ANKARA: Turkish troops are making sweeping territorial gains in northern Syria, fuelling speculation that Ankara and Moscow are secretly working together to establish greater control over the war.
Sections of the Turkish media reported that the center of Tel Rifaat city in northern Syria was encircled on Tuesday after up to 100 Russian police officers mysteriously pulled out of the area, allowing the soldiers and members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to enter.
Although Ankara has yet to confirm this, Arab News sources said that Tel Rifaat’s collapse is imminent, with negotiations still continuing.
These latest developments have caused military analysts to suggest that Moscow is deliberately ceding control of the area, betraying Kurdish fighters it once protected, in a bid to stop Turkey from edging closer to the US.
They told Arab News it may be the clearest sign yet that the countries are secretly working together in a double game, swapping territory and selling out guerrilla factions that they had previously supported, in an attempt to improve their strategic footholds in the country.
Magdalena Kirchner, of the Istanbul Policy Center, told Arab News that while there was no definitive proof of a quid pro quo, the fact that Russian forces left Tel Rifaat “just hours before the operation started points to fairly close coordination and ongoing negotiations”.
Relations between Turkey and Russia have fluctuated wildly since Moscow intervened in the Syrian civil war in September 2015 to support the regime of President Bashar Assad, which Ankara had vowed to help topple. In November that year, Turkey shot down a Russian fighter plane near its border with Syria, causing Russia to respond with sanctions.
In June 2016 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan apologized for downing the plane and relations began to thaw. Since early 2017 the two countries, together with Iran, have been cooperating in what they say is an attempt to bring about a political end to the conflict by establishing “de-escalation zones” throughout Syria. But Tel Rifaat’s targeting by Turkish forces this week may be a sign that both sides are more interested in furthering their geopolitical interests than keeping the peace, analysts told Arab News.
Kerim Has, a lecturer in Turkish-Russian relations at Moscow State University, said that there have been indications elsewhere in Syria that an unofficial, mutually beneficial arrangement, has been reached between the two countries.
This may have caused Turkey to smooth the UN-backed evacuation of fundamentalist insurgents from Eastern Ghouta, near Damascus, to Idlib, southwest of Aleppo, he said. The evacuation, which remains ongoing, seems almost certain to allow the Syrian regime to claim a key victory in the war, following a ferocious siege that has killed hundreds of civilians in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, Moscow has quietly allowed Turkish forces to press ahead largely unchallenged with a major military offensive in the north of the country. Operation Olive Branch began on Jan. 20 with the aim of seizing territory from Kurdish separatists in the region.
The Syrian city of Afrin fell to Turkish forces on March 18, with the UN estimating that 50,000 children in the surrounding area now need humanitarian aid.
Turkey has promoted Operation Olive Branch as an offensive against Kurdish rebels belonging to the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). It claims to have killed more than 3,500 Kurdish fighters.
Has told Arab News: “Russia’s green light for Operation Olive Branch and Turkey’s apparent silence on Eastern Ghouta shows some of the parameters in the bargaining process.”
Tel Rifaat, which lies 13 miles southeast of Afrin, has been an important logistical hub for Kurdish fighters. It was one of the last areas under the YPG’s control and included a Russian airbase.
While officials have yet to confirm the city’s fall, the Turkish army recently used its Twitter account to claim that people wanted it “to be cleared of terrorist organizations.”
Omer Ozkizilcik, an analyst at the Middle East Foundation in Ankara, told Arab News that Russia had made significant efforts to involve the YPG in a political solution to the war.
He said Moscow gave up on this approach when it emerged that the US is training 30,000 personnel, including elements of the YPG, to secure the Syrian border, a move that has infuriated Ankara. The US denies that the YPG and PKK are closely linked.
On Tuesday Russian President Vladimir Putin and Erdogan discussed plans for a Syria summit they are due to hold in Ankara next week. Iran will also attend the meeting.
Unlike much of the international community, Turkey has said it has no plans to expel Russian diplomats following the poisoning of a Russian double agent in Britain earlier this month.
Turkey and Russia ‘form secret alliance’ over Syria war
Turkey and Russia ‘form secret alliance’ over Syria war
Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 43,391
GAZA STRIP: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Tuesday that at least 43,391 people have been killed in the year-old war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 17 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 102,347 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Greece says migrant arrivals rising in south-east islands
- At the end of October, several hundred migrants set up tents and cardboard houses outside the local government offices of the city of Rhodes, sparking anger among residents
- Rhodes mayor Alexandros Koliadis told Rodiaki that the island lacks the personnel, police officers and coast guard needed to register the arrivals before transferring them to camps
ATHENS: Some islands in the southeast of the Aegean sea, including Rhodes, are seeing an increase in migrants arriving by boat from Turkiye, Greek migration and asylum minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos said Tuesday.
