I t is the endgame of the eight-year-old Syrian war: the Turkish-Kurd confrontation was the most serious crisis still to be resolved, something that is now happening in the cruellest way possible with the extinction of the statelet that the Syrian Kurds had fought to create since 2011.

The Turkish priority, which was to destroy anything even resembling self-determination for the 2-3 million Syrian Kurds, has been achieved. The Kurds have no option but to throw themselves into the embrace of President Bashar al-Assad to protect themselves from a Turkish advance that is likely to mean ethnic cleansing for Kurds and has already created 130,000 displaced people.