​Erdogan issues ultimatum to USA

TURKEY - In Brief 18 Sep 2019 by Atilla Yesilada

Coming out of the Astana Summit, which appeared not to yield a break-through on Idlib, Erdogan roared out an ultimatum to USA. He gave USA two weeks to sign under an agreement to erect a safe zone in North-East Syria, where he wants to resettle two million refugees. To cut a long story short, I want the audience to understand that the specter of Assad pushing at least half a million refugees to Turkey is still hanging over Turkey’s head. I propose several theories as to how Erdogan intends to deal with this dilemma, one of which is to directly confront Assad’s Syrian Arab Army. Regarding the safe zone, Syrian Kurds are very unlikely to accept their homeland to be inundated by Arab Syrians. Erdogan is pushing Trump to either take his side in this debate, or permit Congress to retaliate against threats by legislating sanctions. Political risks have suddenly reached a crescendo, assuming Erdogan is a man of his words. Erdogan spoke today at an education forum, reminding USA that if a safe zone tailor-made for Turkey’s objectives in North East Syria is not agreed upon in two weeks, he shall use other options, meaning a unilateral military campaign to push back pro-PKK Syrian Kurdish militia YPG-PYD (also called by the name of its front organization SDF). He want to resettle two million Syrian refugees in the a.m. zone, and eventually expand Turkish sphere of control all the way down South to Raqqa. He has also called upon EU and “the West” in general to provide diplomatic and financial support for his project. From the perspective of Syrian Kurds, this demand is completely unacceptable, because their dream of establishing an autonomous region like Iraqi Kurdish Federal Reg...

Now read on...

Register to sample a report

Register