Watch for The PKK as a revolutionary group fighting for ethnonationalism
The Russian Federation
is still crying: “Nobody likes traitors. Apparently, Kurds will stay alone with Turkish armed forces. Neither Damascus nor Moscow will provide any assistance to them. And only Kurdish leaders are responsible for that” - Alexandr Dugin.
It is a good sign that they are, along with their People’s Protection Unit (YPJ), putting imperialist Turkey, US, Russia and Israel in a bind.
Having their origin in separation from the Jewy treachery of Soviet Russia, its imperialism, its Muslim Turkish cohorts, in favor of left nationalism in order to wrest national independence for the Kurds, it would be ideal if this Asian backed left nationalism could sheer off the eastern half of Turkey and, along with fellow ethnonationalists from the west, put the squeeze on those rats. The imperial Russian Federation is still crying that the Kurds have rejected them. In causing consternation for the JewSA, Russovitz and Israel’s Turkish Friends, they are causing ethnonational consternation for imperial Israel as well.
Now, the Kurds have different facets and we are talking favorably about the ideal form and purpose of their left nationalism, not any assistance or alignment that some of them may have provided for radical Islam - on the contrary, that is just another form of imperialism.
Jerusalem Post, “Turkish and Syrian threats in Afrin put U.S., Russia in a bind, 19 January 2018:
What does it all mean for Israel?
People hold flags of People’s Protection Unit (YPJ) as they walk during a protest against Turkish attacks on Afrin, in Hasaka, Syria, January 18, 2018. . (photo credit: RODI SAID / REUTERS)
On Friday, Turkey increased its shelling of the Kurdish-held Afrin enclave in northern Syria. According to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) up to 70 artillery shells were fired during the night.
While Turkey has threatened to invade the Kurdish area, which it says is being controlled by terrorists aligned with the Kurdistan Workers Party, Syria has threatened to shoot down Turkish warplanes in case of any attack on Syria’s territory. The war of words in northern Syria puts the US and Russia in a bind because the US is allied with the Kurds in eastern Syria while Russia has been a close ally of the Syrian regime.
Since mid-January, there have been rumors and threats of a Turkish invasion of Afrin. The area has been controlled by the YPG since the early years of the Syrian civil war. In eastern Syria, the YPG and its affiliated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been successful at defeating Islamic State. However, in northern Syria, the Kurds have only come to control the thinly populated mountainous area of Afrin.
The autonomous canton is home to around one million people. The area is surrounded by Turkey on two sides and in Syria it borders areas controlled by Syrian rebel groups. The Kurds in this area have remained mostly outside the Syrian conflict because the Syrian rebel groups represent a buffer from most of the heavy fighting.
However, the Kurds here also have a complex relationship with the Syrian regime. They have not opposed Russian military personnel, for instance, who have been spotted in the Afrin area, and the YPG maintains amicable contact with the Russians, who are the Syrian regime’s closet ally.
Since the fall of 2016, when Turkey began to intervene in Syria, the YPG has been targeted by the Turks and their Syrian rebel allies. When Turkey and those allies moved into the area between Jarabulus and Kilis in 2016, it was widely seen as an offensive not only against ISIS, but also to make sure the Kurdish forces did not get any closer to the Turkish border to link up Afrin with the areas they control in eastern Syria.
In March 2017, the US, which has been working closely with the SDF and YPG against ISIS, sent vehicles to Manbij to ward off any Turkish attack on its Kurdish partners. This was an important symbol because it showed the US had drawn a clear line around its partner forces and would warn off any attack. The US shot down a Syrian plane in June 2017 that was operating close to the SDF as well.
However, US-led coalition spokesman Ryan Dillon put out a statement on January 16 saying it is not operating in Afrin and the Pentagon told the Turkish news agency Anadolu that it was not involved with the YPG in Afrin. “We don’t consider them as part of our defeat ISIS operations,” a Pentagon spokesman said. This is a clear message to Turkey that the US would not be involved in any sort of operations if they happened in Afrin.
However, the US has indicated the US will be remaining in eastern Syria for the foreseeable future. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reiterated this pledge Wednesday. The US has often urged Turkey to keep its focus on fighting ISIS, rather than mission creep that would lead to conflict with the Kurds. Any conflict with the Kurds would inevitably complicate the US mission in eastern Syria, because it would cause the Kurds in the east to want to aid their comrades in Afrin.
Turkey has posited that any operation into Afrin would be with rebel groups and that the operation is carried out “for them,” and Turkey is “helping our brothers,” according to statements from the Turkish Presidency. However, this poses problems because the Syrian rebels that Turkey wants to work with against Afrin are busy fighting the Syrian regime in Idlib, where they are hardpressed, suffering civilian and military loses.
