High time Washington called Erdogan’s bluff
The credo of Recep Tayyip Erdogan since 2015 has been simple: when in trouble, beat up some Kurds. Even though his country is spoilt for choice when it comes to daunting problems – and risks fresh US sanctions for its purchase of Russian missile defense – the only thing that seemingly concentrates the Turkish president’s mind is the mythical security threat from Turkish and Syrian Kurds.
Hence, the orchestrated build-up of Turkish forces along the border with Syria accompanied by spine-chilling threats from ministers and officials. Ankara’s strategy of brinkmanship and intimidation has worked so well that Trump administration officials have reportedly agreed to establish a joint operations center with their Turkish counterparts to oversee a so-called safe zone.
Seldom has news of an agreement been greeted with so much scorn, except presumably from diehard Erdogan supporters. Even a source in the Bashar al-Assad government’s foreign ministry claimed that Syria’s Kurds, having “accepted to become a tool in this aggressive US-Turkish project, bear a historical responsibility in this regard”. Nothing could be farther from the truth of course.
Syria’s Kurds have probably as little a desire to see Turkish military patrols on their territory as they have of entering into a power-sharing agreement with Damascus. But, as everyone knows, they are neither taking part in the negotiations nor are in a position to dictate terms. The US negotiators too can scarcely be accused of appeasing their Turkish counterparts when the stance of their own president has been erratic, if not downright disloyal.
After dramatically declaring victory over the Islamic State group (ISIS) in northeastern Syria in December last year, Donald Trump signaled the imminent withdrawal of US forces that had been helping the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as part of an international coalition. The announcements produced a brief frisson of delight in Ankara, Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus – and a predictable backlash from the US national-security establishment.
It was only after the resignations of some key national-security officials, notably Defense Secretary James Mattis and the presidential envoy for the anti-ISIS campaign Brett McGurk, and resolutions introduced by Republican legislators that Trump agreed to keep a skeleton deterrent force in place to support the SDF. Since then, the Syrian Kurds have realized that discretion is always the better part of valor when you are one of the weaker sides in a Middle East conflict.
Theoretically speaking, in a world where persecution of vulnerable Muslim minorities is rampant, from Crimea to Kashgar, Erdogan’s Islamist government could have easily adopted one such issue as its own and spent its diplomatic capital on alleviating suffering and saving lives. At least the AK Party’s support base, comprised of conservative, pious Turks, would have remained motivated. However, such an approach might have jeopardized Turkey’s political and economic ties with Russia, China, and other powers whose “tough guy” leaders have a lot in common with Erdogan.
So, what Erdogan has chosen is a cause that promises to rouse the passions of religious Turks yet does not risk angering powerful countries that systematically persecute their Muslim minorities and prevent a resolution of the civil conflict in Syria. Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Syria’s People’s Protection Units (YPG) jointly constitute the kind of enemy that Erdogan would like to go to war with for their potential to solidify his support among Turkish nationalists and conservative Islamists.
An added incentive for an open-ended Turkish political and military campaign against the PKK and YPG is that even supporters of ISIS and al-Qaeda would not disagree with it. Seen through Erdogan’s ideologically tinted lens, the Kurds of Turkey and Syria are an embodiment of the detestable liberal social values and resilient spirit that stand in the way of a Middle East and North Africa takeover by conservative religious parties that missed the Arab Spring bus.
Beneath all the talk of “terrorism” and “security”, Erdogan’s objectives amount to completing the Islamic State’s unfinished business of defeating the Kurds in Kobane, Ras al-Ayn, Sinjar, and Manbij. The few attacks that Kurdish rebels have been able to carry out on Turkish soil or against Turkish interests elsewhere are hardly the sort of challenge a normal government would prioritize at the expense of such goals as ending domestic political polarization, mending a broken economy, and repairing ties with NATO allies.
So what should US negotiators do to keep the northeast Syrian powder keg from blowing up?
To start with, they should stop treating the Turkish accusations against the YPG as the gospel truth. Instead, the Turkish side should be asked to provide concrete examples that would inspire confidence in their leadership’s intentions. There can be no glossing over the precedent set by the brutal takeover of Afrin in 2018 by the Turkish military and its local Syrian proxies and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of ethnic Kurds from the canton.
Second, the Turks should be asked, as a trust-building measure, to release the jailed members and lawmakers of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), including the two former co-chairs, Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag.
In an opinion piece for Rudaw on May 31, Giran Ozcan, the HDP representative in the US, correctly noted that “nothing unifies the states of Turkey, Iran, and Iraq quite like opposition to the Kurdish aspiration for self-determination”. Far more than Iran and Iraq, this is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in Turkey, a secular republic that ideally should have evolved by now into a confident paragon of tolerance, pluralism, freedom of expression, and democratic values.
Finally, the American negotiators should not be shy about acknowledging humanity’s undying debt to the SDF for turning the tide in the war against ISIS. While the Turks deserve praise for generously opening their doors to displaced Syrians among other political exiles, their contribution to the defeat of ISIS should not be viewed as bigger than it is. If anything, the Turkish government has tried from the very start to undermine the Kurds’ fight against ISIS, showing utter disregard for international public opinion or history’s verdict.
