Kurdish leaders still wary of 'big war' in northern Syria despite US-Turkey deal

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Kurdish leaders in Syria have continued to issue warnings of the consequences of a Turkish offensive on northern Syria, as Turkey and the United States reach an agreement on Wednesday for the establishment of a joint operations center and “peace corridor” in the area.

 
The two parties aim to establish a joint operations center in Turkey in order to “coordinate and manage the creation of a safe zone in northern Syria as soon as possible,” the US Embassy in Turkey said in a statement on Wednesday. They also agreed on turning the safe zone in northern Syria into a “peace corridor” for the return home of Syrian refugees.

“Every effort shall be made so that displaced Syrians can return to their country,” the statement added.

The dimensions of the safe zone have yet to be decided upon. Turkey has reportedly suggested a buffer zone 40 kilometers wide and 450 kilometers long, while US officials say its width should be a fraction of that, at up to 15 km. A senior YPG commander previously said that they may accept a yet slimmer five kilometer-wide buffer zone.

The People’s Protection Units (YPG) is a Kurdish armed group which forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). It is considered by Turkey to be part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), designated by the Turkish government as a terrorist organization.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly threatened to launch a new offensive in the East of Euphrates region of northern Syria, in an effort to repel the Kurdish-led forces from its southern border. Erdogan said the operation will not only stop migration from Syria but actually “accelerate” the return of some 3.6 million Syrian refugees from Turkey.

“We’ll move the process which we started with the Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations forward to a different phase very soon,” Erdogan told an audience in Ankara on Tuesday.

 

Euphrates Shield was launched in 2016 by the Turkish Army and its Syrian militia proxies against the Islamic State (ISIS) and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to take control of Jarabulus, northwest of Aleppo, while Operation Olive Branch was launched in early 2018 to remove Kurdish forces from Afrin in the far northwest of the country.

 

Syrian Kurdish leaders have issued weary warnings about the consequences of fresh Turkish incursions.

 

Badran Jia Kurd, adviser to the Kurdish-led administration in northern Syria told Reuters on Wednesday that any Turkish attack on the northern parts of Syria will result in creation of a “big war.” He rebuked European powers and Russia for their failure to mediate tension between Turkey and the SDF in northern Syria.

 

With the deployment of soldiers to the Turkish border in fear of imminent attack becoming a priority, the SDF is no longer able to target Islamic State (ISIS) sleeper cells in the region, Jia Kurd said.

 

The increased likelihood of ISIS resurgence was also warned of in the US Secretary of Defense’s Lead Inspector General report to US Congress published on Friday, which said that ISIS are “working to rebuild their capabilities” in Iraq and Syria.

 

The Trump administration-ordered reduction of US force presence has limited training and expertise available for counter-ISIS forces in northern Syria, adds the Lead Inspector General report.

“If Turkey attacks northern Syria, they will not stop until they invade the whole country, not only northern part of Syria,” Samira al-Aziz, member of the Future Syria party’s general council in Darbasiya, Hasakah governorate, told Hawar News, media close to the ruling authority of Rojava and the Self-Administration Authority of Northern and Northeastern Syria (NES) on Monday.

  
Aldar Khalil, head of the Relations Department of TEV-DEM, the ruling Kurdish coalition of the NES, told Rudaw on Tuesday they had appealed to the Assad regime in Damascus for assistance in preventing a Turkish offensive.

“We tried to reach out to the regime through the Russians to reach an agreement through which we could protect this region,” Khalil said.