Turkey, but a resurgence of ISIS
in Syria. According to the Pentagon’s press secretary: “Recent airstrikes in
Syria directly threatened the safety of US personnel who are working in Syria
with local partners to defeat ISIS and maintain custody of more than ten
thousand ISIS detainees. … Immediate de-escalation is necessary in order to…ensure
the safety and security of personnel on the ground committed to the defeat-ISIS
mission.”
In an interview with the Washington Post on November 23, General Mazloum Kobane Abdi, the SDF’s top commander, arguing that Western pressure could avert a ground operation, urged Western allies to oppose further Turkish attacks,
“It’s not news to anyone
that Erdogan has been threatening the ground operation for months,” said Abdi,
“but he could launch this operation now. This war, if it happens, won’t benefit
anybody. It will affect many lives. There will be massive waves of
displacement, and a humanitarian crisis.”
Russia has added its
voice to the plea to Erdogan to cancel his planned invasion. Talks about the Syrian civil war and Syria’s
future are on-going between Iran, Turkey and Russia in the Kazakh capital,
Astana. On November 23 the senior
Russian negotiator, Alexander Lavrentyev, said that Moscow had asked Ankara to
refrain from a full-scale ground offensive in Syria. “We hope our arguments
will be heard in Ankara,” said Lavrentyev, “and other ways of resolving the
problem will be found.” Sound advice,
equally applicable nearer home.
There has always been an
ulterior motive for Erdogan’s land grabs along his southern border. In addition to weakening his Kurdish
opponents, he is seeking a way to rid Turkey of the millions of Syrian refugees
who fled their country during its eleven years of civil strife. His idea has
been to resettle them below the Turkish border in the so-called “safe zone”.
The refugees, however, are far from keen to move to what is a heavily
militarized and highly populated war zone, even if it is a return to their
native land, Syria.
If he does carry out his plan, Erdogan will undoubtedly enhance his political standing at home, ahead of the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for June 2023. So it is more likely than not that Erdogan’s new ground offensive will take place and that, in addition to widespread disruption and loss of life in northern Syria, vast numbers of reluctant Syrian refugees will be relocated to his “safe zone”.
Published in the Jerusalem Post, 29 November 2022:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-723590
https://mpc-journal.org/erdogan-prepares-for-a-new-land-grab/
Published in Eurasia Review, 10 December 2022:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/10122022-erdogan-prepares-for-a-new-land-grab-oped/
Published in Jewish Business News, 9 December 2022: 2022:https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2022/12/09/erdogan-prepares-for-a-new-land-grab/
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