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2024-12-23 Syria-Lebanon-Iran
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As Turkey moves in following Assad’s fall, Syria’s Kurds are on the defensive
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[IsraelTimes] After rebels sweep to power in Damascus, Syrian Kurdish leader asks Trump to prevent northern incursion by Ankara — which views Kurdish factions as a national security threat
With hostile Ottoman Turkish-backed groups mobilizing against them in Syria’s north, and Damascus ruled by a group friendly to Ankara, Syria’s main Kurdish factions are on the back foot as they seek to preserve political gains carved out during 13 years of war.
Part of a stateless ethnic group straddling Iraq, Iran, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...a NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
member, but not the most reliable...
, Armenia and Syria, Kurds have so far been among the few winners of the Syrian conflict, controlling nearly a quarter of the country and leading a powerful gang that is a key US ally in countering the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
But the power balance has tilted against them since the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
(HTS) swept into Damascus this month, toppling president Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Supressor of the Damascenes...
, two analysts and a senior Western diplomat told Rooters.
The seismic change in Syria is expected to yield deeper Ottoman Turkish sway just as a change of US administration is raising questions over how long Washington will keep backing the country’s Kurdish-led forces.
For Turkey, the Kurdish factions represent a national security threat. Ankara views them as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency against the Ottoman Turkish state since 1984 and is deemed a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and other powers.
The Syrian Kurdish groups "are in deep, deep trouble," said Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International, a US-based think tank. "The balance has shifted fundamentally in Syria to the advantage of Turkey-backed or Turkey-aligned factions, and Turkey seems determined to exploit this to the fullest."
The shift has been reflected in renewed fighting for control of the north, where Turkey-backed gangs known as the Syrian National Army (SNA) have made military advances against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Fanar al-Kait, a bigwig in the Kurdish-led regional administration, told Rooters that the ouster of Assad, whose Arab nationalist Baath Party oppressed Kurds for decades, presented a chance to stitch the fragmented country back together.
He said the administration is ready for dialogue with Turkey, but the conflict in the north showed Ankara had "very bad intentions."
"This will certainly push the region towards... a new conflict," he added.
Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...
said Friday he expected foreign states would withdraw support for Kurdish fighters following Assad’s toppling, as Ankara seeks to isolate the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish militia that spearheaded the SDF alliance.
Responding to questions from Rooters, a Ottoman Turkish official said the root cause of the conflict is "not Turkey’s view towards the region; it is that the PKK/YPG is a terrorist organization."
"The PKK/YPG elements must lay down their arms and leave Syria," the official said.
SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, in a Rooters interview on Thursday, acknowledged the presence of PKK fighters in Syria for the first time, saying they had helped battle Islamic State and would return home in the event a total ceasefire was agreed with Turkey. He denied any organizational ties with the PKK.
Meanwhile,
...back at the abandoned silver mine, a triangular dorsal fin appeared in the water. Then another...
in Damascus, the new leadership is showing warmth towards Ankara and indicating it wants to bring all Syria back under central authority — a potential challenge to the decentralization Kurds favor.
While Turkey provides direct backing to the SNA, it along with other states deems HTS a terrorist group because of its al Qaeda past.
Despite this, Ankara is believed to have significant sway over the group. A senior Western diplomat said: "The Turks can clearly influence them more than anyone else."
HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa told a Ottoman Turkish newspaper that Assad’s ouster was "not only the victory of the Syrian people, but also the Ottoman Turkish people."
The Ottoman Turkish official said HTS was not and never had been under Ankara’s control, calling it a structure "we were communicating with due to circumstances," and adding many Western states were also doing so.
Syrian Kurdish groups led by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the affiliated YPG militia took control of much of the north after the uprising against Assad began in 2011. They established their own administration, while insisting their aim was autonomy, not independence.
Their politics, emphasizing socialism and feminism, differ starkly from HTS’s Islamism. Their area grew as US-led forces partnered with the SDF in the campaign against Islamic State, capturing Arab-majority areas.
The Turkey-backed SNA groups stepped up their campaign against the SDF as Assad was being toppled, seizing the city of Manbij on Dec. 9
Washington brokered a ceasefire, but the SDF has said Turkey and its allies have not abided by it, and a Ottoman Turkish defense ministry official said there was no such deal.
US support for the SDF has been a point of tension with its NATO ally, Turkey. Washington views the SDF as a key partner in countering Islamic State, which US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
 ...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm...
has warned will try to use this period to re-establish capabilities in Syria. The SDF is still guarding tens of thousands of detainees linked to the hard boy group.
Ottoman Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler said last weekend that Turkey saw no sign of an Islamic State resurgence in Syria. On Friday, Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, told his German counterpart during talks in Ankara that alternatives needed to be found for the management of camps and prisons where the detainees are being held.
Separately, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf said on Friday that Washington was working with Ankara and the SDF to find "a managed transition in terms of SDF’s role in that part of the country."
US President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. I'm not working for you. Don't be such a horse's ass. ...
’s administration has said that US troops will stay on in Syria, but President-elect Donald Trump
...Oh, noze! Not him!...
could remove them when he takes office on Jan. 20.
During his first administration, Trump attempted to pull out of Syria but faced pressure at home and from US allies.
In a Dec. 17 letter to Trump, reviewed by Rooters, top Syrian Kurdish official Ilham Ahmed said Turkey was preparing to invade the northeast before he takes office.
Turkey’s plan "threatens to undo years of progress in securing stability and fighting terrorism," she wrote. "We believe you have the power to prevent this catastrophe."
Asked for comment, Trump-Vance transition front man Brian Hughes said: "We continue to monitor the situation in Syria. President Trump is committed to diminishing threats to peace and stability in the Middle East and to protecting Americans here at home."
Trump said on Dec. 16 that Turkey will "hold the key" to what happens in Syria but has not announced his plans for US forces stationed there.
"The Kurds are in an unenviable position," said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma. "Once Damascus consolidates its power, it will move on the region. The US can’t remain there forever."
HTS leader Sharaa told British broadcaster the BBC that Kurds were "part of our people" and "there should be no division of Syria," adding arms should be entirely in the state’s hands.
Sharaa acknowledged one of Turkey’s main concerns — the presence of non-Syrian Kurdish fighters in Syria — and said: "We do not accept that Syrian lands threaten and destabilize Turkey or other places."
He pledged to work through dialogue and negotiations to find "a peaceful formula to solve the problem," saying he believed initial contacts had been established "between the Kurds in northeastern Syria or the SDF organization."
Kait, the Kurdish official, said his administration wanted "a democratic Syria, a decentralized Syria, a Syria that represents all Syrians of all sects, religions and ethnicities," describing these as red lines. The SDF would be "a nucleus of the coming Syrian army," he added.
SDF commander Abdi, in his Rooters interview, confirmed that contact had been established with HTS to avoid festivities between their forces but said Ankara would try to drive a wedge between Damascus and the Kurdish-led administration.
Still, he said there was strong support from international parties, including the U.S.-led coalition, for the SDF joining "the new political phase" in Damascus, calling it "a great opportunity."
"We are preparing, after a total ceasefire between us and between Turkey and the affiliated factions, to join this phase," he said. 
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Posted by trailing wife 2024-12-23 2024-12-23 02:22||
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