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January 24, 2018
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Jan 22, 2018 Juan Cole
Diplomatic Dimension to Turkey's Drive Into Syria
BBC Arabic reports that Turkey has launched a land invasion of the
Kurdish-majority Afrin canton in northern Syria, home to some 500,000 Kurds.
Turkey has also flooded Arab fundamentalist fighters into the region,
calling them "Free Syrian Army."
The move comes after some 72 Turkish F-16s struck over 100 facilities and
bases of the Kurdish YPG (People's Protection Units) over the past three
days.
CNN is reporting that 11 YPG counter-strikes on the Turkish border town of
Reyhanli have resulted in dozens of casualties and one death, of a Syria
refugee.
Turkey also says it will go into the nearby town of Manbij, which the YPG
took away from ISIL with US support, and where there are allegedly US
special forces troops embedded.
Ankara accuses the YPG paramilitary of the Democratic Union Party of being
an affiliate of the terrorist group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK),
which has attacked Turkish police and troops in eastern Turkey and has a
base in Qandil in Iraq. The Syrian Kurds deny that they are a branch of the
PKK and the United States not only does not deem them terrorists but has
actively allied with them in the fight against ISIL.
The Turkish military says that its aim initially is to establish a buffer
zone along the Turkish-Syrian border between Afrin and the area of Azaz to
its east. This statement appears to be code for ethnically cleansing Kurdish
villages anywhere near the Turkish border. Turkey maintains that its border
regions have taken large numbers of strikes from YPG batteries.
Turkey imagines a further phase of killing or chasing away the some 8,000
YPG militiamen in Afrin, which sounds like a plan to ethnically cleanse all
500,000 Kurds from the enclave.
Turkish war propaganda is also alleging the existence of ISIL cells in
Afrin, which the Associated Press has refuted. Since the YPG has been the
only effective fighting force against ISIL, Afrin is the last place the
latter could hope to find refuge.
The Turkish operation has a strong diplomatic dimension. Turkey's
representative at NATO in Brussels is demanding that the other NATO members
support its campaign. It is not getting much joy in that regard. US
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has called on Ankara to conduct a very
limited operation and to avoid civilian casualties.
France is jumping up and down upset and foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian
is going to the UN Security Council for a discussion of Turkey's move. His
Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, is equally upset, and said that any
country that stands with the Syrian Kurds against Turkey is standing with
terrorists. I.e. he accused the French of being terrorists.
Juan Cole / Informed Comment
