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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Russia has urged Turkey to refrain from carrying out a fresh military operation against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria as it may cause further escalations in the war-torn country, a top Russian official said on Thursday.
Ankara has recently renewed threats to carry out a new military operation against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria’s Manbij and Tal Rifaat towns in a bid to complete the 30 kilometer “safe zone” it began creating along its southern borders in recent years. Turkish President Recep Tayyip has said his country’s army is making preparations for such an offensive.
Russia, Turkey and Iran held the 18th round of Astana talks in the Kazakh capital city of Nur-Sultan on Wednesday, lasting for two days. Following the meeting, Special Russian Presidential Representative for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev told reporters on Thursday that he has urged Turkish officials to ditch the idea of conducting a new campaign against the SDF.
"A final decision on the operation has not been made yet and, therefore, we called on our Turkish partners and are urging them to refrain from such military actions on Syrian soil," the Russian envoy was cited as saying by the Russian state-owned TASS.
“We told our Turkish friends in earnest that this might further escalate the situation and, in particular, lead to an armed confrontation. This may encourage separatist sentiments of the so-called Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, in which neither Turkey, nor Russia, nor Iraq, nor Iran is interested," he added, referring to the Kurdish administration in northeast Syria (Rojava).
Turkey claims that the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the backbone of the US-allied SDF, is the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which is an armed group fighting for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey. Ankara considers both the PKK and YPG as terrorist organziations and a threat to its national security.
Lavrentyev said that a new military operation would fail to fully resolve Turkey's natural security issues. "We believe and frankly pointed out that the military operation would not resolve all those problems that exist today and, primarily, it would not fully resolve the problem of Turkey’s national security.”
Turkey has carried out two major military operations against the SDF in northern Syria since 2018, invading Kurdish cities of Afrin, Gire Spi (Tal Abyad) and Sari Kani (Ras al-Ain). The SDF has said that it takes Turkish threats seriously.
The Astana “peace” process was launched by Russia, Turkey and Iran in 2017 in the hope of resolving Syria’s issues through dialogue. The three countries have acted as the guarantors of the process but so far failed to reach any concrete results.
Russia and Iran are the main backers of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, while Turkey backs the country’s rebels.
The Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday that the three countries “underlined their strong commitment to Syria's political unity and territorial integrity and the leading role of the Astana process in the peaceful settlement of the Syrian issue.”
They also “reaffirmed that all attempts to create illegitimate self-rule initiatives under the pretext of combating terrorism are unacceptable,” in reference to the Rojava administration.
The next meeting of the Astana process will be held before 2023.
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