It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, January 21, 2022
On Jan 19, 2022
Reliable sources have told SOHR that three Turkish-backed factions in Libya have ordered their fighters to pack up and get ready to leave Libya to Turkey in the incoming hours. According to SOHR sources, the command of Al-Hamza, Suleiman Shah and Sultan Murad Divisions informed nearly 150 militiamen that they would leave Libya on Thursday, after the Turkish government had agreed on allowing these fighters to have a rest in Syria.
On the other hand, SOHR sources have confirmed that a new batch of mercenaries left Syria to Turkey yesterday. However, the destination of this batch remained unknown. Also, SOHR sources confirmed that back-and-forth transfer operations of Syrian mercenaries from and to Libya will be resumed, after being suspended for weeks.
On December 15, reliable sources informed SOHR that the Turkish authorities gave orders suspending the leaves and back-and-forth transfer operations of Turkish-backed Syrian mercenaries from and to Syria in that time. The mercenaries in Libya were informed by their commanders that the leaves and back-and-forth transfer operations would be resumed after the end of the presidential election in Libya, schedule to be launched on December 24, 2021.
SOHR sources also confirmed that the Syrian fighters of the Turkish-backed “National Army” in Libya received their monthly salaries in the past few days.
It is worth noting that there are nearly 7,000 Turkish-backed Syrian mercenaries in Libya, operating under the banner of various factions of the “National Army”.
On the other hand, the Syrian mercenaries recruited by the Russian security company “Wagner” have been still maintained in the Libyan territory.
We, at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), call for the evacuation of all Syrians who have been turned into mercenaries by the Turkish government and engaged in the Libyan conflict. We also demand the Turks and Russians stop using the Syrians and turning them into mercenaries serving their narrow interests.
SCURVY
Fruit and veggie outages in Canada get worse with trucker shortages
Jen Skerritt, Elizabeth Elkin, David Marino and Lydia Mulvany, Bloomberg News
Canadian border agents began refusing entry to unvaccinated American truckers just days ago, and it’s already causing chaos -- particularly in fruit and vegetable markets.A mandate starting Jan. 15 requires truck drivers crossing into Canada to be vaccinated. However, only about half of American truck drivers have gotten their shots. Meanwhile, as much as 90 per cent of Canada’s fruits and vegetables comes from the U.S. during winter, and grocery stores are already having trouble getting some shipments, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers.
“We’re seeing shortages,” said Gary Sands, senior vice president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers. “We’re hearing from members they’re going into some stores where there’s no oranges or bananas.'”
The mandate is adding to Canada’s supply chain turmoil that was already abundant due to recent storms as well as the pandemic. Shipping snarls and logistical headwinds have been blamed for rising inflation across the globe. Prices for consumers will likely rise as freight costs soar. Sending one truckload of fresh produce from California or Arizona to Canada is now US$9,500, up from an average of US$7,000, according to North American Produce Buyers. That works out to an additional cost of 12 Canadian cents per head of lettuce, according to the company.
The price to bring food and other exports over the border has doubled on some routes given the drop in eligible truckers, according to Alex Crane, operations manager at Paige Logistics, a freight broker in Surrey, British Columbia. That’s leaving hundreds of shipments bound for the U.S. waiting in warehouses to be picked up and trucked when and if carriers can find drivers to haul them, he said. The goods include everything from food to plumbing parts to gazebos.
“We have shipments all over the place not going out,’’ Crane said by phone. “They are just sitting at warehouses, waiting waiting.’
The situation is only set to worsen with the U.S. imposing its own vaccine mandate on foreign travelers starting Jan. 22. The Canadian Trucking Association estimates the mandate will take as many as 16,000 drivers off the road.
The forgotten black explorers of the Northwest Passage
https://www.scmp.com/.../remembering-forgotten-explorers-northwest-passage
2021-10-11 · Scurvy was rife. The summer passed and the ice did not melt. By 1853, little hope remained but McClure was not ready to give up on his dream of making it through the Northwest Passage. He devised a...
The story of Sir John Franklin's lost Northwest Passage ...
https://www.strangeoutdoors.com/historical-strangeness/franklin-expedition
2021-03-27 · The Northwest Passage is a route connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean,
The lack of truckers could potentially create “more of a shortage than what we’re experiencing now,” said Victor Smith, chief executive officer of JV Smith Companies, a grower and distributor of leafy greens. That’s because trucking is the only option for transportation. Rail service isn’t available everywhere, and shipping by air is too expensive.
Dairy trade between Canada and the U.S. may also take a hit. Canada is the sixth largest destination for U.S. exports, and nearly all of the volume moves by truck, said Nate Donnay, director of dairy market insight at StoneX Group.
“Any significant hiccup in the movement of dairy into Canada isn’t good news for dairy farmers,’’ Donnay said.
