Washington Kurdish Institute
January 5, 2023
For months, Turkish forces have been pounding the Kurdish-led Autonomous Region of North and East Syria (AANES) with heavy weapons and aerial bombardment. These attacks are part of Erdogan’s attempts to launch a new invasion and ethnic cleansing campaign directed at the Kurds, similar to their occupation of Afrin in 2018 and in Serê Kaniyê and Girê Spî in 2019. The Turkish forces have used various methods, but have lately relied more heavily on drone airstrikes to eliminate US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) while they are otherwise engaged fighting ISIS (Da’esh) in Syria. In 2022 Turkey killed several civilians, including twelve children, and dozens SDF members across the region. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, vowed on several occasions to eliminate the existence of AANES under various pretexts, including having ties with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been labeled a terrorist organization for fighting for Kurdish rights in Turkey since 1979.
During Turkey’s previous invasion of Syria, hundreds of thousands of Kurds were displaced, and hundreds of civilians were killed. The Turkish government used radical Syrian proxies with links to terrorist groups to change the demography of the occupied areas and settle non-Kurds in historically Kurdish towns and villages. Earlier this year Erdogan declared his intention to resettle an additional one million Syrian refugees in areas under current or former administration by AANES. Human Rights Watch continues to criticize Turkish policy in the region for producing a panoply of human rights violations including this forced relocation policy. Though Turkey is not a signatory to the Rome Statute of the ICC, the sanctioned displacement and replacement of one ethnic group with another constitute crimes against humanity in violation of Article 7 of the International Criminal Code.
Aside from the historic phobia toward Kurds, Erdogan is also desperate to win the 2023 Turkish elections, which (so far) don’t seem bright for him and his party. In the past, he was able to win two elections and a referendum by launching wars on Kurds and rallying support around the flag, which he aims to repeat. For many reasons, the Kurds remain the easiest prey for him to chase. For example, while threatening war with Greece, Erdogan knows that the international community – especially NATO – will not tolerate open conflict or aggression against Greek forces, but their hard-line stance on the Greek-Turkish conflict has been decidedly more vocal than their operations in Syria. Furthermore, his concessions to the Arab world and Israel in an attempt to fix his flagging economy have failed. Turkey is still struggling with their highest inflation rates in a quarter-century, which have stubbornly stabilized around 80%, while unemployment has held steady in the double-digits going into 2023. Another reason behind his intention to occupy Kurdish areas is the weak Turkish political opposition, who successfully centered discourse on the Syrian refugees within Turkey during the elections, helping Erdogan win support for his invasion plans. For example, Erdogan repeatedly sought to maintain the 30-mile “buffer zone” in Syria, which covers most of the Kurdish region. He claims that returning Syrian refugees to this buffer zone is a win-win for Turkish nationalism since it will further complicate Syria, especially the relationship between Kurds and Syrian Arabs. He aims to use the Syrian refugees as pawns in his election campaign against the opposition, obliging them to support his invasion plan. That said, his plans to settle non-Kurds in formerly Kurdish-majority locales are both a violation of extant Human Rights Law and ultimately not particularly realistic, judging by how many similarly-conceived settlements in Afrin are facing resistance from the locals. Additionally, such a massive plan requires immense financial support that Turkey lacks and the region remains under AANES’ administration.
Erdogan’s other major strategic plans involve normalization with the Syrian regime, even after 11 years of attempting to topple the dictatorship in Damascus. The 2023 elections solidified this approach as the Turkish opposition pledged to normalize relations with the Syrian regime and “return the Syrian refugees.” Clearly, Erdogan’s policies have backfired and tarnished Syria’s future prospects – especially due to his continued support for radical groups. Though the people living under the Turkish occupation in Syria displayed their rejection of the Turko-Syrian relational normalization by holding mass protests, Syrian opposition leaders remain proxies of Turkey and have chosen silence. Nonetheless, Erdogan will likely fail to normalize relations with the Assad regime. Turkey has created and continues to maintain many monstrous organizations on the ground. Most notably, radical groups linked to al Qaeda that share ISIS’s jihadist ideology who will not surrender to either Assad or Erdogan. Further, Turkey will face immense pressure from the international community since it is likely that normalization of relations with Assad would not bring peace in Syria, but rather further destabilization.
