Assad lets Kurdish PKK rebels operate against Turkey from inside Syria
The two countries nearly went to war over the PKK in the late ’90s. Now, with border tensions rising, Assad is risking confrontation again
A
Turkish military truck transports a mobile missile launcher to the
Syrian border, in Iskenderun, Turkey, on Wednesday. Turkey is deploying
anti-aircraft units along its border with Syria following the downing of
one of its warplanes by Syria. (photo credit: AP Photo)
Syria has been offering citizenship
to ethnic Kurds and allowing the Kurdistan Workers Party, familiarly
known as the PKK and considered by the US State Department to be a
terror organization, to operate against Turkey from within Syrian
territory, further fueling the conflict between the neighboring
countries.
“After years of no ties between
them, Assad has once again welcomed the PKK in Syria,” said Dr. Ely
Carmon, a Senior Research Scholar at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism
at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya.
The uprising in Syria, and the
brutal response by Bashar Assad’s regime, have strained ties between
Turkey and Syria and pushed them to the brink of armed conflict.
Tension escalated late last week
when Syrian troops shot down a reportedly unarmed Turkish military jet
that briefly crossed over Syrian skies. Ankara responded with a troop
deployment to the 550-mile border. Syria responded in kind, sending some
170 tanks to the area.
The two countries, allied for 18 years, nearly went to war in the late ’90s over Syrian support of the PKK.
The organization was established in
1978, in Lebanon, a country ruled by Syria at the time. The PKK launched
cross-border raids into Turkey and was supported by both Damascus and
Moscow – the former as part of a territorial dispute and the latter as
part of Cold War maneuvering against Turkey, a key NATO country. Syria
continued to host the PKK and its leader Abdullah Ocallan until the late
’90s, when Turkey threatened war. The Assad regime relented, ousted
Ocallan and signed a treaty with Turkey.
This has changed drastically over the past 17 months of uprising in Syria.
The Sunni Muslim leadership in
Turkey was quick to condemn the bloodshed in Syria. It opened the border
to tens of thousands of Syrian refugees and has allegedly been
providing military assistance to the Sunni guerrilla units fighting
against the Alawite regime. Damascus responded with two moves that
relate to the stateless, Kurdish-minority living in northwestern Syria,
Turkey, Iran and Iraq.
The first is internal. According to
an article written by Soner Cagaptay, Director of the Turkish Research
Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies, in late 2011
Assad offered “Syrian Arab” citizenship to 300,000 ethnic Kurds and
allowed Kurds in Syria to open six Kurdish language schools in the
region. They were permitted, for the first time, to teach students in
their language and fly their flag. Cagaptay and others interpreted the
move as an attempt to placate a potential foe in the roiling,
multi-ethnic state of Syria.
In addition, beginning in March
2012, Assad welcomed the PKK back to Syrian soil. Cagaptay reported that
some 1,500-2,000 PKK troops moved from the Qandil enclave along the
Iran-Iraq border to Syria.
After three Turkish officers were
killed in an attack near the Syrian border in May, Turkish Interior
Minister Idris Naim Şahin confirmed to the Turkish Zaman Times that
“terrorist grouping that were not there a year ago have been spotted.”
The PKK, according to Carmon, is
being used as a double-edged sword — “mostly against Turkey, to try and
deter them from aiding the opposition,” Carmon said, “but also
internally.”
A UNHCR report, authored by Emrullah
Uslu in April, confirmed this suspicion, claiming that the PKK has been
smothering resistance to the Assad regime by assassinating Kurdish
leaders who want to join the armed opposition within Syria.
As a response to these developments,
the Turkish national security council has been discussing the
establishment of a Turkish security zone within Syria.
“This could be the trigger for those plans,” said Carmon.
Source: http://www.timesofisrael.com/assad-lets-kurdish-pkk-rebels-operate-against-turkey-from-inside-syria/
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