President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in his speeches at the November 10 Atatürk commemoration ceremony, signaled a new cross-border military campaign against Syrian Kurdish cantons. Speaking at the commemoration ceremony for Atatürk, the President said that the economic difficulties experienced by Turkey had whetted the appetite of “some people” to undermine national unity, but the government is already coming out of this test with flying colors, alluding to the progress made towards lower external deficits and inflation under economy czar Mehmet Simsek’s policies.
Erdoğan said, “We repeatedly foiled the attempt to surround our country from its southern borders with the military operations we carried out and the safe zones we created. Hopefully, in the coming period, we will complete the missing links of the safe zone we have created along our borders. In other words, we will completely cut off the land connection between terrorist organizations and our country’s borders. “Thus, we will forever disrupt the 40-year-old game of the imperialists and their puppets in our region, who strive to manipulate our country’s political and economic fate through terrorist organizations” he added.
Erdoğan: “We do not have the luxury of watching developments from the stands”
Making a statement after the cabinet meeting held in former presidential residence, the Çankaya Mansion for the first time in nine years, the President stated that Turkey will destroy the bloody and treacherous death plot fueled by the terror barons in Qandil (PKK headquarters in Iraq) and will not step back from it.
Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) had maintained a presence in northern Syria since the Euphrates Shield Operation on August 24, 2016. Following this operation, the Turkish Armed Forces established military control in settlements such as Al Bab, Jarablus and Afrin with Operation Olive Branch on January 20, 2018, and Operation Peace Spring on October 8, 2019. However, it is known that Turkey is disturbed by the fact that the settlements on its southern border, Kobani (Ayn Al Arab) and Qamishli, are under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces, dominated by YPG, which Ankara labels as a terrorist organization.
Erdoğan may have meant new lawsuits against the Kurdish rights party DEM, when he warned: “No country in the world is allowed to engage in politics based on terrorism.” DEM’s predecessor HADEP has a lawsuit in front of the Constitutional Court accusing it becoming an extension of PKK, which if approved would shutter the party and a large number of sitting DEM MP.
AK Party and MHP leaders had been expressing in weekly caucus meetings that the Republican Alliance was not satisfied with the political position of DEM party in a new attempt to secure domestic peace, which started on October 1 with MHP Chairman Devlet Bahçeli going to the DEM Party Group and shaking hands at the General Assembly of the Turkish Grand National Assembly. Several sources claim the recent decision to sack three Kurdish mayors is a warning to DEM to cut off links to PKK, lest it is completely banned from politics.
Ankara observer journalist Murat Yetkin commented on Erdoğan’s goals in the article he wrote on November 10:
The political-military move pointed out by Erdoğan gives the impression that it stems from the need for Turkey to take a new position before Trump arrives. He clearly reveals the military dimension of this move as follows:
“In the coming period, we will complete the missing links of the safe zone we have created along our borders. In other words, we will completely cut off communication between terrorist organizations and our country’s borders.”
What he is talking about is the borders of Syria and Iraq. In the 2019 Tel Abyad operation on the Syrian border, Trump, who was president at the time, stopped the advance of Turkish troops towards Kobani towards the west on one side and towards Qamishli towards the east, by sending his Vice Mike Pence to Ankara. During the Biden period, US cooperation with PKK organizations in Syria has increased even more.
With the Gaza Crisis, the importance of the armed Kurdish presence in Syria and Iraq, even if there is no Kurdish state, for Israel’s forward defense against Iran began to be taken seriously by the Turkish intelligence services. When Erdoğan says, “Our real struggle is with terrorists as well as those who unleashed them on us, those who have plagued this nation with the scourge of terrorism for 40 years,” he actually means not only the USA, but also Russia, Iran and Israel. AKP-MHP and influential journalists claim Israel intends to use PKK purge Iranian proxies in Iraq and Syria, before the Jewish state starts putting pressure on Anatolia.
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