Turkish chief vows wider fight with Kurdish militia
BEIRUT >> Turkey’s president vowed Monday to keep up the pressure against a U.S.backed Syrian Kurdish militia after his troops captured the Syrian town of Afrin, threatening to expand the military offensive into other Kurdish-held areas across northern Syria and even into neighboring Iraq.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared set on forcing Washington to reconsider its partnership with the Syrian Kurdish fighters, the main U.S. ally in the fight against the Islamic State group.
Turkey first launched its military operation in Syria in 2016, and Erdogan has repeatedly said it will not allow a “terror corridor” along its border — a reference to territories controlled by the Kurdish forces, which Turkey views as terrorists because of their links to Kurdish insurgents fighting inside Turkey.
Emboldened by Sunday’s capture of Afrin, Erdogan went even further on Monday, asserting that Turkish troops and allied Syrian forces would press eastward, targeting territory that includes Kobani, a town that has become a symbol of the fight against the Islamic State militants, as well as Qamishli, where the Syrian government controls an airport and a security zone.
Also in the cross hairs is Manbij, a town jointly patrolled by U.S- and Kurdish forces and where U.S. bases are housed, triggering concerns over potential friction with U.S. troops. Erdogan even threatened to target Iraq’s Sinjar mountains, used by Kurdish fighters to move between Iraq and Syria, and which Turkey claims is a stronghold for the outlawed Kurdish rebels fighting an insurgency in its southeast.
“We’ll continue this process until we completely abolish this corridor,” Erdogan said. “One night, we could suddenly enter Sinjar.”
Nicholas Heras, a Middle East Security fellow at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security, said the capture of Afrin was a “milestone” for Turkey in Syria but was not the end of its campaign against the Kurdish militia, known as the Syrian Kurdish People’s Defense Units, or YPG.
“The final destination is a Turkish war on the Kurds throughout northern and eastern Syria that destroys the YPG and forces the Americans to work by, with and through Turkey” in the fight against IS and in Syria, he said.
U.S. support of Syria’s Kurdish militia, which Turkey views as a threat to its national security, has soured relations between the two NATO allies.