- The battle for Kobane, a town located in northern Syria along the Syrian-Turkish border, began in September 2014 after ISIS infiltrated the city and forced thousands of civilians to flee across the border into Turkey. YPG forces battled ISIS militants with the support of U.S. air strikes and eventually succeeded in repelling ISIS advances. The victory was heralded a symbolic victory over ISIS, as it represented the first major battlefield setback the group experienced after declaring its so-called caliphate in Syria and Iraq.
- Syria’s Kurdish population predominantly resides in the country’s northeast. The Syrian Kurdish Democratic Unity Party (PYD) politically represents Syrian Kurds while the YPG serves as the armed wing of the PYD. The YPG has emerged as one of the most effective forces battling ISIS after defeating the terrorist group in Kobane, and later helping to expel ISIS from its capital of Raqqa in October 2017.
- The YPG also serves as the military backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – a U.S.-backed coalition comprised of both Kurdish and Arab forces that played a critical role in ousting ISIS from its Syrian strongholds. In May 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump authorized the direct arming of the SDF and its YPG contingent for the battle to retake Raqqa, despite protests from Turkey. Weapons provided by the U.S. included heavy machine guns, mortars, anti-tank weapons, armored cars and engineering equipment.
- Turkey views Syria’s Kurdish Democratic Unity Party, the PYD, as a branch of its own domestic Kurdish militant group, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), and the political ideology that it pursues as a dangerous beacon of Kurdish nationalism. The Syrian PYD claims that it is not connected to the Turkish PKK, which both Turkey and the United States consider to be a terrorist organization, but Ankara is convinced that the two are virtually the same. Turkey has repeatedly stated that it cannot accept what it views as a Turkish PKK haven just across the border in northern Syria where the Syrian PYD has quietly constructed a miniature state in the semiautonomous Rojava region. The rhetorical appeal of Rojava represents a troubling symbol of Kurdish success that Turkey claims could inspire further unrest amongst Turkey’s Kurdish minority.
Emile Nakhleh, former member, CIA's Senior Intelligence Service
“While many Kurds might be dreaming of independence, their leaders know that autonomy in the countries where they reside is the most feasible long-term objective. Nor will Turkey support any unification among the Kurds of Syria and Iraq, and certainly not with Kurds living in Turkey. Turkey has come to tolerate the autonomous political reality of Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq, but not beyond that. Erdogan's objective, which has garnered much support among Turkey's population, is to crush any aspirations for independence among the Kurds, whether in Syria, Iraq or Turkey. Sadly for the Kurds, regional and foreign powers are not clamoring for Kurdish independence either, regardless of how much they despise Erdogan's authoritarian rule.”
Issue: Recent Turkish advances in the northwestern Syrian city of Afrin have demonstrated that Turkey’s priorities lie with ensuring that its southern border is secure from a perceived Kurdish threat and not with the fight against ISIS, straining relations between Washington and Ankara. Turkey’s offensive in Afrin has diverted Kurdish forces’ attention away from the unfinished mission to defeat ISIS, leaving room for the group’s reemergence, particularly as the Kurds have been the most effective U.S. ally on the ground in the fight against ISIS.
- Although ISIS has been pushed out of approximately 98 percent of the territory it once controlled in Syria and Iraq, it still maintains a presence in pockets along the Syrian-Iraqi border with the potential to resurface as a critical threat. In light of Turkish advances in northern Syria, the YPG has withdrawn at least 1,700 from the front lines in the battle against ISIS and deployed them to other parts of the country where the group is fighting to fend off Turkey and its allied Free Syrian Army rebel force. In mid-March, Turkey successfully captured the city of Afrin.
- “We understand that Turkey, a NATO ally, has some legitimate security concerns,” said State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert in March. She acknowledged that some of the militia that had joined the U.S. to fight ISIS are “heading over to the Afrin area.”
- General Joseph Votel, head of United States Central Command, called the SDF “the most effective force on the ground in Syria against ISIS,” telling lawmakers that “we need them to finish this fight,” in testimony February before the House Armed Services Committee.
