Posted on 10/22/2019 1:27:54 PM PDT by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to create a buffer zone in northern Syria and will remove Kurdish fighters along the border.
After several hours of talks, the two leaders said a “safe zone” would be implemented in northeastern Syria, and they would initiate joint patrols in the area. The announcement comes days after Turkey incurred into northern Syria on Oct. 9 to remove Kurdish fighters that it has described as “terrorists” from the area.
According to the deal, starting on Oct. 23, Russian forces and Syrian border guards will “facilitate the removal of [Kurdish] YPG elements and their weapons to the depth” of 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Turkish–Syrian border. Turkish soldiers and Turkey-backed Syrian fighters gather on the northern outskirts of the Syrian city of Manbij near the Turkish border on Oct. 14, 2019. (Zein Al Rifai/AFP via Getty Images)
After five days, Russian and Turkish patrols “will start in the west and the east of the area of Operation Peace Spring with a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), except Qamishli city,” stated a memorandum of understanding between the two nations.
Russia and Turkey, it added, will also work to contain “terrorist elements” from springing up in the area. The memorandum didn’t elaborate. Syrian government forces raise a national flag and an image of President Bashar al-Assad at Tabqa airbase in northern Syria’s Raqa region on Oct. 16, 2019. (AFP via Getty Images)
The YPG, the key component in the Syrian Democratic Forces that have for years fought alongside U.S. troops against ISIS, will also leave the towns of Tel Rifaat and Manbij under the deal, Reuters reported.
“This operation also guarantees Syria’s territorial integrity and political unity … We never had any interest in Syria’s land and sovereignty,” Erdogan said at the press conference. “The main aim of the operation is to take out PKK/YPG terror organizations from the area and to facilitate the return of Syrian refugees,” he remarked.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also confirmed the leaders came to an agreement. Civilians flee with their belongings amid Turkish bombardment on Syria’s northeastern town of Ras al-Ain in the Hasakeh province along the Turkish border on Oct. 9, 2019. (Delil Souleiman/AFP via Getty Images)
The move comes about two weeks after the White House announced the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the border area, precipitating Turkey’s incursion into the Syrian border region. However, U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said President Donald Trump is prepared to use military force again.
“We prefer peace to war,” Pompeo said on Oct. 21. “But in the event that kinetic action or military action is needed, you should know that President Trump is fully prepared to undertake that action.”
Trump told reporters at a cabinet meeting that the United States “never agreed to protect the Kurds for the rest of their lives.”
“We’re not going to take a position. Let them fight themselves,” Trump said, referring to the Turkish–Kurdish conflict.
On Oct. 21, Trump authorized $4.5 million in direct support to the Syria Civil Defense to continue its “important and highly valued work” in Syria.
“The United States encourages our allies and partners to join us in our support for the SCD and in our efforts to protect civilians, religious and ethnic minorities, and other innocent victims of the Syrian conflict,” according to a White House statement.
This may work out well if they don’t “ethnically cleanse” the Kurdish residents (who are not YPG members) from the area. That, of course, would frustrate unstated Erdogan’s territorial ambitions but yield his stated desire for secure borders.
Why does Turkey get to create a 20 mile buffer zone south of its border when the US can’t set up one 20 miles south of our border?
“This may work out well if they don’t “ethnically cleanse” the Kurdish residents (who are not YPG members) from the area”
Many of the largest towns in northern Syria are within the so-called “safe zone” demanded by Turkey, and many are predominately Kurdish and many of them are partial to those who ckicked out ISIS, which was not Assad or Erdogan, it was the Kurdish fighters.
The “safe zone” is nothing less than seeking for the Kurds to get out of northern Syria, period - though it has been the homeland to many of them for far longer than Turks have existed in the region. The resettlement of “Syrian refugees” in Turkey is nothing less than to re-populate formerly Krud dominant areas of northern Syria with Syrian Arabs that fled to Turkey rather than, like the Kurds, stay and fight ISIS.
The question is does the United States have an interest in supporting the Kurds. If it does how far is the US willing to go to do it. Many Americans could care less and feel it’s not worth one American life in order protect the Kurds.
Perhaps because he has 3.5 million Syrian refugees in his country that he has threatened to release into Europe if they don’t help him resettle them back into Syria. That’s the purpose for the neutral zone. IMHO, it’s the reason why the President agreed to withdraw from the northern border and let Syria and Turkey work out the repatriation of Syria’s citizens. The Kurds had to be pushed back from the border because a number of the Kurdish factions are enemies of the refugees (as well as Turkey) and would pose a security risk.
Not a very good article.
The Turk/Russia patrolled zones do no cover the whole border,.
Most of the “safe zone” will be patrolled by Syria.
Map here: https://twitter.com/CivilWarMap/status/1186717862083383303
Summary here:
https://twitter.com/jenanmoussa/status/1186715237493460993
“The question is does the United States have an interest in supporting the Kurds. If it does how far is the US willing to go to do it. Many Americans could care less and feel it’s not worth one American life in order protect the Kurds.”
Actually the U.S. did not have to do anything more than to tell Erdogan we were not going anywhere.
He was not going to go into Syria as long as we were there and our remaining cost there had become minimal. Russia was also not going to go into northern Syria where the SDF held sway, as long as we were there.
