From Kobani to Tal Abyad, tensions between Turkey and the Kurdish groups forming the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been rising especially in Manbij and regions east of the Euphrates River.
Along with the border crossing in Tal Abyad with light and heavy weaponry resulting in casualties, Turkish forces hitting many villages and positions belonging to Kurdish units in the western and eastern countryside of Kobani have also been accompanying this escalation.
Days following the four-way conference between Turkey, Russia, France, and Germany in Istanbul, this escalation follows remarks made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan regarding Turkey’s plans to attack regions east of the Euphrates River in pursuit of what he termed “terrorist organizations.”
Along with these developments, Turkey and the United States started conducting combined military patrols in the buffer zone separating the Manbij Military Council in Manbij from the Euphrates Shield forces in Jarabulus in an effort to guarantee area security and stop any conflicts or breaches between them.
Beginning Friday with surveillance patrols around the sensitive areas of Kobani and Tal Abyad, US officials also said that the US is still working to defuse tensions between Turkey and the Syrian Democratic Forces.
Following the joint Turkish-American patrols, Kurd Street Network asked several politicians and military leaders a series of questions to better grasp the specifics of this issue: How do you view the political and military environment in the Manij countryside? What is now happening on the Kobani-Turkey border?
Head of the Future Syria Party Ibrahim Qaftan informed Kurdistan Street in an exclusive interview that although there is no US-Turkish deal, what we find is that Erdogan has lost all his cards in Syria and Russia is requesting he leave from Idlib and other regions. He noted that Turkey, France, Germany, and Russia are unable to address the reconstruction issue and that there is a Russian-Turkish agreement to turn over the territory given to terrorist blocs to Moreover, Erdogan worries that, should the conflict for Idlib take place, more than five million Syrians will be displaced and that Turkey would be the only area offering a sanctuary. As if he wants to convey a message—either Idlib is stable, or I will wreak havoc in all of Syria, and I will turn the safe zones into areas of military conflict— Erdogan is rearranging the cards and pressuring the Americans through the northeastern file of Syria.
“Qaftan” questioned, “But will Erdogan succeed in this…?? We say: He lost all his cards and is dying his last breaths on the Syrian matter, hence he will not succeed…”
Sultan Ahmed Abu Araj, deputy commander-in-chief of the rebel army, refuted any repetition of the Afrin experience, adding that it has not and will not be repeated anywhere in Syria, and that the violations that happened did not occur anywhere in Syria, whether in opposition or loyalist areas.
Abu Araj noted that the Turkish escalation in northeastern Syria is merely media hype and psychological warfare outside of northern Syria, and would only occur on social media platforms.
Observing that the international coalition can agree with Turkey on political matters, not military matters in the east of the Euphrates, he said Russia does not have the right to veto or give the green light since its electricity is not from the east of the Euphrates, so it does not give the green light or not give it in all its colors. The leader in the Army of Revolutionaries urged all people living east of the Euphrates, particularly the areas of influence of the SDF, both military or civilian, not to be caught into media rumors that have no foundation or existence.
For his part, writer and attorney Mustafa Musto said: “I believe that what is happening now in the eastern Euphrates is not outside the general context of the Syrian outcomes, which are controlled by international interests, especially the countries that have a hand in the Syrian file, such the United States of America, Russia, and the regional countries, Turkey and Iran.”
Misto underlined that since the United States of America, Turkey’s strategic ally, is an active state in NATO, what is happening currently is not outside the boundaries of the desire and interests of those countries. This means that Turkey will not proceed without the consent of the other nations involved on the Syrian matter.
Considering the Adana Agreement, which permits Turkey to enter Syrian territory, at a depth of 35 to 40 km, to pursue organizations that pose a threat to Turkish national security, which considers the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which controls the eastern Euphrates in Syria, as a terrorist organization, and is included on the international terrorism list, he observed that the fate of the areas east of the Euphrates will not differ from the fate of the areas west of the Euphrates inside the framework of these agreements. This party shows its authority over northern Syria in the eastern Euphrates not thinking twice.