Scurvy
- OVERVIEW
- SYMPTOMS
- DIAGNOSIS
- TREATMENT
Behind Dr. Oz's Curtain
by Benjamin Baird
National Review
Dr. Mehmet Oz implores travelers to fly Turkish Airlines, a company part-owned by Turkey's majority Justice and Development Party, just one of the Senate candidate's numerous entanglements with Turkey's Islamist government. |
After announcing his decision to run for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz has been publicly lambasted for peddling "miracle" weight-loss supplements and other medical misinformation. However, Pennsylvania voters should be far more concerned with the daytime television star's connections to Turkey's Islamist government.
Oz's links to Turkey's authoritarian Justice and Development Party (AKP) extend to foreign agents and proxies accused of operating a secret lobby in the U.S. and spying on American citizens. These associations raise urgent questions about the Senate candidate's loyalty to an illiberal, often antagonistic foreign government that finds itself increasingly at odds with American interests.
The Emmy Award–winning host of the Dr. Oz Show entered a crowded field of GOP contenders after announcing his bid to replace retiring senator Pat Toomey in 2022. Critics point to Oz's reputation for hawking dubious supplements and questionable medical advice, in addition to rumors that the heart surgeon continues to live in his northern New Jersey mansion, despite claiming Pennsylvania residency late last year.
However, Oz's backers point to his undeniable name recognition and deep pockets, and with no clear standout candidate in the Republican primary, he may have a fighting chance. That is, if his relationship with bad actors from Turkey's majority AKP stands up to scrutiny.
"I had the privilege, as the son of immigrant parents, to grow up American while staying deeply in touch with my Turkish roots," Oz told SJ Magazine in a 2011 interview. "I have a great deal of family back in Turkey, I lived there for a period as a boy, and I served in the Turkish military, which is compulsory for dual citizenship."
But does Oz continue to serve Turkey's national interests? Critics have called on him to renounce his Turkish citizenship — not because he is legally obligated to do so as a Senate candidate, but out of concern that his loyalties may be divided.
The extent of Oz's relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (right) is unclear. |
Yet, the doctor's ties to Turkey extend beyond family relations and citizenship status to the highest reaches of government office. This includes a 2014 encounter with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey's increasingly authoritarian Islamist leader.
Oz has met with other AKP leaders as well, including Minister of Justice Abdulhamit Gül, who stood arm-in-arm with the TV doctor during a 2019 Turkish-heritage parade in Brooklyn, N.Y. Less than a year earlier, Gül was personally sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for leading "an entity that has engaged in . . . serious human rights abuses," including the unjust detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson.
Oz has a deep personal stake in Turkish state-business interests. In 2011 the talk-show host was elected to the High Advisory Council of the World Turkish Business Council (DTİK), the international business-lobbying arm of Turkey's Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEİK).
In 2014, the Turkish parliament stripped DEİK of its independent status as a nongovernmental business association and switched it to promoting the interests of President Erdoğan and the AKP. Many Western companies stopped doing business with DEİK after it was absorbed by the state, and U.S. lobbying firms representing DEIK subsidiaries have registered as foreign agents.
Dr. Oz, left, pictured at a World Turkish Business Council event in 2019 with Gunay Evinch, a registered foreign agent of Turkey. |
Oz participated in DEİK functions as recently as 2019, when he spoke at a DTİK conference in NYC. This event was co-hosted by Gunay Evinch, a foreign agent of Turkey who was retained by the Turkish embassy in 2019 to collect personal information on the AKP's enemies in America. He also represented Erdoğan's bodyguards after they assaulted anti-AKP protestors in Washington, D.C.
Since at least 2017, the celebrity surgeon has served as the public face of Turkish Airlines, Turkey's state-owned commercial airline, which is staffed by leading AKP figures close to the Erdoğan family. He appeared in a lucrative Super Bowl commercial touting the Turkish Airlines, brand and is currently featured in a pre-flight safety video advising passengers on every flight about coronavirus travel tips.
Oz can also be found on the life and communications platform BiP, offering viewers real-time medical advice and "healthy recipes, information on cardiac and mental health, fitness, beauty and motivation." As it happens, BiP is owned by Turkcell, Europe's leading mobile-service provider, which is majority-owned by the Erdoğan-controlled Turkish Wealth Fund after being acquired in 2020 under shady pretenses. Since then, critics worry that the telecommunications giant has been used as a tool of government repression.
In addition to Oz's connections to Turkey's business and government leaders, the Senate candidate is involved with known and suspected AKP proxies. He was the special guest at an October 25, 2019, fundraiser co-sponsored by the Turkish American National Steering Committee (TASC) and the Diyanet Center of America (DCA). Both groups are extensions of the Turkish state.
TASC co-chairs Halil Mutlu (left) and Gunay Evinch (right) meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Istanbul in July 2019. |
Co-chaired by Erdoğan's cousin, Halil Mutlu, TASC essentially serves as the Turkish president's publicity machine in the U.S. In a spectacle reminiscent of the cult of personality common among totalitarian regimes, TASC commissioned a box truck in September to drive throughout NYC displaying digital images of the Turkish president with the caption: "Love Erdoğan."
DCA is a massive religious center located just outside the Beltway that hosts diplomatic functions for Erdoğan and the ruling AKP. Pro-AKP sermons are reportedly prepared in advance by the government, and some of America's most radical Islamists are regularly featured as guest preachers.
