100 Years Since The Treaty of Lausanne, Kurds Resolute on Independence

 July 26, 2023

Author Ardishir Rashidi-Kalhur
Ardishir Rashidi Kalhur | KAES | Exclusive to Ekurd.net

Signing of Treaty of Lausanne, Switzerland, 1923. Photo: Ekurd.net/Creative Commons/wikimedia

On this 100 year anniversary of the Treaty of Lausanne, which has hindered the full realization of independence for Kurdistan, righteously, legitimately, and peacefully, we the people of Kurdistan appeal to the resolve of our own people and to the full moral and legal force of the International Community to recognize the political independence of Kurdistan.

The Lausanne Treaty, and its over 140 Articles no longer is a valid and a living document, but a relic of the past, since among other things, the British Empire or the Emperor of India, the Ottoman territories, or a country named “Persia” no longer exist. While the Treaty dashed the Kurdish aspiration for an independent homeland for the Kurds, each and every one article of it, became an unretractable nail in the coffin of the Ottoman Turks so that they will never again meddle with the West and become a threat to the Western civilization.

Prior to, and during the WWI, the European Powers always considered the Turks to be the Eastern Barbarians having once came to the gates of Vienna in 1683 to conquer Europe. Since, and repeatedly, the Turks have never ceased their constant attempts of stabbing their Turkish dagger in the heart of Europe to end the Western civilization in favor of the East according to the Turks. To the present day, Turkey, the remnant of the defunct Ottomans, remains to be the battleground of East-West confrontation.

In dealing with the Turks, the “woke” among the European leadership came too late as they never learnt from the Chinese history in dealing with their Northern Barbarians against which the Chinese built the China Wall to keep them out. Turkey’s capitulation to the Allied Powers by the Treaty of Lausanne, was the final outcome of the Paris Peace Treaty which codified the Sykes-Picot Agreement that divided the former Ottoman territories to be controlled mostly by and for the benefits of the British and the French nationals and political interests.

Rise of Kamal Ataturk in post-Ottoman Turkey, Reza Shah of Iran, and the British allied, Hussein Ibn Ali of Hijaz, later replaced by Ibn Saud of Arabia in 1925, forming an early version of pro-Western “Islamic Brotherhood”, were all against the formation of an Independent Kurdish State. The Turks, albeit being the loosers of the WWI, they received a consolation prize from the West under the Lausanne Treaty. This was to sacrifice the rights of the Kurdish people not to having a homeland of their own by dividing them into its current state of a divided land.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey, January 17, 1923.

 Photo: Ekurd.net/Creative Commons/wikimedia

In addition, Turkey under the Western prepped Kamal Ataturk who became a well-known racist and a practitioner of eugenic ideas who inspired Hitler (Ref. “Ataturk in the Nazi Imagination”), became the ideal leader of a strategically important country in the Middle East called Turkey. Furthermore, to contain the expansion of the Soviet Communists into the Middle East, membership of Turkey in the NATO Alliance became of paramount importance to the Western security. Today, after all the velvet glove treatment of Turkey, with billions in financial aid and military support, it remains an untrustworthy partner in NATO. In fact, among the NATO members, Turkey is referred to as the “Judas Iscariot” among the Alliance, selling secrets and everything to anyone who pays.

Iran and the Saudi Arabia on the other hand, found their foothold within the Western Powers because of the discovery of immense amounts of oil and gas in their lands. Furthermore, these countries, on the basis of their religious dogmatism and mindless devotion to radical Islam (to the present day), made great candidates to fight the godless soviet communists who ideologically were against the Western way of life especially Capitalism, right after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

The Treaty of Lausanne should be remembered as a time in world’s affairs when the Allied powers, threw a lifeline to the successors of the decrepit and dying “Sick man of Europe”, the Ottomans, so they may continue their existence in the form of the modern-day Turkey. A country that since, has become even sicker in regard to respect for human rights, and committing acts of terrorism and aggression under the “neo-Ottomans” to regain its old territories. A country run by an immoral and criminal man and his dictatorial regime trying to resurrect the wicked ghost of the old Ottomans. The rise of ISIS and Daesh is the manifestation of this ugly resurrection of the Ottoman Turks against the Kurdish people, and indeed against humanity and the civilized world.

