Do Kurds need to be blamed for unscrupulousness?
"Source of Peace" became a source of war
On 9 on October 2019, Turkish President Recep Erdogan announced the start of an armed operation with the hypocritical name "Source of Peace." It is clear that no peacekeeping in the hostilities unleashed by Ankara in the north of Syria does not smell. Already, the number of victims of the “Source of Peace” goes to hundreds, and these are not only Kurdish militants, but also civilians, and Turkish soldiers themselves, and even foreign journalists.
The main objective of the Turkish operation is the Syrian Kurds. For many years, the northeastern parts of Syria have been under the control of the Kurdish People’s Self-Defense Forces - armed groups not controlled by the Syrian government. It cannot be denied that the Kurds made a huge fact in the fight against terrorist groups, being one of the most combat-ready forces on the front of the ISIS counteraction (banned in Russia) and other similar structures.
For Ankara, the existence of a virtually independent Kurdish enclave in northern Syria has always been an annoying factor, due to the unresolved Kurdish problem in Turkey itself. Erdogan views the Kurdish opposition in Turkey as “terrorists,” and accordingly also identifies Syrian Kurdish formations closely associated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party banned in Turkey.
Thus, in reality, the Turkish operation in Syria is not anti-terrorist in nature. Its main task is to eliminate or weaken as much as possible the Kurdish autonomy in the north of the neighboring state in order to protect Turkey itself from the Kurdish national movement.
For Erdogan, this task is a priority, for the sake of its solution he is ready to quarrel with anyone, including the EU countries, which he is already threatening to let Syrian refugees through the territory of Turkey, and even the United States of America. It would be naive to assume that Turkey would reckon with the military-political interests of Russia in the Middle East, although many short-sighted (or hypocritical?) People are trying to enlist Erdogan as Russia's allies.
Political unscrupulousness is not just about Kurds
Now, quite a controversial line can be traced in a number of mass media and, especially, blogs: the Kurds briskly turned over under the auspices of the United States, and now, they say, Washington betrayed them and the result is that the Kurdish territories were defenseless against the Turkish onslaught.
Firstly, it is hardly worth extending claims to individual politicians to the entire Kurdish people, which have at least 40 million people, but still do not have their own state.
The Syrian Kurds at one time found themselves in a very dangerous situation - on the one hand, they were threatened by ISIS militants (banned in Russia), on the other hand, there was an obvious threat of an attack from Turkey, which only now materialized, but could have come true much earlier. And the Kurds had no choice but to look for a strong patron. By chance, such a patron was the United States, in whose interests at that time it was to support the Kurds.
Actually, why did the Kurds at one time not be able to cooperate with the Americans? Unlike Turkey or Syria, the United States did not claim control of Kurdish territories and did not discriminate against the Kurdish people. But from the Americans it was possible to get high-quality weapon, financing, assistance of military instructors. And the Kurds took full advantage of this, thanks to which they were able to turn the militia into a more or less combat-ready structure.
By the way, Russia itself deliberately distanced itself from helping the Kurds. If we talk about who betrayed whom, then the first and most high-profile fact of political betrayal related to the Kurds and their national movement was story with the arrest of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, the “founding father” of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, who is now seventy years old and twenty of them, he is being held in prison on an island in the Sea of Marmara.
Recall that Ocalan was captured by Turkish intelligence services 20 years ago, 15 on February 1999, in Kenya. Before that, Ocalan tried for a long time and to no avail in asylum in some countries, including Russia. Moscow did not cost anything to shelter Ocalan at home, but the then leadership of Russia did not do this, fearing to quarrel with Turkey.
Recall that at a time when Russia refused to provide asylum to Ocalan, Turkey openly supported terrorist groups in the North Caucasus. Turkish militants from religious extremist organizations fought in Chechnya, militants from the Caucasus healed their wounds in Turkey, and numerous Ichkeria missions were also located there. In those victims that Russia suffered during the two Chechen wars, terrorist attacks in the Caucasus and in the cities of our country, there is a very tangible share of the guilt of Turkey. Only today they prefer not to remember this - after all, it is impossible for Erdogan to be offended.
Russia forgave Ankara for the support of militants during the wars in the Caucasus. And today, our dignitaries pretend that nothing happened. Well, almost twenty years have passed since those wars, although the country still heals their wounds, and they will never return the dead. But how quickly the policy of our country has changed in recent years! On November 24 on November 2015, less than four years ago, a Russian Su-24M aircraft was shot down by a missile launched by the Turkish Air Force F-16C fighter.
The commander of the Russian crew, Lieutenant Colonel Oleg Peshkov, died during a parachute landing - he was killed by militants operating in the area of pro-Turkish armed forces, who opened fire on the landing pilot. The navigator, captain Konstantin Murakhtin managed to escape - by a lucky chance, he landed outside the shelling zone. When the Syrian special forces and the Russian military carried out activities to search for pilots, pro-Turkish units shot down the Mi-8 helicopter, and the Russian marine Alexander Pozynich was killed.
