Syria’s Kurds confronted with all-out conflict as Turkey, Sunni allies goal Kobani 

The collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime following a lightning offensive led by al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and an array of Sunni factions supported by Turkey has created new realities on the bottom for the nation’s Kurds, who’ve since 2012 administered the northeast and jap elements of the nation. The total image is destructive because the US-backed Syrian Kurdish Democratic Forces loses management of rising swaths of territory east of Afrin, together with the cities of Tell Rifaat and Manbij mendacity to the West of the Euphrates River, to Turkish-backed Sunni opposition forces.

Turkish proxies, with help from Turkish airstrikes, superior at this time towards the city of Kobani, in line with well-informed sources on the bottom, as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan renewed vows to crush “terrorist organizations resembling ISIS and the PKK/PYD in different elements of the nation as quickly as potential.” They started their push after seizing management of Karakozak, a bridge that connects the western and jap banks of the Euphrates River, regardless of fierce resistance from Kurdish forces.

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that has been preventing the Turkish state since 1984 for numerous types of Kurdish self-rule. Turkey accuses the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which shares energy within the Syrian Kurdish-led Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), of being instantly linked to the PKK. Erdogan, tellingly, didn’t point out the SDF, which is led by the PKK offshoot the People’s Protection Units and its all-female arm known as the YPJ. The majority of the SDF forces, nonetheless, is made up of Arabs who Turkey hopes will be part of forces with Syria’s new management.

Kobani emerged as an emblem of Kurdish resistance when the city was besieged by ISIS in 2014 and Erdogan appeared to cheer them on, saying “Kobani is falling.” His perceived help for the jihadis provoked bloody riots inside Turkey, accelerating the collapse of peace talks between the federal government and the PKK and a ceasefire with the militants that formally resulted in July 2015.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based conflict monitor, reported {that a} Turkish drone had struck a navy web site on Kobani’s Mishtanour Hill. The SDF stated it had shot down a Turkish drone on Tuesday over al Darbasiyah within the Hasakah countryside amid unconfirmed stories that a minimum of eight members of the identical household had died in a Turkish airstrike on Tuesday morning within the village of Safiya, west of the city of Ayn Issa.

It is an existential second for DAANES because it faces the prospect of being collapsed by the Turkish navy and Sunni opposition factions. With Russia, the regime and Iran out of the image, the Syrian Kurds have much less room to chop offers that may have ensured their safety, leaving them squarely on the mercy of the United States, which has some 900 troops stationed in northeast Syria to make sure that ISIS doesn’t stage a comeback. President Joe Biden stated on Sunday that the United States plans to maintain US forces on the bottom, however what of incoming President Donald Trump, who in 2019 ordered their withdrawal solely to alter his thoughts below bipartisan stress from Congress? What future awaits Syria’s Kurds, and what are their choices?

Current state of play 

The destiny of tons of of YPG and YPJ fighters who refused to go away Manbij regardless of a US-brokered settlement with Turkey for his or her secure exit from town remains to be in play because the DAANES management continues to press for a deal. As Al-Monitor went to press, the SDF introduced that it had known as a ceasefire. Some hope that opposition forces will prepare their assault on the location of the close by tomb of Suleyman Shah, the grandfather of the Ottoman Sultan Osman I who based the Ottoman Empire, as a substitute of Kobani itself. In February 2015, when the peace talks between the PKK and the Turkish state have been nonetheless ongoing, YPG forces cleared the trail for Turkish troops to entry the tomb through Kobani and to relocate the stays to a hill north of the Turkish border. It is straightforward to think about that Turkey want to plant its flag on the location as soon as once more and declare victory as Erdogan seeks to run for a 3rd time period in workplace in 2028 regardless of constitutional hurdles.

To be certain, the present offensive towards Syrian Kurds is as a lot a results of the vacuum created by the regime’s collapse as it’s a part of Erdogan’s home agenda that has seen him and nationalist ally Devlet Bahceli provide carrots to imprisoned PKK chief Abdullah Ocalan whereas partaking his fighters in Iraqi Kurdistan and northeast Syria.

The initiative started taking form in October when Bahceli stated that Ocalan might be granted amnesty if he ordered the PKK to finish its conflict towards Turkey. In quick order, the PKK chief was allowed to satisfy along with his nephew, a lawmaker within the pro-Kurdish DEM occasion, ending 43 months of isolation on the jail island the place Ocalan has been held since his seize in 1999.

The authorities seems to be banking on Ocalan’s enduring reputation amongst hundreds of thousands of Kurds and the unerring loyalty pledged to him from the PKK’s high commanders, who stated they’d observe his lead. The talks, which started in April, might have included Syrian Kurdish officers, as Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan hinted when he stated, “They know their homework.”

The talks hit a wall over the standing of northeast Syria, well-informed sources briefing Al-Monitor stated, simply as they did again in 2015, when Turkey was demanding that the Syrian Kurds be part of the Sunni opposition’s battle towards Assad they usually refused, selecting as a substitute to consolidate their self-rule and keep their neutrality within the battle.

Turkey now insists that every one non-Syrian PKK-linked cadres inside DAANES and its safety arm — in different phrases Turkish, Iranian and Iraqi Kurds — depart northeast Syria, although it’s unclear the place they’d go, and that management over oil revenues that props up the autonomous administration be wrested from its management. At the identical time, Ankara was discussing the potential integration of SDF forces throughout the Syrian military and that Syrian Kurdish opposition teams working below the Kurdistan National Council (KNC) be allowed to share energy. But that was when Ankara was concurrently in search of a take care of Assad to affix forces towards DAANES and to safe the return of hundreds of thousands of Syrians in Turkey amid rising anti-refugee sentiments amongst Turks that has damage Erdogan on the poll field.

