BEIRUT —
Syria’s Kurds, bracing for a
Turkish land offensive against their autonomous northern region, face an
additional threat: being squeezed by warming ties between their foe Ankara and
the Syrian government.
اضافة اعلان
The Kurds — an ethnic minority who live in
mountainous regions across Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran — have long fought for
their own homeland, and Turkey brands their separatist groups “terrorists”.
Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has blamed
Kurdish armed groups for a deadly bomb attack in Istanbul this month, an
accusation they have strongly rejected.
In recent days, Turkey has launched air strikes on
hundreds of Kurdish targets in Iraq and Syria and threatened a new ground
operation into northern Syria, run by a Kurdish-led autonomous administration.
The region’s Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces
(SDF), backed by US troops, spearheaded the fight against the Islamic State
group in recent years.
Since Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011, relations
have sharply deteriorated between Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad,
whose forces have since regained vast territories with backing from Russia.
But now there are signs of a Russia-brokered
rapprochement between the Turkish and Syrian leaders, with Erdogan saying on
Wednesday that he considered a meeting with Assad “possible”.
How did Turkey-Syria
relations fray?
Before 2011, Ankara and
Damascus were political and economic partners, and Erdogan and Assad cultivated
a personal friendship.
But at the start of Syria’s popular uprising, Turkey
advised its ally to initiate political reforms, then urged Assad to “resign to
prevent bloodshed”.
In March 2012, Turkey closed its embassy in Damascus
and Erdogan started branding Assad a “murderer” and a “terrorist”.
Ankara started to welcome Syrian political
opposition groups and to support the rebels.
Since 2016, Turkey has launched three offensives
into Syria against Kurdish forces and it now controls a border strip inside
Syria, citing its own national security needs.
Turkish and Syrian forces clashed in early 2020 when
pro-Assad fighters were advancing toward the rebel-held Idlib province, before
Russia intervened to calm the situation.
How do Syrian Kurds
get on with Assad?
Before the war, Syria’s
Kurds faced discrimination and were barred, for example, from Kurdish language
schooling.
For the past decade, as Syrian troops vacated the
north and northeast, Kurds were able to establish limited self-rule.
The Kurds have avoided open hostilities with the
Assad goverment, except for some skirmishes, and maintained good ties with both
US and Russian forces.
Damascus rejects the autonomous administration,
accusing the Syrian Kurds of “separatism”.
Several rounds of talks have brought few results
but, after Russian mediation, the Syrian army was able to deploy limited forces
in Kurdish-run areas against the Turkish advance.
Are Syrian-Turkish
relations warming?
Turkey has softened its
position toward the
Syrian government in recent months, nudged by Russia.
Turkey’s foreign minister in August called for reconciliation
between Assad and rebel groups, and Turkey’s intelligence chief has visited
Damascus.
Erdogan said on Wednesday he considers direct talks
with Assad “possible”, saying that “there is no place for resentment in
politics”.
Analysts say
Russia, as it fights its war in Ukraine, is pushing for the rapprochement
between the two neighbors, which both consider Kurdish fighters a common
threat.
When the recent Turkish strikes killed around 20
Syrian military personnel, the response from Damascus was muted. Its deputy
foreign minister, Ayman Soussan, merely denounced “the pretexts invoked by the
Turkish occupation to justify its policy in Syria”.
The SDF’s commander-in-chief, Mazloum Abdi, told AFP
this week that he felt “Damascus’ position is weaker than during previous
Turkish offensives” and also claimed there had been “contacts between the two
parties”.
How would a thaw
impact Syrian Kurds?
Abdi charged that Turkey’s
aim is to reach an “agreement” with the Syrian government “to eradicate the
experience” of Kurdish self-rule.
Erdogan, who faces an election next year, would also
like to start sending back millions of Syrian refugees, observers say.
For Erdogan and Assad “to be on speaking terms ...
means they can make deals,” said analyst Aron Lund of think tank Century
International.
“They have common enemies and rivals, such as the
SDF. They can swap assets, for example by helping each other kill or silence
enemies located on the territory of the other, or arrange for mutual
extraditions.”
Lund stressed that “for the SDF, any serious
Ankara-Damascus reconciliation would be a disaster.”
“It removes their primary protection against Ankara
— which is Damascus, backstopped by Russia — and it allows Erdogan and Assad to
move in concert to resolve their Kurdish ‘problems’.”
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