Turkey undeterred on new offensive against Kurds in Syria, says it does not need anyone’s permission

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Turkish troops in armored personnel carriers arrive in the Jabal al-Zawiya region of Syria's rebel-held northwestern Idlib province on July 22, 2021. (AFP)
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Updated 22 July 2022
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Turkey undeterred on new offensive against Kurds in Syria, says it does not need anyone’s permission

  • Turkish FM Cavusoglu made the statement despite reservations by its allies and partners
  • Following Tehran summit, Ankara might have to revise its strategy for a while, analyst tells Arab News

ANKARA:  Following Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent comments that Syria’s Tel Rifaat and Manbij have become hotbeds of terror, eyes are on Turkey’s long-speculated cross-border military operation into these areas against Kurdish fighters.

Although experts say Turkey does not seem to have received a green light for a specific military operation from Russia and Iran following the trilateral summit in Tehran on Tuesday, Ankara warned that it did not need permission to launch an offensive in Syria.

“We exchanged ideas, but we never asked and we never seek consent for our military operations,” Cavusoglu said in a televised interview on Thursday.

Ankara has long hinted at a possible offensive in northeast Syria against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG. It sees Kurdish forces in Syria as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

“The time has come to clear these ports where the terrorist organization took refuge,” Erdogan said on Tuesday.

For the last five years, Turkey, Iran and Russia have been searching for a political solution to the Syrian conflict through trilateral talks. Before the end of the year, they are also expected to meet in Russia.

Both Russia and Iran have explicitly opposed Ankara’s plans for a fresh military operation against Kurdish-held areas, and have urged a diplomatic solution.

Iran recently deployed military reinforcements to the two Shiite settlements northwest of Aleppo, while Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei told Erdogan during the meeting in Tehran that any military action would be “to the detriment of Syria, Turkey and the region” and could fuel terrorism.

Moscow is also the major ally of Syria’s president, Bashar Assad. Syrian Kurds recently called on Russia and Iran to prevent any Turkish military operation.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Putin said “the area to the east of the Euphrates should return under the control of the legitimate government of Syria.”

Erdogan spoke to reporters on his return flight from Tehran on Tuesday, and said that the three countries, despite having divergent views on Syria, were united in counterterrorism efforts.

They “expressed their determination to continue working together to combat terrorism in all forms and manifestations,” according to a joint statement.

Hamidreza Azizi, CATS fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, does not see Erdogan’s statement necessarily as an of indicator of an accord over an eventual operation.

“It seems that despite all efforts, Iran and Russia on the one hand and Turkey on the other hand are still far from an actual agreement about how to deal with the immediate issues in northern Syria,” he told Arab News.

“The Iranian side is overemphasizing on the eastern Euphrates, while Turkish side is still raising this idea of including Tal Rifat and Manbij in the new operation,” said Azizi.

“There is a kind of disagreement about the actual geography of the potential Turkish operation.”

There are currently two scenarios, Azizi believes.

“In one scenario, the sides cannot initiate a compromise between the Syrian regime and Turkey.

“In this case, Turkey can prepare for such an operation regardless of the Russian or Iranian positions. Or Turkey can raise the cost in terms of a potential compromise to somehow not show softness on its position in order to push (the) Syrian regime and its allies to take into account Turkish concerns.

“In that scenario, a new Turkish operation to those areas in the west (of the) Euphrates can be avoided in exchange of actual restrictions on the activities of Kurdish militia,” he said.

Erdogan also told reporters on the plane back to Ankara that “America has to leave (the) east of the Euphrates now. This is an outcome that came out of the Astana process.”

But Washington, although recognizing Turkey’s security concerns along its border, believes that any weakening of the Kurdish-led SDF forces might help Daesh to expand its presence.

Turkey has launched three invasions into Syria since 2016 in order to establish a 30 kilometer security zone free of Kurdish fighters.

Oytun Orhan, coordinator of Syria studies at the ORSAM think tank in Ankara, said the recent talks in Tehran decreased the possibility of a Turkish operation.

“In contrary with the previous bilateral talks between Turkey and Russia to coordinate their moves in Syria, this time Russia also involved Iran into the game in order to balance regional interests and block Turkish moves,” he told Arab News.

Following the summit in Tehran, Orhan noted that Turkey might have to revise its plans in Syria for a while without completely dismissing them.

“In 2020, Turkey used drone strikes in Idlib where Russia has aerial superiority. Therefore, it can also enjoy its drone capacity under conditions where Russia doesn’t allow to fly Turkish jets. But it is a long process where tensions might escalate in the near future to prepare the ground,” he said.

Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, thinks that Iran has positioned itself as a forum for de-escalation by hosting talks in Tehran between Russia and Turkey, and Russia has reportedly used backchannel diplomacy with Ankara to deter a military campaign.

