ANKARA: Turkey’s preparation for an imminent military operation in the Syrian Kurd province of Afrin could raise the complex and delicate question of who are Ankara’s partners and who are its rivals?
The operation against a US-backed Kurdish militia, which Turkey considers a terrorist group, will take place amid escalating tensions between Ankara and Washington over their Syria policies.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said the offensive against the “nests” of terror in Afrin and Manbij towns would begin on Wednesday or Thursday. The attack will take place in partnership with Syrian opposition fighters allied to Turkey.
But the ever-changing dynamics in the nearly seven year conflict may oblige Turkey to go it alone in terms of its international allies — a risky option given the uncertainty as to how regional actors will react.
For now, Russia seems muted but would prefer Turkey to increase its presence in the de-escalation zone in Idlib by launching more observation posts to monitor a cease-fire. People’s Protection Units
The northwestern Afrin province, which borders Turkey, is currently under the control of the US-backed Kurdish militia People’s Protection Units (YPG) seen as a terrorist organization by Turkey because of its links with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), that has waged a decades-long insurgency inside Turkey.
Moreover, the US-led international coalition against Daesh announced on Sunday that it is training a new border security force in Syria to protect the Turkish-Syrian border.
The surprise initiative infuriated Turkey and Erdogan vowed on Monday to “kill such a terrorist army before it is born.”
On Tuesday, he called on NATO, of which both Turkey and the US are members, to stand with Ankara “in the “event of any border aggression.”
Likewise, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that with this move the US showed that it is treating Turkey as its “enemy”.
Crucially, it will be how Moscow reacts that could determine how Turkey emerges from the offensive.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned on Monday that any formation of a zone under the control of Kurdish militants could lead to the partition of Syria and may impede finding an end to the conflict Syria.
“We are talking about an extremely complicated geopolitical picture here,” Emre Ersen, a Syria analyst at Marmara University in Istanbul, told Arab News.
“Although it is true that the PYD (the YPG’s political wing) has built closer links with the US, it has not refrained from developing special relations with Russia particularly in the last couple of years.”
Ersen said that despite Moscow’s move to improve relations with Turkey, “Russia still believes the PYD can be eventually convinced to make a deal with the Assad regime.”
Russia is unlikely to be easily persuaded by Turkey to abandon its plans for the PYD’s role in Syria. An agreement between the Kurdish group and the Syrian regime was one of the main goals of Moscow’s Syrian National Dialogue Congress proposal.
Ersen thinks the US announcement of a new border army in Syria is perceived by Moscow as a major challenge to the rising Russian political and military influence in the Middle East.
“Therefore, this development will probably bring Turkey and Russia closer in Syria, although they recently hasd some important disagreements regarding the situation in Idlib,” he said.
There has been speculation that Turkey made a deal with Russia over its increased presence in Idlib in exchange for Moscow’s consent for its military operation in Afrin.
When Turkey staged its previous offensive into Syria to clear the border of YPG and Daesh threats, Russia did not initially oppose Ankara’s military aircraft using Syrian airspace.
This gave implicit support to the seven-month Operation Euphrates Shield, which ended in March 2017, and Russia even provided Turkey with some air support of its own.
Russia now controls the airspace over Idlib and Afrin, and without its approval Ankara will not be able to support its fighters in their operation – a key factor that will determine the success of the offensive.
“It will be extremely difficult for the Turkish forces to achieve the goals of the Afrin operation without Russia’s implicit or explicit support,” Ersen said. “On the other hand, any kind of Turkish-Russian cooperation in Afrin will most probably alienate the PYD from Moscow, which contradicts Russia’s long-term plans in Syria.”
Syria’s Afrin has been in Turkey’s sights. The south of the province is monitored by Turkey’s observation posts in Idlib, and the eastern part was sealed during the Euphrates Shield.
On Tuesday, Turkish Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar attended a NATO meeting of defense chiefs in Brussels, and during his speech he said, “NATO should not make discrimination between terror groups in the fight against terrorism.”
Erol Bural, a former military officer and terrorism expert at the 21st Century Turkey Institute, said it is time for Turkey to use more efficient diplomacy at NATO and the UN to prevent the escalation of this crisis and to strengthen its hand.
“The US-led border security initiative intends to monitor the Turkey-Syria border, which means NATO’s own borders are under a serious threat,” Bural told Arab News.
Bural thinks that an operation into Afrin against the PKK-linked YPG terror group may trigger domestic security threats inside Turkey.
“For the moment Turkey has not announced any exit strategy from such an operation. We don’t know how long Turkish soldiers will stay there,” he said. “it seems that the political objectives are the same with military and state: clearing the area from terrorist threat.
But, Bural warned that if the operation extends to the east of the Euphrates River, it may lead to direct combat with the US, which controls that zone.
Afrin offensive could risk Turkey’s relations with Russia
Afrin offensive could risk Turkey’s relations with Russia
‘Barefoot with nothing’: War-displaced Sudanese go hungry in refuge town
TAWILA: Crouching over a small wood-scrap fire in Sudan’s war-battered Darfur region, Aziza Ismail Idris stirs a pot of watery porridge — the only food her family have had for days.
