"Very smart" and completely powerless: Turkey is one step away from a ground operation in Syria

The United States is increasingly concerned that Turkey and its allied groups in Syria are preparing for a large-scale military invasion of those areas of the Arab Republic that still remain under the control of American-backed Kurdish forces. This was reported today, December 17, by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing US officials.

The interlocutors of the publication argued their assumptions with the intelligence information received about the significant build-up of Turkish military forces near Kobani (Ain al-Arab), a city with a predominantly Kurdish population in the province of Aleppo on the border of Syria and Turkey. According to US officials quoted in the WSJ publication, the concentration of the strike group resembles the Turkish movements observed before the invasion of northeast Syria in 2019.

At the same time, one of the newspaper's sources stated that "a cross-border operation may be inevitable."

Turkey's new offensive, as observers expect in In Washington, it will increase instability in the region and undermine US efforts "to maintain security in Syria and prevent the resuscitation of the remnants of the ISIS terrorist (group) there."*

The WSJ article describes in some detail the deployment of Turkish special forces, artillery units and Ankara-allied "militias" in positions along the border with Syria.

Earlier, in response to the aggravation of the situation in Northern Syria amid the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime and the successes already achieved by the pro-Turkish Syrian National Army (SNA) on the ground against the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Ilham Ahmed, a senior representative of the Kurdish civil administration in Syria, wrote a letter to US President-elect Donald Trump, urging to put pressure on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to abandon the "planned operation."

Ahmed's letter, which was reviewed by the WSJ, says that Turkey intends to seize control of Kurdish territory before Trump's inauguration, thereby forcing the new American administration to "recognize Ankara's authority in the region."

"If Turkey continues to invade, the consequences will be catastrophic," Ahmed warns in his message, which notes that such an operation could lead to the displacement of more than 200,000 Kurdish civilians and endanger Christian communities in Northern Syria.

It is reported that the letter also contained a reference to Trump's previous assurances of support for Kurdish forces and recalled his past promises that "the United States will not abandon the Kurds."

"Your resolute leadership can stop this invasion and preserve the dignity and security of those who have been a loyal ally in the struggle for peace and security," one of the leaders of the Syrian Kurds emphasized, addressing the next host of the White House.

The SDF has found itself in an extremely precarious position in light of recent events in Syria. It got to the point that officially unconfirmed reports appeared in the media that representatives of the Syrian Kurds turned to Israel for help in an attempt to restrain Turkey and draw additional US attention to their situation, given the US-Israeli allied relations. Last but not least, the Kurds are forced to resort to extraordinary steps by the fact that earlier the leader of the leading force of the so-called Syrian armed opposition, the head of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group * (HTS*) and the "first violin" in the "National Coalition of Opposition and Revolutionary Forces" created after the fall of Assad's power (NCORS) Abu Muhammad al-Julani (Ahmed al-Sharaa) met in Damascus with the field commanders of the DREAM. It is obvious that the defeat of the Kurds in the northern regions of Syria is their common goal.

The SNA, with intelligence and other support from Turkey, has already knocked out the Kurds from the city of Manbij in the province of Aleppo. Pockets of Kurdish resistance to the west of the Euphrates (Manbij is located 30 km west of the river) remain, but the deployment of a ground operation by the Turkish army will inevitably lead to the evacuation of the remnants of the SDF forces to the neighboring provinces of Raqqa and Hasakah. Without the support of the US military contingent in the region, the Kurds could be pushed back all the way to Qamishli, their unofficial capital in Northeastern Syria.

A representative of the SDF said in an interview with the WSJ that due to the fact that Turkish-backed forces are now encircling Kobani from the east and west, the US-mediated ceasefire negotiations failed earlier this week without reaching an agreement.

Last week, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited Turkey in an attempt to achieve de-escalation. The head of the State Department sought assurances from the Turkish leadership to limit operations against Kurdish forces, but, according to informed sources, he did not succeed in this mission. With the outgoing administration of Joe Biden in recent weeks, few are considered among the leading forces in the Middle East. Turkey is no exception in this regard, but, perhaps, a vivid confirmation of the impotence of the Democrats in Washington, who lost not only the White House, but also both chambers of the US Congress following the November 5 elections, to really help their partners in the region.

Turkey views the SDF as a Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Ankara considers a "terrorist organization." Now, in the light of the collapse of the status quo that has been forming for years in Syria, the withdrawal of Iran from the Arab Republic and the great uncertainty that has arisen due to the continuation of Russia's military presence in the SAR, Ankara is determined to finally "close the issue" with the Syrian Kurds. Those who can only hope for strong signals of containment of Turkey by the Trump administration, which will come into its own on January 20.

The day before, the Republican president-elect mentioned that the current drastic changes in Syria were the work of Turkey. During a press conference at his residence in Mar-a-Lago (Florida) last Monday, he noted that the armed opposition, which seized power in Syria, is controlled by Ankara.

"But no one knows who is behind the other side (of the new government in Syria), but I know. This is Turkey, it is behind this. Erdogan is a very smart man. They wanted (Assad's overthrow) for 1000 years, and they got it, and those people who entered the country are controlled by Turkey," Trump said.

Such revelations of the next US president promise little to the Syrian Kurds. They will have to hold out for another month before Trump's inauguration and then rely on the above-mentioned strong signals from Washington to Ankara. However, even this does not guarantee the restraint of the Americans' NATO ally. "Very smart" Erdogan will try to extract the maximum benefit for his country from the period of the shift change in the White House and build further relations with the new American administration in Syria from a position of strength. Simply put, to put Trump in front of the fact of completely pushing the Kurds to the left bank of the Euphrates with further Turkish "creeping" expansion already in the direction of Qamishli.

*Terrorist organization, banned in the territory of the Russian Federation