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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday (August 6th) that Ankara's operations against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia would enter a " new phase very soon ". Such an intervention would not be without risks for the Turkish president.
With our correspondent in Istanbul , Anne Audlauer
" God willing, the process we started (...) will enter a new phase very soon, " President Erdogan said of a new operation against the Kurdish YPG militia.
On two occasions in the last three days, while a US military delegation is in Ankara, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to attack without waiting the main allies of Washington on the Syrian terrain: the Kurdish forces of the YPG. He had already attacked these forces fighting Daesh twice, the last of which was in December 2018.
In the immediate term, the Turkish president's threats are aimed at pressuring the United States to give in to Ankara's requests to remove Kurdish fighters more than 30 kilometers beyond the Turkish border. Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to send his army to establish a so-called " security zone".
On the domestic front, the Turkish president, still shaken by his recent defeat at the Istanbul municipal elections, also wants to give pledges to the ultranationalist party, without which he would lose his parliamentary majority. A military intervention is seen as a good way to preserve this alliance while mobilizing the electorate.
Devastating the Turkish economy
Still, the bet is extremely risky. US President Donald Trump promised early this year to " devastate the Turkish economy ", already in a bad way, if Ankara attacked Kurdish forces in Syria. The economic blow could be fatal, not to mention the military and political risks of a Turkish army offensive in an area where US troops are stationed.
Shortly before the Turkish President's speech, Pentagon chief Mark Esper warned that a Turkish offensive against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria would be " unacceptable ".
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