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| Top Russian, US and Turkish officials meet to defuse tensions over Syria’s Manbij | ||
| 2017-03-08 | ||
| [ARA] On Tuesday, top military officials from Russia, ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , and the United States met in the town of Antalya to defuse tensions in Syria’s Manbij, which was threatened by the Turkish-led rebels.
The visit of the top military officials comes after theTurkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on Monday suggested that the Turkey-led Euphrates Shield operation in Syria could give up on Manbij city due to Russian and US support to the Syrian Democratic Forces. "Without coordination with the US and Russia in Manbij, there is no point in continuing operations," he said on Monday, adding that Russian and US flags are flying over Manbij at the moment. Nawaf Xelil, a Kurdish analyst and former official of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), told ARA News that the meeting comes after Turkey failed to capture al-Bab easily, and with the US and Russian army present in Manbij. "In my opinion, the Americans and Russians will not allow Turkey [to hit the SDF], because all Syriacs, Arabs and Kurds are united in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)," he said. "Turkey knows the United States will not change its plans. The SDF is now 8 kilometers from [ISIS-held] Raqqa, and they have cut the roads between Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor. The SDF are now on the Euphrates River," Xelil told ARA News.
"Turkey is in a weak position, it has bad relations with Iraq, Syria, Iran, Germany, and now also Holland is telling Turkey to not make propaganda there [for the April presidential referendum]," he said, adding that the Kurds have now built good relations due to their effective fight against ISIS terrorists. Washington-based Middle East researcher at the Centre for a New American Security, Nicholas Heras, told ARA News that Syria is now in the stage that powerful actors are dividing the spoils of the counter-ISIS war. "The Syrian civil war has now entered a stage where powerful state actors are discussing how to divide up the territorial spoils of the counter-ISIS war. The ’creeping incrementalism’ of the B.O. regime’s counter-ISIS strategy, which led to the creation of the SDF, will likely end with an American military mandate over areas of Syria conquered from ISIS," he said. "Turkey wants to ensure those areas do not fall under the dominion of the Kurds, and Russia wants the land transferred back to Assad when the American campaign against ISIS is done. The U.S. is just now, under President Trump, understanding the leverage it has over the future of Syria through the tremendous gains made by the American counter-ISIS campaign," Heras concluded. | ||
| Posted by:Fred |