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Home , Afrin Canton, Operation Olive Branch

February 2018 The Security Times 19

SECURITY CHALLENGES

Kurds Divided The Kurdish parties are divided into two opposing international networks: the Marxist-leaning Turkish PKK and the nationalist PDK in . PKK (Kurdistan Workers‘ Party) PJAK Allied with: - (Kurdistan Free Life Party) Ostensible troop strength: Allied with: - HPG / approx. 40,000 Ostensible troop strength: Adversary: Turkey YRK / approx. 3,000 Governing: no Adversary: Iran Considered terrorist organization in: Governing: no EU, US, Turkey Considered terrorist organization in: Iran, Turkey, US

TURKEY IRAN

Afrin Self-proclaimed Demo- cratic Federation of Northern (DFNS), Autonomous commonly known as Rojava Kurdish area in Iraq Iran

SYRIA PDKI (Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan) IRAQ Allied with: Mediterranean Iraq Saudi Arabia? Ostensible troop strength: Sea KNC Several thousand Iraq Adversary: Iran Syria Allied with: PDK Governing: no Turkey (Kurdistan Democratic Party) PYD Considered terrorist organization in: Ostensible troop strength: Allied with: (Democratic Union Party) Iran KNC peshmerga / US, EU, Israel, Turkey Allied with: approx. 3,000 Ostensible troop strength: US Adversary: PYD, Syria PDK peshmerga, Ostensible troop strength: Governing: no Iraq government peshmerga / YPG / approx. 50,000 Considered terrorist organization in: approx. 110,000 Adversary: Turkey, Ahrar - PUK Adversary: al-Sham, FSA, IS, Syria, Kurdish (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) Iraq, Iran National Council (KNC) Allied with: Governing: yes Governing: yes Ethnic groups US, Iran, Iraq Considered terrorist organization in: Considered terrorist organization in: Ostensible troop strength: - Shiites Sunnis - PUK peshmerga, Alawites Christians approx. 60,000 Adversary: PDK Druzes Governing: no TURKEY IRAN Considered terrorist organization in: Predominantly - SYRIA IRAQ Predominantly Kurdish population Downward Kurdish momentum Turkey seeks to destroy Kurdish self-government in Syria – but it just might achieve the opposite effect

BY MICHAEL MARTENS at least from a Turkish perspec- what can be described as the polar Without the Kurds, the fight For precisely these reasons, And yet, whether or not tive. Indeed, it would mean that opposite of any concept of social against IS would most likely con- Moscow has always used Kurdish Turkey will profit in the long the autonomous Kurdish regions organization to which Erdoğan tinue to rage today. Washington political aspirations to increase its term from the Afrin operation is he Turkish invasion of the in northern Iraq, which are able to would subscribe, especially with also sees the Kurdish territories political influence in the region. questionable. In the short term, Kurdish canton of Afrin export their oil only via Turkish regard to issues like the quota as a buffer zone against the influ- The Syrian Kurds were even the offensive has strengthened Thas added yet another territory, would theoretically gain system designed to encourage the ence of Iran. This is the point at permitted – much to the con- Erdoğan in the domestic arena. facet to the proxy war in Syria. sea access independent of Turkey participation of women in public which the interests of and sternation of Turkey – to open a Turkey is currently experienc- The Turkish army and its Arab – a true nightmare for Ankara. life, decentralized structures and Washington intersect, as both quasi-diplomatic representative ing a phase of war hysteria. In auxiliaries are now fighting As early as February 2016, then the subordinate role accorded to countries are highly suspicious mission in Moscow. Neverthe- fact, anyone who refuses to join against Syrian Kurds in north- Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Islam in Afrin. Approaches such of Teheran’s military and finan- less, Russia, which has deployed in becomes automatically suspi- western Syria. However, events Davutoğlu warned: “Turkey’s as these are alien to Erdoğan. cial involvement and the Iranian- its S-400 missile defense system cious. Nonetheless, it will most in the area involve the interests of position is clear: The YPG will not Instead, Turkey is trying to export supported fighters in Syria. In in Syria and controls the airspace likely be hard for Turkey to find at least four other actors, namely pass to the west of the Euphrates the image of the Islamic Turkish Turkey, however, mistrust of the in the north of the country all the even partially influential collab- Washington, Moscow, River and the east of Afrin.” The ruling party (AKP) to Syria. In Kurds surpasses such misgivings, way to the Euphrates, has given orators in Afrin. Instead, Kurd- and the regime of Bashar al- first Turkish campaign in Syria – Assad. Ankara had announced an Operation Euphrates Shield lasted attack on years ago from August 2016 to March 2017 and the assault was in the works – was designed to drive an Arab

