U.S. Senators Tammy Duckworth (left) and Marsha Blackburn. Photo: Ekurd.net/Creative Commons/US Government/Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons
WASHINGTON,— A bipartisan pair of senators is pressing President Trump to develop a strategy for protecting Kurdish forces once the U.S. military withdraws from Syria.
Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) sent a letter to Trump on Thursday urging him to prevent armed conflict between Kurdish forces and Turkey.
“Abandoning friends and doing nothing to prevent their slaughter would undermine the global coalition to defeat ISIS and jeopardize our nation’s honor,” the senators wrote.
Nashville, in Blackburn’s home state of Tennessee, has the largest Kurdish-American population in the U.S.
The fate of Kurdish forces in Syria has been one of the top concerns for lawmakers and others opposed to Trump’s plan to withdraw all 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria.
The Senate is set to vote Thursday on an amendment urging Trump to reconsider a “precipitous” withdrawal in Syria, as well as Afghanistan.
The United States considers Kurdish YPG forces the most effective local ground force fighting ISIS in Syria and has backed them throughout the campaign against the terrorist group.
Ankara, though, considers them terrorists connected to Kurdish insurgents in Turkey and has threatened to attack when U.S. forces leave Syria.
The Kurdish YPG denies the charge and says Turkey is the aggressor.
In their letter, Blackburn and Duckworth said a strategy during and after withdrawal from Syria requires “guarding against armed conflict” between Turkish and Kurdish forces.
The United States, they said, must “use every diplomatic tool” to ensure Turkey settles its issues with the Kurds peacefully.
“Defending allies and partners is in our national interest. ISIS threatens global stability and nation-states throughout the world,” they wrote. “If the United States is to avoid endless deployments of ground forces throughout the world, we must continually cultivate reliable partners in the region who are willing – and able – to effectively take the fight to our common enemy on the ground.”
Kurdish Leader Ilham Ahmed was in Washington this week. She reportedly met with Trump at the Trump International Hotel on Monday; she was dining with congressional leaders and he was at the hotel for a political fundraiser.
Trump reportedly told Ahmed “I love the Kurds” and assured her he would not leave the Kurds to be slaughtered by Turkey.
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.
Since December 2018, Ankara has been threatening to launch a new offensive against the Syrian Kurdish fighters.
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.
Ankara has previously launched two operations in Syrian Kurdistan.
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.
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