Washington Kurdish Institute
January 21, 2019
Since President Trump’s sudden decision to withdraw the U.S. troops from Syria who are fighting and supporting those fighting ISIS, chaos pervaded the region. While it is not clear how and when the troops will be heading home, it is very apparent that a number of other powerbrokers in Syria, namely Turkey and the Russian-backed Syrian regime, are eyeing the possibility of seizing control of areas liberated by the U.S. forces and their Kurdish allies from the bloody rule of ISIS and other jihadist groups. Trump’s surprising decision was announced after Turkey increased its threats to invade regions of Syria with majority Kurdish populations and those areas currently controlled by the Kurdish fighters and their multi-ethnic allied forces, who are labelled “terrorist” by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government. While the U.S. forces have prevented Turkish forces from invading parts of Syria in which they are active, allowing the U.S.-led coalition to continue to focus on its mission of defeating ISIS, Turkey has remained focused on striking the Kurdish fighters working with the U.S.-led coalition, and gathered thousands of members of Syrian jihadist groups on Syria’s, with the stated aim of attacking the Kurds. Despite pressure from U.S. lawmakers and other official on President Trump to reconsider his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, he seemingly remains committed to doing so, and has also suggested the creation of an ill-defined 20-mile “safe zone” in Syria, which sounds familiar to a long-time demand of Turkey.
Turkey often expresses concerns over the presence of Kurdish fighters and self-governing Kurdish institutions in Syria. Turkey fears that the establishment of a Kurdish entity in Syria will spill over to Turkey, which is home to 20 million Kurds. While simultaneously repressing its own Kurds, Turkey also fights the emergence of other Kurdish entities and even expressions of Kurdish identity, fearing that failing to do so would encourage the Kurds in Turkey to demand their own human and cultural rights. Of course, the Turkish state’s brutal policy of forced assimilation has resulted in a series of Kurdish revolts since the founding of modern Turkey. Today the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), founded in 1978, is the main Kurdish group in Turkey that has resisted the Turkish state for decades to obtain rights for the Kurdish people. In 1997, following significant pressure by Turkey on the U.S., the administration of then President Bill Clinton officially listed the PKK as Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). The Kurds of Syria have embraced the ideology of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and put it into practice, establishing, in their liberated areas, a system of local governance characterized by decentralization and self-administration. Despite the lack of a demonstrated organic link, and the Syrian Kurds’ statements and those of the U.S. government, Turkey links the Syrian Kurdish fighters, who have never attacked Turkey despite numerous Turkish threats and acts of aggression, to the PKK as a pretense to block their efforts to seize their long-denied basic rights in Syria and govern their own affairs.
Threats by Kurds to Turkey or vice versa?
It is no secret that, since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, the Turkish government has supported all sorts of jihadist groups to topple the Assad regime. In doing that, Turkey became the main route for the transit of fighters and supplies for two of the world’s most prominent and dangerous terror groups: ISIS and al-Qaeda. Additionally, Turkey’s open border policy with Syrian jihadist groups was an important part of the open-ended support to other lesser groups with similar jihadist ideologues (e.g., Ahrar al-Sham, the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movemet, the Sultan Murad Division and many others) by the Turkish government, intelligence apparatus, and armed forces. Indeed, Turkey’s border with Syria will never be secured and sealed to jihadist groups as long as Turkey’s top priority is to attack Kurds and expand Turkey’s influence in Syria.
Meanwhile, the Kurdish forces of the People’s Defense Units (YPG) had never attacked Turkey or posed any threat to the national security of Turkey. On the contrary, under the control of the YPG and its allies, Syria’s border with Turkey has been among the most secure areas in Syria, and not a shot has been fired against the Turkish army except when Turkey attacked the YPG, which has happened several times. For example, in April 2017, when the YPG were fighting ISIS with the U.S.-led coalition support, Turkey launched airstrikes against them, resulting in the death of 14 U.S.-trained fighters. Turkey also attacked the YPG in the north in Kobane while the rest of their fighters where engaged in the fight against ISIS in the terror group’s last stronghold. Additionally, Turkey and their jihadist allies have periodically bombarded the Kurdish region on weekly basis for years, reportedly using chemical weapons on some ocsassions. After years of threats and unprovoked aggression, Turkey and a number of allied jihadist groups attacked the Kurdish region of Afrin in 2018, and invaded and occupied the area in March of that year. The invasion bu Turkish forces and their jihadist allies caused tens of thousands to be displaced, and resulted in the deaths of more than 500 among civilians. In Afrin, atrocities against Kurds and Christians occur every day, and Turkey’s campaign of forced demographic change and ethnic cleansing against the Kurds continues. The YPG and the Kurdish region in Syria always sought friendly relations with Turkey, and, before the end of the peace process between Turkey and the PKK, Turkey invited Syrian Kurdish officials for meetings on many occasions. The YPG at one point helped the Turkish army move a historic Ottoman tomb from Syria to Turkey when it was apparently threatened by ISIS. Kurdish officials remain open to restoring friendly relations with Turkey, but Erdogan’s ambitions to conduct more wars and distract the Turkey’s population from ongoing economic crises stands on the way of peace.
If any safe zone should be imposed in northern Syria, the best place would be inside Turkey’s border to protect the Kurdish citizens of Syria from the massacres that may ensure following the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country. President Trump’s talk of a 20-mile safe zone is a green light for a Turkish of northern Syria which specifically targets the Kurds, as 65% of the Kurdish land would be within that proposed 20-mile strip of land, and, considering Turkey’s recent and historical track record, it can be expected that human rights violations would occur on a grand scale.
Turkey is against the Kurdish people, and not only “YPG/PKK”
Throughout nearly once century of existence, the Turkish state had massacred Kurds and suppressed their cultural and political movements. Today, the same principles that motivated this pattern of persecution are now the most prominent guiding principles for Turkey’s political and military actions in Syria. The Turkish state has declared that its top enemy in Syria is the Syrian Kurds. Turkey the presence of international forces in the Syrian Kurdish region, and will also reject any deployment UN peacekeepers between Syrian Kurds and Turkey. Turkey has also previously rejected the idea of an American buffer zone between the two sides, and they will also reject any proposal by the Syrian regime to create a line between them and the Kurds. Turkey does not even allow a small group of Kurds who work as proxies for Turkey to be in control of Syrian Kurdish region simply because, at the end, of the day they are Kurds!
The only way Turkey will be satisfied is if they invade the region alongside their jihadist allies and repeat the terrible atrocities perpetrated in Afrin. Clearly, Turkey is against the existence of the Kurdish people anywhere, as clearly demonstrated by the Turkish state’s hostile reaction to the independence referendum conducted in the Kurdish regions of Iraq in 2017.
No fly zone?
Since it seems clear that, despite statements to the contrary, ISIS is not defeated, and al-Qaeda is growing in Syria, a safe region in which international forces committed to the defeat of terrorist groups (including the various European nations active in fighting ISIS in Syria) would benefit global security, and the ideal solution to protect this region would be to impose an internationally-recognized no fly zone which would include northern Syria. This could be modeled on the recent no fly zone experience in Iraq, where a UN-sanctioned no fly zone protected the Kurds of Iraq from existential threats and allowed for the creation of a safe region that could welcome representatives of the international community within an otherwise hostile country. A no fly zone in northern Syria would protect the Kurds of Syria and their allies, people who have sacrificed so much in the war against ISIS, and allow them to continue to administer their own affairs for citizens of the region of all ethnicities and religions without fearing the aggression of the Turkish armed forces and Turkey’s jihadist allies or the forces of the Syrian regime.