Oz is known to attend a Diyanet mosque in New Jersey whose "ownership, administration and control is subordinate to the Presidency of Religious Affairs of the Republic of Turkey."
Photographs from the TASC/DCA fundraiser show Oz seated in the place of honor next to the event's host, Murat Güzel, a Turkish-American businessman caught up in multiple FBI probes regarding attempts to interfere in U.S. politics. Hacked emails show Güzel coordinating his political activities with regime officials, and federal agents interrogated Güzel in 2019 regarding his dealings and financial exchanges with Imaad Zuberi, who is facing charges for acting as an unregistered agent of Turkey.
Oz, center, seated at the place of honor at a TASC/DCA event next to Murat Güzel, right, a Turkish American businessman embroiled in at least two separate FBI investigations involving political espionage. |
The Doctor Oz campaign failed to respond to questions about the candidate's links to Turkish business and political interests.
Less than two hours after Oz publicly announced his intent to run for office, he received a congratulatory phone call from ambassador Hasan Murat Mercan of the Turkish embassy in Washington. Oz is familiar with Mercan, having attended a breakfast in June with the Turkish ambassador and current NYC mayor-elect Eric Adams at Ali Baba Turkish Restaurant in Midtown Manhattan.
The restaurant's owner, Ali Riza Dogan, is a longtime supporter of both Oz and Adams. Ali Baba, located just next door to the Turkish consulate, was also involved in a 2017 lawsuit involving a former employee who claimed that he was fired, assaulted, and called a "terrorist" after the establishment's owners learned he was a Kurd, a persecuted ethnic minority in Turkey.
Oz, center, enjoys a Turkish breakfast with NYC Mayor-elect Eric Adams, left, and Turkish Ambassador to the U.S. Hasan Murat Mercan (second from right). |
Throughout his political career, Adams has been a beneficiary of Turkish-government largesse, taking trips to Turkey on the consulate's dime and accepting donations from known AKP lackeys. For instance, Güzel gave over $10,000 to the Adams campaign last summer.
Oz's proximity to lobbyists, businessmen, and politicians beholden to Ankara casts serious doubts on his suitability for public office. Amnesty International has documented appalling human-rights abuses in Turkey, including the jailing of thousands of journalists and opposition politicians following a 2016 failed coup attempt.
Erdoğan blames Fethullah Gülen, an exiled cleric living in rural Pennsylvania who oversees an international network of schools and charities, for attempting to overthrow his government, a claim discredited by many Western intelligence sources. Nonetheless, AKP officials have aggressively lobbied for Gülen's extradition for years, even offering U.S. congressional candidates $30,000 for statements critical of the aging cleric (and threatening to fund the candidates' opponents if they refuse).
Oz should renounce the AKP and fully divest from AKP-owned businesses and lobbies. |
Oz has already shown himself willing to look the other way when it comes to the AKP's long record of human-rights abuses and stunning repression of civil liberties. He must answer tough questions about his relationship with an authoritarian, Islamist government and its agents based in the U.S.
Oz should fully divest his stake in AKP-owned businesses and lobbies and issue firm public statements renouncing the AKP and its illiberal, inhumane record of governance. Otherwise, the talk-show host should stick to his day job.
Turkish Imperialism: Whither the Syrian Kurds?
by Spyridon Plakoudas and Wojciech Michnik
Middle East Quarterly
This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.
The Turkish invasion into the autonomous Kurdish region in northeastern Syria, October 9, 2019, kindled immediate accusations of Washington's betrayal of its loyal Kurdish ally. |
On October 9, 2019, the Turkish army and its proxy Syrian National Army (SNA) invaded the autonomous Kurdish region in northeastern Syria, or Rojava as it is known to Kurds.[1] Accompanied by a White House clarification that U.S. forces in the area would not resist the Turkish incursion and would be shortly withdrawn from Syria, Operation Peace Spring, as the Turkish invasion was codenamed, kindled immediate accusations of Washington's betrayal of its loyal Kurdish ally.[2]
In reality, this move by the Trump administration was a corollary of the incoherent and contradictory policy vis-à-vis the Syrian civil war in general, and the fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) in particular, bequeathed by the Obama administration to its successor. This culminated in a narrow counterterrorism strategy that relied heavily on the Kurds for fighting the Islamist terror organization while giving little thought to the implications of this strategy for Kurdish relations with the Assad regime and Turkey.[3] As a result, Operation Peace Spring threw the most stable and peaceful corner of Syria into disarray and set in train a "scramble for the Syrian Kurdistan" that seems to have closed the lid on Kurdish hopes for autonomous, if not independent existence.
