Turkey’s operation to create a ‘safe zone’ inside Syria runs the risk of greater unrest across the region What about the fight against Isis?
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long threatened to send troops into northeastern Syria to clear the border region of Syrian Kurdish fighters whom Turkey considers a serious security threat.
A Turkish invasion looks more likely after President Donald Trump’s sudden announcement that US troops, who had fought alongside the Kurds against Isis (Islamic State), would withdraw from the area. Turkey launched airstrikes on the region yesterday.
Here is a look at what Turkey wants to achieve in the area, and the risks and challenges it faces by getting even more deeply involved in the Syrian crisis.
What does Turkey want?
Turkey wants to create what it calls a “safe zone” in a stretch of territory along its southern border with Syria that is currently controlled by Syrian Kurdish fighters known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG. The YPG is the main fighting force in the alliance of groups that make up the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which the United States backed in the fight against Isis (Islamic State).
Turkey considers the YPG as terrorists affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a 35-year-long battle against the Turkish state. Ankara also views the YPG-controlled zone as an “existential threat”.
The YPG denies that it is a terror organisation but says it aspires to the ideals of the PKK’s founding leader, Abdullah Ocalan.
Erdogan has demanded a “safe zone” that is 30km deep and stretches more than 480km toward the Iraqi border.
He initially had hoped to do it in collaboration with the United States but grew frustrated with what he considered to be delaying tactics by the US.
Once secured, Turkey wants to resettle the area with 2 million Syrian refugees who fled to Turkey due to the conflict in their home country. How such a massive resettlement would be carried out is unclear. Human rights groups have warned that any escalation of fighting in the area could displace hundreds of thousands more people.
Erdogan has spoken of plans to build towns, villages, hospitals and schools but also says Turkey, which has already spent some US$40 billion ($63.4b) on the refugees, cannot afford to do it alone.
He has said he will convene a donors conference to help meet the cost and has called on European nations to share the burden, warning that Turkey could be forced to open the “gates” for an influx of migrants to Western nations.
Kurds vow to fight back
Turkey has carried out two previous incursions into northern Syria in recent years with the help of Syrian rebels. In the first offensive in 2016, Turkey pushed back Isis militants west of the Euphrates River. In the second operation last year, Turkey captured the Syrian-Kurdishcontrolled enclave of Afrin. Those regions are currently administered by Turkish-backed opposition groups who run them as virtual Turkish-administered towns.
Analysts say this operation would likely be more complicated. Unwilling to let go of an area they wrested from Isis, the battle-hardened Kurdish fighters — trained and equipped by the US — have vowed to fight the Turks until the end. “It’s a huge area for the Turkish military to go into and clearly there will be resistance on the part of the [Syrian Kurdish forces],” said Bulent Aliriza, of the director of the Turkey Project at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
Aliriza suggested the operation may be a limited one that does not stretch all the way to the Iraqi border. “That’s what we are going to look at first. How deep and how broad is it, whether it’s all the way across from the Iraqi border to the Euphrates, or just limited to two or three penetration points.”
Critics of Trump’s decision fear a Turkish operation could have destabilising consequences for the region, while both Democrats and Republicans have warned that a Turkish attack could lead to a large number of fatalities among the Kurds, who are holding thousands of captured Isis fighters and their families.
One of the big question marks surrounding Turkey’s plans is whether fighting the Syrian Kurdish forces would allow Isis to make a comeback.
Turkey insists that the global battle against the militants won’t suffer, and points to its 2016 incursion, which drove away Isis from another border region.
But Kurdish officials have warned that they would have to divert their forces away from guarding Isis prisoners in the case of a Turkish assault.
Kurdish authorities run more than two dozen detention facilities, scattered around northeastern Syria, holding about 10,000 Isis fighters.
The White House has said Turkey will take over responsibility for the imprisoned fighters, but it is unclear how that would happen, if at all.
Erdogan says Turkey and the US are working separately on plans to repatriate foreign fighters held in Kurdish prisons.