The Kurdish facet was demanding amongst different issues that Kurds displaced by Turkey’s 2018 occupation of Afrin and its 2019 occupation of Ras al-Ain and Tell Abyad be allowed to return.

With the regime gone, Ankara has strengthened its hand. It is demanding that SDF commander Mazlum Kobane publicly surrender all hyperlinks with the PKK.

This might sign a softening of Ankara’s stance. With the demise of the peace talks in 2015, Kobane was positioned on Turkey’s checklist of most needed terrorists over his prior function contained in the PKK and has survived a minimum of two assassination makes an attempt by Turkish forces. Or it might be a cynical ploy to separate the motion, which might align with Ankara’s playbook.

However, the KNC is making comparable calls on Kobane to publicly distance himself from the PKK, a senior KNC official advised Al-Monitor.

“If the PKK doesn’t present some flexibility and grant Mazlum a free hand, our alternative as Kurds to stake out a powerful place in Syria’s future shall be misplaced. We will all sink collectively,” the official stated.

Being Mazlum Kobane

Kobani isn’t any stranger to Turkish officialdom. As the PKK’s chief consultant in Europe within the Nineties he was approached by Turkish officers to assist dealer ceasefires and to hold messages from Ocalan to his lieutenants within the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. He is also known as Ocalan’s “religious son.” The pair loved an in depth relationship with the PKK chief when he was nonetheless based mostly in Syria with the Assad regime’s blessing. The problem dealing with Kobani is to navigate an finish state the place he can defend Kurdish features over the previous 12 years and consolidate them by way of outreach to Syria’s new leaders whereas accommodating Turkey however with out compromising his credentials as a real son of the Kurds.

Ocalan (left) and Mazlum Kobane swimming collectively in Syria in an undated image.

Since taking cost of the SDF in 2014 and establishing a decent working relationship with the Pentagon and State Department officers coping with Syria, Kobane has matured into a classy chief whose strategic smarts and charisma have made him indispensable to Washington within the battle towards ISIS whereas forging alliances with Arab tribes in locations like Raqqa and Deir Ezzor.

He has the wherewithal to guide the Syrian Kurds past peril. But will he be given the chance? Ocalan, who’s being steadily legitimized by Ankara after being labeled a “child killer” for many years, might present the reply.

Turkey’s Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc revealed on Tuesday that DEM’s request to satisfy with Ocalan was being assessed. “We shall be engaged on an applicable date for a gathering,” Yilmaz stated. Should the assembly happen, Ocalan is prone to talk a message to the PKK and the SDF by way of DEM attorneys. Its substance is probably going being negotiated as of the time of this writing.

Old and new allies 

Unlike Turkey the Kurds get pleasure from sturdy bipartisan help in Congress. There will possible be a powerful backlash towards Turkey’s ongoing aggression and stress on Trump as soon as he takes workplace to intervene forcefully to make it cease. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has already threatened to draft sanctions towards Turkey.

Israel has additionally publicly lent help to the SDF amid claims within the Israeli media that Israeli officers have been in direct contact with the group for the primary time. “The assaults on the Kurds, as we noticed yesterday in Manbij, should cease. There should be a dedication and actions by the worldwide group to guard the Kurds, who fought bravely towards ISIS. We have spoken with the US administration and different international locations on this matter,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar advised reporters on Monday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is prone to exhort Trump as soon as he takes workplace to face by the Kurds. However, it is unclear how Israel can defend the Kurds apart from diplomatically, and such clumsily vocal help is breeding deep resentment amongst many Arabs in the remainder of Syria who despise the Jewish state. Israel’s actual agenda shall be to unsettle Turkey, with which its relations have hit backside over the latter’s help for Hamas.

In any case, the bitter experiences of the previous have taught the Syrian Kurds that the United States can’t be relied on and that Turkey, a crucial NATO member, will all the time take priority.

As such, HTS might emerge as a brand new companion for them as their chief Abu Mohammed al-Golani seeks to agency up its legitimacy inside Syria and past. Turkey’s help for the group stays important and Ankara will undoubtedly prevail on Golani to not have interaction with the SDF until the PKK is excised from Syria. But the Kurds reckon that now that Golani is in Damascus he has larger independence and understands the urgency of speaking with them, if solely to make good with Washington within the speedy time period.

Access to Syria’s oil wealth that’s concentrated in areas below Kurdish management shall be a key speaking level going ahead.

However, the opposite looming threat for Syria’s Kurds is that opposition forces will search to take over the oil in Arab-majority Deir ez-Zor, the place Turkey is actively in search of to show Arab tribes towards Kurdish rule, a senior SDF official talking not for attribution advised Al-Monitor. Regime-aligned teams in Deir ez-Zor metropolis have been stoking unrest because the SDF moved in final week. A US-trained Arab militia generally known as the Syrian Free Army has since moved into town as effectively whereas assuming joint management over the al-Bukamal border crossing with Iraq that served as a pipeline for Iranian weapons being ferried to Hezbollah in Lebanon previous to Assad’s fall.

In a associated growth, Abu al-Harith ash-Shu’ayti, a pacesetter of the SDF-led Deir ez-Zor Military Council, introduced his defection from the SDF on Tuesday.