Turkey chides US for failing to honor Manbij accord
Ankara is caught between two superpowers that are pursuing their own agendas in Syria, while its efforts to implement its own agenda there only seem to be growing more difficult with time.
Turkey has been preoccupied for weeks with trying to prevent a Russian-backed operation by the Syrian regime against Idlib. But the developments in Manbij, the city just west of the Euphrates that is under control of the US-armed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), continue to be of prime concern for Ankara.
The deal brokered by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin over the weekend, forestalling an attack against Idlib for the time being, is expected to refocus Ankara’s attention on this issue.
The main fighting force in the SDF is the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which is considered by Ankara to be a terrorist organization that poses an existential threat to Turkey’s security.
This has been the principal issue that not only underlies the rupture between Turkey and the United States in Syria, but which has also pushed Ankara into Moscow’s orbit there despite Turkish-Russian differences over a number of issues in Syria — including the future of Idlib.
