US support of Syrian Kurds ruffles Turkey's feathers
Turkey and the United States may have agreed on the use of the Incirlik Air Base near the southern city of Adana against the Islamic State
in Syria, but the deal appears to have some snags, especially with
regard to US assistance to Syrian Kurds fighting IS. This unresolved
problem is considered one of the reasons why Incirlik has not been used
yet in active operations by the US-led coalition, despite the urgency of
the fight against IS and other groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra.
Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis
said earlier this week that armed drone missions were conducted out of
the base last weekend, but added that none of the drones had launched
airstrikes. Unarmed drones had already been flying out of the base.
There are reports that the United States is delaying the use of manned
aircraft from the base because it needs to set up search-and-rescue
capabilities first.
But Ankara and Washington are in open disagreement over who
the armed drones and manned aircraft in Incirlik will assist on the
ground during the fight against IS. Ankara says the Incirlik deal does
not cover support for the People's Protection Units (YPG), the armed
wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has emerged as the
umbrella organization of the Syrian Kurds. Ankara sees these groups as
the Syrian extension of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK),
which is outlawed by Turkey as a terrorist organization.
The United States has also listed the PKK as a terrorist
organization and concedes Turkey’s right to respond to attacks by the
group, but has refused to bow to Turkish demands to outlaw the PYD and
YPG as well. The PYD is currently allied with the United States against
IS. PKK elements have also been fighting IS alongside the PYD,
making the issue between Ankara and Washington more confusing.
Washington’s only concession to Turkey in this regard has
been to refuse PYD leader Saleh Muslim a visa to the United States.
Muslim and other PYD and YPG officials have, however, been welcomed by
European countries that are part of the US-led coalition against IS, and
there is a tangible increase in sympathy in the West for the Syrian
Kurds, regardless of Turkish efforts to demonize them.
The YPG raised its profile considerably in Western eyes
after its fighters captured the strategic town of Tell Abyad near the
Turkish border in June with air support from US jets. Ankara looked on
this development with concern, fearing a prelude to the establishment of
an autonomous Kurdish zone along its border with Syria by groups allied
with the PKK.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out indirectly at the
United States after the capture of Tell Abyad, claiming the West was
striking Arabs and Turkmens in the town and settling PYD and PKK
militants in their place. “How can we look on this positively? How can
we consider the West to be honest?” Erdogan said, reflecting the anger felt in official Ankara circles.
A few days later, he said Turkey would never allow a Kurdish entity
to be established in northern Syria. “Whatever the cost, we will
continue our struggle in this regard,” he said angrily June 26.
Disagreement on the topic of US assistance to the YPG surfaced again
after State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters in Washington
on July 27 that the use of Incirlik would enable the US Air Force to
assist YPG fighters on the ground more effectively.
Pointing out that the US-led coalition is already providing support to the YPG, Kirby said, “The fact that we now have access to bases in Turkey
will allow for that support to be more timely and perhaps even more
effective.” Kirby’s remarks, which were quickly picked up by the Turkish
press, ruffled official feathers in Ankara. “The points indicated by
Kirby do not reflect the agreement we arrived at [on Incirlik],” Ministry for Foreign Affairs spokesman Tanju Bilgic told reporters in a press briefing in Ankara.
Questioned later about Bilgic’s statement, State Department spokesman Mark Toner backed Kirby, indicating that Syrian Kurdish groups would be among those receiving support from the US-led coalition.
Many analysts in Ankara believe Turkey is in a weak
position here and will have to eventually find a formula to accommodate
US support for Syrian Kurdish fighters if it does not want to come out
the loser from this dispute. Retired Maj. Gen. Armagan Kuloglu told
Al-Monitor that the deal arrived at with the United States is primarily
based on combating IS.
“Turkey joined this fight to allay the impression that it
has been assisting IS. But it is also using the argument about the need
to fight all forms of terrorism in order to get support from Washington
against the PKK,” Kuloglu said. “Washington has given this support,
albeit somewhat reluctantly, saying, ‘You have a right to fight the
PKK,’ but it has also indicated that the PYD is altogether another
matter,” he added.
Kuloglu, who comments frequently on political and military
matters, went on to say it was unrealistic to expect the United States
to give up its support of the Syrian Kurds. He added that it was also
not possible for Ankara to revoke its decision to allow Incirlik to be
used against IS because of US support for the PYD, which he suggested is
here to stay. Kuloglu said active and effective participation by Turkey
in the US-led coalition against IS may provide Ankara some leverage
over the PYD.
Many analysts, however, have been noting Turkey’s lame
response to IS when compared with its disproportionate response to PKK
attacks and have taken this as a sign that Turkey is still not prepared
to go all-out against IS even though it has been targeted by the group.
“Ankara has to find a formula for this problem with
Washington because if it doesn’t, it stands to lose more than the US,
especially with regard to its operations against the PKK in northern Iraq,”
Kuloglu said, arguing that Iraq is effectively under US control, giving
Turkey a free hand to carry on with its strikes against the PKK there.
Kuloglu also believes that Ankara’s insistence on its
position toward Incirlik and the PYD would have a price in terms of
turning international public opinion against Turkey again, given that
Syrian Kurds have gained the sympathy of the West.
This appeared to be corroborated by a piece in the Independent by Patrick Cockburn,
who argued, “So far, [IS] has not done too badly out of Turkey’s
‘game-changing’ turn against it." He went on, “If US aircraft based at
Incirlik are forbidden to attack [IS] fighters when they are battling
either the Syrian Kurds or the Syrian army, the militants’ two main
opponents on the ground, then they will be no worse off militarily than
they were before.”
Kuloglu also indicated that reports of an agreement between Turkey
and the United States for a safe zone in northern Syria had to be taken
with a pinch of salt. Many in the West believe Turkey wants this zone
to prevent the advances of the Kurds, although Ankara says it wants it
to protect Syrian refugees against IS and the Syrian regime.
“Despite these reports, the US says it will not put boots
on the ground to protect this zone. Turkey can’t do this on its own, and
it is not possible to rely on the Turkmens there, as the recent fiasco
relating to fighters trained and equipped and sent to Syria show,” he
said.
He was referring to reports of the way the group — trained and equipped in Turkey by the United States, made up mostly of Turkmen fighters and acting under the name of Division 30 — was routed by Jabhat al-Nusra fighters as soon as it entered Syria.
Like Kuloglu, many Turkish analysts believe Washington is
merely appeasing Turkey by going along with its calls for a safe zone.
They argue that Washington's ultimate
aim is to establish a friendly Kurdish zone in northern Syria, and
suggest there is little Ankara can do to counter this without locking
horns with its Western allies and finding itself alone in its fight
against the PKK.
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