Here is such a “gift” Erdogan made to Russia only four years ago. And then Russia reacted violently - imposed sanctions on Turkish imports, limited flights to Turkey. True, these sanctions were short-lived and Moscow soon reconciled with Ankara, and even so that the pro-government media began to represent Recep Erdogan as almost Russia's closest ally in the Middle East after Bashar al-Assad.
One could attribute the tragedy in the sky over Syria to the mistake of the Turkish Air Force, if it were not for one “but” - a significant part of the Turks, moreover from among Erdogan's supporters, warmly welcomed the actions of the Turkish Air Force and rejoiced at the death of the Russian pilots. The Internet stores everything, if necessary - you can easily get acquainted with the reaction of Erdogan supporters then, four years ago.
Finally, one should not forget that Turkey refuses to recognize Crimea as Russian and this position is not simply caused by the desire not to quarrel with Ukraine. Europe or the USA. A politician like Erdogan would not care about the consequences. The fact is that for Turkey, the Russian Crimea is an occupied Crimean Khanate, it is the territory of the Ottoman Empire. It is clear that times have changed, but Ankara will not support Russian sovereignty over Crimea.
And finally, Turkey never hid its desire to play a special role in the life of the Turkic-speaking states of the post-Soviet space, but also of the Turkic-speaking and Muslim peoples of Russia. Azerbaijan, the North Caucasus, Tatarstan and Bashkiria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan in Ankara are considered as a sphere of Turkish national interests. Does Russia need this?
Therefore, when today Russian authors accuse the Kurds of having “laid down under Washington,” and then Trump betrayed them, they forget what Russia itself looks like in its strange “love” with Turkey. In the same way, the Kurds can be very distrustful of Russian proposals: what can be expected from Moscow if it does not properly respond to Ankara’s hostile policies even with regard to Russia itself?
Turkey may start conflict with Syria
Now Moscow deliberately distances itself from the operation of the Turkish army in northern Syria. But soon such a position will already be inappropriate - the Kurds turned to official Damascus for help. By the way, the Turkish army, if anything, invaded Syria and violated its territorial integrity. Syrian government forces advanced to the Syrian-Turkish border.
Of course, the forces of Damascus and Ankara are not comparable. And the adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Yasin Aktay, has already publicly stated that the Turkish army is ready to repulse the Syrian government forces in the event of a clash. The agreement concluded by the Kurds with Damascus, Aktai described as an example of the hostility of Syria towards Turkey and emphasized that Ankara would not tolerate the presence of Kurdish armed forces on the Syrian-Turkish border.
Bravo! While the "patriots", rejoiced at the Turkish attack on the "American allies" of the Kurds, tirelessly talked about the political unprincipledness of the latter, such significant events took place. First, the very Bashar Assad, who is considered the most faithful Russian friend in the Middle East, has already stood up for the Kurds and sent government troops to northern Syria.
It turns out that Assad is unprincipled? Once he stands up for the "American allies" of the Kurds. Although, in fact, Assad, like every normal leader, cares about the territorial integrity of his country. It is not Turkey’s responsibility to deal with what is happening in northeast Syria, this is a problem for Damascus itself, but not Ankara at all.
If Erdogan is afraid of Kurdish radicals, then the only way out for him under international law is to strengthen the Turkish border, make it impossible for weapons or militants to penetrate into Turkish territory, but not to invade the territory of a neighboring state.
Secondly, Ankara threatens Damascus with a direct clash. That is, Turkish troops are ready to start a war against the Syrian government army, which Russia has supported all these years, in the war of which Russian soldiers and officers were killed, in whose ranks there are Russian military advisers and specialists. So now Russia, in order not to be accused of “political prostitution”, will also have to determine more quickly whether it is with the Turks or with Bashar Assad.
It would be naive to assume that Erdogan acts in Russian interests, forcing the Kurds to recognize the power of Damascus and submit to Bashar Assad. For Ankara, the main task is to protect themselves from the Kurdish national movement, which, by the way, also fits into the neo-Ottoman paradigm of Erdogan.
The Turkish army, having established control over areas in northeast Syria, will remain there. It is very unlikely that Erdogan will transfer control of these territories to Assad. Most likely, areas under Turkish occupation will be created, in which miraculously they will begin to issue Turkish passports to Syrian Turks, and even Sunni Arabs. By the way, according to some reports, this is already happening in the territories where Turkish troops are located.
In the strategic plan of Russia, the strengthening of Turkey in the Middle East is not at all necessary. Since, having dealt with the Kurds in Syria, Erdogan will inevitably want to realize his neo-Ottoman ambitions in other regions, which Turkish nationalists still consider their spheres of influence.
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