Although the United States has signaled its increasing support for the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) for the last few years, US President Donald Trump’s decision to arm the Kurdish forces in Syria for the battle against the Islamic State came as a shock to the Turkish government. Turkey considers the YPG and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to be part of one common terror group, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been throwing tantrums over symbols of US support for the YPG.
Turkey’s involvement in the Syrian conflict for the last six years has been mind-boggling. To put it in the simplest of terms: It has lacked a proper strategy. One cannot pinpoint what the Turkish goals were in Syria. The Turks wanted to set the rules of the game in Syria. However, while struggling to adjust their reactive policies against all forces involved, they gained more enemies and incurred unknown amounts of financial loss throughout the process. Turkey wanted the United States to be involved, to establish no-fly zones, and Erdogan cheered each and every time the US president spoke against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
In 2012 for example, Turkey demanded that Assad grant more rights and freedoms to the Kurds, but today different sections of Kurds in compartmentalized parts of Syria receive logistics support from Iran, Russia and the United States, and the Turks are not happy. So Turkey demands to send its troops, volunteering more of its own men to die. The payback for the last six years’ mistakes in Syria is due now with interest.
Prior to Erdogan’s much anticipated May 16 visit to Washington, a high-level Turkish delegation (Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin, director of national intelligence Hakan Fidan and Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar) conducted talks with senior US officials. Despite all efforts of the pro-AKP lackeys to play up Trump’s brief greeting to the delegation, the mood was somber. The final blow came with the official news of the US military support for the Kurds. The Turkish government oscillated between ignoring the news and blaming it on the Barack Obama administration, hoping to ride the Trump administration’s anti-Obama tide. But it is too late for that.
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