Afrin offensive tests US alliance with Turkey

A Turkish soldier stands on a tank near the Syrian border at Hassa, in Hatay province on Jan. 24, 2018, as part of the operation "Olive Branch", launched a few days ago. The operation aims to oust the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, which Turkey considers to be a terror group, from its enclave of Afrin. (AFP)
Updated 24 January 2018
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Afrin offensive tests US alliance with Turkey

ANKARA: Turkey’s “Olive Branch” military operation against Kurdish militias in northern Syria has forced the US to reconsider its priorities in the conflict.

The offensive on the city of Afrin, which began on Saturday, targets the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and their political wing the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which Ankara considers terror groups linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by Ankara and its Western allies. The YPG denies it is a terror outfit.

The YPG is the Pentagon’s main partner in its fight against Daesh in Syria. America has supplied it with weapons and training.

As Turkey pushed ahead with its operation in Afrin, fears grew of an escalation in tension with the US, despite both countries being NATO allies.

But, at least in their public statements, US military officials have expressed their understanding of Ankara’s domestic security concerns.

Pentagon spokesman Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway said that if YPG fighters battling Daesh in northern Syria move to Afrin, and if the military equipment provided by the US is used for any purpose other than fighting Daesh, the US will withdraw its support for the group.

“We are only providing training, advice and support to forces that conduct operations against Daesh,” Galloway told Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency.

Washington’s extension of an olive branch to Turkey on such a sensitive issue seems to have produced positive results on the Turkish side and marks a new phase in relations between the two powers.

On Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pushed the blame away from the Trump administration and toward former US President Barack Obama for failing to “keep his promises to Turkey in Syria,” particularly in Manbij, a city currently held by the YPG.

“The operation during Mr. Obama’s administration aimed to clear terrorists from Manbij. But he failed to keep his promise and cheated us,” Erdogan said.

Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told CNN Turk on Tuesday that the prerequisite for Turkey to cooperate with the US in Syria is that Washington ends its support to the YPG and takes back the arms it provided to the group.

Burak Bilgehan Ozpek, a Middle East expert from TOBB University of Economics and Technology in Ankara, said Washington’s latest moves to appease Turkey are part of a broader Western strategy to attempt to persuade Turkey not to expand its Afrin operation to Manbij, as Erdogan as threatened.

“Not only the US, but also other key NATO countries, like the UK and the Netherlands, made key statements in recent days as a strategic maneuver empathizing with Ankara’s security concerns and condemning the YPG,” Ozpek told Arab News.

“The Western community noticed Russia’s game plan in Syria — with it giving a green light to launch the Afrin offensive — because Moscow’s main goal is to shift Turkey away from NATO, to sow discord between Turkey and the West, disintegrate the alliance, and establish a more asymmetrical relationship pattern.”

Such a game plan, if it succeeded, would deprive NATO of its second largest military force and leave Russia free to step into the vacuum by deepening ties with Turkey.

But Ozpek said Russia’s tactic has so far failed to produce enough of a split between Turkey and the US, adding that Moscow has also “completely lost the trust of Syrian Kurds.”

On Tuesday, a high-level US delegation visited Ankara to discuss the details of Turkey’s operation in Afrin. On the same day, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met his American counterpart Rex Tillerson on the sidelines of a conference in Paris.

Those meetings came the day after White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders acknowledged that the US takes Turkey’s security concerns seriously and “is committed to working with Turkey as a NATO ally.”

This remark followed a claim by State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert that “Russia is trying to drive a wedge between the two NATO allies.”

Mete Sohtaoglu, a Middle East researcher, said the US does not want to create the perception of a threat to Ankara if the YPG fighters it supports relocate. He stressed that the US currently only partners with the YPG to combat Daesh on “the eastern flank of the Euphrates.” To the west of the river, he said, “the Daesh threat is non-existent.”

“The fight against Daesh is the main driver of America’s myopic relationship with the YPG,” Megan Gisclon, a researcher on US-Turkey relations at the Istanbul Policy Center, told Arab News.

“Since the YPG forces currently in Afrin are not working with the US in the campaign to defeat Daesh, the US has no allegiance to these factions,” she added.


Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps

Updated 19 February 2025
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Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps

  • The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups

JERUSALEM: Tens of thousands of Palestinians living in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank have left their homes as a weeks-long Israeli offensive has demolished houses and torn up vital infrastructure in the heavily built up townships, Palestinian authorities said.
Israeli forces began their operation in the refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Jan. 21, deploying hundreds of troops and bulldozers that demolished houses and dug up roads, driving almost all of the camp’s residents out.
“We don’t know what’s going on in the camp but there is continuous demolition and roads being dug up,” said Mohammed Al-Sabbagh, head of the Jenin camp services committee.

An Israeli army excavator demolishes a residential building in the Tulkarem camp for Palestinian refugees during an ongoing Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)

The operation, which Israel says is aimed at thwarting Iranian-backed militant groups in the West Bank, has since been extended to other camps, notably the Tulkarm refugee camp and the nearby Nur Shams camp, both of which have also been devastated. The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups. They have been raided repeatedly by the Israeli military but the current operation, which began as a ceasefire was agreed in Gaza, has been on an unusually large scale. According to figures from the Palestinian Authority, around 17,000 people have now left Jenin refugee camp, leaving the site almost completely deserted, while in Nur Shams 6,000 people, or about two thirds of the total, have left, with another 10,000 leaving from Tulkarm camp.
“The ones who are left are trapped,” said Nihad Al-Shawish, head of the Nur Shams camp services committee. “The Civil Defense, the Red Crescent and the Palestinian security forces brought them some food yesterday but the army is still bulldozing and destroying the camp.” The Israeli raids have demolished dozens of houses and torn up large stretches of roadway as well as cutting off water and power, but the military has denied forcing residents to leave their homes.
“People obviously have the possibility to move or go where they want, if they will. But if they don’t, they’re allowed to stay,” Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters.
The operation began as Israel moved to banish the main UN Palestinian relief organization UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem and cut it off from any contact with Israeli officials.
The ban, which took effect at the end of January, has hit UNRWA’s work in the West Bank and Gaza, where it provides aid for millions of Palestinians in the refugee camps.
Israel has accused UNRWA of cooperating with Hamas and said some UNRWA workers even took part in the Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that set off the 15-month war in Gaza.

 


Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps

Updated 18 February 2025
Follow

Tens of thousands of Palestinians flee West Bank refugee camps

  • The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups

JERUSALEM: Tens of thousands of Palestinians living in refugee camps in the occupied West Bank have left their homes as a weeks-long Israeli offensive has demolished houses and torn up vital infrastructure in the heavily built up townships, Palestinian authorities said.
Israeli forces began their operation in the refugee camp in the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Jan. 21, deploying hundreds of troops and bulldozers that demolished houses and dug up roads, driving almost all of the camp’s residents out.
“We don’t know what’s going on in the camp but there is continuous demolition and roads being dug up,” said Mohammed Al-Sabbagh, head of the Jenin camp services committee.

An Israeli army excavator demolishes a residential building in the Tulkarem camp for Palestinian refugees during an ongoing Israeli military operation in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)

The operation, which Israel says is aimed at thwarting Iranian-backed militant groups in the West Bank, has since been extended to other camps, notably the Tulkarm refugee camp and the nearby Nur Shams camp, both of which have also been devastated. The camps, built for descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war around the creation of the state of Israel, have long been major centers for armed militant groups. They have been raided repeatedly by the Israeli military but the current operation, which began as a ceasefire was agreed in Gaza, has been on an unusually large scale. According to figures from the Palestinian Authority, around 17,000 people have now left Jenin refugee camp, leaving the site almost completely deserted, while in Nur Shams 6,000 people, or about two thirds of the total, have left, with another 10,000 leaving from Tulkarm camp.
“The ones who are left are trapped,” said Nihad Al-Shawish, head of the Nur Shams camp services committee. “The Civil Defense, the Red Crescent and the Palestinian security forces brought them some food yesterday but the army is still bulldozing and destroying the camp.” The Israeli raids have demolished dozens of houses and torn up large stretches of roadway as well as cutting off water and power, but the military has denied forcing residents to leave their homes.
“People obviously have the possibility to move or go where they want, if they will. But if they don’t, they’re allowed to stay,” Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters.
The operation began as Israel moved to banish the main UN Palestinian relief organization UNRWA from its headquarters in East Jerusalem and cut it off from any contact with Israeli officials.
The ban, which took effect at the end of January, has hit UNRWA’s work in the West Bank and Gaza, where it provides aid for millions of Palestinians in the refugee camps.
Israel has accused UNRWA of cooperating with Hamas and said some UNRWA workers even took part in the Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that set off the 15-month war in Gaza.

