On Tuesday, November 5, Turkey’s Erdogan said the Kurdish militia YPG (People’s Protection Units) had not yet withdrawn from some areas within the Safe Zone that Turkey aims at establishing in northeastern Syria. The Turkish president also stated that US forces were still patrolling the areas alongside Kurdish fighters.

The agreement Turkey reached with the United States earlier in October to establish a cease-fire in areas of conflict, such as Ras al-Ayn, required that YPG fighters should withdraw from the Safe Zone in return of Turkey stopping its offensive.

Yet President Erdogan, who is expected to visit the White House on November 13, said areas in the Safe Zone were “not cleared of terrorists.” “Terrorists have not been taken out of either Tel Rifaat or Manbij,” he said, referring to two Syrian towns near the Turkish borders where he said Kurdish fighters were still present.

The Turkish president also said that YPG fighters were still present in east Ras al-Ayn, a town that should be under Turkish control according to the Sochi agreement as well. Ankara had reached the agreement with Moscow in late October in Sochi, Russia.

Both the United States and Russia previously said YPG fighters had left border areas. Calling into question both countries’ statements, President Erdogan also said on Tuesday that Turkey would only abide by its deals with Russia and the United States if the two countries keep their promises.

“How can we explain America holding patrols with terrorist organizations in this region even though they made the decision to withdraw? This is not our agreement,” he said.

The Safe Zone

The Turkish incursion into Syrian territory in early October draws from Ankara’s goals of establishing a buffer zone in northeastern Syria along its borders. The idea of instituting a “safe zone” in the region is not novel, and Turkish officials have been enunciating the exact terminology as regards the Syrian frontier since 2015 at least.

But in last spring —after Erdogan’s party the AKP lost a number of seats, including the municipalities of Ankara and Istanbul— the Turkish president and his officials doubled on referring to the safe zone. Other actors in the Syrian conflict appeared to turn a deaf ear so far.

“Our wish is to reach an agreement on the safe zone and put it into action as soon as possible. Otherwise, we will have to do what is necessary by ourselves,” Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said in last July.

In 1998, Turkey had reached a similar deal with Syria —the Adana agreement— following a diplomatic crisis and clashes in the Turkish-Syrian borders. The Adana agreement required shutting down PKK paramilitary training camps in northern Syria and gave Turkey the right to intervene within a depth of 6km in Syrian territory along the whole border.

The 10-point agreement of Sochi is analogous to the Adana one, except for its greater proportions. President Erdogan first initiated the Safe Zone project as we know now in the United Nations in late September this year. With a map in hands, he showed a buffer zone that would run 30km deep into Syrian lands and some 480km along the border.

“Operation Peace Spring”

President Erdogan insisted that Turkey’s objective of establishing the buffer zone – also called “Peace Corridor” – was that of humanitarian measures. When proposing his idea in the United Nations, he said Turkey aimed at resettling some 2 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey in towns located within the Safe Zone.

Turkey currently hosts some 3.6 million Syrian refugees, more than any other neighbouring nation (920,000 in Lebanon, 655,000 in Jordan and 229,000 in Iraq). President Erdogan often threatened to “open the gates of Europe” to the refugees if the European Union calls Turkey’s recent military campaign in Syria an invasion.

Moreover, Turkey dubbed its incursion in northeast Syria “Operation Peace Spring”, and President Erdogan, with this approach, sought not only an international approval, but also that of some Turkish voters who have shown increasing resentment against Syrian refugees amid economic difficulties.

On the same Tuesday of November 5, a survey published by Turkish pollster Metropoll showed President Erdogan’s approval among Turks surged during October (the month in which the cross-border incursion was set off after President Trump announced the withdrawal of U.S. troops from northeast Syria).

The survey indicated that the Turkish president’s approval rate among the people rose by 3.7 points to 48% (the highest rate for the president since his re-election last year), whereas his disapproval rate fell by 9.3 points to 33.7% (the lowest since 2016, when President Erdogan underwent a failed coup).

A Conflict-torn “Peace Corridor”

But despite the emphasis on the incursion’s humanitarian and peace-related facet, the areas that fall within the buffer zone currently stand as Syria’s most conflicted. Thousands of Kurdish families fled their homes after Turkey advanced in its incursion.

Some of the raids the Turkish forces have carried out were said to have hit civilians.

The YPG militia has long controlled the area and served as an armed wing to the PYG (Democratic Union Party), a Kurdish party that formed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with other political factions in 2015 to fight Islamic State in Syria.

Turkey considers both the YPG and PYG terrorist groups because of their ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been in sporadic conflicts with Turkish authorities since 1984.

By displacing hundreds of thousands of Kurds through conflict and resettling Syrian refugees in areas they are not necessarily from, analysts say, Turkey will also remodel the regional demographics in northeast Syria.

The Kurdish forces have controlled the northeastern region of Syria since 2013, when al-Assad’s forces were driven south in fights against Islamic State. The Kurds also controlled areas in the northwest, such as al-Bab, Jarabulus and Afrin, but Turkey seized those areas after a number of attacks in 2016 and 2018.

For Ankara, having a Kurdish autonomous region at close quarters is a substantial threat, as the whole region could quickly constitute a rear base for the PKK.

