Jul 18, 2017

Over a month has passed since the campaign to liberate Raqqa, the so-called capital of the Islamic State, was launched and Turkey is still smarting from the US administration’s decision to conduct the operations in tandem with a Syrian Kurdish militia that Turkish leaders insist are terrorists. Some view Turkey’s escalating attacks against the group known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in and around the city of Afrin as a calculated effort to weaken them there while the Syrian Kurds devote the bulk of their assets to the Raqqa front.

Turkish bitterness was on full display recently at a press conference at the Turkish Embassy in Washington to mark the first anniversary of the failed July 15 coup. In a keynote address, Turkey’s ambassador, Serdar Kilic, called the decision to liberate Raqqa with the YPG and its Arab allies in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) “a strategic mistake.” Kilic argued, “The operation to liberate Raqqa could have been done by the United States and Turkey,” thus reviving the debate about the US decision to partner with the Syrian Kurds.

In separate comments to Al-Monitor Pentagon correspondent Jack Detsch, Kilic confirmed earlier reports in the pro-government Turkish media that Turkey offered “tens of thousands of troops” for the US-led campaign against IS. Kilic went on, “Each and every time we made the [troop] proposal, we received the same arguments,” noting that the Pentagon had initially asked for 80,000 troops for the Raqqa operation, more than Turkey believed was required. He did not elaborate on what the Pentagon’s “arguments” were. Kilic then appeared to contradict himself, saying, “We did not give any troops numbers because we did not get to the planning stage.”

Officials familiar with the substance of the tortuous talks over a possible Turkish role suggest there is more to the story. A Turkish official told Al-Monitor before Turkey's Euphrates Shield incursion in Syria last August that Turkey's military leaders were far less enthusiastic about sending large numbers of Turkish troops into battle in Syria and that this reluctance was palpable in their conversations with members of the anti-IS coalition.

In a research paper tracking the US decision to partner with the Kurds, Aaron Stein, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said that US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford met in February with his Turkish counterpart at the Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey to discuss a fresh Turkish plan for Raqqa.