BEIRUT (AP) — In northern Syria, residents are bracing for a brand new combat. With the world’s consideration centered on the conflict in Ukraine, Turkey’s chief says he’s planning a serious navy operation to push again Syrian Kurdish fighters and create an extended sought-after buffer zone within the border space.
Tensions are excessive. Hardly a day passes by with out an trade of fireplace and shelling between the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters, and Turkish forces and Turkey-backed Syrian opposition gunmen.
Analysts say Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is benefiting from the conflict in Ukraine to push his personal objectives in neighboring Syria — even utilizing Turkey’s capacity as a NATO member to veto alliance membership by Finland and Sweden as potential leverage.
However a serious incursion by Ankara comes with dangers and issues, threatening to upset Turkey’s ties with each america and Russia. It additionally dangers creating a brand new wave of displacement in a war-ravaged area the place the Islamic State group nonetheless lurks in the shadows.
Here’s a have a look at the state of affairs on the bottom and a number of the key points:
TURKISH AMBITIONS
Erdogan final month outlined plans to renew Turkish efforts to create a 30-kilometer (19 mile) deep buffer zone in Syria, alongside its southern border via a cross-border incursion in opposition to U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters. Erdogan wished to create that zone in 2019 however a navy operation fell in need of attaining it.
“We’ll come down on them suddenly one night. And we must,” Erdogan mentioned, with out giving a particular timeline.
Since 2016, Turkey has launched three main operations inside Syria, concentrating on Syria’s most important Kurdish militia — the Folks’s Safety Models or YPG — which Turkey considers to be a terrorist group and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Employees’ Occasion, or PKK. The PKK has for many years waged an insurgency inside Turkey in opposition to the federal government in Ankara.
The YPG, nonetheless, kinds the spine of U.S.-led forces within the combat in opposition to Islamic State militants and has been a confirmed prime U.S. ally in Syria.
Turkey, via the three earlier navy operations in Syria, already has management over a big chunk of Syrian territory, together with the cities of Afrin, Tel Abyad and Jarablus. Ankara plans to construct 1000's of housing models in these areas, to make sure what it says would be the “voluntary return” of 1 million out of the three.7 million Syrian refugees presently in Turkey.
Erdogan mentioned Wednesday that Turkish troops now goal to take new areas, together with the cities of Tel Rifaat and Manbij, which sits on a serious intersection of roads on Syria’s west-east freeway generally known as the M4. Turkey says the Syrian Kurdish fighters use Tel Rifaat as a base to assault areas held by Turkey-backed Syrian opposition fighters.
There have been additionally experiences that Turkish troops would possibly enter the strategic border city of Kobani, the place the U.S. navy and Kurdish fighters first united to defeat IS in 2015. The city holds highly effective symbolism for Syrian Kurds and their ambitions of self-rule on this a part of Syria.
WHY NOW?
Analysts say Erdogan probably sees a confluence of circumstances, each worldwide and home, that make an operation in Syria well timed. The Russians are preoccupied with the conflict in Ukraine, and the Individuals want Erdogan to drop his objections to the enlargement of NATO to incorporate Finland and Sweden.
“They (Turks) sense an opportunity to try and get concessions from the West,” mentioned Aaron Stein, head of analysis on the Overseas Coverage Analysis Institute in Philadelphia.
A Syria offensive may be used to rally Turkish nationalist voters at a time when their economic system is in decline, with inflation operating at 73.5%. Turkey is ready to carry presidential and parliamentary elections subsequent 12 months, and former incursions into Syria to drive out the YPG have bolstered assist for Erdogan in previous balloting.
Thus far, there aren't any indicators of mobilization pointing to an imminent invasion, though the Turkish navy could possibly be known as upon pretty rapidly. Syrian Kurdish fighters, nonetheless, say they're taking Turkey’s newest risk significantly and have been making ready for a doable assault.
They warn that an incursion would have an effect on their ongoing combat in opposition to IS and their capacity to guard prisons in northern Syria the place 1000's of extremists, lots of them international nationals, have been locked up since IS was defeated territorially three years in the past.
TURKEY’S US AND RUSSIA TIES
A big-scale navy operation carries excessive dangers and is prone to anger each the usand Russia, who even have a navy presence in northern Syria.
Turkey and Russia assist rival sides in Syria’s 11-year battle however have been carefully coordinating within the nation’s north. Whereas Russia has not formally commented, it has in latest days despatched fighter jets and helicopter gunships to a base near the border with Turkey, in response to Syrian opposition activists.
As one in every of Damascus’ closest allies, Russia's role in Syria has been paramount in turning the tide of the battle in Syria — which began amid Arab Spring uprisings in 2011 — in favor of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Syrian opposition fighters have been relegated to an enclave within the northwest and Turkey’s sphere of affect.
However with Moscow centered on Ukraine, it’s unlikely Vladimir Putin will stand in Erdogan’s method over what is basically only a strip of land alongside Turkey’s southern border.
Washington has made clear its opposition to a Turkish navy incursion, saying it will put in danger hard-won beneficial properties within the marketing campaign in opposition to IS.
“We recognize Turkey’s legitimate security concerns on its border. But again, we are concerned that any new offensive would further undermine regional stability,” mentioned State Division spokesman Ned Value.
Stein, the analyst, mentioned any operation can be sophisticated due to Russian presence in each potential hotspots, Kobani and Tel Rifaat.
Whether or not an operation takes place boils right down to the query on how far Erdogan is ready to go in Syria, significantly in and across the Kobani space — and whether or not he can be unchallenged by Moscow and Washington.
“How much risk does he want to take? The evidence that we have is that he takes a lot of risk,” Stein mentioned.
___
Bilginsoy reported from Istanbul.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
Conversations are opinions of our readers and are topic to the Code of Conduct. The Star doesn't endorse these opinions.