A Tangled Web
On the face of it, President Trump's withdrawal decision should not have come as a surprise given his electoral campaign pledge to reduce substantially the nearly 200,000 U.S. military personnel stationed overseas, of which the roughly 2,000 troops in northern Syria were but a tiny fraction.[4] Predominantly involved in training the allied Kurdish militias, this force was of little military significance, as Rojava's landlocked position rendered it captive to the surrounding local powers (Turkey, Iraq, and Syria) and made its defense dependent on large-scale external support.[5]
Some Trump advisors viewed support for the Syrian Kurds as within the strategy of "maximum pressure" against Tehran. |
Oscillating between supporting its recent non-state, anti-ISIS collaborators, the Kurds, or backing Turkey, its longstanding NATO ally, the Trump administration opted for the latter. Eager to make good on his electoral promise, the president was ready to implement the Syria withdrawal as early as October 2017 after the fall of ISIS's "capital city" of Raqqa to the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, the military arm of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), but he was dissuaded by senior members of his administration. Opposition to the idea intensified in subsequent months following John Bolton's appointment as national security advisor and Mike Pompeo's appointment as secretary of state. Both viewed support for the Syrian Kurds as fitting neatly within the strategy of "maximum pressure" against Tehran by blocking its efforts to establish a land corridor from the Iranian border to the Mediterranean Sea and denying its client, the Assad regime, the oil and wheat necessary for its successful recovery.[6]
This view, however, failed to grasp the intensity of Turkey's resentment of the nascent Kurdish entity on its southern border. Ruled by the PYD, which Ankara viewed as the Syrian offshoot of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization that had been fighting the Turkish government for decades, the Turks feared that the autonomous Rojava entity would further radicalize their own restive Kurdish minority:[7] hence their repeated incursions into northern Syria and their determination to establish a 300-mile-long buffer zone (euphemized as "peace corridor") along their southern border from Afrin in the west to the Turkish-Syrian-Iraqi border in the east. This corridor was to be subsequently colonized by Sunni Arab settlers who would gradually displace the ethnic Kurds in this territory.[8]
While Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan repeatedly signaled the depth of his Kurdish concerns to Washington, going so far as to flirt occasionally with Russian president Vladimir Putin,[9] both the Obama and Trump administrations failed to adopt a coherent policy that reconciled their military reliance on the Syrian Kurds with Ankara's concerns. Matters got to a head in August 2016 when, in contrast to Secretary of State John Kerry's promises, Kurdish YPG forces failed to leave the key northeastern city of Manbij, which they had taken from ISIS a couple of months earlier. This resulted in clashes between the Kurdish militia and Turkish forces that had invaded Syria as part of Operation Euphrates Shield (August 2016-March 2017). And while a ceasefire was quickly reached, tensions in the region remained unabated as the Trump administration sustained its predecessor's close relationship with the PYD/YPG, even strengthening the Kurdish militia ahead of the Raqqa offensive.[10]
In these circumstances, it was hardly surprising that Erdoğan interpreted Washington's aloofness toward yet another large-scale Turkish incursion into northern Syria (Operation Olive Branch, January-March 2018) as a green light to change the Manbij status quo. This culminated in June 2018 in the "Manbij roadmap" that envisaged the Kurdish YPG's withdrawal from the city, whose security was to be protected against ISIS's return through U.S.-Turkish collaboration backed by trusted local forces.[11]
As the roadmap failed to end control of Manbij by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, Ankara kept pressuring Washington to curb the perceived strengthening of the Rojava Kurdish autonomy. These efforts seemed to have borne the desire fruit on December 18, 2018, when Trump reportedly agreed, during a phone conversation with Erdoğan, to withdraw U.S. forces from northern Syria. "We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump presidency," Trump tweeted the next day.[12]
On December 18, 2018, Trump reportedly agreed, during a phone conversation with Turkey's Erdoğan (left) to withdraw all U.S. forces from northern Syria. Aides convinced Trump, instead, to cut the U.S. presence in Syria to a few hundred troops. |
Just as in October 2017, the president's withdrawal decision took his advisors by surprise, and as in the previous instance, they managed to dissuade him from this move, albeit not from slashing the U.S. presence in Syria to a few hundred troops. This proved to be the worst of all worlds, leading to the angry resignation of Secretary of Defense James Mattis and alienating the Kurds, who feared that the diluted U.S. presence would invite Turkish and/or ISIS aggression, without mending the fences with Ankara.[13] The administration's attempt to appease Turkey by acceding to a buffer zone to be jointly patrolled by Turkish-U.S. forces was interpreted by Erdoğan as acquiescence in his planned invasion of Rojava,[14] and on October 6, 2019, he phoned Trump, who acquiesced in the imminent Turkish move and agreed to withdraw the remaining U.S. forces from northern Syria.[15]
Whether Trump just "went off script" now that Bolton was not by his side (having been fired via Twitter the previous month) as a "well-placed senior U.S. military source" told Fox News,[16] or sought to avoid a new Syrian entanglement at a time when a major crisis was brewing on the Russian-Ukrainian border, the withdrawal decision represented his clear preference for Washington's longtime Turkish ally over the ad hoc U.S.-Kurdish partnership. As James Jeffrey, the U.S. special representative for Syria engagement, told a Senate hearing, Washington's relationship with the Syrian Kurds had always been "temporary, tactical, and transactional" and under no circumstances had the administration offered guarantees of "indefinite protection" from Turkey, Russia, or the Assad regime.[17]
