One day after Turkey’s President Erdogan said there was no possibility
for a ceasefire in northern Syria, Vice President Mike Pence announced that the US and Turkey have reached exactly that, albeit in the form of a brief, 120 hour ceasefire.
Under the deal, Turkey and its associated rebel factions will halt all
military operations, and the US will act to “facilitate the withdrawal
of YPG” forces from the safe zone area that Turkey is now claiming.
Pence also said that once the US successfully does this, Turkey would
accept a permanent ceasefire. He made this announcement at the US
Embassy in Ankara.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister, however, said that there is no ceasefire at all,
and that Turkey doesn’t believe a ceasefire could happen except
“between two legitimate sides.” He said that that the pause was to
destroy Kurdish positions and seize Kurdish weapons.
This likely reflects that Turkey’s government, long itching for a war
with the YPG, is very reluctant to return to a non-war situation. Though
they may accept disarmament and pushback of the Kurds from the 30 km,
it’s not clear that’s where Turkey intends to stop.
This sounds crazy. Why is US inserting itself in the thick of things — on the pretext of getting out YPG, creating a permanent tripwire! Turkey is not crazy to actually go through with it. That was just something to give to Pence and Pompeo to walk away with.
And after getting them out — taking them where?
And how many battalions will US need to do it with, to again control that smuggling spot? As if Turkey does not know that PKK is armed and waiting. By Turkey sealing the area, other possibly CIA operations are trapped there. It is quite possible that military nor Trump knew about it —- and this is why some are so exercised.
It will be really interesting what emerges between Ras Al Ayn, and Tel Abyad.
Pence walked away from this knowing he was just stalling for time. The Syrians and Russians are moving in on the towns the YPG currently occupy. Maybe that’s the whole point, let the Russians solve the problem while Trump looks presidential. What a joke that is.
I don’t know if it was Trump, the Russians, or Edrogan’s realization that the entire world is against Turkey on this. But if this ceasefire holds, it is a very good thing for everyone except for the partisans supporting Kurdish independence or autonomy. But it is probably a good thing for Kurdish civilians who may have been saved from genocide.
I’m guessing that Syria will get most of its oil, water, and agricultural lands back as they move into YPG occupied areas. Turkey will let this happen. The US and Israel are powerless to stop it.
If this is true, and the ceasefire holds, then kudos to Trump. It is the best possible solution.
For months Turkey was building up for this offensive. Edrogan and the military were clear they wanted to utterly destroy the YPG. Edrogan has consistently said that if the US didn’t clear the Kurds from the border, Turkey would invade. He has been biding his time but losing patience. For the past several weeks Edrogan has been saying loud and clear that the time for the US to clear the Kurds was past and that Turkey was going to invade whether the US withdrew its token force or not.Turkey has a modern army of 355,000 troops they could bring across the border with armor and air support. The only way the US could have held the line at the border was either (I) deploying tens of thousands or possibly over 100,000 troops to block the Turks or (ii) massive bombing of military bases and positions in Turkey and Syria. Trump chose the only rational alternative by withdrawing the US force ahead of the invasion.
And Trump’s obnoxious bullying threat of sanctions, in conjunction with the Russian intervention, worked. Despite his bluster Edrogan, or some cool headed advisers , eventually realized that joint US , EU and Israeli sanctions would devastate the Turkish economy worse than US sanctions have hurt the Iranian economy. And Turkey may be the strongest military power on the Turkish Syrian border. But not on the Turko-Russian border.
I don’t like hegemonism or sanctions. They are acts of war. But in this case, if it deescalates the conflict and prevented a war or a possible genocide, then the Orange Fool did humanity a service and deserves credit for doing the right thing.