Washington and Ankara shift course in Syria

After having kept the PYD and its military wing the YPG at arm’s length in order to not upset Turkey, the US seems to have shifted course in Syria.  

On Sunday, the US military said it had airdropped weapons, ammunition and medical supplies to Kurdish forces defending the Syrian city of Kobane against Islamic State militants. The airdrops were the first of their kind and followed several warnings from Ankara not to arm the YPG.

Just a few days before the US started airdropping the weapons, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan equated the main Syrian Kurdish group, the PYD, with the PKK. He said: “PYD is also a terrorist organization. It will be very wrong for America with whom we are allied and who we are together with in NATO to expect us to say ‘yes’ (to supporting the PYD) after openly announcing such support for a terrorist organization.”

Just a day after the US delivery of arms, Turkey said it would allow Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters to cross its borders and join Syrian Kurdish forces battling the Islamic State in Kobane. 

The dramatic shift in the US stance came against the background of a heightened sense of urgency in Washington to prevent the fall of Kobane. Turkey’s decision to open the border for Peshmerga forces is likely to be merely a tactical maneuver, a move it was forced to make due to the US decision.

US administration officials have made it clear that Kobane did not loom large in the US’s broader Syria and Iraq strategies, since Islamic State surrounded the town from three sides. That, however, has changed recently. The battle has riveted global media attention, with hundreds of cameras across the border in Turkey capturing images of the Islamic State assaults against the Kurdish residents of Kobane. With all eyes on the fierce battle, Kobane has become an important symbolic battleground for the Kurds, the Islamic State and the US.

Under-armed and under-resourced Kurdish defenders of the town have been waging a fierce battle against the Islamic State militants and the sophisticated weaponry that they captured from the Iraqi army. The Kurds have shown that they would fight to the death before they let their hometown fall. For them, Kobane has become a symbol of Kurdish defiance to Islamic State.

In an effort to break the Syrian Kurds’ ability to repel its advances, the jihadist group started pouring more militants and resources. After the US airstrikes began, Kobane has presented an opportunity for both the US and the Islamic State to wage a propaganda war against each other. Within a matter of weeks, the once-obscure Syrian town of Kobane has become the epicenter of the U.S. fight to degrade and demoralize the Islamic State.

Accompanying the growing importance of Kobane has been an understanding within the US administration that air bombings alone would not be enough to deal a blow to the Islamic State and the Western-backed Syrian opposition has been too-divided to count on. The US needs local partners that can wage an effective war on the ground against the Islamic State. The PKK’s effective fight against the jihadists, and its secular ideology, have turned the PKK-linked groups fighting in Kobane into potential American allies on the ground.

The US decision to arm the YPG came at a time when Washington-Ankara ties are strained due to what the US views as Turkey’s foot-dragging over joining the US-led military coalition against the Islamic State. The US move, coupled with the mounting domestic and international pressure on Turkey to open the border to allow military aid in Kobane, seems to have narrowed Turkey’s room for maneuver, pushing Ankara to pick the least risky course. 

Allowing the Peshmerga forces across its territory to defend Kurds in Kobane is an easier sell for the government domestically, given Ankara’s close ties with the KRG. To Ankara, helping the Syrian Kurds through Peshmerga is less likely to strengthen the hands of the YPG/PYD in the long run due to long running rivalry between the KRG and the PYD.

The US and Turkish decision to help the Kurds of Kobane militarily marks an abrupt shift in both countries’ positions. If the recent decision by Ankara proves to be more than a tactical maneuver and the US follows through on its recent announcement, this could open a new chapter in Turkey’s relations with the Kurds of the region, remove a major irritant in Turkey’s Syria strategy and lead to closer cooperation between Ankara and Washington in the fight against the Islamic State. 

* Gonul Tol is Executive Director of the Center for Turkish Studies at the Middle East Institute.