Winners and Losers
In a desperate bid to save face, Trump leaked his infamous "don't be a tough guy" letter to Erdoğan. |
While the withdrawal decision seemed a matter of time given Trump's electoral promises and "America First" approach, its timing, lack of contingency planning, and manner of execution created a perfect storm. As news spread about war crimes committed by the Turkish army and its proxy Syrian National Army as well as the displacement of thousands of Kurds, an international media outcry ensued. Some European Union and NATO members imposed an arms embargo on Turkey, and even the U.S. administration succumbed to congressional pressure and decreed minor sanctions against Ankara. In a desperate bid to save face, on October 16, Trump leaked his infamous "don't be a tough guy" letter to Erdoğan, and the following day the Turkish president and Vice President Mike Pence ended a 6-hour meeting with a joint announcement of a ceasefire.[18]
That this was more of a face-saving exercise than a genuine deal was evidenced by the ceasefire's expiry on October 22, the day Erdoğan met Putin in the Russian Black Sea city of Sochi to agree to a deal on Rojava in the absence of the U.S administration and the Democratic Union Party. This stipulated for the award to Turkey of the enclave of Tel Abyad (a 75-mile-long and 15-mile-wide "peace corridor") and the organization of joint Turkish-Russian military patrols between Qamishli and Kobani. And while Ankara failed to win the two prized cities of Manbij and Kobani on which it had long set its sights, the Kurds were forced to withdraw behind a 15-mile-wide zone from Qamishli and Kobani.[19]
Russian president Vladimir Putin (left) embraces Syria's president Bashar Assad. Following the Turkish invasion, Putin projected himself as arbiter between Assad, the Kurds and Erdoğan while expanding Russian power into former U.S. zones of influence. |
Moscow thus emerged as the main beneficiary of the Turkish invasion though Trump eventually succumbed to domestic criticism and kept the U.S. troops in northern Syria, redeploying them near the strategic Deir az-Zor oilfield.[20] Capitalizing on Washington's tarnished regional credibility and the rupture within NATO, Putin projected himself as arbiter between Assad and the Kurds as well as between Assad and Erdoğan, expanding Russian influence to territories east of the Euphrates River that had hitherto been in the U.S. zone of influence. He also used the new development to promote Moscow's agenda within the framework of the "Astana forum," established in January 2017 to formalize a Russian-Turkish-Iranian dialogue over the resolution of the Syrian civil war and which convened a trilateral meeting in April 2020 to discuss an end to the conflict.[21] Finally, the Kremlin exploited the Turkish invasion to consolidate its newfound ties with Ankara, notably by selling Turkey the advanced S-400 air defense system despite strenuous warnings of NATO and Washington, which also suspended the planned sale of F-35 fighter jets to Ankara.[22]
Another clear winner of Operation Peace Spring was Syrian President Bashar Assad. Not only was he spared of the nightmarish scenario of a prospective independent Kurdish entity in the northern part of his country, but he was transformed overnight from a tyrant into a savior in the eyes of the Kurdish minority. Concretely, the Syrian regime recaptured without a single shot the two Arab-majority strategic cities of Manbij and Taqba, as well as the M4 Highway east of the Euphrates, as the Kurds sought its protection against the invading Turks. And the "price tag" for these invaluable assets was negligible: the deployment of a few thousand troops in Rojava and periodic skirmishes with the Turkish army and its proxy SNA militia along the M4 Highway.[23]
Even ISIS benefitted from the chaos in northeastern Syria. Just as the Islamist terror group had exploited the anarchy created by the November 2017 ill-fated Kurdish separatist referendum to rebound in northern Iraq, so it used the chaotic Syrian situation to recuperate from its latest setbacks. The invasion disrupted the U.S.-backed Kurdish anti-ISIS campaign along the Euphrates and allowed a large number of imprisoned ISIS terrorists and sympathizers to escape the Kurdish prison camps (notably al-Hol camp with over 70,000 inmates). Even the killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi in October 2019 did not prevent the organization's rebound in Syria.[24]
Turkey gained legitimization to interfere in Syria's affairs under the guise of counterterrorism. |
For its part, Turkey made a number of important gains, notably the attainment of effective legitimization to interfere in its neighbor's affairs under the counterterrorism guise, including the capture and temporary retention of territory to this end. Yet while these gains boosted Erdoğan's domestic prestige and political clout, they could well prove transient. Moscow, Ankara's partner in monitoring the security zone, may not only block Erdoğan's vision of ethnically cleansing Rojava as he had done in Afrin, but may also pressure him to return the newly-occupied territories to Syria, something that was implied by the invocation of the 1998 Syrian-Turkish Adana treaty in the buffer zone deal. This agreement, which had ended Damascus's longstanding support for the PKK, was overtaken by the events of the civil war and the attendant Syrian-Turkish hostility. Yet as Assad became increasingly victorious, he implied his readiness to return to the deal in exchange for Turkey's withdrawal from its occupied territories in Syria.[25]
The Syrian Kurds, the PYD/YPG in particular, were the clear losers of the Turkish invasion. Abandoned by their U.S. patron, they had to shelve their dream of an independent entity (at least for the foreseeable future) and to ink an ad hoc alliance with their old oppressor—the Assad regime—which Moscow was all too happy to mediate.[26]
The End of Kurdish Dreams?
