Assad is the winner in Ankara’s airbase agreement with the US

Turkey’s stand on Kurds appear designed to foment trouble rather than to solve it, argues Martin Jay

The Syrian conflict has taken a devilish turn recently and has left Syria’s president Bashar Al Assad with a few more aces to play. Salah Malkawi / Getty Images

The Kurds often joke about Baghdad being supplied with the latest American arms, which end up in the hands of militias, which are then used against the fearless Kurdish fighters who are equipped with 30-year-old Kalashnikovs, whom Washington refuses to arm.

It’s a joke that might no longer raise so much as a wry smile among these formidable fighters, especially as America has recently begun what they see as a marriage of convenience with Turkey.

But, has the recent move by the US to work with Turkey on building a no-fly zone of sorts been part of a deal that sold the Kurds out? Can it really be possible that Washington has bargained that the Kurds are expendable?

The visit of Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani to Washington in May ended without any resolution. He had asked Barack Obama for arms and for his blessing for an independence plan, but returned to Erbil empty-handed.

Yet it is in Syria where this anti-ISIL agreement with Turkey will be felt. The Syrian conflict has taken a devilish turn recently and has left Syria’s president Bashar Al Assad with a few more aces to play. Just weeks earlier, pundits in Washington and the Middle East were wondering if the Americans had carefully crafted a deal with Iran and Russia that would soon remove Mr Al Assad from power. They could not have prepared for what has happened in recent days.

A car bomb, placed on the Turkish border by PKK militants, killed two Turkish officers last month and has been the flashpoint to start a retaliatory campaign against the Kurds.

Striking back at the Kurds is a political rather than a geopolitical move for Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, who has sought to keep a lid on Kurdish ambitions for autonomy or independence.

Ankara started its campaign against ISIL targets in Syria last month but then expanded it to PKK rebels in neighbouring northern Iraq, who are bitterly opposed to the extremists.

Turkey, the only Muslim member of Nato, is often criticised for being a surreptitious supporter of ISIL. Its porous border buzzes with illegal trade – goods, arms, recruits and artefacts – and the terrorist group depends heavily on this supply route staying open.

Yet, killing those who are fighting ISIL surely amounts to supporting extremism.

And hitting the Kurds only leaves one clear winner: Mr Al Assad. The Syrian president has admitted recently on state TV that his own army has dwindling resources in an increasingly complicated war that is being waged on many fronts. It is also the best kept secret in Damascus that a recent poster campaign aimed at stirring nationalist fervour has flopped – and that it played particularly badly with Syria’s threatened minorities.

And so Turkey’s strikes on the Kurds could not have come at a better time for Mr Al Assad.

For months, the Americans have been pressing Mr Erdogan to allow them to use Turkish airbases.

In return, the Turkish leader asked for a buffer zone, which he claimed would be used, justifiably, for Syrian refugees. Many of his critics fear, however, fear this zone will be used as military cover to hit the Kurds harder and ensure that two Kurdish entities cannot form a single entity.

Those who follow history will know that wars are often started by singular, almost insignificant acts of provocation. Those who follow the Kurdish question will be concerned that recent developments appear designed to foment trouble rather than to solve it.

Martin Jay is based in Beirut and was the founding editor of An Nahar English

On Twitter: @MartinRJay