“No organization has come. No water, no food — not even a biscuit for the children,” Idris told AFP, her voice brittle with fatigue.
Having fled a brutal paramilitary attack last month on Zamzam, once one of Sudan’s largest displacement camps, she and her five children are among the estimated 300,000 people who have since arrived in the small farming town of Tawila, according to the United Nations.
“We arrived here barefoot with nothing,” she said, recalling her escape from Zamzam camp, about a 60-kilometer (37-mile) desert trek away, also in the vast western region of Darfur.
The few aid organizations on the ground lack the means to meet the urgent needs of so many displaced people.
“Humanitarian organizations were simply not prepared to receive this scale of displacement,” said Thibault Fendler, who works with medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Tawila.
Since war broke out in April 2023 between Sudan’s army and rival paramilitaries, the town has received waves of displaced people fleeing violence elsewhere.
“We are working to scale up our capacities, but the needs are simply enormous,” Fendler told AFP.
Tawila, nestled between mountains and seasonal farmland, was once a quiet rural outpost.
But the two-year war pitting the army against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has buffeted the already-scarred Darfur region.
Entire displacement camps have been besieged and razed, while the armed group that controls the area around Tawila — a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement, led by Abdelwahid Al-Nur — has vowed to protect those fleeing the violence.
The town’s schools, mosques and markets are crammed with people sleeping side by side, on concrete floors, under trees or in huts of straw and plastic, exposed to temperatures that can reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
Beyond the town center, a patchwork of makeshift shelters fans out across the horizon.
Inside, families keep what little they managed to bring with them: worn bags, cooking pots or clothes folded carefully on mats laid over dry earth.
Some weary children play silently in the dirt — many malnourished, some dressed in oversized hand-me-downs, others in the clothes they had fled in.
Nearby, dozens of women line up with empty jerrycans, waiting by a lone water tank.
More queues snake around soup kitchens, with women carrying pots in hand and children on their hips, hoping to get a meal before they run out.
“When we arrived, the thirst had nearly killed us, we had nothing,” said Hawaa Hassan Mohamed, a mother who fled from North Darfur’s besieged state capital of El-Fasher.
“People shared what little they had,” she told AFP.
The war has created the world’s largest hunger crisis, with famine already declared in several parts of North Darfur state where the UN estimates that more than a million people are on the brink of starvation.
The RSF and the army continue to battle for control of territory, particularly in and around El-Fasher — the last army stronghold in Darfur — crippling humanitarian access.
“It takes a long time to get aid here. The roads are full of checkpoints. Some are completely cut off,” Noah Taylor, head of operations for the Norwegian Refugee Council, told AFP from Tawila.
“There are so many gaps in every sector, from food to shelter to sanitation. The financial and in-kind resources we have are simply not sufficient,” he said.
Organizations are scrambling to get food, clean water and health assistance to desperate families, but Taylor said these efforts are just scratching the surface.
“We are not there yet in terms of what people need,” he said.
“We’re doing what we can, but the global response has not kept pace with the scale of this disaster.”
Leni Kinzli, head of communications at the World Food Programme, said that a one-time delivery of “1,600 metric tons of food and nutrition supplies” for 335,000 people had reached Tawila last month.
But it took two weeks to reach the town, navigating multiple checkpoints and unsafe roads, she told AFP.
Aid workers warn that without urgent funding and secure access, these deliveries will even be harder, especially with the rainy season approaching.
Fierce clashes erupt in Libyan capital
- Officials released no information on potential casualties or injuries
- Residents urged to stay indoors
TRIPOLI: Violent clashes between rival armed groups erupted Monday night in the Libyan capital Tripoli, prompting the interior ministry to urge residents to stay indoors.
Heavy arms fire and explosions were heard in several areas of the capital from 9:00 p.m. (1900 GMT), AFP journalists in the city said.
Officials released no information on potential casualties or injuries.
The interior ministry of the national unity government in Tripoli in a statement urged “all citizens to stay at home for their safety.”
Local media said clashes broke out in the southern suburbs between armed groups from Tripoli and rivals from Misrata, a major port city 200 km (125 miles) east of the capital.
Libya is struggling to recover from years of unrest following a 2011 revolt that led to the fall of the late dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
It is currently divided between a UN-recognized government in Tripoli and a rival administration in the east, controlled by the Haftar family.
Despite relative calm in recent years, clashes periodically break out between armed groups vying for territory.
In August 2023, fighting between two powerful armed groups in Tripoli left 55 dead.
Several districts of the capital and its suburbs announced that schools would be closed on Tuesday until further notice.
Earlier Monday, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya and the United States Embassy in Tripoli called for calm.
They urged “all parties to de-escalate” and “refrain from any provocation, to resolve disputes through dialogue.”
Israel’s West Bank land registration is a tool for annexation, NGO says
RAMALLAH: An Israeli rights group has denounced a government decision to launch extensive land registration for parts of the occupied West Bank, saying it could help advance annexation of the Palestinian territory.
“It is a tool for annexation,” said Yonatan Mizrachi of the Settlement Watch project at Israeli nongovernmental organization Peace Now.
