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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
The United States is preparing for the possibility that Turkey, a NATO member, may invade Rojava, an autonomous region in northeastern Syria where both U.S. and Russian soldiers are currently stationed.
“Basically, Turkey wants to do the same thing that Russia is doing in Ukraine, which is to come in and commit war crimes against the citizens here.”
With Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan making increasingly ominous threats to launch a military intervention in Rojava, officials from the Biden Administration have been working to address these threats, aware that a NATO country could be the aggressor in the world’s next major war.
“Basically, Turkey wants to do the same thing that Russia is doing in Ukraine, which is to come in and commit war crimes against the citizens here,” said Nadine Maenza, the former chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, when she visited Rojava late last month. “I do hope the international community and the United States stand up.”
For several years, Turkey has been trying to destroy Rojava, a Kurdish-led enclave. The Turkish government wants to eliminate the region’s revolutionary Syrian Kurds, who have created an autonomous region inside Syria while providing a model of self-government for Turkey’s minority Kurdish population.
Erdoğan portrays Rojava’s Kurdish militants as terrorists. He accuses them of being part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a revolutionary movement that has been seeking Kurdish liberation in Turkey.
Turkey has already, in recent years, launched several incursions into Rojava. Its last major intervention, conducted in October 2019 with the support of the Trump Administration, devastated the area, leaving Turkey in control of a large swathe of territory.
Ceasefire agreements have created a highly complex environment, with security forces from several countries stationed in Rojava. Both Russia and the United States conduct military patrols, sometimes coming into conflict with one another.
Despite the Trump Administration’s backing of Turkey’s 2019 invasion, the United States has maintained a close partnership with Rojava’s Kurdish militants. Since the Syrian Civil War, the U.S. military has worked closely with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in combating the Islamic State, and U.S. officials have repeatedly praised them for their bravery.
As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden described the Kurdish-led forces as “courageous” and indicated that he would continue to support them.
The Syrian Kurds have created a revolutionary new society on a model that they call “democratic confederalism.” Since the early years of the Syrian Civil War, they have been building a confederated and autonomous region in northeastern Syria that is democratic, pluralist, feminist, and multi-ethnic.
“Progressives should support their effort to build a secure base for direct democracy, feminism, and pluralism,” Meredith Tax wrote earlier this year in The Nation.
Though many U.S. officials oppose the Syrian Kurds’ revolutionary project, sometimes even working against it, others have praised them for their achievements. At a hearing last month by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, several participants commended Rojava for its religious freedom and ethnic diversity, conditions that are unique to north and east Syria. And for the second year in a row, the commission called on the U.S. government to grant political recognition to Rojava.
“They’ve built a government where they have these remarkable conditions of acceptance and tolerance that really the rest of the world can learn from,” Maenza said during her visit to Rojava in May.
Turkey’s recent threats follow moves by Finland and Sweden to join NATO. Since Finland and Sweden have been sympathetic to the Syrian Kurds, with Sweden providing Rojava with financial and political support, Turkey has opposed NATO membership for the two countries.
Some analysts believe that Erdoğan is hoping the West will ignore another Turkish-led military intervention in exchange for Turkey’s support for Finland and Sweden to join NATO.
So far, the Biden Administration has moved slowly to address Turkey’s provocations. Though several high-level officials have stated their opposition to another Turkish military intervention, they have acknowledged that they are looking for ways to accommodate Turkey.
“Concerns that Turkey has raised directly with Finland and Sweden are being addressed by the Finns and the Swedes with the assistance of NATO,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a press briefing last week. “We want to make sure that all allies have their security concerns taken into account, and that, of course, includes Turkey.”
For now, the main factor that could prevent the Biden Administration from siding against the Syrian Kurds is Rojava’s strategic importance in the Syrian Civil War. With the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces still controlling most of northeastern Syria, they have prevented Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from regaining control of an important region where oil reserves and wheat fields are located.
“That’s a point of leverage because the Syrian government would love to have dominion over those resources,” Blinken said in 2020, referring to the region’s oil. “We should not give that up for free.”
As Turkey continues to threaten Rojava, the situation is growing increasingly precarious, with recent reports indicating that Turkey has already begun conducting military operations. Any major Turkish-led military incursion could spark a broader conflict, which would be especially dangerous with U.S. and Russian forces continuing to operate in the area.
“A potential war will not be an easy one,” warned Mazloum Abdi, the leader of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, in a recent interview. “It will not end in a short period of time—unlike Turkey’s expectations. It will be a hard war and will last for a long time.”