FISH KHABUR, Iraq — At the Halifax Security Forum, an annual event attended by high-powered government officials, business titans and assorted other bigwigs from across the globe, national security adviser Robert O’Brien took the stage with PBS’ Nick Shifrin and let the cat out of the bag. When the veteran correspondent grilled O’Brien Nov. 23 about President Donald Trump’s decision to keep US troops in northeastern Syria “for the oil,” noting that the Pentagon’s Syrian Kurdish allies were selling it to the Syrian regime in defiance of sanctions, O’Brien responded, “Some of it goes to the regime. Some of it is used locally. Some of it goes to Iraqi Kurdistan. Some of it goes to Turkey. The key, though, is not where the oil goes but where the revenue goes.” The main thing, he concluded, was to ensure that none of it got to the Islamic State.

It is by now well established that the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has been involved in selling oil produced in fields in eastern Syria mainly to regime-held areas. But trade with neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey has rarely been reported and the parties involved, including the United States, have sought to keep it that way. For one, it flies in the face of US sanctions. But for Turkey, it's even more awkward.

As matters currently stand, Turkey, through oil, is helping to indirectly subsidize the very same Syrian Kurdish administration that it's seeking to crush on the grounds that it poses a threat to Turkey’s national security. Turkey’s successive military offensives against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which forms the backbone of the SDF, have cost hundreds of millions of dollars in treasure and at least 100 Turkish soldiers’ lives. So why is it beating the Syrian Kurds with one hand while feeding them with the other? The main reason appears to be profit. The others are leverage over the Syrian Kurds, and — according to Iraqi Kurdish officials — pressure from the United States. 

But there are growing signs that Turkey’s laissez faire attitude may be changing, part of an all-out effort to bring the YPG and its Turkish affiliate, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), to their knees. Russia, which is leaning on the Kurds to reach an accommodation with the regime, knows that it's more likely to do so if financially squeezed.