Assad, Kurds in deal to halt Turkey
"If the regime is entering to protect the YPG, then noone can stop us, stop Turkey or the Turkish soldiers." Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkish foreign minister
SYRIA: The Assad regime and Turkey are headed for a direct military confrontation in Syria after Damascus said its forces would join Kurdish fighters to defend the region of Afrin from the advancing Turkish army.
Pro-Assad fighters look set to be deployed on the front line against Turkish troops, who crossed the border into Syria last month in an operation to wrest control of the Afrin area from Kurdish forces.
A Kurdish alliance with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could open a new phase in the conflict after almost seven years of fighting, and complicate the positions of Russia and the United States.
Details of a Kurdish deal with Assad remain unclear but Turkey’s foreign minister yesterday threatened action if it went ahead. Turkey regards the Kurdish YPG militia as a terrorist organisation and is determined to destroy it.
‘‘If the regime is entering Afrin to oust the YPG, there is no problem,’’ Mevlut Cavusoglu said. ‘‘But if the regime is entering to protect the YPG, then no-one can stop us, stop Turkey or the Turkish soldiers.’’
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan phoned Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday to discuss the developments, and demanded that Russia, which has ties to both the Assad regime and the Kurds, intervene to stop or alter any alliance. ‘‘If Syria opts for such a move, there will be consequences,’’ Erdogan told Putin.
Turkish troops backed by tanks and US-supplied F-16 warplanes have made slow but bloody progress since their assault on the Kurdish-majority pocket began a month ago. The YPG is the Syrian branch of the PKK, a Kurdish guerrilla group that has waged war on Ankara for four decades, and Erdogan is determined not to let it hold the Syrian border with Turkey.
Sana, the Syrian state news agency, said pro-regime forces were on their way to help to defend Afrin. ‘‘Popular forces will arrive in Afrin within a few hours to support its people’s stand against the Turkish regime’s attack on the area and its people,’’ it reported.
‘‘Popular forces’’ normally means the National Defence Force, a collection of local pro-regime militias outside the formal structure of the army, which are in many cases bolstered by Shia Muslim fighters drawn from across the region, who are recruited by Iran, Syria’s ally.
Despite the slow pace of the Turkish incursion, the Kurds have taken heavy losses, and their leaders fear that they will not be able to hold out without help.
‘‘For the fascist and terrorist plan to fail we are ready to cooperate with any side that can help,’’ Badran Jia Kurd, a Kurdish Afrin official, said.
No formal statement on a deal had been issued by the YPG, with some sources suggesting that the Kurds were having second thoughts about putting their trust in the Assad regime, or about how much power they were willing to cede to secure help from Damascus.
The YPG and the Assad regime have had an on-off relationship throughout the Syrian war, sometimes co-operating, sometimes fighting, but mostly allowing each other to operate unhindered in their respective spheres of influence.
The regime has allowed YPG fighters to cross its territory to reach Afrin from strongholds in eastern Syria, where Kurdish forces and local Arab allies supported by American, British and other Western backers control a third of Syria.
Assad has vowed to regain all of Syria’s pre-war territory, including that controlled by the Kurds. However, officials have accepted that a degree of autonomy may have to be allowed in return, especially since the YPG forged an alliance against Islamic State with the US.
America will resist the Kurds giving way to the Assad regime when it comes to Iraq’s border with Syria, where Iranian militias are powerful, but the US is attempting to engineer a compromise between the Kurds and its Nato ally Turkey. Rex Tillerson, the US Secretary of State, met Erdogan last week.
Elsewhere, the Assad regime has brought thousands of reinforcements to the outskirts of Damascus in preparation for an assault on the rebel-held area of eastern Ghouta. – The Times