The Syrian Kurds were the clear losers. Abandoned by their U.S. patron, they had to shelve their dream of an independent entity and sign an alliance with their oppressor—the Assad regime. |
Operation Peace Spring was a wakeup call for the PYD/YPG. Yet, the Trump administration's effective acquiescence in the invasion did not lead to an improvement in U.S.-Turkish relations, which ebbed still further following the Senate's recognition (in December 2019) of the Armenian genocide and the legislation of additional anti-Turkish sanctions.[27] But neither did it restore U.S. support for the Rojava autonomous region. Nor did the Europeans step into the fray to fill the vacuum left by Washington, for fear of alienating Erdoğan who had been holding the unleashing of migratory waves into the continent as a Damocles Sword over their heads.[28] And while a special December 2019 meeting of NATO leaders on the occasion of the organization's seventieth anniversary ignored the Turkish president's demand that the YPG be designated a terrorist organization, neither did it offer any help to the beleaguered Kurds.[29]
This made the Syrian Kurds captive to the budding Turkish-Russian relationship. To be sure, this adversarial collaboration was not without its problems. Yet, Putin and Erdoğan's desire to exploit the U.S. retreat in Syria enabled them to weather the crisis attending the Syrian offensive, launched in mid-December 2019, in the northwestern province of Idlib. Backed by Iranian ground forces and Russian air support, the offensive managed to make substantial gains in the face of stiff resistance by the anti-regime rebels and terrorist groups, driving hundreds of thousands of terrified civilians to flee their homes northward. Enraged by the killing of several Turkish soldiers and bent on stemming the influx of refugees into its territory, in early February 2020 Ankara launched Operation Spring Shield, which for the first time was directed against the Assad regime's armed forces. Yet while this development disrupted Putin's attempt to mediate a Turkish-Syrian rapprochement and raised the specter of Turkish-Russian clashes, Erdoğan's conscious effort to avoid such confrontation (despite the killing of thirty-seven Turkish troops by a Russian air strike on February 27) allowed the two leaders to reach a ceasefire agreement on March 5, 2020, which dramatically reduced the level of violence in Idlib.[30]
Reflecting Moscow's rising preeminence in Syria, the ceasefire confirmed Assad's latest territorial gains, most notably the recapture of the northern part of the M5 highway, thus reasserting the regime's control for the first time since 2012 of Syria's foremost transportation artery connecting the Jordanian border in the south with the Turkish border in the north. At the same time, the ceasefire reaffirmed the joint Russian-Turkish patrols along the east-west M4 highway demarcating the southern bounds of Turkish-occupied Syria, vesting Ankara (yet again) with the task of disarming and disbanding the jihadists in the territories under its control.[31]
Washington sought to mediate a rapprochement between the Kurdish factions and Turkey, but the goal proved unattainable. |
The conflict in Idlib underlined once again the predicament of the Syrian Kurds. On the one hand, the Kurd's Democratic Union Party was pressured by Damascus and Moscow to participate in the Idlib offensive in return for vague promises of autonomy.[32] On the other hand, it was courted by Washington, which sought to regain its northern Syria foothold by attempting to unify the rival Kurdish factions and to mediate a rapprochement between them and the Turkish government. Yet, while the first effort culminated in an intra-Kurdish unity agreement in mid-June 2020,[33] the second goal proved unattainable as Ankara remained reluctant to initiate any dialogue with the PYD. Keenly aware of this position, and eager to ensure U.S. backing, in July 2020 the PYD inked a deal with Delta Crescent Energy LLC, a private American oil company, for the exploitation of the oilfields under its control, in a move that was promptly condemned by Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Russia as a "theft of Syria's national wealth."[34]
Conclusion
An autonomous or semi-independent Kurdish entity in northern Syria (and Iraq for that matter) has been in the best interest of Washington at least since the Arab turbulence of the early 2010s, especially, but not exclusively, as a buffer to the expansion of militant Islam in both its Sunni (al-Qaeda, ISIS, and their likes) and Shiite (the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah) forms. Yet, in line with a longstanding betrayal of the Kurds to their local oppressors (from eschewing the promised post-World War I independence due to Atatürk's pressure, to the 1975 surrender of the Iraqi Kurds to the Baath regime, to ignoring decades of Turkey's repression of its Kurdish minority), the Obama and the Trump administrations used the Syrian Kurds for fighting ISIS (and the Assad regime), only to betray them to Ankara once their usefulness had been exhausted.
It remains to be seen whether and to what extent the Biden administration will maintain this policy or, instead, seek to redress the damage done to U.S.-Kurdish relations over the past decade.
Spyridon Plakoudas is an assistant professor of homeland security at Rabdan Academy, UAE.