It is not a far-fetched theory that Erdogan political aim was to become the new caliph or sultan of the Islam world. He had to exert his control over Hijaz and the holey lands of Islam as was during the Ottomans. Therefore, he chose a personal ambassador named Jamal Khashoggi to deliver an order of capitulation to the Saudi Arabian leadership to come under the fold of the neo-Ottoman order. We all know how brutally and mercilessly the Saudis responded by receiving and treating Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Greater Kurdistan map, Kurdish claims territory 1919-1945

Most fortunately, and due to the resilient spirit of the Kurdish people, and with help of the Western powers, particularly from the United States, this time too, the neo-Ottomans have been handed a defeat that may be considered the gradual onset of the demise of Turkey as a nation- state. As the battle against the Ottoman evil is not yet won, so will continues our determination and resilient spirit, committed to the creation of the Greater Kurdistan on the site where human civilization took roots. Many world powers and the community of faith, acknowledge this fertile crescent, the Mesopotamia, as the cradle of Civilization, the birth place of human values, spirituality, virtue and wisdom against the evil powers since the ancient history to the present time.

For this cause, the world has acknowledged the long overdue respect for the people of Kurdistan surviving against all odds, to claim their full political rights to join the community of the civilized world. The last one hundred years has brought to our nation countless tragedies and setbacks, as the result of the unjust and prejudiced Lausanne Treaty against the legitimate national rights and aspiration of our people.

Today and onward, the dreams and the sacrifices of our ancestors and countless victims for an independent Free Kurdistan continues to live in our hearts and guides our vision for the brighter future. One hundred years has passed since 1923, and yet, we may ask ourselves, how do we envision the next 100 years to be for our people? For the last hundred years we have had a mutual dependency with the external powers to help us reach our independence.

While we are deeply grateful to all the international NGOs working in Kurdistan, specifically to the UN, US, EU and all continental NGOs, before the next hundred years, we must rely on the strength and resolve of our own people and political unity and creativity within the Kurdish leadership to achieve our dream of full Independence, that includes interdependency with the rest of the world. This will require formation of a Kurdistan Sustainability Program (Barnamay Bardawami Kurdistan) in parallel to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Implementation of such a long-term program will require in turn, the formation and participation of Kurdish founded NGOs by Kurds at every level of the society from grass-roots to uncorrupted and transparent leadership in governance for the management of Kurdistan resources for the benefits of cultural and economic survival and development of Kurdistan.

30,000 Kurds protest against Turkey’s Erdogan in Cologne, Germany, September 2016. Photo: Reuters

Let us for a moment imagine 100 years from now, undoubtedly by then, most of the now living generation of Kurds will not be here to mark the 200-year anniversary of Lausanne Treaty. Fortunately, and most assuredly, 100 years from today, there will be 80 to 100 million bright and educated Kurds who will have replaced us all by then. The question for us the living, is, how do we want our generation to be remembered by the coming future generation? What will we be doing for them as the next 100 years proceeds? We want them to be proud of our generation for keeping the faith and achieving peacefully and successfully, our commitment to the creation of a Free and Independent and Democratic Greater Kurdistan.

A Kurdistan that will be on par with the leading nations of the world in promotion of education, more united, more sustainable, more prosperous, more tolerant, with respect for human rights, dignity and freedom for all, and specifically, with respect and commitment to include full rights for Women. Zhen, Zhyan, Azadi will be the stamp of Kurdish identity on every Kurdish issued Passport.

Finally, for the remembrance of this historical event and the burial ceremony of the Lausanne Treaty, let us invite every Kurd around the world to plant a tree within the community of our living, A Kurdish Tree that will remind us of the continuity of the Tree of Life of Kurdistan.

