Turkish gambit
Ankara's actions expand the zone of instability
The author is forced to apologize to readers for the title of the article, which reproduces the name of a popular domestic film. But it reflects the current situation in Turkey as well as possible.
It looks like the country will face an extraordinary parliamentary race in October 2015 - it was impossible to lay down the government as a result of the last election. There are too many differences between the winning parties. Nationalists are not ready to block with the Kurds, even where their interests coincide - against their common opponent of President Erdogan. The operation of the Turkish army against the detachments of the Kurdistan Workers' Party and other Kurdish nationalist organizations in Syria and Iraq finally buried not only the possibility of any opposition alliance, but also the chances for any coordinated action against the Justice and Development Party that ruled the country throughout the last period of her stories.
Erdogan's pipes are burning
In addition, it pushes the continuation of Ankara’s talks with Moscow on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, which the deadline for the Russian president’s visit in the fall can get off the ground. Considering that the host country has stronger positions in these negotiations than Russia, which has shown its interest in the success of the project early on, which is not recommended for anyone in relations with the East, the negotiations promise to be difficult and end almost certainly in favor of Turkey. As is known from previous joint projects, including the Akkuyu NPP, the chances of "pushing through" the Turkish negotiators are very weak. Moreover, Ankara currently has other domestic and foreign policy priorities.
Despite the strife in the opposition, the Justice and Development Party has clearly weakened its leader, President R.T. Erdogan, is fighting to maintain his monopoly on power, as is the authoritarian leader in a country with a developed parliamentary system and strong opposition. Including in his own party, where he sharply criticizes possible candidates for top positions, including ex-president A. Gul. It is possible that the maneuvers designed to destabilize the internal political situation, resuming the conflict with the Kurds, will cost Ankara dearly and ultimately narrow, rather than expand, the degree of control over the situation by the AKP and Erdogan personally. The situation is not new - the voluntaristic decisions of the Turkish leader periodically lead to precisely such results, which demonstrates the entire course of the civil war in Syria.
The Erdogan-initiated long-term truce rift with Kurdish political-militant groups based in Syria and Iraq after the shelling of the Turkish Air Force positions of the Kurdistan Workers Party in Kirkuk region exacerbated the situation throughout the country, and in the south-east wilayets caused not only large-scale attacks on the Turkish security forces, but also acts of terrorism on pipelines. The reserved optimistic comments of top management on the situation there can be attributed solely to the category of agitation and propaganda. The Kurds exploded a strategic oil pipeline under Kirkuk, through which 400 thousand barrels of oil per day were exported to Turkey, and a gas pipeline to Agri province, through which Iranian gas was flowing. For the positioning of the country as the main European-Asian hub for the sale of hydrocarbons, serial pipeline explosions are deadly, they torpedo interest of potential investors.
The continuation of the Turkish-Kurdish war buries the idea of laying pipelines across Turkey for the delivery of hydrocarbons to Europe from the Caspian states (including Iran) and Central Asia. All of them, from the now obsessive idea of Brussels "Nabucco" to the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline, which was designed to replace it at the new stage, must pass through Turkey. The trans-Black Sea submarine pipeline Georgia-Balkans should not even be considered in this connection: technically its construction is possible, but the project cost and operational risks are transcendent. Moreover, the stability of the existing Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in the event of a continued attack by Kurdish militants on the Turkish power system may also be in question. In the Middle East, idle pipelines are enough to repeat the same, in modern conditions, much more costly mistakes.
It should be noted that the response of the Kurds has not yet affected the tourism sector, although the security situation is tense and in close proximity to resort areas. The Kurds, fighting against Turkey, unlike the Islamists of Egypt and Tunisia, do not consider foreign tourists as the legitimate aim of their attacks. Otherwise, they may forget about building their own state - and this is in any case their main task from a historical perspective. However, it is impossible to exclude accidental casualties among foreigners in the context of massive undermining of police stations and attacks on security forces in large cities and rural areas. In particular, in Bodrum, one of the shootings took place near the hotel.
