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Should Turkey be afraid of the Syrian
Kurds?
21.7.2012
By Soner Cagaptay, Special to CNN |
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Kobanę, Aleppo, Syrian Kurdistan (Western Kurdistan)
July 16, 2012,
Kurdistan flag is raised at the top of governmental
buildings. The Kurdish people seized all government
institutions in the Kurdish city of Kobane in West
Kurdistan on July 19, 2012.
Photo: UKS/flickr.com
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July 21, 2012
Many in Turkey are said to be alarmed by reports
over the past couple of days that Syrian Kurds have
taken over a string of towns along that country’s
border with Turkey, including
Kobanę (Ayn-al ‘Arab) and Afrin.
Turkish fears stem from the fact that the Syrian
Kurdish group, the Democratic Union Party (PYD),
which is reportedly taking over some of the border
cities, has a reputation for opposing Turkey and
supporting its sworn-enemy, the PKK. Until recently,
the PYD advertised itself as being close to the
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group notorious for
leading a decades-long fight against Turkey – one
that has resulted in tens of thousands of
casualties.
As the Turks see it, with identical PKK/PYD flags
reportedly being
raised over Ayn
al-‘Arab (Kobanę) and Afrin, developments suggest
that the PKK may be creating a safe haven for itself
on Turkey’s border with Syria. This has prompted
some bad memories: in the past, the PKK has used
safe havens such as the territory it occupied inside
northern Iraq to launch devastating attacks in
Turkey.
What’s more, today’s alleged developments leave
Turkey between a rock and a hard place: will Ankara
watch on as the PKK carves out a base in Syria, or
will it do something about this development, taking
military action inside Syria to deny the PYD/PKK
that opportunity?
Hard as it would for the Turks to bear, Ankara may
be forced to accept inaction, given the risks of
acting alone militarily.
Syria’s restless and well-organized Kurdish minority
doesn’t for the most part trust Turkey. What is
more, the PKK is believed to have considerable
support among the Syrian Kurds, many of whom are
organized under the PYD.
After the Syrian uprising began in spring 2011,
Ankara took a firm stand against the Bashar al-Assad
regime’s crackdown. Turkey adopted some tough
rhetoric toward Assad and began offering refuge to
members of the Syrian National Council (SNC)
opposition group. Turkey also provided safe haven to
Syrian refugees fleeing persecution, as well as
hosting some members of the armed opposition group,
the Free Syrian Army.
Simultaneously, reports surfaced that Assad was
re-allowing the PKK, which Damascus sheltered in the
1980s and the 1990s, to operate inside Syria. In
March of this year, for example, the PKK was accused
of moving as many as 2,000 of its members to Syria
from the Qandil enclave along the Iraq-Iran border,
where the group has maintained its headquarters and
camps over the past decade.
So, the more Turkey has increased its opposition to
the al-Assad regime, the more the al-Assad regime
seems to have allowed the PKK/PYD to establish a
base in its territory to gain a card to play against
Ankara. This makes a unilateral Turkish foray into
Syria extremely risky for Ankara: Turkey would
surely face a Kurdish insurgency if it were to enter
Syrian territory to prevent the PYD from taking
control of the Syrian cities.
But Ankara may not have to suffer the worst. Until
recently, the PYD refused to join the Syrian
uprising or the broader Kurdish opposition,
organized under the Kurdistan National Council (KNC).
But now,www.ekurd.net
the KNC and PYD have reportedly reached a deal to
unify their efforts. At the reported request of the
powerful Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, a
friend of Ankara, the PYD is said to have agreed to
stop fighting Turkey, focusing its efforts instead
in the struggle to unseat the al-Assad regime.
This new Kurdish alliance may help Ankara adopt a
more sanguine approach to the emerging Kurdish
region inside Syria. For this to happen, the PYD
needs to hold on to its part of the deal (a tall
order given the close ties between the PYD and the
PKK), while the Iraqi Kurds must use their influence
over the Syrian Kurds to encourage them to focus
their its efforts on unseating the al-Assad regime,
and not squandering an opportunity by fighting
Turkey.
Soner Cagaptay is a senior fellow at the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a GPS
contributor.
The views expressed are solely those of the author.
Copyright ©, respective
author or news agency,
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