“A Turkish offensive in northern Syria is not an unambiguous setback for Russian and Iranian interests, as it would strengthen the informal alignment that is developing between the Kurdish YPG, Syrian army and even some Iranian-aligned militias. This would help Assad consolidate his long-term grip on power,” he told Arab News.


Israeli strikes kill 23 in Gaza, including a journalist and rescue service official

Updated 25 May 2025
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Israeli strikes kill 23 in Gaza, including a journalist and rescue service official

  • Israeli fire kills at least 23 people in Gaza
  • Israel controls 77 percent of Gaza Strip, Hamas media office says

CAIRO: Israeli military strikes killed at least 23 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, including a local journalist and a senior rescue service official, local health authorities said.
The latest deaths in the Israeli campaign resulted from separate Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north and Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, medics said.
In Jabalia, they said local journalist Hassan Majdi Abu Warda and several family members were killed by an airstrike that hit his house earlier on Sunday.
Another airstrike in Nuseirat killed Ashraf Abu Nar, a senior official in the territory’s civil emergency service, and his wife in their house, medics added.
There was no immediate comment by the Israeli military.
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said that Abu Warda’s death raised the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, to 220.
In a separate statement, the media office said Israeli forces were in control of 77 percent of the Gaza Strip, either through ground forces or evacuation orders and bombardment that keeps residents away from their homes.
The armed wing of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said in separate statements on Sunday that fighters carried out several ambushes and attacks using bombs and anti-tank rockets against Israeli forces operating in several areas across Gaza.
On Friday the Israeli military said it had conducted more strikes in Gaza overnight, hitting 75 targets including weapons storage facilities and rocket launchers.
Israel launched an air and ground war in Gaza after Hamas militants’ cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people by Israeli tallies with 251 hostages abducted into Gaza.
The conflict has killed more than 53,900 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated the coastal strip. Aid groups say signs of severe malnutrition are widespread.


Israeli military says it intercepted missile from Yemen

Updated 25 May 2025
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Israeli military says it intercepted missile from Yemen

  • Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have continued to fire missiles at Israel in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza

CAIRO: The Israeli military said on Sunday that it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen toward Israel.
Sirens sounded in several areas in the country, the Israeli military said earlier.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have continued to fire missiles at Israel in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Most of the group’s missile have been intercepted or have fallen short.
The Houthis did not immediately comment on the latest missile launch.


Syria to help locate missing Americans

Updated 25 May 2025
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Syria to help locate missing Americans

DAMASCUS: Syria’s new authorities have agreed to help the United States locate and return Americans who went missing in the war-torn country, a US envoy said on Sunday.
“The new Syrian government has agreed to assist the USA in locating and returning USA citizens or their remains. The families of Austin Tice, Majd Kamalmaz, and Kayla Mueller must have closure,” US special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack wrote on X.


Turkiye, PKK must both change for peace: former militant

Updated 25 May 2025
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Turkiye, PKK must both change for peace: former militant

  • For years, Yuksel Genc was a fighter with the Kurdish rebel group
  • Genc herself joined the militants in 1995 when she was a 20-year-old university student in Istanbul

