PKK claims Turkey offered YPG 'everything' if they helped topple Assad

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A top Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) commander on Thursday claimed that in the early years of the Syrian uprising, Turkish officials tried and failed to enlist the support of the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in bringing down the Damascus regime. The revelation is a surprise as Turkey considers the YPG a terror organization and has launched several military operations against the force.

Murat Karayilan, a top PKK commander, told his party’s Sterk TV during an interview aired on Thursday that Turkey in 2013 offered to give the YPG anything it wanted if the group helped Ankara and its Syrian mercenaries topple Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Ankara has been the main backer of opposition groups in the fight against the regime since the onset of the uprising. 

“Back then, the Turkish state asked the Kurds to fight Damascus. I know that it said ‘If you control Qamishli and the border crossing with Turkey, we will give everything. Then go to [Sheikh] Maqsoud in Aleppo and fight the regime so that Aleppo is destroyed.’ They [Turkey] wanted to destroy Aleppo so that they could head to Damascus,” said Karayilan. Sheikh Maqsoud is a Kurdish-majority neighbourhood of Aleppo.

“Kurds did not accept this,” Karayilan said. “Kurds insisted not to fight Syria, otherwise Syria would be destroyed.”

The PKK commander noted that this was one of the reasons why Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was prime minister at the time, changed his policy towards the YPG, who had been on friendly footing with Ankara.

Salih Muslim, co-chair of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the political wing of the YPG, made headlines in the summer of 2013 when he visited Ankara and met with senior Turkish officials. He told Turkish state media at the time, “We are friends of Turkey and we care about our relations,” adding that they had good ties with the Ankara-backed opposition and were seeking to improve them. 

Ahmed Davutoglu, then foreign minister of Turkey, was cited by state media as saying that the messages Salih gave to the public “were in harmony with Turkey’s principles.” 

However, the PYD and Ankara failed to reach any agreements on Syria and instead became arch-enemies. Turkey has launched three major military operations against the YPG, the backbone of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in northern Syria since 2016, invading key towns like Afrin with the support of its Syrian proxies. Ankara has vowed that it will never permit any Kurdish autonomy in Syria and is threatening a fourth offensive. Salih Muslim is now at the top of the Turkey’s terror list.

Ankara considers the YPG as the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, with whom Turkey was engaged in peace negotiations from 2013 until they collapsed in 2015. Karayilan said this peace process paved the way for talks between Ankara and the YPG.

Neither Ankara nor the YPG has commented on the offer of cooperation.

Turkish writer and journalist Cengiz Candar says in his book, Turkey’s Mission Impossible: War and Peace with the Kurds, that he was on Erdogan’s private plane from Erbil to Ankara in March 2011 when the then-prime minister told him off the record that he was trying to avoid any tensions along the border with Syria to prevent a wave of refugees.

“[W]e cannot allow a similar refugee flow as we experienced with the refugees coming from northern Iraq in 1991. We cannot establish our lines of defense within our territory,” he said, adding that he had advised Assad several times “if you do not initiate reforms, you will lose the people.”

The YPG-led SDF controls northeast Syria (Rojava) where nearly 1,000 US soldiers are assisting the Kurdish force in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS).

Erdogan, who has previously called on Assad to step down and accused him of being a dictator, is now seeking a rapprochement with Damascus, a move widely seen as an effort to please voters ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections. Demand is high in Turkey for millions of Syrian refugees to return home.

The Turkish president has repeatedly said in recent months that he wants to meet his Syrian counterpart who seems skeptical about any rapprochement with Ankara. There have been several high-level talks between Ankara and Damascus recently, mediated by Russia.

Assad told the Russian Presidential Special Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentiev last month that in order for the meetings to be “fruitful” and for the three countries to reach tangible goals, the trilateral meetings should be “based on prior coordination and planning between Syria and Moscow.”

The Syrian president also said “occupation and support for terrorism” should be ended, in reference to Turkey’s invasion of Syrian lands and support for Syrian rebels, who are considered terrorists by the regime.

The détente between Ankara and Damascus has been strongly condemned in Turkish-held areas of Syria, with protesters refusing any agreement with Assad. The US has said that it does not support the talks and Syrian Kurds have expressed their suspicions regarding the meetings.

Karayilan warned in his latest interview that Assad will be making a mistake if he agrees to normalize relations with Erdogan, claiming that Erdogan’s sole goal is to retain his seat in the upcoming elections in mid-May.

“Therefore, the government in Damascus should not make a mistake. Bashar al-Assad should not make a mistake. Check the history. Why did Mr Hafez al-Assad remain in power for a long time? Because of the Kurds' formal and informal support,” he said, referring to the Syrian president’s father and predecessor.

The Syrian Kurdish autonomous administration has also tried to engage with Damascus, but talks have stalled.