Turkey is chief among local, regional and global powers seeking to fill the power vacuum following the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8. Ankara is poised to be one of the biggest winners in post-Assad Syria.
Despite being in a military alliance with the United States via the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Turkey’s main target in Syria is also the United States’ ally in the country — the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF.
For years, the SDF has worked with U.S. forces to fight Islamic State in Syria’s northeast, defeating IS in its final holdout, Baghuz, near Syria’s Iraqi border, in March 2019.
Roughly 900 U.S. troops are deployed alongside Kurdish-led forces to keep IS from reestablishing a geographical foothold, and the Kurds oversee prisons housing thousands of IS fighters and their families.
Yet, Turkey views the People’s Defense Units, or YPG, which make up most of the SDF’s fighting force, as an extension of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. The PKK has been engaged in an insurgency in southeast Turkey for decades, sometimes resorting to violence in its pursuit of more autonomy and rights for ethnic Kurds. Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union all view the PKK as a terrorist organization.
The SDF does not deny its connections to the PKK but has said it will not engage in terror attacks on Turkish soil.
On Dec. 15, Turkish National Defense Minister Yasar Guler called dismantling Kurdish forces Ankara’s “primary issue in Syria.”
“We have expressed this to our American friends. We expect them to reassess their position [on support for the Kurds],” Guler said.
That echoed earlier comment from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who on Dec. 10 said the fight against Kurdish forces in Syria, “which threatens the security and perpetuity of both countries, will continue without any concession.”
Uncertain US support for Kurds
During a press conference in Aqaba, Jordan, on Dec. 14, a BBC journalist asked U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken what degree of Kurdish autonomy in Syria was acceptable to Washington.
Blinken was noncommittal, saying Syria’s organization and the formation of a new state are “decisions for Syrians to make.”
Blinken said he had discussed with Turkey the importance of allowing Kurdish forces to continue fighting IS during a time of vulnerability, as Syria is in a state of transition.
Ankara has responded by amassing troops on its border with Syria, with a senior U.S. official telling The Wall Street Journal on Dec. 17 that Turkey could attack Kurdish forces within hours or days.
As Turkey potentially prepares for a broader assault, the future of U.S. support for the Kurds remains unclear. On Dec. 16, President-elect Donald Trump characterized the ouster of Assad as an “unfriendly takeover” by Turkey.
But during his first term, Trump sought to withdraw U.S. forces supporting the Kurds in 2018 and 2019. In November, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trumps’s pick for health secretary, said Trump wanted to remove U.S. troops from northern Syria, and not leave them there as “cannon fodder” if fighting erupted between Turkish and Kurdish forces.
Kurds ‘stand to lose the most’
While analysts view Turkey as one of the primary benefactors of the collapsed Assad regime, the Kurds “stand to lose the most,” from their autonomy to the security of their communities, Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, told France 24 on Dec. 5.
After Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011, Kurdish forces declared autonomy over parts of northeastern Syria in November 2103, where they form a majority.
An estimated 30 million Kurds are spread across northern Iraq, western Iran, northern Syria, and make up roughly 18% of Turkey’s population.
The largest ethnic group without a homeland, Kurds have long faced persecution in Syria and elsewhere.
Turkey, which shares a nearly 900-kilometer border with Syria, was a long-standing opponent of the Assad regime, and a primary supporter of armed groups there, including Sunni jihadist factions. Turkey also took in roughly 3.6 million Syrian refugees, which became a source of domestic disquiet.
Since 2016, Turkey has launched multiple military operations in Syria targeting the Kurds with the goal of preventing an autonomous Kurdish region being established on its border.
In 2019, Turkey tried and failed to create a 30-kilometer buffer zone along its border with Syria. For years, Erdogan has signaled that his plans to establish that defensive area remain in place.
Immediately after the ouster of Assad, Turkish-backed fighters swept in to take territory under SDF control as part of that plan.
Syrian National Army
While insurgents led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, a powerful Islamist faction, were instrumental in bringing down the Assad regime, another group with ties to Turkey — the Syrian National Army, or SNA, played a key role in that fight and will prove pivotal in shaping Syria’s future.
The Turkey-backed Syrian Interim Government, an alternative government in Syria, helped establish the SNA in 2017 as part of efforts to consolidate the anti-Assad resistance.
The SNA, which is trained, equipped and funded by Turkey, helped HTS recapture Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, from regime forces in early December. SNA is in lockstep with Ankara in its bid to crush any prospects of Kurdish autonomy in Syria.
The SNA took part in Turkish-backed offensives against Kurdish forces in 2018 and 2019.
Guler, the Turkish defense minister, said the YPG will be eliminated in Syria sooner or later, adding “we and the new administration in Syria want this.”
He also claimed Turkey’s problem was “exclusively with terrorists,” and not “our Kurdish brothers living in Iraq and Syria.”
However, the United Nations, the U.S. and other Western governments also consider HTS to be a terrorist group, while acknowledging that they appear to have moderated their positions in recent years.
Some groups within the SNA likewise adhere to extremist ideologies and have been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for committing grave human rights abuses in northern Syria. That has not stopped Turkey from promising aid, including military support, to the rebel-led transitional government.
Despite those and other allegations leveled at Turkish and Turkish-backed forces, Erdogan on Dec. 10 claimed that Turkey has strictly observed international law “from the very beginning of the Syrian conflict.”