DIYARBAKIR, Turkiye: “When you try and explain peace to people, there is a very serious lack of trust,” said Yuksel Genc, a former fighter with the PKK, which recently ended its decades-long armed struggle against the Turkish state.
Talking over a glass of tea in a square in Diyarbakir, the biggest city in Turkiye’s Kurdish-dominated southeast, this 50-year-old former fighter with long auburn curls is worried about how the nascent rapprochement between Ankara and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) will play out.
“The guerillas are sincere, but they don’t think the state is,” said Genc, her words briefly interrupted by the roar of a fighter jet flying overhead.
“They think the government does not trust them.”
For years, she was a fighter with the Kurdish rebel group, which on May 12 said it would disarm and disband, ending a four-decade armed struggle against the Turkish state that cost more than 40,000 lives.
The historic move came in response to an appeal by its jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan, arrested in 1999 and serving life in solitary ever since on a prison island near Istanbul.
Genc herself joined the militants in 1995 when she was a 20-year-old university student in Istanbul.
“At that time, many Kurdish villages were being burnt down, and we were constantly hearing about villages being evacuated, people being displaced and unsolved murders,” she said.
She described it as “a time of terrible repression.”
“You felt trapped, as if there was no other way than to join the guerrillas,” she said.
Four years later, after years in exile, Ocalan was snatched by Turkish commandos in a Hollywood-style operation in Nairobi.
“Ocalan’s capture provoked a deep sense of rage among the guerrillas, who feared it would mean the Kurdish cause would be destroyed,” she said.
But it was Ocalan himself who called for calm and insisted it was time for the Kurdish question to be resolved democratically. He urged his followers to go to Turkiye, hand over their weapons and seek dialogue.
“He thought our arrival would symbolize (the PKK’s) goodwill, and persuade the state to negotiate.”
Genc was part of the first so-called “groups for peace and a democratic solution” — a group of three women and five men who arrived in Turkiye on October 1, 1999 on what they knew would be a “sacrificial” mission.
After a long march through the mountains, they arrived in the southeastern village of Semdinli under the watchful eye of “thousands” of Turkish soldiers huddled behind rocks.
Handing over their weapons, they were transferred to the city of Van 200 kilometers (140 miles) to the north where they were arrested.
Genc spent the next nearly six years behind bars.
“For us, these peace groups were a mission,” she said. “The solution had to come through dialogue.”
After getting out, she continued to struggle for Kurdish rights, swapping her gun for a pen to become a journalist and researcher for the Sosyo Politik think tank.
Even so, her writing earned her another three-and-a-half years behind bars.
“Working for peace in Turkiye has a cost,” she said with a shrug.
When Recep Tayyip Erdogan became prime minister in 2003, there was hope for a new breakthrough. But several attempts to reach an agreement went nowhere — until now.
“Like in 1999, the PKK is moving toward a non-violent struggle,” she said.
“But laying down arms is not the end of the story. It is preparing to become a political organization.”
Resolving the decades-long conflict requires a change on both sides however, said Genc.
“It essentially involves a mutual transformation,” she argued.
“It is impossible for the state to stick with its old ways without transforming, while trying to resolve a problem as old and divisive as the Kurdish question.”
Despite the recent opening, Genc does not speak of hope.
“Life has taught us to be realistic: years of experience have generated an ocean of insecurity,” she said.
“(PKK fighters) have shown their courage by saying they will lay down their weapons without being defeated. But they haven’t seen any concrete results.”
So far, the government, which initiated the process last autumn, has not taken any steps nor made any promises, she pointed out.
“Why haven’t the sick prisoners been released? And those who have served their sentences — why aren’t they benefiting from the climate of peace?“
And Ocalan, she said, was still being held in solitary despite promises of a change in his situation.
The number of people jailed for being PKK members or close to the group has never been revealed by the Turkish authorities.
“The fact that Ocalan is still not in a position to be able to lead this process toward a democratic solution is a major drawback from the militants’ point of view,” she said.
“Even our daily life remains totally shaped by security constraints across the region with the presence of the army, the roadblocks — all that has to change.”


First class graduates from American University of Baghdad, once Saddam’s palace

Updated 25 May 2025
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First class graduates from American University of Baghdad, once Saddam’s palace

  • A total of 38 students — 20 male and 18 female — graduated Saturday with degrees in business administration, sciences and humanities at a ceremony attended by political dignitaries as well as families and faculty members

BAGHDAD: The American University of Baghdad celebrated the graduation of its first cohort of students Saturday at a campus that was once a palace built by Saddam Hussein.
Officials said they hope the graduation will mark the beginning of a new era in higher education in Iraq rooted in modernity, openness and international academic standards.
The university was inaugurated in 2021 on the site of the Al-Faw Palace, built on an island in the middle of an artificial lake by Saddam in the 1990s to mark the retaking of the peninsula of the same name during the war.
After the US-led invasion that unseated Saddam in 2003, it was used as a US coalition military headquarters called Camp Victory. It was later developed into an American-style university with a core liberal arts program through funding by influential Iraqi business owner Saadi Saihood.
A total of 38 students — 20 male and 18 female — graduated Saturday with degrees in business administration, sciences and humanities at a ceremony attended by political dignitaries as well as families and faculty members.
Speaking to the attendees, university President Dr. Michael Mulnix reflected on the university’s rocky beginnings.
“When I first arrived at the American University of Baghdad in 2018, the campus looked nothing like it does today,” he said. “Years of war and neglect had left the infrastructure in ruins, with many buildings damaged or destroyed. Today, we stand before an exceptional, nonprofit academic institution that ranks among the finest research universities.”
Today AUB has a growing network of international partnerships with top universities, he said, including Vanderbilt University, Colorado School of Mines, Lawrence Technological University, Temple University, the University of Exeter, and Sapienza University of Rome.
University founder and owner Saihood called the graduation “a symbolic moment that affirms this institution was built to last and to make a real difference.”
He acknowledged the economic challenges facing graduates, especially the scarcity of government employment, but emphasized that the university has equipped its students with the adaptability and initiative needed to thrive in the private sector or through entrepreneurship.
Although Iraq’s security situation has improved in recent years after decades of conflict, the country still suffers from brain drain as young people seek opportunities and stability abroad.
“The future in Iraq is not easy. All of us graduates have concerns,” said Mohammed Baqir from Najaf province, who graduated Saturday with a bachelor’s degree in business. “But what sets us apart from other universities is that we’ve already received job offers through AUB, especially in the private sector. Although my education cost around ten million Iraqi dinars, it was a truly valuable investment.” Ten million Iraqi dinars equals about $7,600.