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Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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07Sep16
Erdogan Says Turkey Would Join U.S. to Fight ISIS in Raqqa, an ISIS Bastion in Syria
Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, suggested that his country was ready to carry out a joint operation with the United States in northern Syria to fight the Islamic State in its de facto capital, Raqqa, Turkish news media reported on Wednesday.
The move would represent a major escalation in the two countries' interventions in Syria. But there was no immediate comment from United States officials. In the past, the United States and Turkey announced ambitious new joint policies concerning Syria that failed to materialize as disagreements emerged over what had been agreed to.
An operation in Raqqa would entail an expansion of cooperation on Syria between Turkey and the United States, NATO allies whose relations have been strained over Syria policy.
Even though both countries nominally oppose the Islamic State and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, the United States places a greater priority on defeating the Islamic State. Turkey, at least until recently, was more intent on ousting Mr. Assad. And the countries sharply disagree over Syria's Kurdish militias, which Turkey sees as its main enemy in Syria, and the United States sees as its most effective ground partner against the Islamic State.
Mr. Erdogan gave few details of what the plan's objective would be or how it would work, but said that President Obama had suggested the possibility of a joint operation in Raqqa.
"Obama wants to do some things jointly concerning Raqqa," Mr. Erdogan told a group of journalists during his return flight Tuesday from the G20 summit meeting in China, local news media reported. "We said this would not be a problem from our perspective. Our soldiers should come together and discuss, then we will do what is necessary," he said.
His comments came after two volatile weeks around the Syrian-Turkish border. Turkey plunged into Syria with ground forces for the first time, using tanks, artillery and air power to help a force comprising United States- and Turkish-backed Syrian rebels seize a border area from the Islamic State.
The advance robbed the Islamic State of its last access to the Turkish border, a key supply route, and it bolstered other Turkish goals. It blocked Kurdish militias from taking the same area to unite their two semiautonomous enclaves along the border with Turkey, which is fighting its own internal war with Kurdish militias, which it sees as inseparable from the ones in Syria.
And it opened the door to establishing what Turkey has long wanted, a safe zone inside the Syrian borders where Syrian refugees could gather and where the Syrian opposition could attempt to set up governance, presumably protected from airstrikes launched by the Syrian government and its Russian allies.
On Wednesday, several hundred Syrian refugees crossed into Jarabulus, a town taken by the Turkish-backed rebels, covered with fanfare by the Turkish news media. Turkey is home to three million Syrian refugees, more than any other nation.
But the safe zone plan, like the Raqqa plan, is an example of an ambitious-sounding United States-Turkish proposal. The safe zone plan later become bedeviled by disagreements.
Mr. Erdogan said he was renewing his request for a no-fly zone over the newly acquired border zone, but the White House has brushed off the idea.
[Source: By Anne Barnard and Ceylan Yeginsu, International New York Times, Beirut, 07Sep16]
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 | This document has been published on 09Sep16 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. |