Ardishir Rashidi-Kalhur, the President of Kurdish American Education Society, Los Angeles, U.S.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Ekurd.net or its editors.

Copyright © 2023 Ekurd.net. All rights reserved

Kurds and the Lausanne Treaty: A Century On, UN & International Roles

One Hundred Years after Lausanne Treaty, what Kurds, the UN, and International Community can do?

July 26, 2023
Author Dr. Saman Shali

Dr. Saman Shali | Exclusive to Ekurd.net

Turkish delegation after having signed the Treaty of Lausanne in Switzerland, July 24, 1923. Photo: Creative Commons/wikimedia


The problem is so complex that even after 100 years, it remains a significant challenge. Solving this problem once and for all and stopping 100 years of Kurdish bloodshed will require the efforts of all shareholders and the efforts of the United Nations and the international community. This problem can be addressed from three angles:

1. What effect it has on Kurdistan:

The Treaty of Lausanne, signed in 1923, did not directly address the concept of Kurdistan or the aspirations of the Kurdish people for an independent Kurdish state. As a result, the treaty did not establish a recognized Kurdistan state or address the Kurdish question in the region. Here are some key points regarding the effect of the Treaty of Lausanne on Kurdistan:

1. Absence of Kurdish Statehood: The treaty did not acknowledge or grant statehood to the Kurds, an ethnic group spread across multiple countries, including Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. The borders defined by the treaty divided the Kurdish-inhabited regions, leaving them fragmented among these states. This absence of Kurdish statehood has been a central issue for the Kurdish people and their struggle for self-determination.

2. Political Fragmentation: The Treaty of Lausanne contributed to the political fragmentation of the Kurdish population. Kurds were divided by borders, resulting in separate Kurdish communities falling under different countries’ jurisdictions. This division made it challenging for the Kurds to unite collectively and pursue their political goals.

3. Repression and Marginalization: The Kurdish population in various countries, including Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, has historically faced varying degrees of repression, marginalization, and denial of cultural and political rights. The lack of recognition of the Kurdish identity and aspirations in the treaty contributed to these challenges, as it provided a legal framework that did not acknowledge the specific needs and demands of the Kurdish people.

Kurdistan map. Map: Kohaviv publications

4. Kurdish Nationalism and Struggles for Autonomy: The absence of Kurdish statehood and the challenges faced by the Kurdish population in the aftermath of the treaty have fueled Kurdish nationalism and various movements for autonomy and self-rule. Kurdish political organizations and armed groups have emerged in different regions, seeking greater rights, cultural recognition, and political autonomy.

It is important to note that despite the lack of explicit recognition in the Treaty of Lausanne, the Kurdish people have continued to assert their identity, pursue their political aspirations, and engage in struggles for greater rights and self-determination throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The Kurdish question remains a significant issue in the region, with ongoing debates and conflicts related to the rights and status of the Kurdish people in the countries they inhabit.

2. What Kurds can do:

After 100 years since the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, the Kurds have continued to assert their cultural identity and pursue their political aspirations for justice and independence. Here are some actions and possibilities for the Kurds to work on to gain their rights:

1. Diplomatic Efforts: Kurds can continue their diplomatic efforts to raise awareness about their cultural rights, self-determination, and political aspirations on the international stage. The diplomatic efforts include engaging with governments, international organizations, and human rights bodies to advocate for recognition, support, and peaceful resolutions to the Kurdish question.

2. Political Mobilization: Kurds can continue to organize and mobilize politically to express their demands and aspirations. Political mobilization includes forming political parties, participating in elections, and engaging in peaceful activism to advocate for Kurdish rights, representation, and autonomy within the countries they inhabit.

3. Cultural Preservation and Revitalization: Kurds can focus on preserving and promoting their cultural heritage, language, and traditions. Strengthening cultural institutions, education, media, and community initiatives can ensure the preservation and revitalization of Kurdish identity across generations.

4. Peaceful Dialogue and Negotiations: Kurds can engage in peaceful dialogue and negotiations with the governments of the countries they inhabit to address the Kurdish question. Dialogue and Negotiations include advocating for reforms, constitutional recognition, decentralization, and political autonomy within existing state frameworks.