Around suicide bombers and allies
The author should join the point of view of analysts who consider the terrorist act in Turkish Suruche, officially attributed to the “Islamic State”, to which the local Kurds became extremely strange. Many contradictions arose with the determination of the personality of the demolition man. The IG did not take responsibility for the attack, which is not typical for the resonant and successful terrorist attacks of its militants. And there is no clarity with the suicide belonging to the IS. The naked statements of politicians convince few people. Breaking the truce with Ankara did not make sense to the PKK and its Kurdish allies. The demonstrative liquidation by the Kurds of the Turkish security forces after the terrorist attack in Suruç fit into the version about the provocations of the special services, for which the Turkish curators of the suicide bore punished by the Kurds. At the same time, without a massive land operation, which Erdogan cannot decide on due to internal political risks, it is impossible to talk about a serious weakening of the PKK in the border Syrian regions.
IBB experts (Yu. B. Shcheglovin, S. S. Balmasov and others), analyzing the situation in Turkey, point out that at the moment it is difficult to say how Erdogan will be able to score points in the electoral field, exploiting the thesis of terrorist danger from PKK. The allegations that Turkey is waging a war with the “Islamic State” in Syria and Iraq are clearly propaganda. Having hit Kurds at the critical moment at the rear of IG positions, Ankara saved the Islamists from a serious defeat. Among other things, the fall in the pace of development of the country affects the mood of the electorate not in the most favorable way for the AKP. The war is seriously undermining the Turkish economy: the losses from pipeline explosions amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars. Uncertainty of the ruling elite is demonstrated by its attempts to reduce the influence of a rival in the face of the Kurdish Peoples Democracy Party (PDN) by initiating a criminal case against its leader S. Demirtas.
Whatever the reason for Erdogan’s decision to attack the Turkish Air Force against the Kurds, it did not improve his relations with Baghdad (they are not presently available with Damascus for obvious reasons) and Cairo. The Egyptian President harshly condemned Turkey, bearing in mind its joint activities with Qatar (as in Libya and Syria) in support of jihadists in Sinai and Gaza. It should be noted that Erdogan’s harsh criticism of General Al-Sisi’s actions during the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood government by the Egyptian military and President M. Mursi, who is close to the Turkish AKP in religious and ideological terms, as well as Cairo’s fight against terrorists (including militants Hamas) could not help but provoke a response from Egypt.
Turkey’s actions also strained its NATO allies, primarily Germany. The territory of this country is inhabited by multimillion Turkish and Kurdish diasporas. The possibility of clashes between Turks and Kurds on the streets of German cities is not the most pleasant news for Chancellor A. Merkel. Especially since the only parties and movements whose positions will increase in this case are the right and the far right, for which not only the conservative part of voters, but also the German centrists, will inevitably vote. Erdogan, many times expressed earlier, including during his visits to Germany, the extremely negative attitude to the assimilation of the Turkish community there, his calls to preserve her national peculiarities at the expense of Berlin’s interests, not to mention the requirements of the loyalty of the German Turks to Ankara, spoiled relations President with the German elite. One can easily imagine her reaction to the next problem he created for Germany.
Relations with the United States, despite the positive feedback from American experts on Ankara’s permission from Washington to use the Incirlik air force base, also do not reinforce the collision of Turkish troops with the Kurds. The basis for them for Erdogan, in any case, is not so much everything that had been gained by his predecessors for decades, but the well-founded suspicions that President B. Obama supports his former ally, who has turned into a dangerous enemy, F. Gulen. This US-based leader of the Islamist Jamaat, which in today's Turkey is referred to exclusively as a “parallel state,” initiated a nationwide corruption scandal during the presidential campaign of Erdogan, using high-ranking supporters in the national law enforcement system. According to the Turkish leader, Gulen acted on instructions from the American leadership, who was interested in his removal from power. Erdogan does not forgive such things, thankfully, he has become a president and as long as he is.
Under the agreement on renting the base "Incirlik", the Americans agreed not to use it to organize "support for Kurdish troops in Syria." Since the main military force that opposes the IS on the Syrian territory adjacent to Turkey is the Kurdish formation of the Party of the Democratic Union (PDS), which is close to the PKK, this helps not the fight against the Islamic State, but the IS. That confirms the opinion of experts who believe Turkey is his hidden ally. Washington and Ankara also agreed on the creation of an IG-free zone extending up to 110 kilometers from the Euphrates River to the province of Aleppo. At the same time, neither the Turks nor the other NATO members to attract their own ground forces for the implementation of this plan are not going to, and given the state of relations with the Kurds, it is not clear who will implement it on the ground.