 


More than one million Syrians return to their homes: UN

People walk past shops in Homs on February 10, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 19 February 2025
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More than one million Syrians return to their homes: UN

  • “Since the fall of the regime in Syria we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees

GENEVA: More than one million people have returned to their homes in Syria after the overthrow of Bashar Assad, including 280,000 refugees who came back from abroad, the UN said on Tuesday.
Assad was toppled in December in a rebel offensive, putting an end to his family’s decades-long grip on power in the Middle Eastern country and bookmarking a civil war that broke out in 2011, with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions from their homes.
The Islamist-led rebels whose offensive ousted Assad have sought to assure the international community that they have broken with their past and will respect the rights of minorities.
“Since the fall of the regime in Syria we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote on the X social media platform.
“Early recovery efforts must be bolder and faster, though, otherwise people will leave again: this is now urgent!” he said.
At a meeting in Paris in mid-February, some 20 countries, including Arab nations, Turkiye, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan agreed at the close of a conference in Paris to “work together to ensure the success of the transition in a process led by Syria.”
The meeting’s final statement also pledged support for Syria’s new authorities in the fight against “all forms of terrorism and extremism.”
 

 


Israeli military says it struck weapons belonging to former Syrian administration in southern Syria

Updated 19 February 2025
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Israeli military says it struck weapons belonging to former Syrian administration in southern Syria

CAIRO: The Israeli military said on Tuesday that it struck weapons which it said belonged to the former Syrian administration in southern Syria.

 


Algiers slams French minister’s visit to W. Sahara

Updated 18 February 2025
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Algiers slams French minister’s visit to W. Sahara

  • France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining its ties with Morocco

ALGIERS: Algeria on Tuesday denounced a visit by French Culture Minister Rachida Dati to Western Sahara, after Paris recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory, as “objectionable on multiple levels.”
The vast desert territory is a former Spanish colony largely controlled by Morocco but claimed for decades by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.
Dati, who described her visit as “historic,” launched with Moroccan Culture Minister Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid a French cultural mission in the territory’s main city, Laayoune.
An Algerian foreign ministry statement posted on social media Tuesday said the visit “reflects blatant disregard for international legality by a permanent member of the UN Security Council.”
“This visit reinforces Morocco’s fait accompli in Western Sahara, a territory where the decolonization process remains incomplete and the right to self-determination unfulfilled,” it said.
Dati’s trip, a first for a French official, “reflects the detestable image of a former colonial power in solidarity with a new one,” the statement added.
The United Nations considers Western Sahara to be a “non-self-governing territory” and has had a peacekeeping mission there since 1991, whose stated aim is to organize a referendum on the territory’s future.
But Rabat has repeatedly rejected any vote in which independence is an option, instead proposing autonomy under Morocco.
France’s stance on Western Sahara has been ambiguous in recent years, often straining its ties with Morocco.
But in July, French President Emmanuel Macron said Rabat’s autonomy plan was the “only basis” to resolve the Western Sahara dispute.
Algeria has backed the separatist Polisario Front and cut diplomatic relations with Rabat in 2021 — the year after Morocco normalized ties with Israel under a deal that awarded it US recognition of its annexation of the Western Sahara.
In October, the UN Security Council called for parties to “resume negotiations” to reach a “lasting and mutually acceptable solution” to the Western Sahara dispute.
In November 2020, the Polisario Front said it was ending a 29-year ceasefire with Morocco after Moroccan troops were deployed to the far south of the territory to remove independence supporters blocking the only road to Mauritania.
The Polisario Front claims the route is illegal, arguing that it did not exist when the ceasefire was established in 1991.