Erdogan links Crusades with present-day terror
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As Erdogan searches history for dragons to slay, Semih Idiz assesses the real-time consequences of Turkey’s Syria policies.
“Turkey's only participation in these offensives [in Syria] has been to allow US-led anti-IS coalition jets to take off from Incirlik Air Base, and to engage in cross-border shelling of IS positions in northern Syria, mostly in response to IS shells lobbed into Turkey,” Idiz writes. “Meanwhile, predominantly Arab and Turkmen groups supported by Ankara, and operating under the broad umbrella of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), continue to perform poorly against IS. This contrasts sharply with the gains of the US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the bulk of which are made up of fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).”
Fehim Tastekin reports, “The unexpected victory by IS [against Turkish-backed groups in al-Rai] panicked the Turkish government and muted objections to US joint operations with the SDF. Blows against Turkish-supported armed groups by IS offered a trump card to the Kurds. These Turkish-backed groups need SDF permission to exit the siege they are under. The SDF’s condition for opening a corridor from Marea to Aleppo is for the Turkish-supported armed groups to halt attacks against the Kurdish Sheikh Maksoud district of Aleppo. There is speculation that some of those groups might soon join the SDF. At the moment, at least two Turkmen units are cooperating with the YPG, showing that the Turkmen card is not entirely in Turkey’s hands.”
Idiz concludes, “Keeping in mind its continuing obsession with undermining Kurdish aspirations, it remains to be seen how much longer Ankara can sustain a policy, which may be gaining President Recep Tayyip Erdogan political points among his Islamist and nationalist supporters at home, but which is clearly undermining Turkey's interests and leaving it as the least influential player in a region where it once believed it was the most important actor.”
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/06/turkey-aleppo-israel-erdogan-assad-isis-sdf.html
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