Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria has rightly been condemned around the world, and no less so by its Nato allies.
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Targeting Turkey’s economy, US President Donald Trump on Monday announced sanctions aimed at restraining the assault against Kurdish fighters and civilians in Syria. But, this assault was made possible in the first place after Trump announced he was moving US troops out of the way. And the sanctions imposed by Washington are a softer punishment than that demanded by US lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans.
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The US decision to withdraw came as a particular shock because there was no pressing need for such an action. There were no real global demands for a US withdrawal, and the Kurds were doing a service to Western powers by holding thousands of Daesh detainees who were not welcome back in their home countries. One abrupt decision made by the US has enabled Turkey to create renewed chaos in a region that has had more than its fair share of war for the past few years.
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Also, Washington has done this to the Kurds on more than one occasions in the past, most notoriously when Saddam Hussein attacked them with poison gas in 1988.
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As for the EU, its limited leverage on Turkey has been in full display ever since the ground invasion began. Ankara has threatened to unleash a new wave of mass migration on Europe’s borders, and EU politicians are panicking at that prospect. Turkey continues to threaten to abandon the 2016 deal it signed with the EU to restrict the flow of refugees. And it is succeeding.
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From the beginning, Turkey had ill intentions in northeast Syria. It cleverly used the earlier, US-sponsored “security mechanism” in the region for the purpose of gathering intelligence on positions of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
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And it used this information in the pursuit of its real mission — invasion. Erdogan’s invasion has three primary aims: Force the SDF away from its southern border; resettle most, if not all, the 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey in the ‘safe zone’ in northwest Syria; and, most cynical of all, use the current incursion to improve his own standing inside Turkey, after a series of electoral defeats.
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The US, the UN, EU states, the Arab League and China — all have urged Ankara to end its military offensive, but to no avail. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed Turkey’s operation will not stop until Ankara’s objectives have been achieved. This recalcitrance from Ankara is having a devastating impact on the ground in northern Syria.
###Syrian families fleeing the battle zone between Turkey-led forces and Kurdish fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in and around the northern flashpoint town of Ras al-Ain on the border with Turkey, arrive along with Syrian Arab and Kurdish civilians in the city of Tal Tamr on the outskirts of Hasakeh on October 15, 2019. Kurdish forces held on to a key border town Tuesday, seven days into a deadly Turkish invasion in northeastern Syria that caused mass displacement and reshaped the region.
/ AFP / Delil SOULEIMAN
Image Credit: AFP###