“As with last year's peace talks, powerful Kurdish groups that control wide areas of northern Syria are being excluded from the talks in line with the wishes of Turkey.”
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Kurds are not the “rebels” fighting Assad.
But they are the brave men and women who are freeing cities and killing ISIS and Nusura (AQ) terrorists. And the Kurds are routinely fired on by Turkish soldiers and their mercenaries.
Israel regularly bombs Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon. This can’t be done without coordinating with the Russians, who are allied with Hezbollah. Turkey regularly bombs the Kurds, which I am guessing can’t be done unless the US knows about it as the air space is too small and there are lots of competing interests operating in it.
We need to back the Christians, who have the most stake in this as they will be wiped out. We don’t because the Christians are allied with Assad, who gives them the most safety and freedom.
The whole situation is crazy.
Oh, Turkey is terrified the Kurds in Turkey will revolt and try to form a Kurdish state. There are about four competing interests including the Turks who might want to leave Turkey and form their own state. I suspect Turkey is fighting a losing action and will eventually be four nations resembling the crumbling pile that is now Syria.
All of this will generate hordes of refugees. We need to sort out how to handle that now, before it gets bad.
True, generally speaking Kurds agreed to and adhered to a non violent semi autonomous situation with Assad's Syria and Syrian sub groups, violently resisting Turkey's decades long attempts at subjugation.
Unfortunately Kurds were recently conned into attacking some of the Syrian sub groups including Syrian Christians, with serious consequences.
The disastrous US management of US policy and loss of influence further weakened the Kurds position and ability to defend.