Safe zone on Syria border must be under Turkey’s control, Erdogan says
ISTANBUL,— Any safe zone along Turkey’s border with Syria must be under Turkish control, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday in an interview with broadcaster CNN Turk.
He was speaking after a senior U.S. administration official said on Friday Washington would leave about 400 U.S. troops in Syria, a reversal by President Donald Trump that could pave the way for U.S. allies to keep troops there.
“If there is to be a safe zone along our border then it must be under our control. Because that is my border,” Erdogan said.
Trump ordered the withdrawal of all 2,000 U.S. troops from Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) in December 2018 after saying they had defeated Islamic State, a decision criticised by allies and U.S. lawmakers.
He was persuaded on Thursday that about 200 U.S. troops should join what is expected to be a total commitment of some 800 to 1,500 troops from European allies to set up a safe zone in northeastern Syria, a U.S. administration official said.
Ankara regards the Kurdish YPG militia, which controls that region and has been a key U.S. ally against Islamic State, as a terrorist group.
The YPG denies the charge and says Turkey is the aggressor. The Kurds accuse the Turkish government of collaborating with the IS group.
Turkey has repeatedly threatened to intervene militarily against the YPG east of the Euphrates river where the safe zone is planned.
In January 2019, a senior Syrian Kurdish politician and former co-chair of the Diplomatic Committee of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) Salih Muslim said that he supported a proposed buffer zone along the Turkish border as long as Ankara has no involvement. “We really need a safe area, but without Turkish fingers.”, Salih Muslim told Kurdistan24 TV.
Syria’s Kurds rejected a “security zone” under Turkish control along the Syrian side of the two countries’ border.
Senior Kurdish political leader Aldar Khalil said the Kurds would accept the deployment of UN forces along the separation line between Kurdish fighters and Turkish troops to ward off a threatened offensive.
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.
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.
Copyright © 2019, respective author or news agency, Reuters | Ekurd.net
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