Salih Muslim: We're stronger than ever and we won't surrender

This comment was posted to reddit on Feb 18, 2016 at 4:35 am and was deleted within 11 minutes.

Salih Muslim: We're stronger than ever and we won't surrender

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a433f2c2-d59c-11e5-829b-8564e7528e54.html#ixzz40VjFpanQ

Once they were a sideshow to the struggle between Bashar al-Assad’s forces and the rebels battling to oust him. Now, Syria’s Kurdish militants are reshaping battlefronts and putting international alliances to the test. Following recent advances in northern Aleppo, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, are playing Moscow and Washington against each other and straining relations between the US and its Nato ally Turkey.

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a433f2c2-d59c-11e5-829b-8564e7528e54.html#ixzz40VjJIZjb

Openly backed by the US, indirectly supported by Russia and under attack by Turkey, the YPG have exploited Russia’s military campaign to help Mr Assad, advancing perhaps faster than even regime forces. The Kurdish militants have seized towns from the opposition despite the rebels being backed by the Gulf states, Ankara and their own partner, Washington.

In 2014, the YPG strengthened its hand by becoming the US-led coalition’s ground partner against Isis, despite Turkey’s protests. Ankara sees them as an extension of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), which has fought a four-decade war in Turkey for self-rule. A year ago, Isis was able to cash in on the confusion in Syria to seize territory. Today it may be the turn of the YPG to take advantage of a convoluted five-year war. The YPG’s aim is to connect its territories in the northwestern Aleppo province to its stronghold in the north-east, creating a contiguous zone bordering Turkey’s Kurdish regions, where Turkish forces have been fighting the PKK for six months. That could push Turkey to intervene in Syria directly, pitting Ankara against Russia and the Kurds, who have vowed not to back down. “When we were first confronting Isis no international power was with us and we survived,” Saleh Muslim, head of the YPG’s political wing told the Financial Times in a recent interview. “Now we are stronger than we were before . . . we will not surrender now.” The forces attacking rebels in Aleppo use the name of a US-backed alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). However, this is widely seen as a front for its YPG majority.

Talal Sello, SDF spokesman, said the advances are justified, arguing that jihadi forces were among the rebels. More importantly, he said, the SDF can seize the eastern frontline with Isis from the rebels — which some observers believe Washington may privately prefer after the opposition failed to progress under attack from Isis, the Assad regime and Russia. “This is a victory for them [Washington] and for us,” Mr Sello said. But the push has wrought havoc on the civil war’s international dimensions. Ankara is bombing Kurdish positions, and is threatening more intervention if the YPG seizes the border town of Azaz, the main supply line to the rebels. For Turkey, years of fuming over Washington’s support for the YPG came to a boil during a January visit by Joseph Biden, US vice-president, to Ankara. Two Turkish officials say the country has evidence showing weapons transfers between the Syrian Kurds and the PKK. And although the officials say they shared the evidence with Mr Biden, the US did not shift its position on the Kurds. Within days Ankara had hardened its YPG policy, the officials said.

“The fact that the US did not change course created significant disillusionment in Ankara,” said Nigar Goksel, a Turkey analyst at the International Crisis Group. Mr Biden told Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s prime minister, over the weekend that the US was trying to discourage the YPG from exploiting the current circumstances to seize additional territory, and asked Turkey for restraint. The Turks have continued shelling and the YPG has continued to advance. Whatever headaches it may cause their backers, many Kurds consider the YPG moves legitimate. The world’s approximately 30m Kurds are the largest ethnic group without a state, scattered across Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. History has shown them that international backers are unreliable: the US twice aborted support of Kurdish rebellions against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, leaving tens of thousands to be slaughtered. Some western diplomats say the YPG is playing a high-stakes game by flirting with Russian support. “The most important thing for them is to become part of the international community and not be isolated by their PKK connections, and only the US can give them that,” one said. Nonetheless, Moscow and the Kurds have flaunted growing political ties and many in Syria believe the YPG is getting Russian support in Aleppo. Mr Muslim refused to deny or confirm that Russia was arming or co-ordinating with Kurdish fighters. For the US, it may be that little that can be done to rein in its most successful ground partner against Isis. “The US cannot afford it. They cannot say they will stop co-ordination with them [the Syrian Kurds],” said Henri Barkey, an analyst at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington. “And both Russia and the Kurds know that.”

/r/syriancivilwar Thread Parent Link - imctv.com.tr

Salih Muslim: We're stronger than ever and we won't surrender

Recently removed from /r/syriancivilwar

More Random Comments