The Syrian government on Saturday condemned Turkey’s military presence in Syrian Kurdistan (northern Syria) as a violation of a 1998 protocol between the two countries.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has insisted the Adana Protocol gives his country the right to intervene militarily in the neighbouring country.
Turkey and its Syrian rebel proxies control part of the Kurdish region in northern Syria, and Ankara has repeatedly threatened another military operation against Kurdish fighters on its southern border.
On Saturday, the foreign ministry in Damascus accused Ankara of repeatedly breaching the Adana deal throughout Syria’s eight-year war.
“Since 2011, the Turkish regime has violated and continues to violate this agreement,” a ministry source said, quoted by state news agency SANA.
The source accused Turkey of “supporting terrorists”, using the regime’s usual term for both jihadists and rebels.
It said Ankara was breaching the deal through “occupying Syrian territory via terrorist organisations linked to it or directly via Turkish military forces”.
On August 24, 2016 Turkish troops entered the Syrian territory in a sudden incursion which resulted in the occupation of Jarablus after IS jihadists left the city without resistance. Most of Turkish operations were focused only against the Kurdish forces.
In 2016, the Turkish troops entered northern Syria in an area some 100 km east of Afrin to stop the Kurdish YPG forces from extending areas under their control and connecting Syrian Kurdistan’s Kobani and Hasaka in the east with Afrin canton in the west.
Then in January 2018, Turkish military forces backed pro-Ankara Syrian mercenary fighters to clear the YPG from its northwestern enclave of Afrin. In March 2018, the operation was completed with the capture of the Kurdish city of Afrin.
The flags of Turkey and Syrian rebel groups were raised in the Kurdish Afrin city and a statue of Kurdish hero Kawa, a symbol of resistance against oppressors, was torn down.
Residents of the Kurdish city and Human right groups accuse Turkey and pro-Ankara fighters of kidnappings for ransom, armed robberies and torture.
Ankara has repeatedly threatened to march on areas further east, where Kurdish fighters it views as “terrorists” have led the US-backed battle against the Islamic State jihadist group.
Washington last month said it would pull all its troops from the war-torn country, leaving the Kurds scrambling to find a new ally in Damascus to avoid a Turkish assault.
On Friday, Erdogan said Turkey expected a “security zone” to be created in Syria in a few months.
Turkey accuses the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) which have led the fight against IS of being an extension of its outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The Kurdish YPG denies the charge and says Turkey is the aggressor.
The Adana deal was signed in 1998 to end a crisis between the neighbours, sparked by the then presence in Syria of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and bases run by the group.
Turkey argues the protocol provides Ankara with the legal ground to intervene in Syria against the PKK and its affiliates, because of the Syrian regime’s failure to act against the group.
Damascus has regained control of almost two-thirds of the country after significant Russia-backed victories against rebels and jihadists since 2015, and hopes to see all areas of the country revert to its rule.
Washington has for years supported the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria, as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). But U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly announced the pullout from Syria.
The Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party PYD and its powerful military wing YPG/YPJ, considered the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria and U.S. has provided them with arms. The YPG, which is the backbone of the SDF forces, has seized swathes of Syria from Islamic State.
In 2013, the PYD — the political branch of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) — has established three autonomous Cantons of Jazeera, Kobani and Afrin and a Kurdish government across Syrian Kurdistan in 2013. On March 17, 2016, Kurdish authorities announced the creation of a “federal region” made up of those semi-autonomous regions in Syrian Kurdistan.
Turkey fears the creation of a Kurdish autonomous region or Kurdish state in Syrian Kurdistan could encourage separatism amongst its own Kurds, according to analysts.
Analysts believe that Turkey is using the YPG as a pretext to invade Syrian Kurdistan and to undermine the Kurdish autonomous regions.