“The southeast of the Aegean and the island of Rhodes are experiencing migratory pressure right now,” he said on public television station ERT, though he said the increase does not appear to be linked to rising tensions in the Middle East.
At the end of October, several hundred migrants set up tents and cardboard houses outside the local government offices of the city of Rhodes, sparking anger among residents and local authorities.
According to local media Rodiaki, more than 700 migrants arrived during the last week of October.
Rhodes mayor Alexandros Koliadis told Rodiaki that the island lacks the personnel, police officers and coast guard needed to register the arrivals before transferring them to camps on the mainland or in other islands.
Previously, Aegean islands further north such as Lesbos and Samos had received the brunt of migrants crossing from Turkish shores.
Crete, which has likewise seen an increase in arrivals from Libya, also needs to build facilities to process migrants.
Greece has seen a 25 percent increase this year in the number of people fleeing war and poverty, with a 30 percent increase alone to Rhodes and the south-east Aegean, according to the Migration Ministry.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says 48,158 arrivals have been recorded so far in 2024, of which around 42,000 arrived by boat and 6,000 by crossing the land frontier with Turkiye.
“The camps on the islands have an occupancy rate of 100 percent. But on the mainland they are only 55 percent full, which provides a margin in the event of an increase in arrivals on the islands,” Panagiotopoulos said.
Sudan files AU complaint against Chad over arms: minister
- Chad last month denied accusations that it was “amplifying the war in Sudan” by arming the RSF
PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s army-backed government on Tuesday accused neighboring Chad of supplying arms to rebel militias, likely referring to the paramilitary forces it is battling.
The northeast African country has been engulfed by war since April 2023, when fighting broke out between the regular army, led by de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Justice minister Muawiya Osman said Burhan’s administration had lodged the complaint against Chad at the African Union.
Speaking to reporters, including AFP, Osman said the government demanded compensation and accused Chad of “supplying arms to rebel militias” and causing “harm to Sudanese citizens.”
“We will present evidence to the relevant authorities,” he added from Port Sudan, where Burhan relocated after fighting spread to the capital, Khartoum.
Chad last month denied accusations that it was “amplifying the war in Sudan” by arming the RSF.
“We do not support any of the factions that are fighting on Sudanese territory — we are in favor of peace,” foreign minister and government spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah said at the time.
The United Nations has been using the Adre border crossing between the two countries to deliver humanitarian aid.
Sudan had initially agreed to keep the crossing open for three months, a period set to expire on November 15. Authorities in Khartoum have yet to decide whether to extend the arrangement.
The Sudanese war has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million, including 3.1 million who are now sheltering beyond the country’s borders.
Explosion at Turkish oil refinery injures 12
- The 12 employees sustained slight injuries and were taken to a hospital for examinations
ANKARA: An explosion at an oil refinery in northwestern Turkiye on Tuesday left at least 12 employees slightly injured, the company said. A fire at the facility was quickly brought under control.
The Turkish Petroleum Refineries company, TUPRAS, said a fire broke out at its facilities in Izmit, in Kocaeli province, during maintenance work on a compressor. The company’s emergency teams responded immediately to the incident, it said in a statement.
The 12 employees sustained slight injuries and were taken to a hospital for examinations, the company said.
The company said the unit where the incident occurred “was deactivated in a controlled manner” and that other operations at the refinery were “continuing as normal.”
Earlier, Tahir Buyukakin, the mayor for Kocaeli told private NTV television that the blast occurred during a drill. The fire was quickly brought under control by the company’s own crews and no request for help was made, he said.
Video footage from the site showed smoke rising from the refinery, which is one of Turkiye’s largest. Izmit is about 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Istanbul.
The Borsa Istanbul stock exchange temporarily halted trading of TUPRAS shares, until the company provides a detailed explanation of the incident.
Israeli strikes hit south of Beirut and Lebanon’s Bekaa region
BEIRUT: At least one Israeli airstrike hit an apartment building in a beach town south of Beirut on Tuesday, Lebanese state media said, as other deadly strikes hit scattered locations across the country and armed group Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel.
The attack on the beach town of Jiyyeh left a massive smoke column billowing out of an apartment building. It was not immediately clear if the strike was an assassination attempt, and no evacuation warning was given before it was carried out.
The Israeli military and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been exchanging fire for over a year in parallel with the Gaza war, but hostilities have escalated over the last six weeks. More than 3,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them since late September, according to health authorities.
Israeli strikes on Tuesday also killed five people near the city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley, including two killed in a strike on a car, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Lebanon’s state news agency said on Tuesday that it estimated Israeli air strikes and widespread detonation of homes had destroyed more than 40,000 housing units in the country’s border region.
