On Jan. 30, the United Arab Emirates' minister of state for foreign affairs condemned Turkey’s plan to establish a buffer zone in northeastern Syria and said Ankara’s efforts to geographically isolate the Syrian Kurds worried both the UAE and the United States. Anwar Gargash justified his criticisms of Turkish conduct in Syria by challenging Ankara’s conflation of Kurdish nationalism with terrorism and emphasizing the constructive role that Kurdish militias played in defeating the Islamic State (IS) in Syria. 

Gargash’s expressions of solidarity with Kurdish nationalist forces in Syria reflect the UAE’s desire to contain Turkish influence in Syria and insert itself as a major stakeholder in the resolution of the Syrian conflict. The UAE’s critical attitude towards Turkish belligerence in northeastern Syria is the product of a broader rivalry between Abu Dhabi and Ankara, which was triggered by Turkey’s alignment with Qatar, Ankara’s close ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and competing interests in the Horn of Africa. Tensions over these issues steadily intensified after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the UAE of supporting the 2016 coup against his government, but Syria was initially a secondary flashpoint for confrontation between Turkey and the UAE.

The extension of the UAE-Turkey geopolitical rivalry to Syria became apparent in January 2018, when Abu Dhabi stridently criticized Turkey’s decision to launch Operation Olive Branch and militarily intervene in the Kurdish majority region of Afrin. On Jan. 22, Gargash called for increased coordination between Arab countries on collective security matters. Throughout the offensive, UAE-based media outlets described the People’s Protection Units in Afrin as a resistance movement against Turkish occupation and stridently criticized the “looting” of Afrin by Turkish forces in March 2018.

Although the intensity of the conflict in northern Syria cooled after Turkey vanquished a pro-Syrian government insurgency in Afrin on March 21, the UAE continued to support Kurdish factions that resisted Turkey’s presence in northeastern Syria. In coordination with Saudi Arabia, UAE military advisers allegedly held a series of meetings with Kurdish Democratic Party and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) officials at the US base in northeastern Syria and helped prepare Kurdish militias against an eventual Turkish military intervention.