Syrian Kurds fear territorial gains are at risk after Turkish action

Kurdish militants believe that Ankara's formal intervention into the Syrian conflict is aimed at countering their expansion, writes Josh Wood.

A Syrian Kurdish sniper looks at the rubble in the city of Kobani, which Kurdish forces recaptured from ISIL. AP Photo, File

BEIRUT// Turkey’s formal entry into Syria’s war and its renewed attacks on the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has alarmed Syrian Kurds battling ISIL, already wary of Ankara trying to undo their recent territorial gains.

Last week Turkey began striking both ISIL positions in Syria and PKK bases high in the mountains of northern Iraq.

The timing of the attacks, which coincided with a decision by Turkey to allow members of the US-led anti-ISIL coalition to use a key air base to carry out missions, has made Syrian Kurds suspicious that Washington and Ankara have come to an unspoken – at least in public – agreement that endangers their recent gains.

Since 2012, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) has carved out an autonomous zone in northern Syria. Its militia, the YPG, has shown strong battlefield capabilities and launched the most successful campaigns against ISIL that the war has seen, coordinating its actions with US-led air strikes.

Today, the area under the group’s control stretches for hundreds of kilometres – mostly uninterrupted – along Syria’s northern border, from the point where Syria, Turkey and Iraq meet, all the way up to ISIL lines at the northern town of Jarablus.

While the PYD claims to be different from the PKK, which the Turkish state has battled for 30 years, it is a difference that exists only on paper.

PYD offices proudly display pictures of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, while in Syrian Kurdish living rooms, films of PKK guerrillas in battle against the Turks are popular. And when Syrian Kurds wrested control of their towns from retreating government forces several years ago, martyr posters for locals who died fighting for the PKK in Turkey and Iraq quickly appeared in public.

“PYD is just the Syrian branch of the PKK in Syria, or the sister party,” said Wladimir van Wilgenburg, an Erbil-based Middle East analyst who focuses on Kurdish politics. “Their ideology is completely the same, and almost all YPG fighters have a PKK background. This is one of the reasons the YPG has a lot of experience in fighting, their commanders all have experience in fighting Turkey.”

However, while the PKK is regarded as a terrorist group by the United States, the PYD are still considered an important ally of the anti-ISIL coalition.

Ankara resumed strikes on the PKK in northern Iraq last Saturday, almost at the same time that it began targeting ISIL, effectively ending a two-year ceasefire with the Kurdish militants.

While so far Turkey has shown less aggression towards the PYD, the Kurds accuse Ankara of aiding Syrian rebel groups to fight them.

Ankara fears that the PYD might someday create an unfriendly Kurdish state along its southern border and spark wider unrest within Kurdish areas of Turkey.

Alan Semo, a PYD spokesman based in London, said that the motivation behind Turkey’s sudden dedication to countering ISIL is to cut up the Syrian Kurds’ sprawling stretch of territory along the Turkish border, and to limit the power of the PYD.

“I think Turkey is abusing this agreement with America and the western coalition [over the air base],” said Mr Semo. “This is a very dangerous step by Turkey to target the Kurds and using this coalition of western countries to support their attacks in both Syria and northern Iraq. I think Turkey is playing with a fire and can burn itself.”

On July 27, the YPG claimed that Turkish tanks had shelled the Kurdish-held border village of Zur Maghar, injuring several fighters and civilians. Turkey denied the allegation, saying that it was not targeting Syrian Kurds.

However, Dlawer Ala’Aldeen – president of the Erbil-based Middle East Research Institute and a former minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq – said that Washington’s support for Ankara’s renewed war against the PKK was likely a concession that allowed the US to use its Incerlik air base for missions against ISIL.

“The Americans must have also co-operated to coordinate [Turkish] access through the air to Iraq as well as Syria. Without the American cooperation, I don’t think Turkey would have been able to so freely bombard the area,” he said.

Brett McGurk, the US deputy special presidential envoy to the global coalition to counter ISIL, said that there was no connection between Turkey’s renewed airstrikes against the PKK and the increased cooperation between Washington and Ankara in fighting ISIL.

Yet, even if Turkey might wish to undermine the PYD in Syria, Mr Ala’Aldeen said that its ability to do so will likely be constrained by the international coalition which has seen Syrian Kurdish forces as the most successful force to date against ISIL.

In formally intervening in Syria and returning to war with the PKK, he added, Turkey will need to be careful that the situation does not spiral out of control.

“It’s not all up to the Turkish side,” he said. There are many sides to this war and initiating a war is one thing, but controlling it and ending it is another. It’s unpredictable where this will go and Turkey would probably have a lot to lose if they further fuel this campaign.”