It has been a wild 72 hours for the Kurdish-dominated SDF forces in Syria’s northeast. After substantial fighting over the city of Manbij and a 4-day truce conditioned entirely on the SDF removing themselves and their families from the area, the relative stability in Syrian northeast seems more tenuous than it’s been in years.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Turkey Friday to meet with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, with the talks including considerable discussion on post-Assad Syria. Just hours later, Fidan made a live TV broadcast in which he declared that Turkey’s strategic goal was the “elimination of YPG.” YPG is the Kurdish group which is by far the largest component of the US-backed SDF.
Fidan’s broadcast suggests that his Blinken meeting didn’t go well, at least as far as the SDF would be concerned. Since that Friday meeting and broadcast though, US officials have been in continuous talks with the SDF trying to “reassure” them that they don’t really face an existential threat from Turkey and its allies.
That’s clearly a reassurance that the SDF would desperately need, after not just Fidan’s broadcast but consistent fighting with the new Syrian government’s forces since the ouster of Assad. That fighting has already, apparently, cost them Manbij.
ISIS took over Manbij is 2014, and the SDF took the city, allowing the return of displaced Kurds to the city and surrounding areas, in 2016. Turkey has been trying to get the Kurds out of Manbij since 2018. This past week’s ceasefire deal apparently has accomplished that.
Turkey has long had a problem with the de facto US alliance with the YPG, and by extension the SDF. Turkey considers the YPG to be a direct offshoot of the PKK, a banned organization considered terrorists inside Turkey. The PKK and YPG do have ideological commonalities and there is a relationship, but many have said Turkey overstates how closely related they actually are.
Either way, it seems like the deal and evacuation of Manbij is not the end of this for the SDF, despite US reassurances. The US reportedly has reminded the SDF that Turkish President Erdogan and US President-elect Donald Trump are “friends.”
Erdogan did indeed refer to Trump as a friend, and embraced his reelection last month. Their relationship has hardly been smooth though, and they sparred over multiple issues, including Turkey’s purchase of Russian air defense systems.
The ceasefire seems likely to last however long it ends up taking to get the Kurds out of Manbij. That’s just a stepping stone in Turkey’s ambitions in the region though, and more fighting seems like virtually a foregone conclusion. Turkey’s decision to back the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in taking over Syria from Assad was, after all, in no small measure because Turkey has long believed a Syria dominated by Sunni Arabs would keep the Kurdish minority from having autonomy. This is just a continuation of more than a decade of strategic decisions, as US reassurances that it’s not a real threat flies in the face of all the evidence.