Nevertheless Turkey’s defense minister Nurettin Canikli vowed on January 19 that Ankara would carry out the operation, according to Turkish media. “The threat level against Turkey is increasing by the day. This operation will be carried out and we will combat terrorism.” At the same time, the Syrian regime warns that any incursion could bring Syrian air defense into the picture. Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Daisal Mekdad warned Friday that any attack on Afrin would be an act of “aggression” against Syria.
According to Al-Jazeera, Russia has moved military observers in Afrin “away” from the area, closer to Syrian regime-held territory. Any attack would therefore not harm the Russians who have become a key arbiter of issues in Syria. Russia has hosted the Astana and Sochi talks about the future of Syria, meeting with Turkey, Iran and Syria’s governments. In Afrin, Russia is the key player because it has relations with all sides and it has warmed relations with Turkey over the last six months.
However, Russia has remained mum on any potential Turkish operation. It must balance its interests in cultivating relations with Syria, with its support of Damascus and its relations with the Kurds. Wishing to see itself as the broker of peace, Russia would hope that there is not a major Turkish incursion. That means any Turkish action might be limited, as it has been before, and the war of words is intended more to test the waters with the US, Russia and Syria, than lead to a major attack jeopardizing the lives of thousands.
For Israel, what does this mean? A similar scenario will eventually play out near the Golan, without Turkey but with the regime seeking to test the US, Jordan and Israel’s resolve with Russia in the background. Afrin therefore matters greatly to the region and what transpires there will tell us about the future of Syria.
Nobody likes traitors. Apparently, Kurds will stay alone with Turkish armed forces. Neither Damascus nor Moscow will provide any assistance to them. And only Kurdish leaders are responsible for that.
So called “alliance” with Asia (which exists in Dugin’s imagination)...Dugin posts the following in accordance with his “Eurasianism:”
Inside Syria Media Center, “Kurds May Face Turkish Army in Syria One-to-One”, 30 June 2017:
Recently Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced his readiness to conduct a new military operation in the north of Syria to prevent the emergence of a Kurdish state there.
Turkey has already confirmed its seriousness on this issue by the recent air strikes carried out by Ankara at the positions of the Kurds and by continued armed clashes between the opposition sides. Moreover, Turkey has redeployed some of its armored units in the area of Azaz settlement.
In this regard, the Kurdish officials urged Assad and his partners to protect them from external threats.
According to the Syrian expert Ziad Shibli, the Syrian Kurds can face the Turkish aggression all alone due to some objective causes.
In fact, Kurds continue playing a double game in their own interests. By playing along with the U.S., the Kurdish authorities do their best to break ties with the Syrian government and its allies. They have sold their loyalty for arms supplies. Particularly, the Pentagon delivered more than 100 trucks loaded with weapons including 12,000 rifles, 10,000 machine guns, 4,000 grenade launchers and 300 mortars only for the past week.
However these weapons are used not for fighting ISIS. It’s not a secret that the Kurdish formations let terrorists flee from besieged Raqqa to strengthen their positions in Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor. Later these facts were confirmed by al-Arabiya. The channel also announced that Raqqa Civilian Council’ established by Kurds under the support of the U.S. amnestied dozens ISIS-terrorists.
Obviously, the actions of the Kurdish formations contradict the interests of Damascus and its main ally in fighting terrorism, Russia.
According to the Russian media, SDF-leaders ignored Russian military advisers who had persuaded the Syrian High Command to use its units to protect the Kurdish enclaves near Afrin and Manbij. But collaborating with the U.S. Kurds rose against the SAA.
Yet, just after a threat of direct clashes with Turkey appeared, SDF-leaders started thinking about the assistance of Damascus and Russian AF. Clearly, Kurds realize that they shouldn’t rely on the U.S. help in this issue. Unlikely, Washington will be against its NATO ally. If the contradictions on the Kurdish issue between Turkey and the U.S. get worse Ankara would ban using the Incirlik Air Base by the U.S. military.
Nobody likes traitors. Apparently, Kurds will stay alone with Turkish armed forces. Neither Damascus nor Moscow will provide any assistance to them. And only Kurdish leaders are responsible for that.
Posted by Good Kurds / Bad Kurds on Wed, 24 Jan 2018 07:48 | #
Turkey is a strategic ally of the United States. Turkey is a member of NATO. It is not only surrounded by very hostile countries, but it is the one democracy in the area.
There’s an armed insurgency going on… Turkey is not going to allow an armed insurgent group to dismember a portion of their country.
The US State Department says that these Kurdish guerillas are terrorists. For their part, they say that they are fighting a war of national liberation for a united Kurdistan.
This is not a war against terrorism, this is a war against the Kurdish people. And although Turkey is trying to deal with the PKK, which is an armed group…
..their strategy to deal with them is to indiscriminately kill people in the south east of Turkey.
That to me is not an anti-terrorist strategy, it’s an anti Kurdish strategy.