Recep Tayyip Erdoğan vows to ‘thwart’ Kurdish opposition in move that may force US reaction

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Turkey has said it will extend its incursion in Syria to the town of Manbij, taking its forces to the edge of the US-backed Kurdish presence in the country’s north-east and raising the spectre of a military standoff with Washington.



Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, announced the move late on Wednesday as a Turkish military assault on the city of Afrin, in north-west Syria, continued for a fifth day.

The attack has displaced 5,000 people and killed scores of civilians as well as fighters among the Arab forces that Ankara is using as a proxy against the Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Afrin.

It has also led to a further deterioration in ties between Ankara and Washington, which had already been severely tested by US support for Kurdish groups in Syria.

According to the White House, Donald Trump called Erdoğan on Wednesday, urging him to curtail the operation and warning Turkey not to risk coming into conflict with US forces.

“He urged Turkey to de-escalate, limit its military actions and avoid civilian casualties,” a White House statement said. “He urged Turkey to exercise caution and to avoid any actions that might risk conflict between Turkish and American forces.”



Turkish officials disputed the White House readout, saying it did not “accurately reflect” the content of the discussions.

Tensions reached breaking point last week after the Pentagon announced that Kurds it had backed to oust Islamic State from Raqqa would form a border force near the Turkish frontier.

Erdoğan then moved quickly to open a front in Afrin, which has no contiguous link to forces directly backed by Washington and has received no direct support, but which is within easy reach of the Turkish border.

“With Olive Branch [the operational name for Turkey’s campaign], we have once again thwarted the game of those sneaky forces whose interests in the region are different,” Erdoğan said. “Starting in Manbij, we will continue to thwart their game.”

Washington has been restrained in its response to the Afrin operation but is likely to be more exercised by a Turkish push towards Manbij, which marks the beginning of the range of influence of its proxies, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), that stretches north to the nearby Turkish border and east towards Iraq.

Up to 2,000 US forces are stationed in the area, along with more than 10,000 SDF members. The force is mainly Kurdish-led but has Arab fighters among its ranks.

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Fresh from ousting Isis from Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, the SDF had been emboldened by renewed Pentagon support, which Ankara believed turned battlefield victories into strategic gains and betrayed earlier undertakings that the US/Kurdish alliance was to be temporary.

The White House has attempted to walk back the Pentagon stance but with little success, underlining competing priorities in post-Isis Syria. Parts of the Trump administration remain wedded to the use of the Kurds as a backbone of the US presence, and others acknowledge Turkish fears that an emboldened Kurdish role may have implications for Ankara’s 800-mile border with Syria.

Though Syria has objected to the Turkish invasion and Russia had urged restraint, all three sides have cooperated in the assault, which Damascus believes will pave the way for its backers to launch a final assault on nearby Idlib province.

Turkish jets could not operate over Syria’s north-west without both Russia and Syria agreeing not to use their powerful anti-aircraft missile systems against them.

Erdoğan had earlier flagged that the military operation may at least partly aim to engineer demographic shifts in Afrin, saying: “55% of Afrin is Arab, 35% are the Kurds who were later relocated, and about 7% are Turkmen. We aim to give Afrin back to its rightful owners.”.

Determining the makeup of populations along the Turkish border in the wake of the Syrian war remains a key objective of many sides in the conflict.

The seven-year, increasingly complex war has displaced at least half of Syria’s pre-war population of 20 million. Another 200,000 were on the move in Idlib before the Afrin assault, after Russian jets and Iranian-backed ground forces launched an attack on the nearby province. Turkey vowed to maintain an Arab presence in the 60-mile gap between Afrin and Jarabulus, north of Manbij.