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Turkey, Rebels, Kurds & Assad in northern Syria: Contradictions in moves
towards regional counterrevolutionary alliance
By Michael Karadjis
https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/turkey-rebels-kurds-assad-in-northern-syria-contradictions-in-moves-towards-regional-counterrevolutionary-alliance/
One week the United States rushed to the defence of its Kurdish allies,
People’s Protection Units (YPG), when the Assad regime bombed them in
Hasake; the following week many pro-YPG voices were accusing the same US
of betrayal, for supporting Turkey’s intervention into Syria, with 5000
Free Syrian Army (FSA) troops, to expel ISIS from the border town of
Jarablus.
However, fickleness would not be a useful explanation of US behaviour.
Rather, both events suggest that the outlines of a regional
understanding on a reactionary solution to the Syrian crisis may be in
the making. ..........................
..... Like the US, both Russia and Iran appear to have greenlighted the
Jarablus operation. While Russia has merely expressed “concern,” Iran
initially remained “conspicuously silent,” while later suggesting that
Turkey needs to move more quickly to complete its “anti-terrorist”
actions in order to withdraw. Iranian sources have claimed that Turkey
and Assad are coordinating through Iran.
While the Assad regime formally denounced a violation of its
“sovereignty,” Turkey claims to have informed it beforehand, with the
deputy prime minister noting that “we believe Damascus is also bothered
by what was happening in and around Manbij. They recently hit PYD
targets.” Yildarim also suggested that Damascus understands that the PYD
“has started to become a threat.” In the midst of the Jarablus
operation, Yildarim declared on September 2 “We have normalised our
relations with Russia and Israel. Now, God willing, Turkey has taken a
serious initiative to normalise relations with Egypt and Syria.”
However, the implication here that Assad may be secretly approving the
Turkish operation, due to joint hostility to a Kurdish entity, has some
holes in it. Most obviously, the fact that Turkey is working with his
FSA, who are the very forces trying to overthrow his regime, regardless
of his opposition to Kurdish autonomy. Furthermore, the US support for
this operation also comes with a question mark (and not only because
Turkey apparently acted unilaterally at the last moment and upstaged US
plans to exercise more control over the operation). The entire basis of
US support to any rebels to fight ISIS is the demand that they drop the
fight against Assad – the ill-fated Division 30 in the north, the New
Syrian Army in the southeast - while of course the SDF, the US’ favoured
anti-ISIS force, mostly doesn't fight Assad by definition.
Thus Erdogan’s push for a “safe zone” in northern Syria last year met
out-of-hand US rejection, because the Syrian rebel groups who Erdogan
wanted to let control it would have used it as a base to fight the
regime. US State Department spokesman Mark Toner stressed “we've been
pretty clear from the podium and elsewhere saying there's no zone, no
safe haven, we're not talking about that here,” insisting it could only
support an “ISIS-free zone” but not any kind of safe zone and certainly
not one patrolled by the rebels.
But something important changed in February this year. By bombing the
YPG/SDF into Tal Rifaat and other Arab-populated northern Aleppo
regions, Russia cut the rebels in the Azaz-Mare pocket off from Aleppo
city and thus effectively cut them off from the front against Assad. So
now even though they want to fight Assad, and none have made the pledge
to drop that fight, effectively they can't. So backing them to take over
the Jarablus-Azaz border strip became "safe" from the American point of
view – and safer than previously from Assad’s view as well. How ironic
that it was the YPG's own eviction of the rebels in Tal Rifaat that has
enabled US support for the Turkish operation that has blocked the YPG’s
“linking” scheme!
Then there is a final reason why Assad may be grudgingly approving of
Turkey launching an FSA-led operation against ISIS in the north: it
means fighters from Azaz-Mare and from Idlib moving to a more distant
theatre rather than the key battleground of Aleppo. By early September,
in the midst of the northern operation, the regime began a new
determined attempt to re-impose the total siege that was broken several
weeks ago in the truly magnificent operation by some 30 rebel groups
working together. This again raises the theory popular among some
pro-revolution circles: Assad allows Turkey to stop YPG in return for
Turkey abandoning Aleppo rebels to Assad. Conspiracy theory? Perhaps.
But not out of the question. And if true, catastrophic in its
implications.
Full:
https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/turkey-rebels-kurds-assad-in-northern-syria-contradictions-in-moves-towards-regional-counterrevolutionary-alliance/
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