Over a month has passed since the campaign to liberate Raqqa, the so-called capital of the Islamic State, was launched and Turkey is still smarting from the US administration’s decision to conduct the operations in tandem with a Syrian Kurdish militia that Turkish leaders insist are terrorists. Some view Turkey’s escalating attacks against the group known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in and around the city of Afrin as a calculated effort to weaken them there while the Syrian Kurds devote the bulk of their assets to the Raqqa front.
Turkish bitterness was on full display recently at a press conference at the Turkish Embassy in Washington to mark the first anniversary of the failed July 15 coup. In a keynote address, Turkey’s ambassador, Serdar Kilic, called the decision to liberate Raqqa with the YPG and its Arab allies in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) “a strategic mistake.” Kilic argued, “The operation to liberate Raqqa could have been done by the United States and Turkey,” thus reviving the debate about the US decision to partner with the Syrian Kurds.
