‘We will intervene’: Turkey’s Fidan warns against dividing Syria

ANKARA — Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Tuesday said Ankara would deem any attempt to divide Syria a national security threat and would intervene, marking the strongest threat against the Pentagon-allied, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces since the fall of the Syrian regime in December.

“We are warning: No group should take steps aimed at dividing” Syria, Fidan said at a press conference in Ankara, issuing a thinly veiled threat to the SDF.

The remarks came in response to a question about recent sectarian violence that engulfed the southern Syrian city of Suwayda between Sunni Bedouin tribes and the Druze, which claimed more than 1,000 lives and prompted the resumption of Israeli strikes in the country.

Fidan also criticized Israel, saying the Jewish state does not want to see “a strong and stable Syria.” However, a Turkish diplomatic source later clarified to Al-Monitor that Fidan’s warning was directed solely at Syrian groups.

Fidan said the People's Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia within the SDF and the backbone of the group, was mobilizing following the unrest that broke out in the south, subtly accusing the group of attempting to divide Syria. 

Ankara considers the YPG a national security threat as the militia group is an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged an armed campaign for Kurdish self-rule inside Turkey since 1984 but announced in May that it would disband. The latter came as part of ongoing peace talks between the Turkish government and the militant group’s leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who is imprisoned in Turkey. 

“If you move toward division and destabilization by using violence, we perceive that as a direct threat to our national security,” Fidan said on Tuesday. “And we will intervene.” 

Fidan’s warning, coming just days after US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack met with Mazlum Kobane, the SDF’s commander-in-chief, reflects increasing pressure on the Kurdish-led group as part of ongoing US and Turkish efforts to push for the SDF’s full integration into the Syrian government.

“Make whatever demands you have — other than division,” Fidan said in an apparent reference to the ongoing Washington-mediated talks between Damascus and the SDF. 

The SDF has been the Pentagon’s top ally against the Islamic State in Syria, but roughly 1,500 US troops who are stationed in the country to fight against the extremist group have begun withdrawing as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to extricate Washington from foreign military entanglement.

Turkey launched a series of military incursions into SDF-held areas in northern Syria between 2016 and 2020, and for years it has pressed Washington to sever its partnership with the group. 

In December, after the fall of the Syrian regime and the rise of a Turkey-allied government in Damascus, Ankara toned down its threats of military intervention to support the new government's efforts to stabilize the country.

‘Patience wears thin’

“Turkey’s patience is wearing thin,” Omer Ozkizilcik, a nonresident fellow with the Syria Project at the Atlantic Council in Washington, told Al-Monitor, referring to the ongoing negotiations between Damascus and the SDF.

The SDF and Damascus signed a preliminary agreement on March 10 that envisions the Kurdish-led group’s military wing fully integrating into the Syrian army and handing over the territories it controls in northern Syria. However, the two sides have yet to implement the deal. The SDF controls roughly one-third of Syria under a de facto autonomous administration in the country’s war-torn northeast.

According to Ozkizilcik, Ankara wants the integration talks between the SDF and Damascus to conclude swiftly, viewing the SDF’s de facto autonomous administration in northern Syria as a threat to the peace process with the PKK inside Turkey.

He said Ankara sees progress on integration as essential to the broader peace process.

Because if progress isn't made, "the ‘terror-free Turkey’ initiative inside the country will also be disrupted,” he added, using the phrase the Turkish government has used to describe the peace process.

The Turkish government is aiming to eliminate all PKK presence in Syria as part of the ongoing peace process with the Kurdish militant group which is headquartered in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.

This story has been updated since its initial publication.