The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has no comprehensive land registry, with some areas unregistered or residents holding deeds from before the Israeli occupation.
The Israeli security Cabinet on Sunday decided to initiate a land registration process in the West Bank’s Area C, which covers more than 60 percent of the territory and is under full Israeli control.
Though the process would likely take “years” according to Mizrachi, he said that Palestinians in Area C could lose land if Israeli authorities do not accept their claim to it.
This might lead to “a massive land theft,” Peace Now said, adding that the process could result “in the transfer of ownership of the vast majority of Area C to the (Israeli) state.”
“The Palestinians will have no practical way to realize their ownership rights,” the anti-settlement group said.
Some Israeli ministers have advocated the annexation of the West Bank, home to around 3 million Palestinians as well as some 500,000 Israelis living in settlements that are illegal under international law.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician who lives in a settlement, has said that 2025 would be the year Israel extends its sovereignty over parts of the West Bank.
To Mizrachi, the government’s decision was primarily “about ... the places where they want to expand settlements,” including in areas considered state land.
He mentioned remarks by Defense Minister Israel Katz, who praised the move in the official statement announcing it.
Katz said that launching land registration “is a revolutionary decision that brings justice to Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria,” the biblical name that the Israeli government uses to refer to the West Bank.
The process will lead to the “strengthening, establishment and expansion” of settlements, Katz was quoted as saying.
He also said it would block “attempts to seize land” by the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank but not Area C.
Mohammed Abu Al-Rob, director of the Palestinian Authority’s communication center, said that the decision was “a dangerous escalation of Israel’s illegal policies aimed at entrenching its occupation and advancing de facto annexation.”
Area C is “an inseparable part” of the rest of the Palestinian territories, he said.
Abu Al-Rob called on the international community to “reject this unlawful decision and to take immediate, concrete action to thwart its implementation.”
Syria warns Kurds against delay in integrating into state
- Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani emphasizes that ‘our goal is not dominance but unification’
ANKARA: Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani has warned that postponing the implementation of an agreement between Syria’s new administration and Kurdish-led forces in the northeast would “prolong the chaos” in the country.
His remarks came as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, announced it was disbanding, an announcement the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which control swaths of north and northeast Syria, have not yet commented on.
The PKK’s move is “a pivotal moment” for regional stability, Al-Shaibani told a news conference in Ankara with his Turkish and Jordanian counterparts.
Syria is “implementing the national accord with the Syrian Democratic Forces and incorporating all areas under central state control,” he said.
In March, Syria’s President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and SDF chief Mazloum Abdi signed an agreement to integrate the civil and military institutions of the autonomous Kurdish administration in the northeast into the national government.
The deal, agreed three months after the overthrow of President Bashar Assad, is expected to be implemented by the end of the year.
“This process is complicated and sensitive, but it is necessary,” Al-Shaibani said, adding that “delaying the implementation of this agreement will prolong the chaos, open the door to foreign interference, and fuel separatist tendencies.”
“Our goal is not dominance but unification,” he said.
“We are keen on implementing this agreement, and we hope that the other side is seriously committed to implementing this agreement,” he added.
The SDF, the Kurdish administration’s de facto army, controls most of the oil and gas fields in Syria. The force maintains that it is independent from the PKK, but it is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which Ankara views as a PKK offshoot.
After years of marginalization and repression under the Assad dynasty, the Kurds took advantage of the government forces’ withdrawal during the civil war, which erupted in 2011, to establish a semi-autonomous administration.
With US backing, the SDF played a key role in the fight against Daesh, which was defeated in its last Syrian territorial stronghold in 2019.
Al-Shaibani emphasized that “the unity of Syrian territory is non-negotiable, as Syria is an indivisible, unified state, sovereign over its land and will remain so.”
“The rights of Kurdish citizens will be preserved and guaranteed on an equal footing with the rest of the Syrian people,” he added.
Syria’s Kurds have criticized a temporary constitutional declaration announced in March and said the new government failed to reflect the country’s diversity.
In February, Abdi said an initial call for the PKK to lay down weapons and disband did not concern his forces.
Jordanian and Saudi army chiefs reaffirm military partnership
- Saudi Arabia is at the forefront of efforts to enhance regional security, says Jordanian commander
- His counterpart from the Kingdom reaffirms Riyadh’s commitment to tackling regional threats
LONDON: During talks on Monday, Maj. Gen. Yousef Ahmed Al-Hunaiti, chairperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Jordanian Armed Forces, and his Saudi counterpart, Gen. Fayyadh Al-Ruwaili, discussed military cooperation between their countries.
They considered ways in which cooperation might be enhanced and expertise shared, and addressed the development of strategic defense partnerships and coordinated efforts to tackle regional and international security challenges.
Al-Hunaiti reaffirmed the strong ties between the nations’ armed forces, and said that Saudi Arabia is at the forefront of efforts to enhance regional security, the Jordan News Agency reported.
Al-Ruwaili praised collaborative efforts to strengthen defense and security initiatives, and reaffirmed Riyadh’s commitment to tackling regional threats.
They were joined during their meeting at the Saudi Armed Forces headquarters in Riyadh by several senior officers from both countries.
