Assad, Turkey hamper US assistance for Syria
The Assad regime’s territorial gains and the Turkish offensive in Afrin are conspiring to keep the world’s largest aid donor on the sidelines.
The Bashar al-Assad regime’s political and territorial gains and the Turkish offensive in Afrin are dealing a double blow to the United States’ ability to get involved in rebuilding Syria.
Washington’s reluctance to help Assad cement his hold on power is ensuring that the world’s largest aid donor remains on the sidelines of international reconstruction efforts. But even short-term humanitarian relief is in jeopardy following Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria to battle US-backed Kurdish forces last month.
Speaking today at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event, Karen Decker, the director of the State Department’s Syrian Transition and Response Team, lambasted Turkey’s ongoing crackdown on nongovernmental aid organizations as an “emotional response” to the US support for the Kurds. Decker went on to describe Turkey as Washington’s “higher partner” compared with the Kurds, but bluntly said it was “incredibly short-sighted in how they have responded to humanitarian and stabilization assistance that’s going into western Syria.”
In unusually harsh language, she called Ankara’s crackdown “completely unacceptable” but said “they haven’t completely closed the doors.”