Wojciech Michnik is an assistant professor of international relations and security studies at the Jagiellonian University, Poland, and contributing editor to New Eastern Europe. This article draws on their forthcoming book Proxy Warfare on the Cheap: The USA and the Syrian Kurds (Lexington Books, 2022).
[1] Metin Gurcan, "Turkey has multiphase game plan for Syria operation," Al-Monitor (Washington, D.C.), Oct. 10, 2019; Voice of America (VOA), Sept. 11, 2019.
[2] Associated Press, Oct. 7, 2019; Steven A. Cook, "There's Always a Next Time to Betray the Kurds," Foreign Policy, Oct. 11, 2019; Peter Wehner, "Trump Betrayed the Kurds. He Couldn't Help Himself," The Atlantic, Oct. 15, 2019; Amberin Zaman, "Who Betrayed Syria's Kurds?" Al-Monitor, Oct. 21, 2019.
[3] Aaron Stein, "The Roadmap to Nowhere: Manbij, Turkey and America's Dilemma in Syria," War on the Rocks, June 29, 2018.
[4] The Washington Post, June 21, 2020; The Guardian (London), Nov. 24, 2017.
[5] Bryan R. Gibson, "The Secret Origins of the U.S. Kurdish Relationship Explain Today's Disaster,'" Foreign Policy, Oct. 14, 2019.
[6] "Operation Inherent Resolve: Lead Inspector General Report to the United States Congress, July 1, 2019-October 25, 2019," U.S. Department of Defense, Washington, D.C., Nov. 19, 2019, p. 27; Lara Seligman, "How the Iran Hawks Botched Trump's Syria Withdrawal," Foreign Policy, Oct. 30, 2019.
[7] Can Acun and Bünyamin Keskin, "The PKK's Branch in Northern Syria: PYD-YPG," SETA Ankara, 2017.
[8] Asli Aydintașbaș, "A New Gaza: Turkey's Border Policy in Northern Syria," European Council for Foreign Relations, London, 2020; Spyridon Plakoudas, "The Syrian Kurds and the Democratic Union Party: The Outsider in the Syrian War," Mediterranean Quarterly, Mar. 2017, pp. 111-2.
[9] Maxim Suchkov, "Russia and Turkey: Flexible Rivals," Carnegie Moscow Center, Mar. 20, 2020.
[10] Kilic Bugra Kanat and Jackson Hanon, "The Manbij Roadmap and the Future of U.S.-Turkey Relations," Middle East Policy Council, Washington, D.C., Fall 2018, pp. 111-23.
[11] Patrick Cockburn, War in the Age of Trump: The Defeat of ISIS, the Fall of the Kurds, the Conflict with Iran (London: Verso, 2020), p. 26; Reuters, June 4, 2018.
[12] The Guardian, Dec. 20, 2018.
[13] The New York Times, Dec. 20, 2018.
[14] Ibid., Aug. 9, 2019; Seligman: "How the Iran Hawks Botched Trump's Syria Withdrawal."
[15] The New York Times, Oct. 7, 2019, Oct. 13, 2019.
[16] Fox News, Oct. 9, 2019; Graeme Wood, "John Bolton Will Hold This Grudge," The Atlantic, Sept. 10, 2019.
[17] The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 18, 2019.
[18] The Huffington Post (New York), Oct. 16, 2019.
[19] The New York Times, Oct. 24, 2019; The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 29, 2019; Ozlem Kahyan Pusane, "Turkish Public Diplomacy and Operation Peace Spring," War on the Rocks, Jan. 13, 2020.
[20] The Guardian, Nov. 8, 2019.
[21] Charles Thépaut, "The Astana Process: A Flexible but Fragile Showcase for Russia," The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington, D.C., Apr. 28, 2020.
[22] Lara Seligman: "U.S. Lawmakers Move to Punish Turkey for Buying Russian Missile System," Foreign Policy, Dec. 10, 2019; Michael Reynolds, "Turkey and Russia: A Remarkable Rapprochement," War on the Rocks, Oct. 24, 2019.
[23] Metin Gurcan, "Turkey's Operation Peace Spring effectively divides Syria into five sectors," Al-Monitor, Nov. 11, 2020.
[24] "ISIS Exploited Turkey's Operation 'Peace Spring': Pentagon's Report," Duvar English (Istanbul), Nov. 20, 2019; Wojciech Michnik and Spyridon Plakoudas, "The U.S. Withdrawal and the Scramble for Syria," Wild Blue Yonder, Jan. 2020, p. 35; Hasan Hasan, "Islamic State is back and this time the west is ill-prepared to take it on," The Guardian, May 24, 2020.
[25] Michnik and Plakoudas: "The U.S. Withdrawal," p. 35; "Operation Peace Spring: Delusion in Turkey's Objectives," Brussels International Center for Research and Human Rights, 2020; Ali Younes, "Analysis: What does the Adana deal mean for Turkey and Syria?" Aljazeera (Doha), Oct. 23, 2019.
[26] The Telegraph (London), Oct. 14, 2019.