Emile Nakhleh, former member, CIA's Senior Intelligence Service
“U.S.-Turkish relations over Turkey’s offensive in the Afrin-Manbij area are worsening by the day primarily because Turkey is fighting against certain Kurdish groups that are supported by Washington. The Trump administration's influence is also diminishing by the day, with President Trump’s recent statement announcing his intent to withdraw American troops from Syria. Turkey has claimed that the two main Kurdish groups – the PYD and the YPG – that are fighting in the region are ‘terrorists’ and therefore, its military offensive against them is justifiable. Erdogan is fighting these groups because they are Kurdish, regardless of their ‘terrorist’ affiliation. He wants to stifle any independence tendencies that Kurdish groups might harbor.”
James Jeffrey, former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Iraq
“There are serious strains in the U.S.-Turkey relationship mainly over U.S. collaboration with the PYD as its key ally in the fight against ISIS. The key issue is PYD presence west of the Euphrates in the Manbij area abutting areas held by Turkey, and its local ally the Free Syrian Army. The U.S., also in Manbij, has committed to move the PYD cadre east of the Euphrates, but the PYD cadre has balked and the U.S. has not been able to persuade them to leave.”
Response: As Turkey remains a critical NATO ally, the U.S. has publically recognized Ankara’s security concerns and has left the Turkish military to conduct operations in Afrin. At the same time, however, Washington has taken steps to protect the Rojava and the PYD from Turkish incursion, even going so far as to station U.S. troops in the contested city of Manbij in northern Syria, approximately 60 miles east of Afrin.
- In a March 19 press statement, Nauert explained that “The United States does not operate in the area of northwest Syria, where Afrin is located,” and Washington remains “committed to our NATO ally Turkey, to include their legitimate security concerns.”
- Turkey is a critical ally for the U.S. and shares key interests with the U.S. such as the removal of Assad from power and the defeat of ISIS. Over the course of the Syrian civil war, Turkey has permitted the U.S. to use key air bases at Incirlik and Izmir to launch strikes on ISIS and other terrorist targets in Syria and Iraq. Last November, it was reported that the Trump administration had agreed to stop arming the YPG at the request of Turkey. However, it remains unclear if this policy has been enacted as the U.S. has continued to work with the Kurds in eastern Syria in an effort to root out ISIS militants from their remaining Syrian strongholds.
- After the U.S., UK, and France launched a coordinated operation that targeted Syria’s chemical weapons facilities in response to the Assad regime’s alleged chemical attack in the Damascus suburb of Douma, Turkey’s Foreign ministry announced that, “We welcome this operation which has eased humanity’s conscience in the face of the attack in Douma, largely suspected to have been carried out by the regime.” The statement continued to say that “attacks with weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons, that indiscriminately target civilians constitute crimes against humanity.
James Jeffrey, former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Iraq
“Turkey has not only supported the U.S. strikes, but by all accounts Erdoğan also appealed to President Trump not to pull precipitously and totally out of Syria. This just illustrates the basic commonality of interests Washington and Ankara share vis-a-vis Russian, Iranian and Assad regime efforts to reshape regional security order to their benefit. The Kurdish problem is not one at bottom of U.S. having to choose between the PYD, the Syrian Kurdish branch of the Turkish Kurdish PKK – long in an insurgency against Ankara – and Turkey, but rather balancing U.S. interests better between the two.”
Looking Ahead: While the U.S. and Turkey share certain objectives in Syria, tensions are growing between the NATO allies as fail to see eye-to-eye on U.S. support for Kurdish forces, despite their efforts in the ongoing fight against ISIS. Consequently, Washington has aimed to strike a delicate balance between placating Ankara’s security concerns and ensuring that Syrian Kurdish militias keep their foot on the pedal to ultimately eliminate the ISIS threat.
Robert Richer, former Mideast and South Asia Chief, CIA
“It is probable, if not certain, that Turkey will continue its operations against the Kurds in northern Syria. At present, except for the occasional negative comment out of the White House or State Department, there has been no real repercussions for Turkey's aggression. As Turkey's actions play into overall Assad regime and Russian interests in reoccupying and solidifying control over Syria, Turkey's taking on the Kurds alleviates the eventual need for Assad and allied forces to do so themselves. In short, the absence of any real international clamor or U.S. voice regarding Turkey's aggression against the Kurds and the apparent abandonment of the Kurds by the U.S., Turkey has a green light to continue operations and remove a concern of many years.”
Bennett Seftel is director of analysis at The Cipher Brief. Follow him on Twitter @BennettSeftel.