Nothing would have changed. The status quo of a pacified area of northern Syria run by democratically elected administrations among the towns and areas held by the SDF would simply have remained, with ISIS no longer a threat, Erdogan frustrated and Assad and Russia needing to make a deal with the Kurds, not with Erdogan.
The affect of us doing nothing, of us not bending to Erdogan, would have been a Russia-Assad agreed Kurdish province of Syria, with a high degree of autonomy like the Kurdish province of Iraq. That would have cost us nothing extra, other than telling Erdogan we were not leaving.
Turkey would have had to just live with it.
The only caveat the Kurds would have had to have given to Assad and Russia would be no PKK attacks into Turkey from Syrian soil.
Instead, the net of the Russia-Turkey agreement is a win for Turkey, a win for Russia, a win for Assad, and the U.S. now has a new enemy in the region - the Kurds.
Power hates a vacuum. We are not the cause of bad guys just because we get involved. They exist and are bad just because they are who they are. They also are not going to go away, or behave, just because we chose to leave an area as if having no interest to us, for us.
ALL of our world opponents live in a more realistic world. They know they grow stronger when we leave a power vacuum for them to fill, which they will. As their accomplished interests expand, our range of possible actions shrinks and/or becomes more difficult, more costly, contains greater risks. Eventually this will become obvious as our opponents seek to make use of their greater influence, to our detriment; which they will do.
This is not about being a “globalist”. It is the reality of the world in any age.
in reading this article remember Syria has been a client state of Russia since signing a treaty in 1946. Russian “advisors” have been embedded within Syrian (and Iranian) military for more than a generation. (not since Trump took over the WH as some in the media will imply) Also, the only Mediterranean sea port for the Russia fleet is in Syria. Russia also has a tight relationship with Iran which goes back to 1980.
Also, Turkey will resettle two million of their 3.6 million Syrian refugees in the new buffer zone. Turkey has the most severe refugee problem in the world, so it is said. So Syrians will resettle Syria.
We have no business there. Get the nukes out and let them at it.
Well said for the “other side”, very reasonable.
I respectfully disagree with many of yuor assumptions.
At the heart is that the Kurds are not able to be a balancing force against Iran, or anyone. Kurds in Iran, Turkey, Syria are hostages preventing Kurdish freedom of action.
The Kurds will ba “power vacuum” for the forseeable future.
The assumption that no one would attack us in Rojava doesn’t ring true to me.
Any of our enemies, notably Iran, could set that off easily.
The Americans are tired of all these silly games. You spout the party line when talking about this interventionist nonsense. We had no interest in Northern Syria. The YPG were not our friends, they were only taking advantage of us to further their goals. The Kurds are a disunited people. Their cause is a lost one because they really have no common goal. Americans have never really been for intervention in far off countries. The advent of the Cold War after the end of WW2 led us to deviate from a tradition of limited foreign interventions. Well the Cold War ended in the 1990’s so it’s time to try a new policy that puts America and its interests first.
The US seems to have 22 million illegal refugees, mostly from South of the Border.....
Because they're willing to invade the country to their south to set one up.
Erdogan said he's going to remove all the Kurdish fighters. I don't see the Kurdish non-fighters sticking around to see what happens. It'll be ethnic cleansing by any other name.
Hey! Who told you to use logic?
The net result will be that
Turkey will get a strip of land separating the Turkish Kurds from the Syrian Kurds.
The Kurds will dump the USA permanently as an ally - being tossed aside for the third time would make them hesitate next time - and take on the Russians as allies.
Assad consolidates power.
Iran gets it’s shia crescent.
Russia gets a strong sphere of influence from Iran to Lebanon
The Kurds and their Mede predecessors have only been in northern Syria since the 1700s at best. They are from the south-western banks of the Caspian.
I think the USA interest in supporting the Kurds is
1. To show that the USA can be trusted to stick up for allies. The Russians showed that they can be relied on when Putin changed the trajectory of the war by stepping in on Assad’s side. Russia showed itself as “a true friend” and will have Syrian hearts and support for decades now (see how the Russians in 1971 won over India as reference). In contrast this is the third time the USA has used and then dumped the Kurds. I doubt there will be a fourth time. More so, other countries will also see the USA as a fickle ally
2. In terms of monetary gains - the USA gains nothing by supporting the Kurds
3. In terms of military prestige - nothing
4. In terms of containing Iran - not much in my opinion
5. In terms of gaining a Kurdistan - a very slim chance and even then, Kurdistan would ally itself with Iran as both are Iranian peoples.
Overall the only thing the USA loses is face and prestige. It would gain nothing else imho
I agree with your analysis. Russia and Turkey would not have dared to even scratch an American soldier’s toe
Heh. The Syrian Kurds are going to love us. We are going to develop their oil fields and pay them walking around money. You have not been paying attention. It is part of the plan. Edjumicate yourself a bit with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZOUntMtlfo
Btw, the Kurds are not monolithic. Several factions. The by far largest one is with this plan 100%. The idiots you saw throwing potatoes (not tomatoes) at US armor are from a small faction with a greasy leader. You see him with his Rolex and greased back hair in their propaganda potato video. Speaks English and is western educated.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.