Slightly more than halfway through the 120 hour ceasefire in northern Syria, Turkey’s President Erdogan is already making ultimatums about what will come next. Unsurprisingly, given Erdogan’s long-standing priorities, the threat is more war against the Kurds.
Erdogan says that if the Kurdish forces aren’t totally withdrawn from Turkey’s newly-claimed territory by Tuesday evening, Turkey will “start where we let off and continue to crush the terrorists’ heads.”
This threat from Erdogan comes amid his demands for the US to quickly follow through with getting the Kurds out of the safe zone. Signs are that Kurds have been withdrawn from the area, but how many seems somewhat in dispute, as is whether they’ll meet the deadline.
Erdogan’s threat to resume the war is noteworthy both in that beyond head-crushing rhetoric, it is just a straightforward statement of what will happen when the 5-day ceasefire’s five days ends, and also because Erdogan is emphasizing the focus on Kurds, even when Turkey was trying to spin the invasion of northern Syria as targeting ISIS.
“Unsurprisingly, given Erdogan’s long-standing priorities, the threat is more war against the Kurds.”
That is unsurprising because the Kurds had refused to move until he resorted to war, and only began to move when war hit. As soon as a ceasefire was discussed the foot dragging began again.
So it is, “Get our or be thrown out.” It always has been.
Tuesday is crucial, of course, since that is the date he’s bound for Sotchi and a very important meeting with Putin. Whatever ottoman fantasies he thought he might have gotten away with with Mike Pence and morbidly obese Pompas, will be null and void after that….