Yesterday’s attack is an opportunity to revive plans to create a buffer zone at the border where the three million refugees who have fled to Turkey can be resettled
Turkey is pointing the finger at Kurdish terrorists and the foreign countries that support them. These are the words of Fahrettin Altun, Communications Manager of the Turkish Presidency. The reference to the United States, which supports the YPG militiamen in Syria in the fight against IS.
That is why Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu dismissed the US Embassy’s condolences for the attack that took place yesterday on Istiklal Avenue in central Istanbul and left six dead and 81 injured: like a killer who first arrived at the scene shows up, he said.
Ankara’s intentions have been clear since the dispute over Sweden and Finland joining NATO arose that Erdogan still threatens not to agree to enlargement if there are no concrete steps by the two nations in the fight against terrorism, which, to put it in words , it means the end of support for the YPG of both states. Most importantly, Stockholm has given refuge to many Kurdish-Syrian militiamen whose extradition Ankara is seeking.
What the sultan is aiming for is the green light for the fourth Turkish invasion of Syria after those of 2016, 2018 and 2019 for the anti-Kurdish border security belt.
Yesterday’s attack in Istanbul seems to offer the Turkish government a silver platter to justify a major attack on Syrian territory.
Ahlam Albashir, the Syrian woman arrested after being held responsible for yesterday’s attack in Istanbul that killed six, confessed during interrogation that she had received instructions from the PKK, Pyd, Ypg terrorist organization, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a paramilitary organization against which the Turkish authorities are waging a war that has lasted for almost 40 years and has claimed a total of 40,000 lives, by the People’s Democratic Party (Pyd), a Kurdish-Syrian political formation active in northern Syria and the People’s Defense Units ( YPG), the Kurdish-Syrian armed group.
And Turkey’s interior minister argued the orders for the deadly terrorist attack came from Ain al Arab (Kobane) in northern Syria, where the PKK has its Syrian headquarters.
Currently the Turks in Syria control the Idlib area, but on the one hand too small, on the other hand the pro-Turkish Syrians (jihadists of the HTS ex al-Qaeda against the FSA, the Syrian Liberation Army) are fighting each other. The Kurdish YPG’s resistance to this concept is so strong that it brings Rojava, the autonomous administration of Northeast Syria, closer to the Syrian government and Iranian militias, who do not welcome any further Turkish advances in the region.
Ankara’s goal is precisely to create a 30-kilometer-deep free belt that winds over 400 kilometers, starting east of the Euphrates and ending at the border with Iraq with the Syrian cities of Jarabulus (already under Turkish control) in the interior: Manbij, Kobani , Tal Abyad , Suluk, Ras al Ain, Darbasiyah, Amude, Qamishli and al Malikiyah. The approximately 3 million Syrian refugees who have been in Turkish territory for almost ten years would be transferred to this area. The mass resettlement of Syrian refugees is one of Erdogan’s electoral goals as he intends to bring the presidency home in the June 2023 elections.
We must not forget that the Kurds in Turkey are also politically strong. In 2018, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) became the country’s third-strongest political force. Weakened today by the jailing of at least 5,000 of its cadres and fears of being banned ahead of the upcoming elections. On March 21, supporters of the HDP gathered in Diyarbakir for the Kurdish New Year celebrations of Newroz. The traditional festival turned into a demonstration of support for the Kurdish party with consequent police repression.
November 14, 2022 (Change November 14, 2022 | 12:34)
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