there for months. The policy also wedge between the eastern Kurd- PICTURE ALLIANCE / AA represented a break in Turkey’s ish cantons and Afrin; and it suc- original approach to Syria. When ceeded in doing just that. The goal the broke out of the second campaign is now in spring 2011, Recep Tayyip to replace the Kurdish admin- Erdoğan – then prime minister istration in Afrin with a leader- of Turkey – waivered briefly, but ship that does Ankara’s bidding. then made a decisive turn away Turkey officially insists that its from Assad, his former favored attack is not aimed at the Kurds, partner. Erdoğan announced that arguing that its real goal is to removing Assad would now be his defeat the PYD, which is closely main goal; Ankara also claimed affiliated to the PKK and thus Assad to be the worst of all evils deemed a terror organization. But and his rule the root cause of all this is only half the story at best. other terrorist threats. In summer It is true that the PYD is closely 2012, however, something hap- linked to the PKK in terms of pened in the Syrian theater of war ideology and personnel. In the that Ankara had not expected; the 1980s, then Syrian ruler Hafez regime in largely with- al-Assad permitted PKK leader drew its troops from its Kurdish Abdullah Öcalan to wage his war areas in the north – troops it against the Turkish state from a badly needed in other parts of base in Syria. During this time, the the country. The Kurdish Demo- PKK gained a lot of momentum cratic Union Party (PYD) and its from Syrian Kurds, in particular armed People’s Protection Units in Afrin. It is also true that the Battle ready: Turkish soldiers before departing from their battalion within the ' to Afrin on Feb. 6, 2018, in Siirt, Turkey. (YPG) subsequently took power PYD is a Syrian offshoot of the there, proclaiming three Kurdish PKK. However, two other facts other words, Turkish tanks are especially as their interests inter- the green light to Turkey’s Oper- ish terrorism will undoubtedly cantons: Jazira and Kobanî in the serve to considerably weaken also carrying Erdoğan’s ideas with sect with those of Iran in this case; ation Olive Branch. For Moscow, gain new momentum. Indeed, for east and Afrin in the northwest. the Turkish argument. First, the them. This means that a country indeed, Iran also has a Kurdish the Turkish offensive has two at least five decades, Turkey has Since that moment, Ankara’s goal Syrian Kurds – unlike the PKK – only recently praised as a demo- minority, and Tehran sees the advantages. First, it exacerbates learned the bloody and recurring of bringing down Assad has been never carried out attacks on rep- cratic model for the Middle East suppression of any efforts by the the long-smoldering conflict lesson that the terror carried out increasingly overshadowed by resentatives of the Turkish state. has now become an exporter of Kurds to form self-government between Ankara and Washing- by the Kurds and Kurdish aspira- the fear of a “Kurdish threat.” Second, statements by Turkish autocracy. as one of its many raisons d’état. ton; indeed, Russia would never tions for self-government cannot Given the prospect of a perma- politicians have made it clear that Turkey is also eager to gener- In a certain sense, the Kurds are pass up an opportunity to deepen be repressed simultaneously in nently Kurdish-controlled region their goal is not only the dissolu- ate a factsheet for a regional the only link between Ankara, the rift between two NATO part- the long term. Turkish politi- in the north of Syria, Assad was tion of PYD/YPG rule in Afrin, post-war order. In this sphere, Tehran, Baghdad and Damascus ners. Second, a Turkish attack on cians have been threatening for downgraded from Turkey’s main but indeed the abolishment of any however, it comes up against – nobody wants to give the Kurds Afrin might possibly drive the years that they will never permit enemy to a second-tier menace. form of Kurdish self-government a complicated web of strategic anything. distressed Kurds back into the the emergence of a “terror cor- What Ankara now feared most whatsoever, no matter who is interests held by the other play- arms of Russia’s protégé Assad. ridor” in Syria. However, Tur- was that the Kurds would be able in charge. Ankara’s approach is ers involved in Syria. The United Divide NATO and strengthen key’s intervention in Afrin might to establish a land connection motivated by a desire to avoid a States was previously allied with MICHAEL MARTENS Assad – in Moscow’s zero-sum just have the opposite effect; it between the two cantons in the repeat of the “first sin” of Kurd- the Syrian Kurds. Indeed, the is a correspondent for logic, this would be a double vic- may lead to the creation of pre- east and Afrin in the west. If the ish autonomy as it exists in Iraq. YPG was the Americans' most Southeast Europe and tory. In the meantime, the Kurds cisely such a “terror corridor.” Kurds also succeeded in gaining The conflict also has an ideolog- effective ground force in the fight Turkey at the German would once again be made to feel That is, of course, if Turkey daily newspaper access to the Mediterranean from ical component that is often over- against the Islamic State, which, Frankfurter Allgemeine that they are nothing more than continues its attempt to combat Afrin, it would jeopardize the bal- looked: The sociopolitical model until last year, was considered Zeitung. small change in the grand barter- this possibility by military means ance of power in the Middle East, of the Kurds in Afrin represents the greatest threat in the region. ing system of the major powers. alone.