A full-scale Syrian invasion of the Kurdish northeast continues to loom, and now Turkey is chiming in once again, with a Defense Ministry spokesman threatening to move against the Kurdish SDF if they don’t follow through on a March agreement to integrate within the national army.
Spokesman Zeki Akturk presented the lack of a complete integration as both a threat to Syrian unity and a threat to Turkish security. He added that the SDF is a “terrorist organization” and that Turkey would not tolerate their failure to integrate.
The SDF agreement with the ruling Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on integrating did not include deadlines nor specific details on how integration would happen, and there have been talks for months on how the process will go. This has been somewhat complicated by the HTS totally shutting the Kurds out of the cabinet, and then postponing parliamentary elections in Kurdish-heavy regions.
The US and Turkey have both complained about the process taking so long, and accused the SDF of “stalling,” though the HTS also refused to attend integration talks that were held in Paris, and have since talked of a planned offensive against the Kurds, likely before October.
Turkey has been fighting against the SDF off and on for years, and their support for integration was only under the assumption the SDF would cease to exist and the HTS would end up with complete control over northeast Syria. Since the Kurds are pushing for some limited decentralization, they see this as a “betrayal” of the plan.
In practice Turkey is likely bringing this up because they intend to side with the HTS in their anti-Kurd offensive, and this is just laying the groundwork for that. Over the past week, the SDF has been cracking down on Arab tribes in the northeast Hasakeh Governorate, anticipating that tribal revolts could be used as part of the pretext for the offensive.
The HTS has suggested that they would only launch the offensive with a US green light, and while the US hasn’t explicitly commented on this, they seem increasingly opposed to any degree of Kurdish autonomy, and the SDF has rejected US demands that they unilaterally disarm. All this is likely to lead to a conflict, and Turkey’s long-standing hostility to the Kurds all but ensures they’ll participate.
