War with Isis: Is Turkey's buffer zone in Syria a matter of self-defence – or just anti-Kurd?
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Version 0 of 1. Turkey has taken the first step towards setting up a buffer zone in northern Syria by assisting Turkmen militia to enter the country and set up base near the border. Its army enabled the fighters to set themselves up in the town of Azaz after providing them with an armoured escort through a border crossing at Bab al-Salama. But the move to put the Turkmen in control of a swathe of Syrian territory – the first such intervention during the four and a half years of the civil war – has heightened fears of ethnic strife with the Kurds, amid accusations that the Turkish government is attempting to harness divisions with potentially dangerous consequences. Turkmen leaders claim that thousands from their ethnic minority in Syria and Iraq, with a language and culture akin to the Turks’, have been forced from their homes in northern Syria by Kurdish militia – some driven towards Isis-controlled areas. The Turkish government recently launched a military campaign against the PKK, the Kurdish armed group which operates within Turkey and northern Iraq, and which has used terrorism in its drive to create an independent Kurdish state. A related Kurdish militia in northern Syria, the YPG, is seen by the US as one of the most effective groups in combating Isis, and has received US air support. PKK fighters resting as they patrol the front line in the Makhmur area, near Mosul, during the ongoing conflict against Islamic State (IS) jihadists But Turkey is hostile to the YPG and wants to prevent it taking control of the entire northern border of Syria – with critics saying that is why it pushed for the buffer zone. Turkey has also been accused of bombing YPG units rather than focusing on Isis. The Turkish military has carried out more than 500 strikes against the PKK and YPG in the last month while targeting Isis on three occasions, according to Western officials, who are concerned that Ankara is using the anti-Isis alliance as cover. Turkey maintains that Kurdish ambitions for an independent homeland have been rekindled by the chaos of the wars in Syria and Iraq, and says that attacks on Turkish forces by the PKK, such as the killing of eight soldiers on Wednesday, show the true face of Kurdish nationalism. US officials are said to have been unaware of the plans to dispatch the Turkmen fighters. Earlier this week Feridun Sinirlioglu, under-secretary at the Turkish foreign ministry, declared that any Isis or Kurdish fighters attempting to infiltrate the area would be “neutralised by both Turkish and US military forces”. Washington, which has use of the Turkish air base at Incerlik for raids on Isis, has disputed Mr Sinirlioglu’s statement regarding the Kurds. This is not the only dispute between the two Nato allies over the proposed security area which is due to stretch from the east of Aleppo to the Euphrates. Ankara has repeatedly called for a “no-fly zone”, but Washington has refused to accept that as it may require shooting down Assad-regime warplanes, with the consequent risk of being dragged into a war on another front. Critics say that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has adopted an increasingly aggressive stance against the Kurds in order to play the “patriotic card” in an election likely to be held in November. His ruling AKP failed to secure an overall majority in a poll in June, and attempts to form a coalition government have failed. Some Turkmen organisations, too, say they have good reason for grievances against the Kurds within Syria. One Turkman elder, Ahmed el-Hac Salih, claimed that a prominent Kurdish commander warned Turkmen north of Raqqa last month: “If you do not leave, we will give the coordinates of your houses and schools to the international anti-Daesh (Isis) coalition to bomb you.” This threat worked, he said, and “people left”. The Turkmen claim that by the end of June the YPG had evicted 5,000 people from Hammam Turkmen Semelli, an area they captured from Isis; a further 8,000 in surrounding areas were driven towards Raqqa. The Turkmen say the buffer zone will protect them from the regime, Isis and the YPG. Abdurrahman Mustafa, chairman of the Syrian Turkmen Assembly, said “This is a very important opportunity, we have been calling for a safety zone for two years. If this had happened earlier, people would not have died from Assad’s barrel bombs and we wouldn’t be talking about Daesh and YPG. Turkmen are fed up with Daesh and YPG.” Supporters celebrate outside the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) headquarters A senior British diplomat said: “It was crucial to have the Turks on board in the fight against Isis and the price they are extracting is their operations against the Kurds. Bombings by the PKK obviously fuel this, but we are trying to persuade the Turks to show restraint; the Americans certainly want to keep the YPG on board.” He said there were already problems between the YPG and the Turkmen near Azaz, and dispatching Turkmen militia into the area did not help. The YPG claims to control an area the size of Qatar and Kuwait combined, doubling the territory it holds between the Euphrates and the Syrian border to 8,000sq miles. It also controls parts of Aleppo and Afrin in the northwest of Syria. Some 5,000 recruits have joined recently, and the independent Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates the YPG’s overall strength to be nearly 50,000. Redur Xelil, a senior YPG official, said the focus was on consolidating recent gains, but added: “Offence is the best form of defence, against Daesh or any other groups.” |