It should be noted that the United States refused to discuss the idea of a “no-fly zone” over this area, on which Turkey insisted. At the same time, the Turkish Air Force attacked the positions of the PDS in the area of Jarablus, where the Kurds attack the IS positions (officially Ankara denies this fact). Turkish Tanks fired at PDS positions in other areas, including in the province of Aleppo. Despite this, the Kurds managed to dislodge IS supporters from Sarrin, and later with the support of the Syrian aviation from Hasek, which seriously violated the supply routes of the IG in Syria. At the same time, the US Air Force supported the PDS offensive, which contradicted the Turkish-American agreement. It is not known to what extent this was the initiative of the regional command of the US Armed Forces and whether these actions were agreed with Washington. Given the traditionally “warm” relations between the US military and the State Department and intelligence, there is most likely no.
What to expect from the Turkomans
The media paid considerable attention to the statement by the US leadership that the US Air Force will cover the air forces prepared with the assistance of Washington by the secular opposition, regarding this as a readiness to strike at Assad's forces. But nothing indicates the willingness of the United States to intervene in the Syrian civil war directly - rather the opposite. Moreover, this means a direct clash not only with Damascus, but with Tehran and threatens a nuclear deal with Iran, which is the main foreign policy achievement of the current US administration. In this regard, it is essential that the detachments of the secular opposition prepared with the assistance of the Turks are at the present stage.
In this widely advertised and funded sufficient for the preparation of the stated number of several thousand participants, the American program, designed to form combat-ready opposition units that could replace the Syrian Free Army (SSA), whose units partially went to the Islamists, partially joined the Al-Assad army, and the rest were destroyed (including by other oppositionists), 54 ethnic Turkomans were recruited (meaning Iraqi and Syrian Turkmen. - “MIC”). What it says about how efficiently taxpayers' money is spent on protecting American interests in Syria. The Turks were not allowed to train the Americans to the Americans in the most categorical form. The name of this group, currently undergoing training, “30 Division” contrasts with its small number.
Its representative, Nadeem Al-Hassan, who arrived in Syria to establish a regime of “constructive engagement” with other rebel groups, was immediately abducted by militants from the Prosaudian Jabhat al-Nusra, which became active in the province of Latakia. This is clear evidence that the temporary truce of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey in the war against Assad, which resulted in the cessation of the internecine struggle of the jihadist structures supervised by them and the coordinated distribution of fronts, which led to the fall of Idlib and Palmyra in Syria and Ramadi in Iraq, ended. Pro-American units, apparently, will not be able to become part of the existing rebel movement. Islamists from pro-Saud and prokatar groups are hostile to them. The cooperation between the USA and Turkey regarding the confrontation with Assad as such is in question. Washington is not ready to be led by Ankara, supporting the Islamists, with whom Turkey patronizes. That, in turn, demonstratively sabotages American projects.
Taking into account the actions of Ankara, hampering the attack of the Kurds on the capital of the IG - Rakka, as well as of Washington, which maintains relations with Turkey and with the Kurds, it is of interest to have British intelligence services working in Syria working closely with the US. The transfer of the main parts of the IG to the Raqqah area allowed the Syrian army to launch an offensive against Palmyra, reducing the risk of an Islamist attack on Homs. This was made possible because the Druze stood on the side of Damascus, several dozen of whom were killed by Salafis for refusing to join them, replacing their faith. It is characteristic of this that the British MI-6 made every effort to resuscitate pre-war contacts in the Druze community of Syria in order to convince her to sever relations with the Bashar al-Assad regime. This activity is conducted through the Druze community of London. According to experts, in conditions when the war acquired a religious character, it is doomed to failure. Friends in the relatively recent past, like the Alawites, faced the threat of genocide and are well aware of the consequences of European experiments.
The aggravation of the situation in the border areas of Syria and Iraq has activated another large community in the region - the traditional Turkomans supported by Ankara. The successes of the Islamic State militants led to the resuscitation of the idea of creating Turkish autonomy in Iraq. Similar processes can begin in Syria. Even according to underestimated official data, the Turkomans were considered the third after the Arabs and Kurds ethnic group of Iraq, numbering up to three million people (about 40 percent of them are Shiites). In Syria, their number before the war was about 10 percent of the population (up to 2,5 million people). At the same time, being descendants of military settlers called upon to control for the Ottoman Ports Arab and Kurdish tribes and the Persian frontier, the Turkomans traditionally quarrel with the Arabs and Kurds.