5. International Support and Solidarity: Kurds can seek support and solidarity from the international community, including civil society organizations, human rights advocates, and other marginalized groups facing similar challenges. Building alliances and coalitions can amplify their voices and increase international pressure for recognition and rights.

6. Nonviolent Resistance: Some Kurdish groups and individuals may choose nonviolent resistance methods, such as civil disobedience, protests, and noncooperation, to draw attention to their cause and pressure governments to address their grievances.

It is important to note that the strategies and actions pursued by the Kurds may vary depending on the specific context and circumstances in each country where they reside. The Kurdish question remains complex and multifaceted, requiring long-term efforts, dialogue, and negotiation to address the aspirations and rights of the people of Kurdistan.

3. What the United Nations and International Communities can do:


Flags of Countries in front of the United Nations Office at Geneva, Switzerland, 2023. Photo: Creative Commons/Pexels

After 100 years since the signing of the Lausanne Treaty, the United Nations (UN) and the international community can take various actions to support the rights and aspirations of the people of Kurdistan. Here are some critical steps they can take collectively:

1. Recognition and Inclusion: The UN and international community can advocate for recognizing Kurdish identity, cultural rights, and autonomy within the countries where Kurds reside. They can encourage governments to adopt inclusive policies, granting Kurds equal citizenship, cultural rights, and political representation. Efforts can be made to ensure the Kurdish language and culture are respected, promoted, and protected.

2. Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding: The UN and international community can actively engage in conflict resolution and peacebuilding efforts in regions affected by conflicts involving Kurdish communities. This peacebuilding can involve supporting mediation processes, facilitating stakeholder dialogue, and promoting peaceful negotiations to address grievances and seek sustainable solutions.

3. Human Rights Protection: The UN and the international community should prioritize protecting Kurdish human rights. They can monitor and report on human rights abuses, promote accountability for violations, and support initiatives ensuring the Kurdish people’s safety and well-being. This protection includes addressing arbitrary arrests, forced displacements, and discrimination against Kurds. Moreover, prevent and stop all types of aggression against the people of Kurdistan.

4. Political Dialogue and Negotiations: The UN and international community can facilitate political dialogue and negotiations between Kurdish representatives and the governments of the countries where Kurds reside. They can provide a neutral platform for discussions, encourage constructive engagement, and support efforts to find peaceful and equitable solutions to the Kurdish question, including the right to self-determination.

5. Humanitarian Assistance and Development: The UN and international community can provide humanitarian assistance to address the immediate needs of Kurdish communities affected by conflicts, displacement, and marginalization. They can also support long-term development programs that promote socio-economic opportunities, education, healthcare, and infrastructure development in Kurdish-inhabited regions.

6. Support for Democracy and Governance: The UN and international community can promote democratic processes, good governance, and inclusive institutions in regions with Kurdish populations. This aid includes supporting free and fair elections, strengthening democratic institutions and independent justice, and ensuring that Kurds have meaningful political representation and participation at all levels of decision-making.

7. International Solidarity and Advocacy: The UN and international community can support the Kurdish people and advocate for their rights globally. This advocacy can involve raising awareness about the Kurdish question, fostering international cooperation, and encouraging member states to address the Kurdish issue within international law, human rights, and self-determination principles.

In conclusion, it is essential to note that the actions and initiatives undertaken by the UN and the international community would require cooperation and forceful engagement from both the governments of the countries where Kurds reside and the Kurdish community itself. The approach should be based on respect for sovereignty, human rights, and the principles of peaceful resolution of conflicts.

The United Nations and the international community must also stop the genocide against the Kurds and prohibit using military force and chemical weapons against them. However, the countries where the Kurds reside must stop the forced expulsion of the Kurdish people from their homeland for the sake of demographic change in Kurdistan.

Saman Shali, Ph.D., Political Analyst and former president of Kurdish National Congress (KNCNA), see below. Read more by Saman Shali.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Ekurd.net or its editors.