Political writer Shams al-Din Abu Hawar clarified that modern Türkiye had to shed its history. It started by cutting Ataturkism and will finish by cleaning the dirtiest instrument, the Kurdistan.
Abu Hawar noted that Ataturk’s Turkey designed the PKK to eradicate Kurdish presence and is the one still running its several associated groups.
This one utilizes the PYD to provide Turkey one pretext after another to carry out its aggressive goals against the Kurdish people, but now it will be compelled to stop its farce.
He went on, “The US also compelled the Syrian government to deport Ocalan, then arrest him and hand him over to the Turkish dictatorship, telling it: This is your man, take him now. Turkey has to finish its task and wipe the Kurdistan from Syria and Qandil. Turkey is driven to adjust to the forthcoming changes and the new regional order, not because it wants to do so.”
He noted that behind Al-Qaeda, the PKK, and Hezbollah, the old regional order—founded on mafia ideas—is now being destroyed; behind them, Ataturk, the Baath organizations, and the mullahs point forward. The nations that reject to give up their mafia tools will die with those tools since there is no place for the mafia in the new order; so, it is predicted that the Turkish government, which is a hostile government, indeed rather hostile, will eliminate such instruments.
Not only will Turkey hurry to the Qandil Caves, but he underlined that Turkey is rushing with an American green light as well as with an American red light, east of the Euphrates.
Kurdish writer and politician Pir Rustam then urged giving the national interest top priority over political divisions, stressing:
Though it would be in the Russians’ advantage for a Turkish-Kurdish confrontation east of the Euphrates to humiliate the Americans and impede their initiatives in the area, neither of these things is true in my perspective. But it is most definitely not in the Russians’ or the government’s interest for the Turks to come and settle the east of the Euphrates, and it is also not in the Iranians’ interest for such a situation to arise as it would restrict their access to the Shiite oil crescent.
Regarding the American green light, Rustum further claimed there are no signs of this.
Conversely, we discovered American comments—from the State Department or the Ministry of Defense—expressing their “concern” about the Turkish attack and that they are attempting to settle the matter through communication, so avoiding militaristic escalation of the situation. To perform joint patrols with the Turkish army in the regions separating the Syrian Democratic Forces from the Euphrates Shield forces, the American forces have dispatched several vehicles and men.
He underlined that despite the gravity of the Turkish threats about the attack, not only the latest one within the geography of the Euphrates or all of Rojava Kurdistan, but also with regard to the Kurdistan Region and any other part of the Kurdish geography, they will always exist and we must take them into consideration, as a result of Turkey’s policies hostile to any Kurdish project and ambition, and even to a “Kurdish tent,” as one of the Turkish presidents stated. We thus have to give these dangers great attention, even if, at least not right now, we do not think in a recurrence of the Afrin scenario.
If such circumstances existed, he argued, we would not have witnessed American political and diplomatic intervention to define the situation. Instead, we would have observed their military troops leaving that area to evade any threats endangering their personnel. Thus, I am convinced that the issue will be resolved inside the framework of a regional American-Russian agreement to resolve the Syrian file, and maybe this will be an opportunity for us Kurds to pressure both sides of the Kurdish movement and make the National Council a political partner in the autonomous government, so dragging the rug from under the feet of Turkish politicians.
Shavan Khabouri, spokesman for the Movement for a Democratic Society (TEV-DEM) overseas, clarified that the Turkish escalation follows the end of ISIS’s vital role in eastern Syria and that Turkey is exploiting Russian-American and even international contradictions about the crisis in Syria by occupying more Syrian territory under dubious pretexts.
Khabouri said: “We expect the international community to fail to act to find a consensual political solution, therefore ending the crisis in Syria. Instead, we will see more complexity in the Syrian scenario, which will have major effects on Syria as a whole, nearby nations, and even the Middle East overall.”