The Turkomans actively opposed official Damascus - a representative of this particular community heads the unification of the moderate opposition, NKORS. In Iraq, Turkey supports the Iraqi Turkoman Front, which opposes the control of Kirkuk by the Kurdish authorities and for the autonomy of the Turkomans (according to the 1957 census, they constituted two thirds of the population of Kirkuk). The cooperation in the field of oil and gas exports between Ankara and Kurdish Erbil, established by R. T. Erdogan and M. Barzani, forced Turkey to distance itself from the support of the Turkomans in their struggle with the Kurds for Kirkuk. But the attack of the IG units on Iraqi Kurdistan put the local Turkomans on the brink of genocide. At the same time, they did not receive any assistance from Baghdad or from the Kurdish authorities.
When the IG detachments occupied the area of Tell-Afar with the Turkoman population in the province of Ninawa, 200 left thousands of people who fled to Sinjar. In turn, refugees from Sinjar, soon occupied by jihadists, tried to escape in the Kurds, but were stopped for several days by Kurdish Peshmerga in the control line between Ninawa and Erbil. As a result, a significant number of Turkomans died there. The Shiite Turkomans were destroyed by the Islamists. Sunni Turkomans were persecuted by the Shiite militias of Baghdad. Kurdish authorities have pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing of Turkomans in Kirkuk and surrounding areas. Numerous abductions by Jihadists of women of Turkomans who are forcibly converted to Islam of the Salafi kind are noted.
As a result, in May - July, the Turkomans created a Shiite brigade of 4000 fighters and Sunnite at 1500 people who joined the coalition "Hashd al-Shaabi". Not the most significant armed force in the region, but it can achieve some success with the support of Turkey and in establishing relations with the Americans. However, what the fate of the Turkomans of the region will ultimately be is unclear ...
The author is forced to apologize to readers for the title of the article, which reproduces the name of a popular domestic film. But it reflects the current situation in Turkey as well as possible.
It looks like the country will face an extraordinary parliamentary race in October 2015 - it was impossible to lay down the government as a result of the last election. There are too many differences between the winning parties. Nationalists are not ready to block with the Kurds, even where their interests coincide - against their common opponent of President Erdogan. The operation of the Turkish army against the detachments of the Kurdistan Workers' Party and other Kurdish nationalist organizations in Syria and Iraq finally buried not only the possibility of any opposition alliance, but also the chances for any coordinated action against the Justice and Development Party that ruled the country throughout the last period of her stories.
Erdogan's pipes are burning
In addition, it pushes the continuation of Ankara’s talks with Moscow on the Turkish Stream gas pipeline, which the deadline for the Russian president’s visit in the fall can get off the ground. Considering that the host country has stronger positions in these negotiations than Russia, which has shown its interest in the success of the project early on, which is not recommended for anyone in relations with the East, the negotiations promise to be difficult and end almost certainly in favor of Turkey. As is known from previous joint projects, including the Akkuyu NPP, the chances of "pushing through" the Turkish negotiators are very weak. Moreover, Ankara currently has other domestic and foreign policy priorities.
Despite the strife in the opposition, the Justice and Development Party has clearly weakened its leader, President R.T. Erdogan, is fighting to maintain his monopoly on power, as is the authoritarian leader in a country with a developed parliamentary system and strong opposition. Including in his own party, where he sharply criticizes possible candidates for top positions, including ex-president A. Gul. It is possible that the maneuvers designed to destabilize the internal political situation, resuming the conflict with the Kurds, will cost Ankara dearly and ultimately narrow, rather than expand, the degree of control over the situation by the AKP and Erdogan personally. The situation is not new - the voluntaristic decisions of the Turkish leader periodically lead to precisely such results, which demonstrates the entire course of the civil war in Syria.
