Syrian Kurdish

Trump looking to stop sending weapons to Syrian Kurdish fighters

Trump makes surprise deal. Turkish leaders said Monday they fully expect the United States to follow through on president Donald Trump’s surprise pledge last week to stop sending weapons to Syrian Kurdish fighters. American support might not matter all that much to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, as some of the group’s leaders say they would be willing to join forces with the Syrian government if their demands for a federal state in the north are granted by Damascus. It’s unclear what Syria’s allies in Iran or Russia think of that plan, as they’re working with Turkey to forge some sort of settlement to the fighting. Either way, trouble lies ahead. In a region awash in weapons, the Kurds will likely find ways to keep the flow of weapons coming. FP’s Paul McLeary visited a U.S.-run training camp for the SDF in northern Syria earlier this year, where the Kurds said they fully expected to have to fight the Turks once they expelled the Islamic State from their country.

Turkey launches operation in Syria ‘for security’

Published on 9 Ottobre 2017 in EUROPE/PRESS RELEASE/REGIONS by pressrelease

Turkey has announced the beginning of a new military operation into Idlib province in Syria as part of a deal with Russia and Iran, in an attempt to create de-escalation zones and also prevent Syrian Kurdish groups from building a “terror corridor” along the Syrian border toward the Mediterranean Sea. The Turkish Armed Forces on early Oct. 8 shelled positions in jihadist-controlled Idlib in support of the advance of Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters on the ground, a day after Ankara announced the start of an operation there. “The [operation] process, which began yesterday and started to be implemented today, is continuing together with the Free Syrian Army without any problems”, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said. Erdoğan underlined that the operation into Idlib, just like the Euphrates Shield Operation, is part of Ankara’s strategy to eliminate security threats at their source. “We are obliged to break this terror corridor from the east toward the Mediterranean. We cannot tolerate this. Otherwise we’ll suffer from another Kobane [incident]. We don’t want that and we won’t allow it”, Erdoğan said.

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