Syria’s Foreign Minister was in Ankara today meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, and Fidan took the opportunity, as Turkish officials so often do, to rail about the Kurds threatening regional stability. This time, the warnings were directed at the Kurdish SDF, and their primary component the YPG.
Fidan accused the YPG of “stalling for time” because a rough outline of a deal to integrate with the Syrian military hasn’t advanced as quickly as was expected. He warned that Turkey will not tolerate the SDF threat to their security.
Fidan also drew Turkey’s primary regional rival, Israel, into the mix, saying they were undermining Syrian stability, and warned the Kurds were becoming Israeli pawns by not complying with Turkish and US demands to immediately disarm.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan | Image from Wikimedia
The SDF has been insisting on advancing the plan to integrate into the Syrian military through negotiation, saying unilateral disarmament was not up for negotiation. They attempted to hold a conference in Paris over the weekend discussing the integration process, but the Syrian government refused to attend.
The government position on this is somewhat nebulous, because on the one hand they’re pushing to advance integration and holding some talks with the SDF, but then there are also reports of them clashing with SDF forces in Aleppo, attempts to blame the Kurds, and then subsequent claims that the whole thing never happened at all.
The SDF has taken a position that they conditionally will integrate, but has been unhappy with attempts by the Islamist leadership in Damascus cutting them out of the political process, and is trying to use integration as a way to get a seat at the table.
Meanwhile, the US position is that federalism inherently doesn’t work, and the Kurds are lucky enough to be allowed to integrate at all, and need to unilaterally disarm come what may. This position is espoused by US envoy Tom Barrack, though as he often does, he at time praises the SDF for supporting integration on paper as vindication of his position.
Turkey, as the closest ally to the Syrian government, is more straightforward, general hostility to anything resembling Kurdish autonomy. Fidan is continuing that position, though the attempt to tie them closely to Israel, which is operating on the opposite side of the country, is a somewhat unusual talking point.
Israel, for its part, indeed does see itself as aligned with Kurdish interests to some extent. Yet Israel’s land grabs in the southwest are largely about territorial expansion, couched as protecting the Druze minority, and Israeli talk of establishing a corridor connected to Kurdish territory seems plainly a long-shot, and one the Kurds clearly aren’t banking on.
