Daily Times

Turkey and the US are still deliberating upon setting up a free zone along the Turkish-Syrian border. The US Special Representative for Syria Engagement and the Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIL, James Jeffery, reiterated his erstwhile statement in Cairo and an interview to a Turkish daily, Hürriyet, last month.

Ambassador Jeffery has been talking with Turkey about establishing a “free of YPG (People’s Protection Units)” buffer zone in northeastern Syria.

The Kurdish-led YPG is the major military faction of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that Ankara considers an offshoot of the outlawed and terrorist-declared Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in Turkey.

SDF now controls the larger area of northern Syria–known as Rojava–that Turkey fears could become a “terrorist corridor” for Kurds to destabilise Turkey.

The US believes that Turkish security concerns are legitimate, given the SDF’s “traditional and political ties” with PKK, but still asserts it would stand by the SDF and not want anyone to mishandle its coalition partners against ISIS. In addition, Washington does not support Kurdish independence from Syria either and envisions their future as part of “a democratic, peaceful government” in Damascus.

Clearly, Washington is trying to align both SDF and Turkey simultaneously in order to counter ISIS. It is also exploiting the Kurd-Turkish conflict to achieve its wider strategic objectives in the region. Another key US national goal is to prevent Ankara from buying the S-400 missile defence system from Moscow.

In its broader regional strategy, the US is making sure that the Kurdish militant forces continue to remain a deterrent to the alleged Turkish ambitions of expanding their regional influence. The US is exerting all efforts to ensure Ankara does not unequivocally go into the clique of American adversaries.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an is twigging the American secretive script ingeniously and dubs the plan as US efforts to overthrow his regime by arming the Kurdish militias in Syria.

“Do you know the only target of these in Turkey? Their only concern is ‘How we can topple the AK (Justice and Development) Party from power?’, but they won’t be able to,” Erdo?an said in his speech on June 12.

Ankara would never welcome any US military aggression on Tehran, responding strongly, at least diplomatically

A Turkish security official, who chose to remain anonymous, told Bloomberg that Ankara wants the US to push the YPG fighters some 30 to 40 kilometres away from its southern border and take back heavy weapons from Syrian Kurds. This would place the safe zone under Turkish control.

While speaking at the Middle East Institute last week, the former ambassador to Turkey, James Jeffery, said that the US, Turkey and the SDF had “a general agreement in principle on the pullback (of the Kurdish forces) and on the safe zone.” He termed the return of US-provided weapons from SDF “a sticking point to clinch the deal.”

In December, following a telephonic conversation between President Tayyip Erdo?an and the US President Donald Trump, the Syrian Kurds were traumatised by Trump’s surprise announcement of complete US troop withdrawal from Syria and handing over their future to Ankara. But propitiously for Syrian Kurds, Turkey’s consistent denials to desert the S-400 missile defence systems purchased from Russia strained Turkish-US bilateral relations. Trump was forced to backtrack from his prior decision of complete US troop retraction.

Later in January, Trump was infuriated; threatening to devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurd. Washington was eager to impose sanctions on Ankara under the “Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act” (CAATSA) and to block the delivery of F-35 aircraft to pile up the pressure in Ankara over the withdrawal of S-400 indenture.

However, the concurrent Turkish ministerial visits had defrosted the escalating diplomatic spat between the two NATO allies to some extent. The DOD spokesperson, Charles Summers, labelled Turkey a “valuable NATO ally” and “a longtime ally.” But the most critical note of his off-camera briefing was that the United States is “in active discussions with them (Turkish officials) to get beyond the issue of the S-400.”

Summers’ comments were distinctly an indication that the diplomatic row between Turkey and the United States wasn’t all about the S-400. Several other clashes impede the bilateral relations between the two to burgeon, including the Kurdish issue on the Turkish border.

Although Turkey stopped buying Iranian oil after the US sanctions waiver ended on May 1, the countries presently sustain close bilateral relations. Hence, Ankara would never welcome any US military aggression on Tehran, responding strongly, at least diplomatically.

Both Tehran and Ankara have deep ties with Moscow, where the European Union (EU) doesn’t seem supportive of Trump’s trade war and the unilateral retraction of the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or the Iran nuclear deal. Therefore, Turkey and the EU might re-converge, functioning as a diplomatic wall in a potential US-Iran standoff.

Palpably, the US would never give Turkey a free hand in exterminating the Kurdish forces, which it has invested upon both economically and militarily for a long period of time. At the same time, the US cannot afford to lose its NATO ally as well. Hence, the US would chart a twofold strategy to both, support Syrian Kurds and press-gang Ankara to acquiesce to Washington.

Based in Pakistan, the writer works in a private organisation and writes on geopolitical issues and regional conflicts. His thoughts and opinions have published in several domestic and international publications.

The author is working in a private organization as a Market & Business Analyst and is writes on domestic, regional, and global issues