The Turkish moving is limited…. The Kurdish role needs a limit

Written by Nasser Kandil,

No matter how the speakers about the Turkish cleverness and experience try to employ the contradictions of the President Recep Erdogan, the Turkish moving will remain limited at the political level through two factors; On one hand the absence of the ability to coexist with having military and security areas in Syria for fear of giving a pretext to legitimize doing the same by the Kurdish militias, this cannot be prevented by the Turks if they decide to stop their process at the limits of sticking to some of the Turkish geography, on the other hand, the inability to turn their military campaign toward one of two directions; the expansion to have control on all the areas of the Kurds, or the progress toward the areas of the deployment of the Syrian army. The first choice is forbidden by the strength of the US presence where the limits of its understanding the Turkish reservations on the role of the Kurds stop at the call to withdraw to the eastern of Euphrates. the second choice is forbidden too, which means the partnership and giving the military coverage for the war of the Syrian forces which are supported by Ankara, and restoring the equation of the war on the Syrian country and the Syrian army by the force of the understandings which were settled between Ankara and each of Moscow and Tehran on the basis of the admission of the end the war of overthrowing Syria and its failure, and the agreement on a common denominator which is the prevention of the fragmentation of Syria into military sectors that are shared by the armed groups. This means the work to overthrow the areas of the ISIS Caliphate and the Emirate of Al Nusra by the military force, as well as resizing the Kurdish canton till making the dream of connection impossible, in order to bring the Kurds to a political settlement for forming Syrian unified state which will include areas which are controlled by them and in order to encourage the groups among the militants which are supported by Turkey to leave the positioning with Al Nusra and to go to where Turkey can extract parts of the areas under the control of ISISI and helping them to stick to them to include them within the framework of the Syrian unified country.

The Turks know that any manipulation with these limits is above their capacity, and that the era of rashness towards the continuation of the war on the Syrian country means to blow up all the understandings with Russia and Iran. This was not a necessary and has not needed a justification if this obsession was in the minds of the Turks, because everything will soon return to what was before the eve of the Russian Turkish contact, except that this kind of rashness seemed impossible under the best conditions of the Turkish American cooperation, and the best conditions of the armed groups in the northern of Syria. The situation today is exactly the opposite in the two matters, either to rush towards the Turkish madness to the east of Euphrates to have control over the areas of the Kurdish presence, but this will make the Turks lose the support of Russia, America, and Iran together, and the Turks will lose the credibility of their claims about fighting ISIS, and it will lead for more doubts which they do not need about the kind of the relation which they have with this terrorist organization in order to be ready to recapture what the Kurds have taken from it. They pass near the areas of its dominance to greet it only; this will be the situation of Al Raqqa if the Turks move to Tal Abiad and Ain Alarab which are under the control of the Kurdish militia. Therefore the fate of the Turks is to verify from the provision of the continuation of Kurdish strip from Afrin to Qamishli in order to complete on the bordered line their mission of fighting ISIS, as well as giving the areas which they recapture from the organization to the armed groups which hold the flags of the Free Army after bringing the more from them from the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib, where they fight with Al Nusra front and hold their flags as well. Today they are in a situation as the bike which is not upright or balanced if it stops, because of the speed of rashness , while it is forced to continue the moving forward because any turning will expose it to the fall too.

The cause of the problem which grants the Turks a margin relatively wider is the inability of the Kurdish leadership of formulating a limit for it that can cope with and adapt with the variables after the Kurdish methodology has been built on two hypotheses which soon fell. The first is the impossibility of Turkey to be positioned on the line of understanding with Russia and Iran and possessing the opportunity of moving to overthrow the project of the Kurdish canton. Second is the impossibility of the Russian American understanding to lead to emerge a formulation for unified Syrian state in the light of the assurances which the Kurdish leadership obtained from the Americans, and because the Americans buy and sell, and they were surprised as the Kurds with the rapid understanding of Ankara with Moscow ad Tehran, so they position on a new line, it is the line which was drawn by the Turkish Russian Iranian understanding that includes the priority of the unity of Syria to the priority of combatting the terrorism. While the Kurdish leadership has behaved on the basis of an illusion that the priority of fighting the terrorism alone allows extracting a part of the Syrian geography as the size of the participation in fighting ISIS. Thus the priority of the unity of Syria with fighting the terrorism means calling the Kurds to retreat from what they consider as the accomplishments of the canton so far. By the strength of this illusion they have broken the communication and the cooperation bridges and burnt the ships with Russia, as well as they have caused the fall of the truce which announced by Russia between them and the Syrian army and was accepted by Syria, while today they find themselves obliged to stick to the truce which was announced by Washington between them and the Turks and refused by Ankara.

The game of pretending to be clever which rules the position of the leadership of the Kurds does not benefit them, because in front of them there is an opportunity of review,  retreat, and the recognition that they were victims of the illusion of believing the Americans and linking their fate with the US position, and that they are ready for positioning on the line of partnership in the war on terrorism in exchange of a share in the formulation of the Syrian unified state, that is guaranteed by the partnership in Geneva talks and then in a unified government and elections that follow the victory on the terrorism, in addition to a new constitution which they will be able to contain it many of the private features of the Kurdish component under the ceiling of the unity of Syria. This requires an articulated political announcement from the Kurdish leadership that is accompanied by a call to resume the dialogue with the Syrian government and the announcement of the acceptance of the return of Hasaka’s position to what it was a few months ago, as a goodwill gesture to return to the dialogue and the preparation for reserving a seat in Geneva talks.

Whenever the Kurdish leadership delays in an initiative of such a size, the Turks will succeed while they continue the war on ISIS and recapturing new areas from the dominance of ISIS in turning left and right and striking a blow to the adjacent Turkish presence. All of these areas are overlapping on the borders with Turkey, thus the cost of liberating the western of Al Raqqa from ISIS becomes the fall of Ain Alarab from the Kurds, and the liberation of the eastern of Raqqa from ISIS becomes the fall of Tal Alabid from the Kurds too.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,