Copyright © 2023 Ekurd.net. All rights reserved

 

Turkish Imperialism: Whither the Syrian Kurds?

by Spyridon Plakoudas and Wojciech Michnik
Middle East Quarterly
Fall 2021 

(view PDF)

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).

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[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

With attacks on Kurds, Erdogan aims to weaken opposition ahead of election

Story by By MAYA MARGIT/THE MEDIA LINE • Yesterday 

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news conference in Istanbul, Turkey October 16, 2021© (photo credit: REUTERS/MURAD SEZER)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signaled that a ground incursion in northern Syria and Iraq may be on the table after Ankara launched a series of airstrikes on Kurdish bases in the two countries.

Erdogan has blamed Kurdish groups for a deadly bombing in Istanbul that took the lives of six people and wounded dozens more. For their part, Kurdish groups have denied any involvement in the blast. The female assailant who carried out the bombing is said to be of Syrian extraction and had entered Turkey through Afrin in northern Syria, according to Turkish media reports.

On Sunday, Turkey announced the launch of Operation Claw-Sword aimed against the positions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq as well as at the Kurdish People’s Protection Group (YPG) along the Syrian border.

Dozens were reported to have been killed in the ensuing Turkish air strikes on Syrian and Iraqi targets that took place over the weekend.

Erdogan warned that the military campaign could well involve ground forces.


People react after an explosion on busy pedestrian Istiklal street in Istanbul, Turkey, November 13, 2022 (credit: REUTERS/KEMAL ASLAN)© Provided by The Jerusalem PostPeople react after an explosion on busy pedestrian Istiklal street in Istanbul, Turkey, November 13, 2022 (credit: REUTERS/KEMAL ASLAN)

However, regional experts believe that the uptick in Turkey-Kurdish tension is mainly a pretext aimed at boosting Erdogan’s chances of reelection.

Is the timing of the military campaign, politically charged?

Guney Yildiz, a London-based researcher, journalist and former think tank expert on Turkey, told The Media Line that the timing of the military campaign appears to be politically motivated.

“If the [Kurds in Turkey] vote for the opposition candidate then Erdogan is at a huge risk of not being elected.”Guney Yildiz, a London-based researcher, journalist and former think tank expert on Turkey

“There’s an upcoming election for Erdogan [in June] and the Kurdish voters in Turkey are among the key constituents who will determine who will not be the next president,” Yildiz explained. “If the [Kurds in Turkey] vote for the opposition candidate then Erdogan is at a huge risk of not being elected.”

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Ahead of the pivotal vote, Erdogan has been pushing a very strong anti-Kurd policy aimed at sowing division in the Turkish opposition bloc and thereby strengthening his position, Yildiz said.

“When the Kurds in Turkey react to Turkish attacks in Syria, the opposition will most probably side with the government or support the incursion, and that may create divisions within the Turkish opposition or among Kurdish voters,” he explained, adding that the move also holds strategic significance for Turkey, which fears Kurdish independence.

The female assailant behind the Istanbul bombing was named by Turkish media as 23-year-old Ahlam Albashir. Although Ankara was quick to accuse her of being backed by Kurdish groups, other reports indicate instead that Albashir has links to the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army.

“Other suspects linked to this woman turned out to be part of the Islamist Syrian opposition rather than Kurdish groups,” Yildiz affirmed. “From the first moment, the Turkish government was blaming the Kurds for being behind the attack but evidence circulating [shows] that it is difficult to deduce that.”

“Even though the terrorist was a Syrian Arab – and not a Kurd – the Turkish government is still blaming the Kurds. This is why I believe that the blame is mostly political. As soon as he attacks the Kurds that greatly weakens his opposition,”Dr. Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak

Dr. Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak, an expert on Turkey at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, also believes that Erdogan is scapegoating the Kurds for political reasons.

