Turkey, U.S. to create “ISIS-free zone” along Syria-Turkey border

Turkey, U.S. to create “ISIS-free zone” along Syria-Turkey border

Published 27 July 2015

 

In what should be regarded as a significant victory for Turkey’s approach to the conflict in Syria, Turkey and the United States have agreed on a plan create an “ISIS free” strip inside Syria along the Turkey-Syria border. The deal will see Turkey drawn more deeply into Syria’s civil war and increase the intensity of the U.S. air strikes against ISIS. American officials told the New York Times that the United States would work with Turkey and Syrian rebel fighters to clear a 25-mile-deep strip of land near the border, which would constitute an ISIS-free zone and a safe haven for Syrian refugees.

In what should be regarded as a significant victory for Turkey’s approach to the conflict in Syria, Turkey and the United States have agreed on a plan create an “ISIS free” strip inside Syria along the Turkey-Syria border. The deal will see Turkey drawn more deeply into Syria’s civil war and increase the intensity of the U.S. air strikes against ISIS.
American officials told the New York Times that the United States would work with Turkey and Syrian rebel fighters to clear a strip of land near the border, up to 25-mile deep, which would constitute an ISIS-free zone and a safe haven for Syrian refugees.
“Details remain to be worked out, but what we are talking about with Turkey is cooperating to support partners on the ground in northern Syria who are countering ISIL,” a senior Obama administration official said, using another term for the Islamic State. “The goal is to establish an ISIL-free zone and ensure greater security and stability along Turkey’s border with Syria.”
Late last week, for the first time since the beginning of the war in February 2011, Turkish jets bombed ISIS targets inside Syria – but they also bombed positions of the Syrian Kurds, which are trained and armed by the United States to fight ISIS.
Turkey and the United States last Friday announced that the United States would be allowed to use a major Turkish air base in southern Turkey for bombing raids against ISIS (“Game changer: Turkey allows U.S. to use of Incirlik air base for attacks on ISIS,” HSNW, 24 July 2015)
Turkey has long demanded that a safe haven inside Syria, along the 500-mile order between the two countries, be created so Syrian refugees escaping the Assad regime’s would have a safe place to say where they would be protected from Assad’s ground and air forces. In the absence of such a safe haven inside Syria, more than two million Syrians have escaped into Turkey, where they now live in tent cities.
Turkey conditioned its participation in the fight against ISIS on the creation of this safe haven.
The New York Times reports that it is not yet clear how the safe haven will be protected, who will police it, and whether it will be declared a no-fly zone patrolled by coalition planes.
Another sensitive issue is that of the Syrian Kurds: The ISIS-free zone will include parts of the Kurdish areas in Syria, but these areas are under the control of the Kurdish Democratic Union (PYD), which is the Syrian branch of the Turkish Kurds’ pro-Kurdish independence movement PKK. The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by both Turkey and the United States.
The hostility between Turkey and the PKK-PYD axis is such, that when the Syrian Kurds’ People’s Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the PYD, battled ISIS for control over the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, Turkey blocked aid and supplied from reaching the YPG fighters.
On Friday, when Turkish jets attacked ISIS positions, they also attacked several YPG positions.
The YPG is armed by the United States and trained by U.S. Special Forces, even though it is affiliated, through the PYD, with the PKK (for more on Syrian Kurds, see “Turkish jets bomb Kurdish positions,” HSNW, 15 October 2014). In recent months, the YPG and other Syrian rebel fighters have succeeded in evicting ISIS from large tracts of land in northern Syria, including the crucial border town of Tal Abyad, which foreign fighters had used as a waypoint for traveling to join the terror group.
Today (Monday), Kurdish spokespersons bitterly complained about the Turkish attacks on YPG positions on Friday, as YPG fighters laid siege to ISIS-held positions close to another key border crossing, the town of Jarablus. In a statement, the YPG said Turkey had shelled a Kurd- and Syrian opposition-held town near the border with seven tank rounds, and an hour later attacked vehicles belonging to the Kurdish militia.
“Instead of targeting IS terrorists’ occupied positions, Turkish forces attack our defenders’ position. This is not the right attitude,” the statement said. “We urge Turkish leadership to halt this aggression and to follow international guidelines. We are telling the Turkish army to stop shooting at our fighters and their positions.”
The Turkish campaign against ISIS – in addition to Friday bombing of ISIS targets in Syria, the Turkish security forces have arrested more than 200 Turkish sympathizers of ISIS — has been accompanied by an intensified campaign against the PKK. Turkish police has also arrested hundreds of PKK members in the last few days, in retaliation for violence against local police by PKK militants.
On Sunday, Turkish fighter jets targeted positions of the PKK for a second night, raising concerns that the peace negotiations between Turkey and the PKK may crumble.
Turkey’s acting prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, has said military operations against the PKK and ISIS would continue as long as the country faced a threat by either group. Speaking with Turkish newspaper editors on Saturday, Davutoğlu said the military operations had “changed the regional game” and “showed its strength.”
Turkish daily Hürriyet quoted Davutoğlu as underlining that Washington and Ankara had found enough common ground over their Syria policy to reach agreement on opening up Turkey’s airbases. Davutoğlu said Turkey did not plan to send ground forces into Syria, and that Ankara was willing to cooperate with “moderate elements fighting against DAESH [ISIS].”
“If we are not going to send in land units on the ground, and we will not, then those forces acting as ground forces cooperating with us should be protected,” Hürriyet quoted him as saying.
He also said that the PYD, considered the Syrian affiliate of the PKK, could “have a place in the new Syria” if the party agreed to cooperate with opposition fighters, cut all links with Assad and if it “did not irritate Turkey.”
President Erdogan in 2012 launched the peace negotiations with the PKK in an effort to bring to an end the 30-year bloody war between the PKK and Turkey, in which more than 40,000 Turks were killed. Critics of the government say that the agreement with the United States over the safe haven and the use of the Turkish air base, and the Turkish attacks against ISIS, are meant to provide cover for the government’s plan to intensify its war against Kurdish separatists.