The Erdogan-initiated long-term truce rift with Kurdish political-militant groups based in Syria and Iraq after the shelling of the Turkish Air Force positions of the Kurdistan Workers Party in Kirkuk region exacerbated the situation throughout the country, and in the south-east wilayets caused not only large-scale attacks on the Turkish security forces, but also acts of terrorism on pipelines. The reserved optimistic comments of top management on the situation there can be attributed solely to the category of agitation and propaganda. The Kurds exploded a strategic oil pipeline under Kirkuk, through which 400 thousand barrels of oil per day were exported to Turkey, and a gas pipeline to Agri province, through which Iranian gas was flowing. For the positioning of the country as the main European-Asian hub for the sale of hydrocarbons, serial pipeline explosions are deadly, they torpedo interest of potential investors.
The continuation of the Turkish-Kurdish war buries the idea of laying pipelines across Turkey for the delivery of hydrocarbons to Europe from the Caspian states (including Iran) and Central Asia. All of them, from the now obsessive idea of Brussels "Nabucco" to the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline, which was designed to replace it at the new stage, must pass through Turkey. The trans-Black Sea submarine pipeline Georgia-Balkans should not even be considered in this connection: technically its construction is possible, but the project cost and operational risks are transcendent. Moreover, the stability of the existing Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in the event of a continued attack by Kurdish militants on the Turkish power system may also be in question. In the Middle East, idle pipelines are enough to repeat the same, in modern conditions, much more costly mistakes.
It should be noted that the response of the Kurds has not yet affected the tourism sector, although the security situation is tense and in close proximity to resort areas. The Kurds, fighting against Turkey, unlike the Islamists of Egypt and Tunisia, do not consider foreign tourists as the legitimate aim of their attacks. Otherwise, they may forget about building their own state - and this is in any case their main task from a historical perspective. However, it is impossible to exclude accidental casualties among foreigners in the context of massive undermining of police stations and attacks on security forces in large cities and rural areas. In particular, in Bodrum, one of the shootings took place near the hotel.
Around suicide bombers and allies
The author should join the point of view of analysts who consider the terrorist act in Turkish Suruche, officially attributed to the “Islamic State”, to which the local Kurds became extremely strange. Many contradictions arose with the determination of the personality of the demolition man. The IG did not take responsibility for the attack, which is not typical for the resonant and successful terrorist attacks of its militants. And there is no clarity with the suicide belonging to the IS. The naked statements of politicians convince few people. Breaking the truce with Ankara did not make sense to the PKK and its Kurdish allies. The demonstrative liquidation by the Kurds of the Turkish security forces after the terrorist attack in Suruç fit into the version about the provocations of the special services, for which the Turkish curators of the suicide bore punished by the Kurds. At the same time, without a massive land operation, which Erdogan cannot decide on due to internal political risks, it is impossible to talk about a serious weakening of the PKK in the border Syrian regions.
IBB experts (Yu. B. Shcheglovin, S. S. Balmasov and others), analyzing the situation in Turkey, point out that at the moment it is difficult to say how Erdogan will be able to score points in the electoral field, exploiting the thesis of terrorist danger from PKK. The allegations that Turkey is waging a war with the “Islamic State” in Syria and Iraq are clearly propaganda. Having hit Kurds at the critical moment at the rear of IG positions, Ankara saved the Islamists from a serious defeat. Among other things, the fall in the pace of development of the country affects the mood of the electorate not in the most favorable way for the AKP. The war is seriously undermining the Turkish economy: the losses from pipeline explosions amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars. Uncertainty of the ruling elite is demonstrated by its attempts to reduce the influence of a rival in the face of the Kurdish Peoples Democracy Party (PDN) by initiating a criminal case against its leader S. Demirtas.
Whatever the reason for Erdogan’s decision to attack the Turkish Air Force against the Kurds, it did not improve his relations with Baghdad (they are not presently available with Damascus for obvious reasons) and Cairo. The Egyptian President harshly condemned Turkey, bearing in mind its joint activities with Qatar (as in Libya and Syria) in support of jihadists in Sinai and Gaza. It should be noted that Erdogan’s harsh criticism of General Al-Sisi’s actions during the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood government by the Egyptian military and President M. Mursi, who is close to the Turkish AKP in religious and ideological terms, as well as Cairo’s fight against terrorists (including militants Hamas) could not help but provoke a response from Egypt.
