News agencies report very intense clashes between Turkey-supported Syrian National Army and the Kurdish-led militia SDF around Tishreen Dam and the rural areas of Manbij township, as Turkish Foreign Affairs Minister Hakan Fidan urged the new HTS government to end SDF, lest Turkey to strike Syria once again.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Friday that the new Syrian administration should be given an opportunity to address the presence of Kurdish militants in the country, and reiterated that the Turkish military would act if it did not. The opportunity part probably relates to Biden’s support for SDF and messages from Trump team that Turkey should not send its soldiers against Syrian Kurds once again.
“We see that there is an agenda in the new administration to end the occupation and terror that the YPG has created in the region,” Fidan told a press conference in Istanbul.
“We believe that an opportunity needs to be given to them to realize this. We are waiting for this now,” he said, without saying how long Turkey would wait.
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Fidan said he did not expect any problems with the United States in counter-terrorism in Syria despite its support for the YPG, even if this was a matter for the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
Turkish sources close to the AKP administration claim Ankara delayed a long-planned incursion against North East Syria, to wait for Trump to take over and read the tea leaves about his Syria policy.
A report by the Nagle Commission in Israel labeled Turkey as an even bigger threat than Iran, calling upon the Netanyahu administration to increase the defense budget to counteract potential “neo-Ottoman expansionism” of Turkey. Ironically, the government and opposition parties ex-DEM Party which is the voice of ethnic Kurds are united in their fear of Israel provoking Kurds to destabilize Turkey.
The latest reported fighting comes despite the United States saying Wednesday that it was working to address Turkey’s concerns in Syria to dissuade the NATO ally from escalating an offensive against Kurdish fighters.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor reported “fierce battles in the Manbij countryside… in the past hours between the (Kurdish-led) Syrian Democratic Forces and the (Turkish-backed) National Army factions… with Turkish air cover”.
“The attacks killed 37 people in a preliminary toll,” mostly Turkish-backed combatants, but also six SDF fighters and five civilians, said the British-based Observatory with a network of sources inside Syria.
The monitor said at least 322 people have been killed in fighting in the Manbij countryside since last month.
Ankara rejected an offer from France to send its peacekeepers to patrol the border.
At home, AKP-MHP alliance is negotiating with former PKK leader Ocalan to persuade him to issue an instruction to the terror organization to disband. On Saturday, speaking to DEM Party reps from his Edirne prison, another beloved Kurdish leader, formerly the co-chair of DEM Party, stated that he fully supports peace between the Turkish majority and long-suffering Kurds, offering to work in tandem with Ocalan to secure peace. He is believed to have more influence on ethnic Kurds in Turkey than Ocalan has on PKK. According to political experts, Ocalan is revered by Syrian Kurds.
It is difficult to foresee how the efforts to get rid of PKK and Syrian Kurdish militia will end. However, it is clear that all actors involved in the conflict, including HTS will act rapidly in the heater once Trump takes over and a new Syria policy is formulated.
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