Ankara's Syrian plan falters as Moscow sets up in Afrin
Turkey's move to enlist the Russians against the Syrian Kurds is not working out, as both the United States and Russia deepen their ties with the Syrian Kurds and Operation Euphrates Shield appears to have reached the limits of its expansion.
Turkey’s last-ditch efforts to harness Russian military and diplomatic heft to counter the Syrian Kurds and unravel their alliance with the United States are showing few signs of succeeding, like much else in the country’s ill-fated Syrian policy.
If anything, both the United States and Russia are steadily deepening their ties with the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and its Arab allies who operate under the umbrella of the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF). And viewed from Ankara, they are doing so at Turkey’s expense.
The latest blows came from Russia. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov cranked up pressure on Turkey today to drop its long-running objections to the participation of the YPG’s political arm, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), in the Geneva peace talks. “We will continue to look for solutions to this issue with our Turkish partners … but it is not possible to postpone it in the long run,” Lavrov said.
On March 20, the YPG declared that Russia is setting up a military base in the northwestern region of Afrin to help train its fighters in “modern warfare techniques.” YPG spokesman Redur Xelil declared that it was the first agreement of its kind. Russia denied that it is establishing a base.
