Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned today that Turkey will never approve any US proposal to transfer weaponry to the PKK, YPG and other Syrian Kurdish fighters.
Erdogan noted that the PKK is considered a terrorist organization in both Turkey and the US, and that he considered the PYD (the YPG’s political wing) equivalent to the PKK as well.
He went on to say he was surprised that the US would “talk openly and expect us to say yes to such a support to a terrorist organization.” The US State Department met with them last week.
It’s not an easy choice for the Turkish government, which is increasingly opposed to the ISIS presence along its border, but sees bolstering Kurdish factions that span both Syria and Turkey as a long-term risk for them.
Turkey has been fighting the PKK and other Kurdish factions off and on for over 30 years now, and those groups have never had any real imprimatur or armament from any foreign powers before. If those groups are suddenly awash in US arms, they may find a new war on Turkey every bit as appealing as the war on ISIS.
Erdrogan. A mist opportunity in Kobane.
Helping the Kurds defend themselves would have helped Turkey reconcile itself with its Kurdish population. In the long run it would have become very helpful for Turkey.
…and helping the Palestinians, especially the Gazans defend themselves would have helped Israel reconcile itself with its Muslim population. In the long run it would have become very helpful for Israel and the United States.
You have to remember that states are stupid. What makes a state is a near monopoly on violence. So naturally they only know one tactic: repression and violence. When that fails then the answer is obviously more repression and violence.
Guerrilla movements understand this. That's why they keep poking the state until it responds with enough repression and violence to turn the civilian population against the state.
you mean reconcile to losing a good slice of territory.
The cats refuse to be herded. Turkey, along with our other "allies" in the region, has its own agenda and its own point of view on activities in its neighborhood, which do not necessarily correspond to ours.
Cats are easy to herd. The US just needs a bigger can of tuna fish. If that doesn't work, Uncle Sam will send in the economic hit men and the National Endowment for Democracy.
The PKK has been proposing a peace settlement for years now. They want the Kurdish question settled democratically, so a new war with Turkey would be out of the question unless they were openly faced with an attack that attempted to annihilate them.
but a diplomatic solution will mean ankara's power is reduced in turkish kurdistan and kurds in that region will see it as a step to joining the current de facto independant Kurdistan.
Support for the Kurds would be a good decision long term for the turkish leadership, seeing as Kurds are a substantial minority in Turkey. However it looks like the the Turkish leadership will be like the Saudi leadership in alienating minorities by stupid racist,tribal based decision making, The sad thing is that we are tied to them by our membership of NATO. Time to leave NATO .
There is no "Kurds." There are several leadership groups, each with their own armed forces. Turkey supports some and fights others.
Turkey does not object to "arms to The Kurds." It objects to arms to THESE Kurds. Since this group is on the terrorist list of the US and many others, that is not a reach into unreason.
Too many commenting on this gloss over the complexity of The Kurds which makes real understanding impossible.
When you start supporting and arming terrorist groups you eventually run into opposition from your allies. Not everyone has the stomach for being two-faced – either you're against terrorist groups or you're not. You really can't have it both ways.
But since the American citizens have perfected the policy of voting two-faced people into office, I guess I'm not surprised at where we are now, fighting with our "allies" about supporting and arming terrorist groups who do NOT have the best (or any) interest of the US people at heart.
The designation of "terrorist group" has been overused to fit political agendas.
just as with "Conservative" and "Liberal."
But Erdogan will be happy to continue supplying and supporting ISIS/ISIL and other "moderate" terrorists.
According to turkish Erdogan regime, PKK and all other Kurdish fighters fighting ISIS are terrorists, in the other hand turkish Erdogan government is a state sponsored terrorist supporting, supplying ISIS with what their needs are, among other training them to butcher Kurdish people, Christians and all other belief or nationals exist in Syria and Iraq. Erdogan regime is a sworn enemy of Syrian and Kurdish people, his ambitions is to become the modernized fascism regime supported by NATO helping his kind ISIS.
I'm not sure I'm getting the logic here. He doesn't want to arm the Kurds for his own reasons, but he doesn't want ISIS either. I realize it's a bit of "devil or the deep blue sea" dilemma, but does he really think that ISIS and PKK will conveniently kill each other completely off for him, thus solving two of his problems at once? In other words, is Erdogan really as much as a dumbass as Obama?
Why shouldn't the Kurds have their own state?
You mean, other than for the reason that all states are criminal gangs which should be overthrown?