Turkey takes advantage of Russia’s weakness, attacks Syria and is condemned even by the US

Turkey’s new wave of attacks against Kurdish positions in northern Syria has led to criticism from its two biggest allies, the NATO companions. [aliança militar ocidental] United States and Russia of Vladimir Putin.

There were 89 targets hit and destroyed, according to the Turkish Defense Ministry, throughout Sunday (20). The US State Department called for a de-escalation in the military situation and the Kremlin, despite “recognizing Ankara’s security concerns”, requested “restraint” in the operation.

Both Moscow and Washington used identical words: they do not want the “destabilization of northern Syria”, something so coordinated that it doesn’t even look like they are going military, Putin directly and the American Joe Biden indirectly, on the battlefields of Ukraine.

It is the European conflict, incidentally, that is behind Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s renewed assertiveness. Putin has a complex relationship with mixed ally and rival, and he is under pressure to withdraw his forces from the northern fringe of the Kherson region, which he has annexed in southern Ukraine.

The general movements of the war have suggested the formation of a Russian exit strategy, but nobody knows how. This Tuesday (22), Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow does not want the overthrow of the government in Kiev, going back on what Russian Foreign Minister Serguei Lavrov had said before.

Peskov himself had given as a “minimum objective” the total conquest of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, one of the annexed units in eastern Ukraine. American pressure for Kiev to agree to negotiate has been growing, which demands Russian focus on the issue — thus leaving an avenue for Erodgan to flex his military muscles in Syria.

A nominal ally of both Kiev and Moscow, the Turk has interests crossed with Putin in several theaters, as the war he sponsored between his ally Azerbaijan and Armenia showed in 2020. Not only: Mediterranean, Black Sea, Libya, Syria, the list it’s big.

In a conversation with analysts in which the Sheet was present, at the end of October, Putin paid tribute to his colleague. “He is a very good negotiator, very tough. He always puts Turkey’s interests first,” he said, chuckling softly, when asked how difficult it was to argue with Erdogan.

In the current war, the Turk has acted as a moderator in meetings and helped craft the agreement for the export of Ukrainian grains and Russian fertilizers through the Black Sea.

And the Kurds are his biggest obsession, so much so that Ankara only supported Sweden and Finland’s intention to join NATO to defend itself against Russia because the Europeans promised to deport activists. Sunday’s operation was, at face value, revenge for an attack blamed on Kurds in Istanbul.

There have been occasional actions in Iraqi Kurdistan as well, showing the latitude of the issue. Kurds are the largest nationless ethnicity in the world, scattered across the Middle East. In Turkey, they have been opposed to the central government for decades, and classified as terrorists.

With the Syrian civil war, which started in 2011, the Kurds saw the opportunity to reinforce their autonomy in the north of the Arab country, which they actually achieved in the following year. They fought alongside Arabs, Armenians and others in the region against mainly the Islamic State. They had American support.

After Putin intervened on behalf of the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship in 2015, establishing an air base in the country, the Russians became central actors in the conflict.

In 2019, the US betrayed the Kurds and left the north of the country, allowing in Turkish forces – who want to subjugate the region to avoid support and sanctuary for Turkey’s Kurds. This led to a clash between Ankara and Damascus, resolved rather shakily by a hitherto shaky mediation between Turks and Russians.

The Russians’ momentary weakness also comes from the discreet change in the support they receive from their greatest ally, Xi Jinping’s China. The Chinese leader has just met with Biden, and both promised to restore ties that were practically broken after the visit of the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan in August.

This Tuesday, there was the first meeting between the heads of Defense of the two powers in months. The American Lloyd Austin and the Chinese Wei Fenghe discussed bilateral ties in the picturesque Cambodian city of Siem Reap, where a meeting of ministers of the area is taking place.