Turkey’s actions also strained its NATO allies, primarily Germany. The territory of this country is inhabited by multimillion Turkish and Kurdish diasporas. The possibility of clashes between Turks and Kurds on the streets of German cities is not the most pleasant news for Chancellor A. Merkel. Especially since the only parties and movements whose positions will increase in this case are the right and the far right, for which not only the conservative part of voters, but also the German centrists, will inevitably vote. Erdogan, many times expressed earlier, including during his visits to Germany, the extremely negative attitude to the assimilation of the Turkish community there, his calls to preserve her national peculiarities at the expense of Berlin’s interests, not to mention the requirements of the loyalty of the German Turks to Ankara, spoiled relations President with the German elite. One can easily imagine her reaction to the next problem he created for Germany.
Relations with the United States, despite the positive feedback from American experts on Ankara’s permission from Washington to use the Incirlik air force base, also do not reinforce the collision of Turkish troops with the Kurds. The basis for them for Erdogan, in any case, is not so much everything that had been gained by his predecessors for decades, but the well-founded suspicions that President B. Obama supports his former ally, who has turned into a dangerous enemy, F. Gulen. This US-based leader of the Islamist Jamaat, which in today's Turkey is referred to exclusively as a “parallel state,” initiated a nationwide corruption scandal during the presidential campaign of Erdogan, using high-ranking supporters in the national law enforcement system. According to the Turkish leader, Gulen acted on instructions from the American leadership, who was interested in his removal from power. Erdogan does not forgive such things, thankfully, he has become a president and as long as he is.
Under the agreement on renting the base "Incirlik", the Americans agreed not to use it to organize "support for Kurdish troops in Syria." Since the main military force that opposes the IS on the Syrian territory adjacent to Turkey is the Kurdish formation of the Party of the Democratic Union (PDS), which is close to the PKK, this helps not the fight against the Islamic State, but the IS. That confirms the opinion of experts who believe Turkey is his hidden ally. Washington and Ankara also agreed on the creation of an IG-free zone extending up to 110 kilometers from the Euphrates River to the province of Aleppo. At the same time, neither the Turks nor the other NATO members to attract their own ground forces for the implementation of this plan are not going to, and given the state of relations with the Kurds, it is not clear who will implement it on the ground.
It should be noted that the United States refused to discuss the idea of a “no-fly zone” over this area, on which Turkey insisted. At the same time, the Turkish Air Force attacked the positions of the PDS in the area of Jarablus, where the Kurds attack the IS positions (officially Ankara denies this fact). Turkish Tanks fired at PDS positions in other areas, including in the province of Aleppo. Despite this, the Kurds managed to dislodge IS supporters from Sarrin, and later with the support of the Syrian aviation from Hasek, which seriously violated the supply routes of the IG in Syria. At the same time, the US Air Force supported the PDS offensive, which contradicted the Turkish-American agreement. It is not known to what extent this was the initiative of the regional command of the US Armed Forces and whether these actions were agreed with Washington. Given the traditionally “warm” relations between the US military and the State Department and intelligence, there is most likely no.
What to expect from the Turkomans
The media paid considerable attention to the statement by the US leadership that the US Air Force will cover the air forces prepared with the assistance of Washington by the secular opposition, regarding this as a readiness to strike at Assad's forces. But nothing indicates the willingness of the United States to intervene in the Syrian civil war directly - rather the opposite. Moreover, this means a direct clash not only with Damascus, but with Tehran and threatens a nuclear deal with Iran, which is the main foreign policy achievement of the current US administration. In this regard, it is essential that the detachments of the secular opposition prepared with the assistance of the Turks are at the present stage.
