Turkey Threatens Operation Against American-Backed Syrian Kurds
Turkey Threatens Operation Against American-Backed Syrian Kurds
(Bloomberg) -- Turkey threatened to launch an operation against American-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters if it can’t reach an agreement with the U.S. to push them away from the Turkish border.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu delivered the warning Monday as the Trump administration’s top Syria envoy, James Jeffrey, prepared to attend a critical round of talks in the Turkish capital, Ankara.
“If the safe zone is not created, the threat emanating from this area continues and terrorists are not cleared, then we would start the operation,” Cavusoglu said in an interview with Turkey’s TGRT television. “If the threat continues then our soldiers are ready, we would launch the operation, this is a matter of national security for us.”
Jeffrey’s two-day visit is likely to be dominated by Ankara’s insistence on setting up a buffer zone in Syria that would be off-limits to the Kurdish forces. Turkey says the fighters have designs on its territory, and in recent weeks, it’s mobilized thousands of troops near its frontier with northeastern Syria to try to pressure Washington to help it enforce such a zone.
But whether Cavusoglu’s declared readiness to attack turns into action is another matter. Officials in Ankara are trying to tread carefully to avoid putting President Donald Trump in a difficult position. Trump has so far refrained from imposing sanctions over Turkey’s decision to deploy a Russian-made S-400 air defense system, and Ankara has tried to keep the safe-zone issue walled off from frictions over the Russian missiles.
“Turkey regards the safe zone issue as a channel to maintain ties with the U.S. in the wake of the S-400 crisis,” said Nihat Ali Ozcan, a strategist at the Ankara-based Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey. “And the U.S. is seeking a solution both to address Turkey’s security concerns and protect its Kurdish allies, who control most of Syria’s oil and agriculture fields, and curtail Iranian and Russian influence in Syria.”
The U.S. sees the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia as a vital component of its campaign to defeat Islamic State. For Ankara, the militant group is a mortal enemy because of its links to another Kurdish separatist movement that Turkey has been fighting against for over three decades. That group, the PKK, is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union.
Turkey suspects the U.S. backs the YPG’s aspiration for self-rule east of the Euphrates River in Syria and is using the group as a proxy force to defend U.S. interests in the region, according to two Turkish officials who are directly familiar with troop movements and the administration’s thinking. They asked not to be identified in line with regulations that bar them from talking to the media.
The Turkish army has mobilized from the east bank of the Euphrates all the way to the Iraqi border, with reinforcements concentrated in the border towns of Akcakale and Ceylanpinar, just across from the Syrian towns of Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ain, the officials said. Turkey seeks sole jurisdiction in the frontier region and wants the U.S. to collect heavy weapons it supplied to the Kurdish forces, they said.
Jeffrey said last month that there is a general agreement in principle on the safe zone but signaled U.S. reluctance to collect the weapons -- a move that would leave their Kurdish allies vulnerable to a potential Turkish attack. “We certainly have a commitment by the people we’ve armed and trained that they will not use these weapons against anybody other than ISIS,” he said.
While Trump’s efforts to block S-400 sanctions is a strong incentive to avoid unilateral action, his track record on Syria remains a source of suspicion for Turkish officials, according to Mesut Hakki Casin, an analyst at Istanbul’s Istinye University and a member of the security and foreign policy board that advises Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“Turkey is worried that the U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights carries the risk of a similar move for the east of the Euphrates,” Casin said in his capacity as a faculty member.
Turkey’s army seized border areas west of the Euphrates river last year and Erdogan has repeatedly warned that Ankara will not let the YPG build a land connection between the areas under their control along the 911-kilometer (566-mile) border with Turkey.
To contact the reporters on this story: Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara at shacaoglu@bloomberg.net;Firat Kozok in Ankara at fkozok@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Onur Ant at oant@bloomberg.net, Amy Teibel, Michael Gunn
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