The Türkiye and allied militias are strengthening the deployment of units on the border with Syria and new developments could be imminent. Official US sources confirm this. The Kurds turn to Donald Trump and ask him to keep his promise that “the United States will not abandon them”, that “it will protect the dignity and security of those who have been faithful allies in the battle for peace and security”. All the while, writes the Wall Street Journal, the alarm is raised with the fear that Turkey, an ally of the USA and a member of NATO, is preparing a large-scale incursion into the territory controlled by the Syrian Kurds, supported by the USA.
Today the spotlight is on Ankara for the talks – on post-Assad Syria and the Middle East in general – between the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The border between Türkiye and Syria is 900 kilometers long, while Around 900 US troops remain in Syria. The deployment – with the strengthening of forces after the end of the Assad regime in Syria – concerns fighters from Turkish militias and commandos, including artillery units, concentrated in large numbers near Kobane, a city with a Kurdish majority in Syria, on the northern border with Turkey. In past years it was the city symbol of Kurdish resistance to IS. According to one of the officials quoted by the newspaper, a Turkish operation across the border could be imminent.
The ‘movements’ appear similar to those Turkey decided before its 2019 invasion into northeastern Syriawhen then-President Donald Trump decided on a partial withdrawal of US troops from the region and then helped mediate a ceasefire in exchange for the Kurds giving up kilometers of border land to the Turks. Another US official speaks of “pressure for moderation”.
What Turkey wants, what the Kurds ask of the USA
Ilham Ahmed, an official of the Syrian Kurdish administration, confirmed the fears directly to Trump, who returns to the White House on January 20, explaining that a Turkish military operation appears probable and urging pressure on Erdogan not to send troops across the border.
The objective of Turkey, which has welcomed three million Syrian refugees since 2011 and which has always supported the armed opposition to the Assad regime in recent years, is “to establish de facto control over our land before she takes office – he wrote Ahmed in a letter to Trump that the WSJ was able to see – If Turkey proceeded with the invasion, the consequences would be catastrophic”. “From the border – he added – we can see the Turks massing forces and our civilian population lives in constant fear of death and imminent destruction”. And, he warned, a Turkish invasion could displace more than 200,000 Kurdish civilians in Kobane alone.
Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Türkiye. And on Saturday Ankara reopened its embassy in Damascus. With the end of the Assad era, clashes resumed in Syria between the Syrian Kurds and groups supported by Turkey and Turkish operations intensified against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (FDS or SDF), which were supported by the US but which Ankara sees as an extension of the PKK considered a terrorist organization.
Yesterday, according to an FDS spokesperson, talks between Syrian Kurds and Turkish-backed militias in Kobane collapsed and the FDS are now noticing “significant military reinforcements” to the east and west of the city. And Ahmed, writes the WSJ, urged Trump to use “his unique approach to diplomacy” to convince Erdogan to stop any planned operation.
Also yesterday, the tycoon stated that “Turkey made a hostile takeover, without loss of human life”. In the post-Assad era, Asli Aydintasbas of the Brookings Institution observed in recent days, quoted by the New York Times, “what is indisputable is that Turkey’s influence will only grow, both on a political and economic level”.