Now Erdogan, true to form, is trying to bluff and bully his way out of daunting domestic problems. The sooner the Americans decide to call his bluff, the better for the Middle East.
Hence, the orchestrated build-up of Turkish forces along the border with Syria accompanied by spine-chilling threats from ministers and officials. Ankara’s strategy of brinkmanship and intimidation has worked so well that Trump administration officials have reportedly agreed to establish a joint operations center with their Turkish counterparts to oversee a so-called safe zone.
Seldom has news of an agreement been greeted with so much scorn, except presumably from diehard Erdogan supporters. Even a source in the Bashar al-Assad government’s foreign ministry claimed that Syria’s Kurds, having “accepted to become a tool in this aggressive US-Turkish project, bear a historical responsibility in this regard”. Nothing could be farther from the truth of course.
Syria’s Kurds have probably as little a desire to see Turkish military patrols on their territory as they have of entering into a power-sharing agreement with Damascus. But, as everyone knows, they are neither taking part in the negotiations nor are in a position to dictate terms. The US negotiators too can scarcely be accused of appeasing their Turkish counterparts when the stance of their own president has been erratic, if not downright disloyal.
After dramatically declaring victory over the Islamic State group (ISIS) in northeastern Syria in December last year, Donald Trump signaled the imminent withdrawal of US forces that had been helping the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as part of an international coalition. The announcements produced a brief frisson of delight in Ankara, Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus – and a predictable backlash from the US national-security establishment.
It was only after the resignations of some key national-security officials, notably Defense Secretary James Mattis and the presidential envoy for the anti-ISIS campaign Brett McGurk, and resolutions introduced by Republican legislators that Trump agreed to keep a skeleton deterrent force in place to support the SDF. Since then, the Syrian Kurds have realized that discretion is always the better part of valor when you are one of the weaker sides in a Middle East conflict.
Theoretically speaking, in a world where persecution of vulnerable Muslim minorities is rampant, from Crimea to Kashgar, Erdogan’s Islamist government could have easily adopted one such issue as its own and spent its diplomatic capital on alleviating suffering and saving lives. At least the AK Party’s support base, comprised of conservative, pious Turks, would have remained motivated. However, such an approach might have jeopardized Turkey’s political and economic ties with Russia, China, and other powers whose “tough guy” leaders have a lot in common with Erdogan.
So, what Erdogan has chosen is a cause that promises to rouse the passions of religious Turks yet does not risk angering powerful countries that systematically persecute their Muslim minorities and prevent a resolution of the civil conflict in Syria. Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Syria’s People’s Protection Units (YPG) jointly constitute the kind of enemy that Erdogan would like to go to war with for their potential to solidify his support among Turkish nationalists and conservative Islamists.
An added incentive for an open-ended Turkish political and military campaign against the PKK and YPG is that even supporters of ISIS and al-Qaeda would not disagree with it. Seen through Erdogan’s ideologically tinted lens, the Kurds of Turkey and Syria are an embodiment of the detestable liberal social values and resilient spirit that stand in the way of a Middle East and North Africa takeover by conservative religious parties that missed the Arab Spring bus.
Beneath all the talk of “terrorism” and “security”, Erdogan’s objectives amount to completing the Islamic State’s unfinished business of defeating the Kurds in Kobane, Ras al-Ayn, Sinjar, and Manbij. The few attacks that Kurdish rebels have been able to carry out on Turkish soil or against Turkish interests elsewhere are hardly the sort of challenge a normal government would prioritize at the expense of such goals as ending domestic political polarization, mending a broken economy, and repairing ties with NATO allies.
So what should US negotiators do to keep the northeast Syrian powder keg from blowing up?
To start with, they should stop treating the Turkish accusations against the YPG as the gospel truth. Instead, the Turkish side should be asked to provide concrete examples that would inspire confidence in their leadership’s intentions. There can be no glossing over the precedent set by the brutal takeover of Afrin in 2018 by the Turkish military and its local Syrian proxies and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of ethnic Kurds from the canton.
Second, the Turks should be asked, as a trust-building measure, to release the jailed members and lawmakers of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), including the two former co-chairs, Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag.
In an opinion piece for Rudaw on May 31, Giran Ozcan, the HDP representative in the US, correctly noted that “nothing unifies the states of Turkey, Iran, and Iraq quite like opposition to the Kurdish aspiration for self-determination”. Far more than Iran and Iraq, this is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in Turkey, a secular republic that ideally should have evolved by now into a confident paragon of tolerance, pluralism, freedom of expression, and democratic values.
Finally, the American negotiators should not be shy about acknowledging humanity’s undying debt to the SDF for turning the tide in the war against ISIS. While the Turks deserve praise for generously opening their doors to displaced Syrians among other political exiles, their contribution to the defeat of ISIS should not be viewed as bigger than it is. If anything, the Turkish government has tried from the very start to undermine the Kurds’ fight against ISIS, showing utter disregard for international public opinion or history’s verdict.
Now Erdogan, true to form, is trying to bluff and bully his way out of daunting domestic problems. The sooner the Americans decide to call his bluff, the better for the Middle East.
Arnab Neil Sengupta is an independent journalist and commentator on the Middle East. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw. |