Will Turkey follow through on threats to attack Syria's Kurds?
This week we unpack the stakes around Ankara's threats to take military action alongside Damascus against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
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Turkey is threatening military action against a Syrian Kurdish military group that forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces unless the group disarms and folds into the national army, which is now being formed by Syria’s interim government. The group, known as the YPG, is the Syrian franchise of the Kurdistan Workers Party, the rebel army that had been waging an armed campaign against the Turkish state until it announced its dissolution in May.
On Wednesday in a joint news conference in Ankara with his Syrian counterpart, Asaad al-Shibani, Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan delivered yet another threat to the SDF to abide by the March 10 agreement it signed with Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, for the integration of Kurdish-led military and civilian structures in northeast Syria into the new Syrian state. Fidan accused the Syrian Kurdish leadership of “playing for time” and being “Israel’s pawns” in line with Israeli efforts to keep Damascus weak. “In an environment where Turkey’s security concerns are not addressed, there is no way for us to remain calm here,” Fidan warned. Meanwhile, Shibani rebuked the SDF over an Aug. 8 conference in the city of al-Hasakah, during which minority groups called for a new democratic constitution.
Fidan’s comments came as Turkey’s defense minister, Yasar Guler, and his Syrian counterpart, Murhaf Abu Qasra, signed a far-reaching memorandum on military cooperation through which Turkey would train and equip Syrian government forces, including in counterterrorism operations, notably against the Islamic State.
