Last year Syrian Kurdish fighters retook control of sizeable areas along the border with Turkey from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), to a certain extent cutting the supply line of the terrorist group from the NATO member country.
Hence, Syrian Kurds have become a sort of a neighbor to Turkey along parts of its 900-kilometer border with Syria. This has, however, deeply annoyed Ankara. This is because Turkey fears that the ongoing gains on the ground by the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which backs the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), will further consolidate Kurdish political strength in neighboring Syria’s civil war, risking separatist sentiments among Turkish Kurds. Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been engaged in heavy fighting with Turkish security forces in the Kurdish-majority Southeast since July of last year, has already declared self-governance in various districts of the region.
Therefore, the main reason why the Turkish military shelled both PYD forces at the Menagh air base near Azez in northern Syria and Syrian regime forces from within Turkey this past weekend stems from Turkish efforts to weaken Syrian Kurds’ strength along its southern border. This move, however, comes at the expense of opening space for ISIL, as retired Ambassador Ünal Çeviköz rightly told the Cumhuriyet daily on Feb. 15.
Ankara said the shelling was in response to PYD and Syrian regime strikes on Turkish soil, demanding the Syrian Kurdish militias withdraw from positions near the border. However, the PYD warned on Sunday, Feb. 14, that it would resist any Turkish intervention. Ankara has said it will continue hitting Russian-backed PYD targets in Syria until they withdraw from the area.
For Ankara, the threat that ISIL poses to Turkey has secondary importance compared to the PYD and the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This is despite the fact that ISIL carried out several suicide bombing attacks in Turkey last year. With this ill-conceived policy, Turkey has further been complicating the anti-ISIL coalition’s strategy of destroying ISIL in Iraq and Syria, strongly backed by Syrian Kurdish fighters in the latter country.
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have long come under criticism for giving support to ISIL and relatively moderate opposition forces for the sake of weakening the Syrian Kurdish fighters and the Assad regime. However, Russia’s active military involvement in Syria since last September in support of Assad has changed the equation in this country engulfed in a civil war, with the moderate opposition fighters further losing strength while Assad and PYD forces have been boosted by their victories on the ground. Hence, the Turkish shelling of PYD targets in Syria is also a reflection of Ankara’s frustration over being on the losing side of the war next to its borders.
Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan argued in a weekend interview with pro-government TV Channel 7 that Turkey has to protect its national security and that is why it has been bombing PYD targets. “The shelling of PYD targets does not mean that Turkey will carry out a ground operation in Syria. But if Turkey does not take measures now, it can’t influence decisions over who will become our neighbor. Turkey will not be a bystander,” he stressed.
Akdoğan’s remarks have further demonstrated the real reasons behind Ankara’s latest bombing of PYD targets. Among other reasons, this is to stop the PYD achieving further gains along the border so that it will not become Turkey’s neighbor in any future political settlement in this country.
However, despite Akdoğan’s assertions, Turkey is now just a bystander concerning events in Syria, and too many Turkish red lines have been crossed for new ones to be taken seriously. The Turkish government should stop reducing its Syrian policies to Syrian Kurds due to its Kurdish phobia and should instead make a correct reading of the bigger picture in its environs before it is too late.
todayszaman.com
