The US has been repeatedly trying to reassure their Kurdish allies that they don’t face any major threat from Turkey. Turkey, however, seems to be going out of their way to make clear they are very much a threat, and that their goal in the region is the end of Kurdish autonomy in Syria.
On Friday, Turkish President Erdogan said that there was no longer any reason for the international community to back the Kurdish SDF, and demanded that other nations, particularly the United States, end their support for that group.
Though the demand has been renewed since the Turkish-backed regime change in Syria, it is not entirely new, as Turkey has been demanding the US stop backing the SDF for many years now. The US chose to get out of Turkey’s way for anti-Kurd offensives in 2019, a decision which led to a lot of criticism, though ultimately the US did not remain unaligned with the SDF, which controls area along Syria’s largest oil and natural gas fields.
With Assad ousted, Turkey seems to believe that they can convince the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to tamp down Kurdish ambitions for autonomy. Foreign Minister Hasan Fidan said Turkey is prepared to do “whatever it takes,” up to and including military action, to see this goal through if the HTS proves unable to address “territorial integrity,” which is to say ensuring the Kurds don’t retain any measure of the autonomy they enjoy right now.
Fidan elaborated on those comment on Sunday, saying that Turkey believes there is “no room” for the Kurdish YPG organization inside Syria. The YPG is the largest of multiple factions that make up the SDF.
Though presented as a question of national unity for Syria, Turkey’s problem with the Kurds, and particularly with the YPG, long predates this regime change. Turkey has fought off and on against the Kurdish PKK separatists for decades, and considers the YPG effectively an offshoot of the PKK.
In practice, the YPG is a separate organization, though it does have substantial ideological similarity to the PKK. Turkey appears to see weakening the autonomous ambitions of Kurds in Syria and Iraq as part and parcel to preventing the PKK from re-emerging inside Turkey to try to carve out an autonomous region as well.
The anti-YPG intentions mean Turkey would end up with substantial control over the new Syrian government. That’s not sitting well with other regional powers, like Israel, and some are suggesting backing the Kurds more overtly as a way to prevent Turkey from gaining too much clout inside Syria.
