Erdogan plays 'Arab card' in Kobani
Bent on not leaving Kobani to the Kurds, Turkish President Erdogan starts a debate on the city’s name, ready to give credence even to Arabization policies of the Syrian regime.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s statements about the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani, under a weeks-long siege by the Islamic State (IS), may have been mind-boggling but they all have the same objective: to sideline the Democratic Union Party (PYD), Rojava’s main political actor, and its armed wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG). For Erdogan, both are terrorist groups and an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Over the last two years, Erdogan has tried to use the “Kurds versus Kurds” card in Rojava, seeking to bring the Iraqi Kurdistan leadership into play in the region. In the past few weeks, he has given the green light to Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga to cross to Rojava via Turkey, after which he made two intriguing statements.
First, he claimed the PYD had accepted an offer by former Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander Abdul Jabbar al-Aqidi to send 1,300 fighters to Kobani to help fight IS. His statement was firmly denied by the PYD, YPG and FSA.
Second, Erdogan implied that Kobani, officially called Ayn al-Arab, was not a Kurdish but an Arab settlement. For a president to step into a controversy over the name of a location with diverse ethnic and civilization heritage is not only an unusual stance but also an obvious attempt at political manipulation.