“As soon as the state is fighting the Kurds, how can the opposition unite with the Kurdish party,” he said. “Even though the terrorist was a Syrian Arab – and not a Kurd – the Turkish government is still blaming the Kurds. This is why I believe that the blame is mostly political. As soon as he attacks the Kurds that greatly weakens his opposition,” he told The Media Line.

According to Yanarocak, Ankara currently is focused on attacking the Kobane area, which holds great symbolic value since this is where the Kurds fought against the Islamic State group.

To further complicate matters, Iran also has recently begun attacking positions in Iraq that are held by Kurdish groups. The Islamic Republic reportedly is seeking to divert attention away from the internal unrest brought about by months of widespread anti-government protests.

Whether or not Ankara decides to move forward with a ground incursion is dependent on the Russian and American response to the move, Yanarocak said, recalling that the United States relied heavily on Kurdish forces to defeat Islamic State jihadists in 2014.

Washington has so far urged de-escalation, while Moscow has called on Turkey to refrain from using excessive military force.

“If there will indeed be an incursion then it will happen similarly to previous ones and be limited in scope,” Yanarocak predicted. “It can’t last for a long time and therefore I do not believe that it will destabilize the region.”

Concerns mount over global security implications of Turkish military strategy against Syria's Kurds

Experts say the Biden administration has plenty of leverage to wield privately in urging Erdogan to relent in the threatened escalated attack on Syrian Kurds.

Sunday 04/12/2022

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, walks with US President Joe Biden during the G20 leaders' summit in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, November 15, 2022. (AP)

WASHINGTON/ ANKARA—

Biden administration officials are toughening their language toward NATO ally Turkey as they try to talk Turkish President Recep Erdogan out of launching a bloody and destabilising ground offensive against American-allied Kurdish forces in neighbouring Syria.

Since November 20, after six people died in an Istanbul bombing a week before that Turkey blamed, without evidence, on the US and its Kurdish allies in Syria, Turkey has launched cross-border airstrikes, rockets and shells into US- and Kurdish-patrolled areas of Syria, leaving Kurdish funeral corteges burying scores of dead.

Some criticised the initial muted US response to the near-daily Turkish bombardment — a broad call for “de-escalation” — as a US green light for more. With Erdogan not backing down on his threat to escalate, the US began speaking more forcefully.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin called his Turkish counterpart on Wednesday to express “strong opposition” to Turkey launching a new military operation in northern Syria.

And National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Friday made one of the administration's first specific mentions of the impact of the Turkish strikes on the Kurdish militia, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, that works with the United States against Islamic State (ISIS) extremists bottled up in northern Syria.

How successfully the United States manages Erdogan’s threat to send troops in against America's Kurdish partners over coming weeks will affect global security concerns far from that isolated corner of Syria.

That's especially true for the Ukraine conflict. The Biden administration is eager for Erdogan's cooperation with other NATO partners in countering Russia, particularly when it comes to persuading Turkey to drop its objections to Finland and Sweden joining NATO.

But giving Turkey free rein in attacks on the Syrian Kurds in hopes of securing Erdogan's cooperation within NATO would have big security implications of its own.

US forces on Friday stopped joint military patrols with the Kurdish forces in northern Syria to counter ISIS extremists, as the Kurds concentrate on defending themselves from the Turkish air and artillery attacks and a possible ground invasion.

On Saturday, the US and Kurds resumed limited patrols at one of the detention camps.

Since 2015, the Syrian Kurdish forces have worked with the few hundred forces the US has on the ground there, winning back territory from the Islamic State extremists and then detaining thousands of ISIS fighters and their families and battling remnant Islamic State extremists.

“ISIS is the forgotten story for the world and the United States, because of the focus on Ukraine,” said Omer Taspinar, an expert on Turkey and European security at the Brookings Institution and the National War College.

 

Turkey's Defence Minister Hulusi Akar chairs a new air operation in northern regions of Iraq and Syria with members of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) command level at the Turkish Air Force Operations Centre in Ankara, November 20, 2022. (AFP)

“Tragically, what would revive Western support for the Kurds ... would be another ISIS terrorist attack, God forbid, in Europe or in the United States that will remind people that we actually have not defeated ISIS,” Taspinar said.