“Regarding normalizing the relationship between the Syrian regime and Turkey, we look at this relationship with suspicion and see that the Erdogan regime practices pressures that provoke the international parties and seeks pressure by continuously declaring to restore the relationship with the Syrian regime. Especially since both regimes have a main issue, which is the Kurdish issue.” said Ilham Ahmed, leader of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) during a panel hosted by the Washington Kurdish Institute (WKI). Ahmed also raised concerns regarding the authoritarian nature of the Syrian and Turkish regimes in light of their inability to reach any political or military solutions in Syria since 2011. “Both regimes practice common policies regarding the Kurdish issue. Therefore, restoring the relationship within this framework we see as a danger not only to the Kurdish people but also to the entire Syrian people,” she added.
The Erdogan-Assad rapprochement will first aim to end the AANES as an entity, since both regimes share the goal of eliminating Kurdish resistance. If successful, terror groups such as ISIS, Turkish-backed al Qaeda’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and others will likely control large swaths of the region. The sole reason for ISIS not being able to restore its ‘Caliphate’ has been the SDF’s constant campaign against the terror group alongside the global coalition led by the US military. Assuming Erdogan reaches a deal with the Assad regime and invades the region, the results would be a humanitarian disaster. Millions will be displaced by Turkey, and many will flee to Europe as refugees, continuing trends that accompanied previous acts of Turkish aggression.
The Erdogan-Assad normalization is also part of Russia’s plan to support the survival of the Syrian regime since the 2011 revolution. Moscow was able to mediate a meeting between chief intelligence officers on both sides and is actively working to bring the two regimes closer, after Erdogan officially requested Russian mediation. Russia is losing in Ukraine, but had won Turkey over long before its 2021 invasion campaign. Erdogan has sided with Russia more often than NATO or other western powers in recent years. Russia will further benefit from maintaining Turkey as a potential economic partner for its oligarchs’ business expansion and sanction evasion. At the same time, Erdogan will have a much easier route to invasion if Russia gives its blessings. Previously, we saw this play out during the Afrin invasion in 2018, which began following the 2017 S-400 missile system deal between Russia and Turkey, when the former allowed the latter to invade Kurdish cities without intervention.
“Turkey is exploiting the issue of the Ukrainian war and wants to confuse the international preoccupation with the Ukrainian conflict to seize the opportunity to launch its invasion,” said Ahmed, noting that the reaction by the international community to Turkey’s activities has not been at “an acceptable level.”
The new Turkish invasion will empower Erdogan to win elections once again, prolonging his authoritarian regime. It will also revive terror groups including ISIS and Turkish-backed al Qaeda affiliates and will bring waves of refugees into Europe. Most importantly, an invasion allows more diplomatic cooperation between Russia and Turkey, which will complicate NATO’s position on the Russian invasion into Ukraine further, given Turkey – the second largest military in NATO – is friendlier with Russia than before Putin began his illegal war in Europe. Without intervention in intra-Syrian relations,Turkey and Russia’s rapprochement will rejuvenate Assad’s dictatorship and will end what is left of the Syrian revolution.
The US is the sole power that is able to stop Turkey from their planned invasion. The current administration has been able to stymie Turkey’s ambitions so far, but has been unable or unwilling to control northeastern Syria’s airspace, allowing Turkish drones to target SDF and civilian targets in the region. The US has several potential avenues to exert leverage over Turkey, and hopefully will consider targeted sanctions on Erdogan personally, or sanctions aimed at his family members for their involvement in corruption. Such a move would likely stop Erdogan like it did in 2019 despite Turkey occupying two major cities at the time. Moreover, imposing sanctions on Turkish institutions that have been involved in breaking US sanctions on Russia, Iran, and Venezuela could force Erdogan to abandon his ruinous plans for Syria, especially as he is facing an existential election in 2023 where his economic struggles and unemployment could prove unmanageable.