Syria's "security zone": Donald Trump paves the way for Turkey at the expense of Kurds

US President Donald Trump has decided to abandon northern Syria to his fate. As announced by the White House the day before, US troops stationed in the border zone with Turkey began their withdrawal on Monday (October 7th) in the face of an imminent Turkish military operation to which they will not oppose.

The US decision could seal the fate of the Kurdish forces, on which the United States has relied in particular to fight, successfully, the Islamic State Organization (IEO).

To justify his military intervention, which "can take place at any time," according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ankara says it wants to create a "security zone" in northern Syria to protect its border. The creation of this "security zone" was planned since August, after an agreement between Washington and Ankara, after several months of negotiations.

Concretely, the Turks demand the creation of a buffer zone 480 kilometers long and about 30 kilometers wide between their border and the Syrian territories located to the east of the Euphrates river, controlled by the Kurdish militia of the Protection Units of the people (YPG).

Considered by Turkey as a "terrorist group" and a threat to its national security, the YPGs make up the bulk of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). This Arab-Kurdish anti-jihadist alliance, supported and armed so far by Washington, counted on its side up to 2,000 American soldiers.

In the Ankara viewfinder

The YPG and the PYD, the main Syrian Kurdish party, are in the sights of the Turkish authorities because of their links with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been leading a guerrilla war in Turkey since 1984.

"Drying the swamp of terrorism in northern Syria is our main priority," the Turkish president said in early August, determined to achieve his ends. "As long as [YPG-controlled areas] have not disappeared, Turkey will not feel safe," he added.

A long-standing goal by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who since 2016 has already ordered two offensives in northern Syria, the latest of which in early 2018 allowed his troops as well as their replacements, Syrian Islamist rebels, to get hold of Afrin, one of the three cantons of the Kurdish autonomous zone, which corresponds to the Syrian province of Hassake.

"Since the beginning of the crisis in Syria, the Turks have had an extremely clear policy of creating a buffer zone south of their border in order to ensure that there are no camps in the future. training, recruitment centers or stocks of ammunition in the hands of the Kurds, which could benefit the PKK ", explained at the beginning of the year to France 24 Alexandre Vautravers, expert in military strategy and professor of history and international relations in Geneva.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is particularly concerned that the Kurds of Turkey are inspired by the autonomous federal region called Rojava, a kind of state embryo established de facto by the Kurdish minority of Syria in the north and north-east of the country. favor of the Syrian conflict and the chaos it engendered. The head of state has repeatedly stated that he would never "allow" the establishment of a Kurdish state in Syria, on the outskirts of Turkey. The risk for Erdogan? This territory would border the Kurdistan Autonomous Region in northern Iraq, creating Kurdish continuity - and territorial unity - an intolerable idea for Ankara.

In addition to the neutralization of Kurdish forces and their autonomist aspirations, the Turkish president has also announced his intention to send back to this "security zone" up to two million Syrian refugees, mostly Arab and Sunni, living in Turkey.

A way for Ankara to upset the demographic balance of this region, in which live, according to experts, 2.5 million inhabitants, including a little over a million Kurds, especially settled near the Turkish border. "If this security zone can be declared, we can relocate with confidence between one and two million refugees [...]", said Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during his speech in September on the occasion of the Assembly General Assembly.

Interviewed by France 24 in January, Nur Mahmoud, YPG spokesman, warned against the terminology applied to the future security zone. "It should not become a no-man's land, it would be very dangerous, would serve the nationalistic interests of Turkey and engender ethnic cleansing and population replacement".

"Total war"

Dropped by Donald Trump, who threatened Monday, via his Twitter account as last January, to "totally destroy and destroy the economy of Turkey", if it was "something [...] out of bounds", the SDS have promised to conduct a "total war" in Ankara "in case of unprovoked attack". A war they had already prepared for after the announcement in late 2018 of Donald Trump to withdraw his troops from Syria.

As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does not matter what, I am in the midst of a great deal of uncertainty, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I've done before!) . They must, with Europe and others, watch ...

Deprived of the American presence that served as a shield against Ankara, Kurdish forces and SDS have warned that a possible Turkish military operation would result in a resurgence of the OEI. Not to mention that they would lose control of the prisons in which many jihadists are held and the camps that house their families.

A sensitive issue that worries European countries, and first and foremost France, whose nationals fought within the OEI before being captured by hundreds by Kurdish forces during the collapse of the terrorist organization.

With AFP