Turkey says the Syrian Kurds are allied to a nearly four-decade PKK Kurdish insurgency in southeast Turkey that has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people on both sides. The United States' Syrian Kurdish allies deny any attacks in Turkey.

US Central Command, and many in Congress, praise the Syrian Kurds as brave comrades in arms. In July, Central Command angered Turkey by tweeting condolences for a Syrian Kurdish deputy commander and two other female fighters killed by a drone strike blamed on Turkey.

In 2019, a public outcry by his fellow Republicans and many others killed a plan by President Donald Trump, which he announced after a call with Erdogan, to clear US troops out of the way of an expected Turkish attack on the Kurdish allies in Syria.

Then-presidential contender Joe Biden was among those expressing outrage.

“The Kurds were integral in helping us defeat ISIS — and too many lost their lives. Now, President Trump has abandoned them. It’s shameful,” Biden tweeted at the time.

The measured US response now — even after some Turkish strikes hit near sites that host US forces — reflects the significant strategic role that Turkey, as a NATO member, plays in the alliance's efforts to counter Russia in Europe. The US State Department and USAID did not immediately answer questions about whether the Turkish strikes had hindered aid workers and operations that partner with the United States.

Turkey, with strong ties to both Russia and the United States, has contributed to its NATO allies' efforts against Russia in key ways during the Ukraine conflict. That includes supplying armed drones to Ukraine, and helping mediate between Russia and the United States and others.

But Turkey is also seeking to exert leverage within the alliance by blocking Finland and Sweden from joining NATO. Turkey is demanding that Sweden surrender Kurdish exiles that it says are affiliated with the PKK Kurdish insurgents.

Turkey’s state-run news agency reported that Sweden extradited a member of the PKK and he was arrested Saturday upon arrival in Istanbul.

Turkey is one of only two of the 30 NATO members not to have signed off yet on the Nordic countries' NATO memberships. Hungary, the other, is expected to do so.

At a gathering of NATO foreign ministers in Bucharest, Romania, this past week, NATO diplomats refrained from publicly confronting Turkey, avoiding giving offense that might further set back the cause of Finland's and Sweden's NATO membership.

Turkey's foreign minister made clear to his European counterparts that Turkey had yet to be appeased, when it came to Finland or Sweden hosting Kurdish exiles there.

“We reminded that in the end, it’s the Turkish people and the Turkish parliament that need to be convinced,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters on the sidelines.

 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to talk Thursday with Finland's and Sweden's foreign ministers on dealing with Turkey's objections to their NATO accession.

Experts say the Biden administration has plenty of leverage to wield privately in urging Erdogan to relent in the threatened escalated attack on Syrian Kurds. That includes US F-16 fighter sales that Turkey wants but have been opposed by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez and others in Congress.

There's a third big security risk in the US handling of Turkey's invasion threat, along with the possible impact on the Ukraine conflict and on efforts to contain ISIS.

That's the risk to Kurds, a stateless people and frequent US ally often abandoned by the US and the West in past conflicts over the past century.

If the US stands by while Turkey escalates attacks on the Syrian Kurds who were instrumental in quelling the Islamic State, “especially in the aftermath of Afghanistan, what message are we sending to the Middle East?" asked Henri J. Barkey, an expert on Kurds and Turkey at the Council on Foreign Relations and at Lehigh University.

“And to all allies in general?" Barkey asked.

An ethnic group of millions at the intersection of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, Kurds lost out on a state of their own as the US and other powers carved up the remnants of the Turkish Ottoman Empire after World War I.

As under US President George H.W. Bush in 1991 after the Gulf War, the United States at times encouraged popular uprisings but stood by as Kurds died in the resulting massacres.

On November 28, hundreds of Syrian Kurds gathered for the victims of one of the Turkish airstrikes — five guards killed securing the al-Hol camp, which holds thousands of family members of Islamic State extremists.