Turkey's Erdogan hints invasion of Kurdish Afrin in Syria

By invading Afrin, Ankara hopes to extinguish Kurdish self-rule in that area for good and further choke the broader autonomous movement in Rojava, or Syrian Kurdistan.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday hinted once again at an invasion of the self-administered Kurdish district of Afrin in northwestern Syria.

Addressing the parliamentary assembly of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Erdogan said the Turkish deployment to Syria's Idlib Province, where al-Qaeda affiliates rule, was almost over.

"Now we have the issue of Afrin in front of us," he said branding the isolated Kurdish enclave as a threat since the region is under the control of the US-backed Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

"We want everyone to know this. We cannot compromise. We may suddenly show up one night and hit," Erdogan said, repeating lyrics of a popular Turkish love song which he has used to threaten the Kurds in Syria and Iraq over the past several months.

Afrin is surrounded from the north and west by Turkey and cut off from the other two self-declared Kurdish autonomous cantons of Kobani and Jazira by the Turkish-backed Islamist groups in a pocket of land west of the Euphrates.

The Turkish army's entry to Idlib earlier this month - per an August agreement to create de-escalation zones with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's two primary sponsors Iran and Russia - has led to an almost complete encirclement of Afrin.

The YPG, which last week brought an end to the self-declared caliphate of the Islamic State (IS) group and liberated the city of Raqqa, has vowed to put up "strong resistance" to any Turkish attempts at entering the mountainous Afrin region.

“Any military operation led by Turkish forces in Afrin will fail as it would elicit a harsh and unexpected response,” Rezan Gilo, head of the Defense and Self-Protection Body in Afrin, told Kurdistan 24 earlier this month.

Erdogan's latest threat came as the military continued to beef up its troops and heavy vehicles near the border, in the Kilis province.

By invading Afrin, Ankara hopes to extinguish Kurdish self-rule in that area for good and further choke the broader autonomous movement in Rojava, or Syrian Kurdistan.

In the meantime, Turkey has expressed support for the Iraqi army and Iranian-backed sectarian militias' push into the Kurdistan Region which held a referendum on independence last month.

If the militias manage to capture a border crossing in Faysh Khabur, between Iraq and Syria, from the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, Rojava and the Kurdistan Region will be cut off from each other.

The crossing, besides its strategic geopolitical significance for Kurdish aspirations on both sides and its commercial value, also serves as a lifeline for the YPG, which receives American military aid through that border as it continues to fight IS in Syria.

 

Editing by G.H. Renaud