In this widely advertised and funded sufficient for the preparation of the stated number of several thousand participants, the American program, designed to form combat-ready opposition units that could replace the Syrian Free Army (SSA), whose units partially went to the Islamists, partially joined the Al-Assad army, and the rest were destroyed (including by other oppositionists), 54 ethnic Turkomans were recruited (meaning Iraqi and Syrian Turkmen. - “MIC”). What it says about how efficiently taxpayers' money is spent on protecting American interests in Syria. The Turks were not allowed to train the Americans to the Americans in the most categorical form. The name of this group, currently undergoing training, “30 Division” contrasts with its small number.Its representative, Nadeem Al-Hassan, who arrived in Syria to establish a regime of “constructive engagement” with other rebel groups, was immediately abducted by militants from the Prosaudian Jabhat al-Nusra, which became active in the province of Latakia. This is clear evidence that the temporary truce of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey in the war against Assad, which resulted in the cessation of the internecine struggle of the jihadist structures supervised by them and the coordinated distribution of fronts, which led to the fall of Idlib and Palmyra in Syria and Ramadi in Iraq, ended. Pro-American units, apparently, will not be able to become part of the existing rebel movement. Islamists from pro-Saud and prokatar groups are hostile to them. The cooperation between the USA and Turkey regarding the confrontation with Assad as such is in question. Washington is not ready to be led by Ankara, supporting the Islamists, with whom Turkey patronizes. That, in turn, demonstratively sabotages American projects.
Taking into account the actions of Ankara, hampering the attack of the Kurds on the capital of the IG - Rakka, as well as of Washington, which maintains relations with Turkey and with the Kurds, it is of interest to have British intelligence services working in Syria working closely with the US. The transfer of the main parts of the IG to the Raqqah area allowed the Syrian army to launch an offensive against Palmyra, reducing the risk of an Islamist attack on Homs. This was made possible because the Druze stood on the side of Damascus, several dozen of whom were killed by Salafis for refusing to join them, replacing their faith. It is characteristic of this that the British MI-6 made every effort to resuscitate pre-war contacts in the Druze community of Syria in order to convince her to sever relations with the Bashar al-Assad regime. This activity is conducted through the Druze community of London. According to experts, in conditions when the war acquired a religious character, it is doomed to failure. Friends in the relatively recent past, like the Alawites, faced the threat of genocide and are well aware of the consequences of European experiments.
The aggravation of the situation in the border areas of Syria and Iraq has activated another large community in the region - the traditional Turkomans supported by Ankara. The successes of the Islamic State militants led to the resuscitation of the idea of creating Turkish autonomy in Iraq. Similar processes can begin in Syria. Even according to underestimated official data, the Turkomans were considered the third after the Arabs and Kurds ethnic group of Iraq, numbering up to three million people (about 40 percent of them are Shiites). In Syria, their number before the war was about 10 percent of the population (up to 2,5 million people). At the same time, being descendants of military settlers called upon to control for the Ottoman Ports Arab and Kurdish tribes and the Persian frontier, the Turkomans traditionally quarrel with the Arabs and Kurds.
The Turkomans actively opposed official Damascus - a representative of this particular community heads the unification of the moderate opposition, NKORS. In Iraq, Turkey supports the Iraqi Turkoman Front, which opposes the control of Kirkuk by the Kurdish authorities and for the autonomy of the Turkomans (according to the 1957 census, they constituted two thirds of the population of Kirkuk). The cooperation in the field of oil and gas exports between Ankara and Kurdish Erbil, established by R. T. Erdogan and M. Barzani, forced Turkey to distance itself from the support of the Turkomans in their struggle with the Kurds for Kirkuk. But the attack of the IG units on Iraqi Kurdistan put the local Turkomans on the brink of genocide. At the same time, they did not receive any assistance from Baghdad or from the Kurdish authorities.
When the IG detachments occupied the area of Tell-Afar with the Turkoman population in the province of Ninawa, 200 left thousands of people who fled to Sinjar. In turn, refugees from Sinjar, soon occupied by jihadists, tried to escape in the Kurds, but were stopped for several days by Kurdish Peshmerga in the control line between Ninawa and Erbil. As a result, a significant number of Turkomans died there. The Shiite Turkomans were destroyed by the Islamists. Sunni Turkomans were persecuted by the Shiite militias of Baghdad. Kurdish authorities have pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing of Turkomans in Kirkuk and surrounding areas. Numerous abductions by Jihadists of women of Turkomans who are forcibly converted to Islam of the Salafi kind are noted.
As a result, in May - July, the Turkomans created a Shiite brigade of 4000 fighters and Sunnite at 1500 people who joined the coalition "Hashd al-Shaabi". Not the most significant armed force in the region, but it can achieve some success with the support of Turkey and in establishing relations with the Americans. However, what the fate of the Turkomans of the region will ultimately be is unclear ...
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