Wednesday 16 October 2019

Relations between the US and Turkey must not be irreparably damaged?

Turkey has refused to stop its military incursion into northern Syria until it has achieved what it set out to do which is to forge a 20-mile-deep security zone across the border from Turkey. That could take weeks if the Turks come up against either Syrian government or Russian troops. So the rhetoric between Washington and Ankara is going to get worse in the meantime. Mike Pompeo, secretary of state, and Mike Pence, vice-president, are currently in Ankara to see President Erdogan but if the Turkish leader thinks Trump gave him the green light to invade northern Syria he's hardly going to back down when confronted by Pompeo and Pence. There are grave dangers here. The US and Nato as a whole cannot have one of their strongest allies becoming hostile towards the alliance. OK, you might ask, would Turkey have invaded northern Syria with or without the green light from Trump? Yes, definitely. This was the reason for the phone call on October 6, for Erdogan to warn Trump that his long-planned incursion was about to be launched and if he wanted to get US troops out of harm's way, they should be withdrawn straightaway. That's why Trump made his statement about withdrawing US troops, thus effectively abandoning the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to the invading Turks. I feel desperately sorry for the Kurds and am not remotely surprised that Putin has jumped in to take advantage and to deploy Russian troops to the border to complicate Erdogan's strategic decisions. But I say again when this is all worked out and resolved, somehow Turkey must still be a valuable part of the Nato alliance. Otherwise Putin will win all round. He has cleverly exploited the Trump-ordered withdrawal of US troops and thereby improved his influence in Syria, AND if there is a serious rupture between Turkey and the US and the rest of the alliance, he will have achieved what he has always wanted, a disunited Nato alliance. And to think that he was handed all this on a plate by the president of the United States!

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