Al-Assad’s Bitter Victory

Al-Assad’s regime condemned Turkey’s violation of Syrian territory, yet paradoxically benefits from the Sochi agreement insofar as its plan helps his government forces to regain territories conceded to the Kurds during the war.

The Sochi agreement stated that YPG forces should retreat from the Safe Zone and that Turkey would hold control of an area covering Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn (where Turkey said it would resettle 2 million refugees).

For Russia, which has long vouched for al-Assad’s government, the priority is to turn the tide by helping the Syrian government to regain territory in hopes of reconstituting a major regional ally.

Before Turkey’s incursion, the Syrian government only had about 60% of national territories. Regaining the areas the Kurds held can constitute up to 75% of Syrian land.

As both Turkey and al-Assad’s regime engage in a race to seize territory pushing back Kurdish forces, the Kurds’ aspirations to form an autonomous Kurdistan after the fall of Islamic State seem to be trailing off.

L'articolo Behind Turkey’s Obsession With Syria’s Safe Zone proviene da InsideOver.

Growing focus is now turning to the strategic Syrian Manbij in rural Aleppo – some 30 miles from the borders with Turkey, and a front line city only a few miles from Turkish soldiers and Turkish-backed militias in full control of nearby Jarablus – after it was retaken by the Syrian army in the recent deal with SDF a couple of days ago. Reports by some Syrian journalists in the Manbij area speak of at least one Turkish lieutenant being killed and a general being injured during the first such direct clash with the newly positioned Syrian army there. The Turkish defence ministry, however, has admitted that a soldier who was wounded in a mortar attack carried out from the city of Manbij had died, raising the death toll in the assault to two.

This brings the number of Turkish soldiers killed to six since the beginning of the one-week-old Turkish offensive into northeastern Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who confirmed the new fatalities among his servicemen added that 16 Turkish-backed Syrian rebel fighters were killed in action. More importantly perhaps, are the indications and ramifications of this serious incident, since it fuels fears of a direct military confrontation between the Syrian and Turkish armies, particularly in the wake of SAA’s current redeployment across thousands of kilometers covering border cities, town, villages, installations and front line positions, some extremely close or even bang opposite Turkish invading forces.

Pressure mounts on intransigent Erdogan

Amid growing regional as well as international condemnation of the Turkish offensive in Syria, several EU nations have frozen arms exports to Ankara, as some leading US legislators put final touches on their punitive measures against Turkey. Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham said he will introduce a bill on Thursday sanctioning Turkey for its offensive. “I will be introducing sanctions against Turkey Thursday and I do appreciate what the [Trump] administration has done against Turkey through executive action but more is to follow,” Graham told reporters in Washington. US Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Ankara on Wednesday to urge Turkey to halt its offensive, the White House said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Erdogan has ruled out a ceasefire with Kurds despite mounting condemnation and international outrage at his ongoing offensive in Syria. Turkish NTV network reported that Erdogan said he told US President Donald Trump that Turkey would never declare a ceasefire in northeastern Syria, telling reporters on a flight back from Baku, Azerbaijan, that “talks with Washington and Moscow on Syria’s Kobani and Manbij towns continued”.  He added that it was “not negative” for the Syrian army to enter Manbij as long as fighters in the area were cleared, and that he had told the US president that Turkey would “not negotiate with a terrorist organisation” in response to Trump’s mediation offer. “Turkey’s operation in northeastern Syria would contribute to counter-terrorism efforts, Syria’s territorial integrity and a political solution process,” Erdogan was reported to have told Russian president Vladimir Putin in a phone call.

Moscow assumes a bigger role, disapproves Turkish action

Six Russian petrol vehicles were seen patrolling the disengagement line near Manbij between the Syrian and Turkish armies as part of Moscow’s growing mission as guarantors preventing warring parties, especially the Turks, from crossing the agreed red lines and stopping any direct military confrontation between the two armies of Syria and Turkey, now face to face in various locations in the north and northeast of the country. Russia has also given Syrian Kurds assurances in the above-mentioned deal that should they hand over cities, towns and installations under their control, back to the Syrian army, it will prevent any Turkish attempt to displace the Kurdish and Arab civilians from their homeland. Despite Erdogan’s insistence that his operation “Spring Peace” will continue  with or without support” until a 20-mile deep safe corridor is established along 420 km of the borders, some Syrian army units are now positioned only four km from the borders with Turkey in some northern areas. No one needs major war that could get out of control with unpredictable consequences;

Russia appears to be firmly in charge of this mission.

Speaking to journalists in Abu Dhabi about the Turkish military offensive, Russia’s presidential envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, said Turkey has no right to deploy its forces in Syria permanently. According to earlier agreements, the Turkish military can only cross into Syria and go 5-10 km (3-6 miles) into its territory- (as agreed in the 1990’s Adana Agreement between Damascus and Ankara).  “We didn’t agree with the Turks on any aspects of their presence in Syria and we don’t approve of their actions,” he added.

More complications are on their way for Erdogan and his Syrian operation as serious disagreements between Russia and Turkey in Syria keep coming to the surface. The two countries are supposed to be working together to keep things under control until a political solution to the conflict is worked out. How far can Erdogan go in his defiance of international will power, and can Turkey put up with the fallout from his intransigence and precarious adventures that threaten regional security? are some of the open questions that remain unanswered for the time being.

L'articolo Two Turkish Officers Killed in First Clash with Syrian Army proviene da InsideOver.