New Syria operation: Turkey faces diplomatic minefield

ISTANBUL: Turkey has ramped up its rhetoric to threaten an imminent cross-border incursion against Kurdish militia in Syria but the attitude of Russia and to a lesser extent the United States will determine the nature of the operation, analysts say.

The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia controls key northern Syrian towns including Manbij and Afrin, and is an ally of the US but Ankara accuses the group of being a terror organisation.

Tensions have risen to a new peak in the last days after the United States announced plans for a new 30,000-strong border security force in northern Syria that would be composed partly of YPG fighters.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to destroy the force, describing it as an "army of terror". "The preparations have been completed, the operation could start at any moment," Erdogan said this week, as the Turkish army sent dozens of military vehicles and hundreds of additional personnel to the border area.

Yet executing the operation on the ground -- especially against a well-populated urban centre such as Afrin -- could prove much harder than making threats in fiery language. Crucial will be the attitude of Russia, which has worked increasingly closely with Turkey on Syria in the last year but has a military presence in the area where it cooperates with the YPG.

"Can Ankara dare to attack Afrin without getting a green light from Russia? It’s a sure ‘no’ for me," said Metin Gurcan, security analyst at Istanbul Policy Center and Al Monitor columnist. He said that despite the increasingly inflammatory language from Erdogan, a full operation would require that Russia open Afrin’s air space to Turkey and withdraw its soldiers from the area.

Tensions between Moscow and Ankara have grown in the last days as Russia seeks wide attendance at a peace conference on Syria at the end of the month. But Turkey insists it will not attend if the YPG is there.

In a potentially decisive meeting, Turkey’s army chief General Hulusi Akar and spy supremo Hakan Fidan held talks in Moscow on Thursday with Russian counterparts on Syria. "The only external power that can stop an invasion at this point is Russia," said Aaron Stein, resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Centre.

He said Erdogan had threatened incursions inside Syria "once a week, every week" for the past year since the Euphrates Shield incursion Turkey launched in August 2016, which ended the following spring.

Aaron Lund, a fellow with The Century Foundation, said that "it would be hard for Erdogan to back down at this point" following such "loud and persistent" threats. He said if the operation turned into full-out combat, much of the actual fighting would be done by Turkey-backed Syrian rebel forces like in the Euphrates Shield operation. But he added that Afrin has tough terrain and was well fortified while the "YPG is a disciplined and effective force."

Moreover, any Turkish intervention may not find the warmest of receptions in Washington, which has closely cooperated with the YPG as its main ally on the ground in the fight against the Islamic State extremist group.

Meanwhile, when fighting drove Bahr Diab from his home in southern Idlib last month, it was the fourth time he and his family had been displaced since the start of Syria’s seemingly endless conflict.

From his pre-war home on the Lebanese border, Diab moved first east and then north searching for safety, finally taking shelter near Turkey where he hopes his wife and four children will be safe from air strikes and ground assaults.

"Every time I get to a new place I build a house, but we are forced to leave it and move on," he said at a makeshift camp a few miles from the border, where hundreds of people endure the mud and winter weather.

"That’s my tent over there, that’s my home. Four homes later we decided to settle for blankets for winter. "Diab is part of a wave of Syrians fleeing an offensive by Syrian government forces and their allies, which several people at the Kelbit camp said involved the heaviest bombardment they had seen in nearly seven years of conflict.