ALLIANCES SHIFT AS ASSAD COMES IN FROM COLD
Kurds reach out for protection from Turkey
Kurdish Syrian forces on Friday asked the Assad government for protection against a possible Turkish attack on a flashpoint town.
The move is a sign of shifting alliances in the region and comes as Syrian President Bashar Assad — once a diplomatic pariah — appears set to be welcomed back into the international fold, at least by some Arab countries.
After the Syrian civil war began in 2011, the Kurds used the cover of battle to carve out an autonomous state in northeastern Syria. The West — including Canada — was happy to see the Kurds fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Canada provided the Kurds with weapons and Canadian special forces were sent to the area to train them.
However, the Kurdish project for a homeland looks increasingly unviable as Assad’s regime aims to reclaim the whole of Syria. After seven years of war, Assad remains in office. The Syrian government — with the crucial support of its Russian and Iranian allies — has managed to regain control of a vast portion of the country, bringing rebels to the brink of complete defeat.
Kurdish officials said they would rather try their luck in negotiations with the regime than risk an all-out assault from neighbouring Turkey, which considers the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) a terrorist group and has watched Kurdish expansion with growing concern.
“The YPG accepts drinking the poison to stop a massacre. Do you prefer your people to be massacred by a brutal dictator like (Turkish president Recep Tayyip) Erdogan or be protected by a brutal dictator like Assad?” tweeted Kamal Chomani, a fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.
On Friday, a delegation of Syrian troops erected the national flag over buildings in the outskirts of Manbij after the invitation from the Kurds — the first time it has flown in the northern town for more than six years.
However, there was no sign of any official takeover on Friday.
“The aim is to ward off a Turkish offensive,” said Ilham Ahmed, a senior Kurdish official.
A statement released by the YPG said they had invited government forces in, as they are “obliged to protect the same country, nation and borders”.
Kurdish YPG fighters in the town are part of the formerly U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) battling ISIL.
However, President Donald Trump’s decision last week to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria has left their former allies in the country vulnerable. The call on Syrian government forces to protect Manbij is the first major concession by the Kurds to the regime of Assad since the YPG seized control of vast swaths of north and east Syria and created an area of self-rule.
A Syrian army spokesman said that all Syrians must “join efforts to preserve national sovereignty” and “defeat all invaders”, with reference to Turkey.
The U.S.-backed coalition had a number of special forces stationed in the city, but it is understood they will withdraw in the next few days.
Manbij, a town of some 100,000 people fell to moderate rebel fighters in the summer of 2012 before it was overrun by ISIL jihadists in 2014. It was captured by SDF in an anti-ISIL offensive in 2016.
Meanwhile, Damascus became diplomatically isolated from a number of foreign countries when the war started. Many closed their embassies or removed their ambassadors because of safety concerns, but some made it clear that they were doing so in condemnation of the Syrian government and its leader.
“International consensus is that this regime has lost all legitimacy and the only course of action is for Assad to leave and leave now,” Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said in 2012 after Canada closed its embassy in Damascus.
Now, it looks as if shuttered embassies may be reopening in the Syrian capital as Assad’s diplomatic isolation begins to fall away.
On Thursday, the United Arab Emirates’ flag was raised above a compound in central Damascus, as charge d’affaires Abdul-Hakim Naimi officially reopened the country’s diplomatic mission in the country.
The next day, Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry announced that “work is continuing at its embassy” in Syria, which has been without an ambassador since 2011.