[27] NBC News, Dec. 13, 2019.
[28] "Turkey's military operation in Syria and its impact on relations with the EU," European Parliament, Brussels, 2019.
[29] Bulent Alriza, "Erdogan and Trump at the NATO Summit: Another Display of Solidarity," Commentary, Dec. 5, 2019.
[30] Kirill Semenov, "Intel: Turkish demands on Idlib complicate Russia's pursuit of compromise," Al-Monitor, Feb. 11, 2020; Gregory Waters, "The Syrian Regime's Combat Losses in Spring 2020, and What Lies Ahead," Middle East Institute, Washington, D.C., June 2020, p. 6.
[31] Cengiz Candar, "Erdoğan's Dance with Putin: Humiliating, but Face-Saving," Al-Monitor, Mar. 6, 2020.
[32] Fehim Tastekin, "How Idlib's Escalation Could Affect Syria's Kurds," Al-Monitor, Feb. 10, 2020; Al-Monitor, Jan. 29, 2017; Stefan de Sakutin, "Will the Syrian Kurds strike a deal with Moscow?" Middle East Institute, Feb. 1, 2019.
[33] Amberin Zaman, "Turkey mum as Syrian Kurds take 'historical step' in unity talks," Al-Monitor, June 17, 2020.
[34] Al-Monitor, July 30, 2020.
Related Topics: Kurds, Syria, Turkey and Turks | Fall 2021 MEQreceive the latest by email: subscribe to the free mef mailing list
Independent review will look at impact of pre-2000 block on homosexuals in the military.
The government is yet to announce who will chair the review and its terms of reference. | Dan Mullan/Getty Images
BY ANNABELLE DICKSON
January 19, 2022
LONDON — The experiences of LGBT veterans discharged from Britain’s armed forces will heard by a new inquiry probing a pre-2000 ban on homosexual personnel.
The U.K. government announced Wednesday it’s launching an independent review into the impact the prohibitive rules had on those affected. It’s part of a plan, said minister for veterans Leo Docherty, to “better tailor support to the LGBT veteran community.”
“While the modern military embraces the LGBT community, it is important that we learn from the experiences of LGBT veterans who were affected by the pre-2000 ban,” he said in a statement released ahead of the announcement.
The government is yet to announce who will chair the review and its terms of reference.
The joint chief executives of LGBT armed forces charity Fighting With Pride Craig Jones and Caroline Paige said in their own statement that the inquiry would hear accounts from veterans whose lives were blighted by criminal convictions, prison sentences and dismissal in disgrace before Britain lifted the ban.
Second court victory for Palestine Action
Asa Winstanley Activism and BDS Beat
Activists at Birmingham Magistrates Court on Thursday. Palestine Action
Activists celebrated another victory against Israeli drone giant Elbit on Thursday, as a British court dropped all charges.
Birmingham Magistrates Court ordered that three activists go free, despite charges of criminal damage, aggravated trespass and resisting arrest.
The Palestine Action campaigners had targeted an Elbit landlord, Vine Property Management in Birmingham, in the English Midlands.
The case is the second against Palestine Action to come to trial. Last month, the group’s first trial also ended in full acquittal with protesters found not guilty of criminal damage.
The activists in the first trial successfully argued that damage they caused to Elbit’s Shenstone factory near Birmingham was proportionate action to halt the factory’s involvement in Israeli war crimes against Palestinians.
The group had chained themselves to the gates of Elbit subsidiary UAV Engines in Shenstone and splattered the building with blood-red paint in January last year.
Palestine Action shut down Elbit landlord Vine in July 2021. Palestine Action
The three activists cleared in the second trial on Thursday had taken action to shut down Vine Property in July last year, “as part of a wider campaign targeting the suppliers, partners and landlords of Elbit” the group said in a statement.
Vine is the landlord of the Shenstone factory.
“Activists chained the gates shut, occupied the roof and sprayed the site with red paint to signify its complicity in the murder of the Palestinian people,” they recalled.
They dropped a large sign calling on the landlord to “Evict Elbit.”
Palestine Action said the legal victory was “hugely significant” and was more proof that even the British courts system appears to “understand the necessity, and proportionality, of taking action to undermine British complicity in Israeli war crimes.”
Activists said on Thursday that the Crown Prosecution Service had failed to offer any evidence, leading to the charges being dropped before their political defence of proportionate action against Israeli war crimes could be put forward in court again.
Palestine Action said in its statement that there had been “serious failings by the police” and an “abuse of process” by prosecutors.
Their solicitor Lydia Dagostino told The Electronic Intifada that there had been “major failings in disclosure” by prosecutors, leading to activists walking free.
The Crown Prosecution Service did not respond to requests for comment.
The group’s latest legal victory follows hot on the heels of its first Elbit factory shutdown last week.
On 10 January, Elbit announced that it had sold off its Ferranti factory in Oldham, in the north of England.
Activist Max Geller told the most recent episode of The Electronic Intifada Podcast that, “if the UK is not going to prosecute Palestine Action, Elbit is going to be left with very little options besides quitting the country.”