U.s., turkey resolve to push out isil
• Turkey and the United States have agreed on the outlines of a plan to rout the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant from a strip of Syrian territory along the Turkish border — a plan that opens the possibility of a safe haven for tens of thousands of displaced Syrians, but also sets up a potential conflict with U.S.backed Syrian Kurdish forces in the area.
The move further embroils Turkey, a key NATO ally, in Syria’s civil war, and catapults it into a front-line position in the global war against the Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant.
A senior Obama administration official said Monday that U.S. discussions with Turkey about an ISIL-free zone focused on a 105-kilometre stretch still under the jihad- ists’ control. The U.S. has been conducting air strikes there, which will accelerate now it can launch strikes from Turkish soil, the official said.
In Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby said any joint military efforts with Turkey would not include imposing a no-fly zone. The U.S. has long rejected Turkish and other requests for such a zone to halt Syrian government air raids, fearing it would draw U.S. forces further into the civil war.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Ankara and Washington have no intention of sending ground troops into Syria, but wanted to see Syria’s moderate opposition forces replace ISIL near the Turkish border.
“Moderate forces like the Free Syrian Army will be strengthened, a structure will be created so that they can take control of areas freed from ISIL, air cover will be provided. It would be impossible for them to take control of the area without it,” Davutoglu said.
The discussions came amid a major tactical shift in Turkey’s approach to ISIL. After months of reluctance, Turkish warplanes started hitting militant targets in Syria last week, and allowed the U.S. to launch its own strikes from Turkey’s strategically located Incirlik Air Base.
Turkey has also called a meeting of its NATO allies for Tuesday to discuss threats to its security and its airstrikes. Davutoglu said “NATO has a duty to protect” Turkey’s border with Syria and Iraq.
But a Turkish-driven military campaign to push ISIL out of territory along the Turkish border is likely to complicate matters on the ground.
U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria, who have been the most successful in the war against ISIL, control most of the 910-km boundary with Turkey, and have warned Ankara against any militar y inter vention in northern Syria.
ISIL controls roughly a 100-km stretch of that border, wedged between Turkish-backed insurgents with Islamist ideologies to the left and Kurdish forces from the People’s Protection Units, known as the YPG, to the right.
The Turkish-U. S. plan raises the question of which Syrian rebel forces would be involved in a ground operation against ISIL. The U.S. has long complained about having no reliable partners among them. Defence Secretary Ash Carter said the U.S. has only 60 trainees in a program to prepare and arm thousands of moderate Syrian rebels in the fight against ISIL militants.
Syria’s main Kurdish militia, the YPG, is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey and maintains bases in remote parts of northern Iraq.
Nawaf Khalil, head of the Germany-based Kurdish Centre for Studies, said Ankara is likely trying to limit advances by the Syrian Kurdish forces by using the war against ISIL as a pretext and to steer Washington away from the YPG, but “this will not work.”
In a reflection of the complexities involved, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu Monday refused to draw a distinction between ISIL and the PKK.
“There is no difference between PKK and Daesh,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL.