Kurds are warriors. The Kurdish problem and the civil war in Syria

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The People's Defense Forces (HPG), the military wing of the PKK, announced that on November 9 and 10 they carried out attacks on six military bases in the southern Turkish provinces of Hakkari and Sirnak. The HPG said 17 Turkish soldiers were killed and 32 others were wounded in the attacks. In addition, according to HPG information, 8 soldiers are considered missing.

It should be noted that on November 10, the PKK, using attack UAVs, also carried out an attack on several targets in the territory of the administrative center of the region and to the south of it. According to Turkish sources, the UAVs did not reach their targets due to technical faults and the possible suppression of communications by the Turkish military.

Shirnak province borders both northern Syria and northern Iraq. Interestingly, the latest PKK attacks confirm Turkey's repeated claims that Kurdish armed groups operating in the area, mainly the YPG, pose a direct threat to Turkey's national security.

On November 13, 4 YPG-affiliated security forces were killed in the northern Syrian city of Manbij. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, publishing a report through the Amaq agency.

The Turkish leadership has repeatedly named Manbij, as well as YPG-controlled territories east of the Euphrates River, as targets for the upcoming operation against the YPG. At the end of October, the Turkish Armed Forces carried out several strikes on YPG positions in the area of ​​​​the city of Kobani, and also transferred additional troops and equipment to the southern Turkish provinces adjacent to the YPG territories.

In November, Saif Abu Bakr, commander of the military wing of the pro-Turkish militant group, the Hamza Division, announced that their fighters were ready to participate in a large-scale operation against the YPG east of the Euphrates.

The YPG forms the backbone of the US-backed SDF. American support for the SDF is the cause of constant conflicts between Ankara and Washington. For example, on November 12, Turkey's Interior Minister, Suleyman Soylu, harshly criticized what he called the "two-faced policy" of the United States towards Turkey, referring to the continued American support for Kurdish armed groups in northern Syria. In addition, he stated that the United States receives 20% of YPG's income from the sale of oil from the fields they occupy.

If Washington continues to provide political and military support to the YPG and the group strengthens its power in the Arab territories of northeastern Syria it has captured, creating a springboard for further attacks by the PKK on targets in southern Turkey, then relations between

The withdrawal of American troops from Syria promised by President Donald Trump has been postponed in order to save local Kurds. Kurdish militant groups have played an important role in the fight against radical Islamists in Syria. And now Turkish troops promise to crush the Kurds. For the Americans, the Kurdish People's Protection Units are a valuable ally in the fight against terrorists, and for the Turks, the Kurds themselves are terrorists.

There are approximately 40 million Kurds in the world. This is the poorest and most disenfranchised people. The only large nation deprived of its state.

And for a whole century no one was interested in his fate. In addition to human rights and humanitarian organizations.

The wife of French President Danielle Mitterrand was an ardent supporter of the Kurds:

“I am constantly monitoring the fate of the Kurdish people. I saw in what unbearable conditions these persecuted people live. Under the guise of fighting terrorism, the Turkish army is carrying out real state terror in the region. But my voice remains a voice crying in the wilderness.”

Kurdish refugees take refuge from Turkish aircraft and artillery in mountain caves in the canton of Afrin. Photo: RIA Novosti

They promised but didn't deliver

The victors of the First World War divided the vast inheritance of the Ottoman Empire very hastily. The boundaries were drawn by eye, which gave rise to conflicts between neighbors. Syria, which was under French rule, was given the Golan Heights (because of them, a war with Israel would break out). Transjordan got the territory east of the Jordan River, which Palestinian Arabs consider theirs.

And the Kurds, a more numerous people than the Palestinian Arabs, did not receive their own state at all.

And there was a moment when it seemed that the Kurds were close to success. On August 10, 1920, the Entente forced Turkey to sign the Treaty of Sèvres, which provided for the creation of an independent Kurdish state (Articles 62 and 64) in British mandated territory in northern Iraq. But the treaty was not ratified by anyone except Italy, and did not last long. The Treaty of Lausanne, which replaced it, signed on July 24, 1923, no longer implied autonomy, much less independence, for the Kurds.

Kurdistan is divided between four countries - Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. And none of them wants an independent Kurdish state to arise. The countries in which the Kurds live are trying at all costs to prevent them from uniting. Their right to autonomy, even cultural autonomy, is denied.

Let's say there are approximately 6 million Kurds in Iran, 11% of the population. But the Islamic leadership considers Iran a mononational state. Followers of Ayatollah Khomeini insist that adherence to a single religion - Shiite Islam - is more important than ethnic differences.

Iranian intelligence services are hunting Kurdish activists even abroad. Abdurrahman Kasemloo, head of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, has found refuge in Europe. Tehran's envoys invited him to meet in Vienna and improve relations. He arrived with two assistants, and on July 13, 1989, they were shot with machine guns right on the street. The killers have disappeared.

His successor was killed in Berlin. Around midnight on September 18, 1992, two gunmen burst into the back room of the Mykonos Greek restaurant and began shooting at customers, killing three and mortally wounding a fourth. All these were Kurds - opponents of the Iranian regime: the new chairman of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan Sadek Sharafkandi, representatives of the party in Europe and a translator. The terrorists shouted in Farsi: “Sons of whores!”

German investigators have done a great job. It was established that the murder of the Kurds was the work of three Iranian departments at once - the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the special forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the army counterintelligence...

Mekhabad Republic

Historically, the Kurds have been a natural ally of Russia because Russia has often fought with Turkey, and the enemy of our enemies is our friend.

During Soviet times, the Kurds became an ally of Moscow as participants in the national liberation movement. After the revolution, an autonomous Kurdish district was created in Azerbaijan, which went down in history under the name “Red Kurdistan”. A Kurdish national theater and Kurdish schools appeared. But in 1930 the district was liquidated. Kurds were expelled from border areas.

During the Second World War Soviet troops entered Iran. After the war, in the Kurdish-populated western part of the country - with the assistance of the Soviet army - an independent Kurdish People's Republic was proclaimed with its capital in the town of Mehabad. About two thousand fighters arrived from neighboring Iraq under the command of Mullah Mustafa Barzani.

Mustafa Barzani. Wikipedia

On October 21, 1945, the commander of the newly created Baku Military District, Army General Ivan Maslennikov, and the first secretary of the Azerbaijan Central Committee, Mir Jafar Bagirov, reported to Moscow:

“In pursuance of the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of October 8, 1945 on the issue of Iranian Azerbaijan and Northern Kurdistan, we carried out the following: We identified 21 experienced operatives of the NKVD and NKGB of the Azerbaijan SSR, capable of organizing work to eliminate individuals and organizations interfering with the development of the autonomist movement in Iranian Azerbaijan. These same comrades must organize armed partisan detachments from the local population."

The Mehabad Republic existed for 11 months, until the end of 1946. When Soviet troops left Iran, it was doomed. The president of the republic was hanged by the Shah's troops. Mullah Barzani, who served as commander-in-chief of the Republican Army, and his supporters crossed the Soviet border and lived in our country for 12 years.

"1. It is considered necessary to resettle a group of Iraqi Kurds living in six regions of the Uzbek SSR in the amount of 483 people, headed by Mullah Mustafa Barzani, in one or two districts of the Tashkent region. 2. Oblige the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Uzbekistan, Comrade Niyazov, to provide housing and work for Iraqi Kurds at the enterprises of the Sadsovkhoztrest of the Ministry of Food Industry; take measures to improve the material and living situation and medical care of Iraqi Kurds, organize political, educational, cultural and educational work among them, as well as their study of agricultural technology. 3. Entrust the Ministry of State Security of the USSR (Comrade Ignatiev) with monitoring and control over the implementation of this resolution and carrying out corresponding work among the Iraqi Kurds of the Mullah Mustafa Barzani group.”

Barzani's son Masoud later said:

My father and his compatriots in the Soviet Union found themselves in the position of prisoners of war. After Stalin's death things became easier. Khrushchev himself received his father...

Chemical Ali, Saddam's brother

In 1959, Barzani returned to his homeland - Iraq promised to give its Kurds equal rights. But already in 1961, war broke out again. Barzani settled in the north of the country, from where he led the fight against government troops. In 1966, Pravda’s own correspondent Yevgeny Primakov was ordered to go to northern Iraq. Barzani hugged the Soviet journalist with the words: “The Soviet Union is my dad.”

Barzani was very frank with Primakov. Therefore, Yevgeny Maksimovich’s encryption was highly appreciated in Moscow and they asked him to go to Iraqi Kurdistan again.

“From 1966 to 1970,” Primakov recalled, “I was the only Soviet representative who regularly met with Barzani. In the summer he lived in a hut, in the winter in a dugout.”

The Kurds were promised autonomy in Iraq, the right to elect their own authorities, and participate in the government. It was agreed that a Kurd would become the vice-president of the country. On March 10, 1970, Mustafa Barzani signed the agreement, counting on the promised autonomy. On March 11, the new President of Iraq, General Hassan al-Bakr, read the text of the agreement on radio and television. But the Kurds did not receive their promise. An “Arab belt” was purposefully created on the border with neighboring Iran. To change the demographic situation, Arab Iraqis were resettled there. And government troops evicted the original inhabitants from Iraqi Kurdistan. In 1974, Kurdish leaders felt they had been deceived and the armed struggle resumed.

A Kurd stands near his house, which was destroyed by an Iranian shell. Photo: RIA Novosti

Successive Iraqi regimes spoke out in favor of solving the Kurdish problem, but invariably ended up killing Kurds. Saddam Hussein ordered the punishment of the Kurds and killed more than one hundred thousand people in Iraqi Kurdistan. Saddam assigned this to General Ali Hassan al-Majid. General al-Majid was Saddam's cousin and even looked like him. On his orders, Kurdish villages were sprayed with chemical warfare agents from helicopters.

The village of Khalajba was destroyed from the air, five thousand people died from nerve gas. After this, the general received the nickname Chemical Ali.

Iraqi Kurdistan

During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, when the international community attacked Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi Kurds (more than five million of them) launched an uprising that covered 95% of the territory of Iraqi Kurdistan. But Saddam suppressed the uprising and drove the Kurds into the mountains. When Iraqi forces again used chemical weapons, US President George H. W. Bush ordered an intervention.

On April 7, 1991, Operation Solace was launched to ensure the safety of Kurdish refugees. The Americans defined a “security zone” that Iraqi troops were prohibited from entering. In accordance with UN Security Council Resolution No. 688, a “free area” was created under the tutelage of the US military. There, in northern Iraq, approximately three million Kurds have settled. They elected their parliament and formed a government.

In September 2017, more than three million people in Iraqi Kurdistan took part in a referendum and voted to create an independent state. But neither Iraq nor any other country recognized the referendum. The Kurdish state remains unrecognized.

Mustafa Barzani's son, Masoud Barzani, former President of Iraqi Kurdistan, votes in the Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament elections. Photo: Reuters

“There are no Kurds in Turkey!”

The largest number of Kurds are in Turkey - at least 16 million. Moreover, half live in the underdeveloped southeastern region, engulfed in guerrilla warfare, which the authorities consider terrorism.

Ankara has always said that “there is neither a Kurdish nation nor a Kurdish language in Turkey, and the Kurds are part of the Turkic nation, the mountain Turks.” The Kurdish language was banned. At the birth of a child, Turkish officials replaced the Kurdish name with a Turkish one.

In response, Turkish Kurds created the Kurdistan Workers' Party on November 27, 1978. The goal is an independent state. The party has iron discipline and a strict hierarchy. The leader of the party, which adopted Marxist ideas and called on the Kurds to revolt, was Abdallah Ocalan. Both Kurds and Turks behaved equally cruelly. Kurdish militants carried out terrorist attacks in Turkish cities, spreading fear among the population. They attacked Turkish teachers, engineers, and employees of state-owned companies. Turkish regular troops carried out punitive operations and cleared out entire villages whose residents were suspected of helping militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party.

In 1980, after a military coup in Turkey, Kurdish militant groups led by Ocalan fled to Syria, where they were sheltered and allowed to establish their bases.

The states in which the Kurds live brutally suppress them. But they willingly help other Kurds. For example, Iran helped the Iraqi Kurds because it was at enmity with Baghdad. And the Syrians favored the Turkish Kurds who fought against Turkey. Kurds also live in Syria - about four million. This is 15% of the population, but the Kurds were not considered a national minority; publications in the Kurdish language and the dissemination of works of national culture were prohibited. In a word, the Assad dynasty keeps its Kurds under a tight rein. And the Turkish Kurds were secretly helped, since the Assads love Turkish politicians even less than the Kurds.

But the Turkish Defense Minister said: we demand that Syria stop helping Kurdish terrorists. The Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Army spoke of an “undeclared war” and announced a plan to attack Syrian troops. With the threat of war, Turkey forced Syria to back down and refuse support to the Kurdistan Workers' Party. Abdallah Ocalan fled from Syria to Russia, counting on the traditional support of Moscow.

Asylum denied

In November 1998, the State Duma voted to grant Ocalan political asylum. However, head of government Yevgeny Primakov opposed this. He believed that relations with Turkey were more important for the Russian government, and Moscow did not want to support the Kurdish separatists at the time of the military operation in Chechnya.

A family of Kurdish illegal immigrants eats dinner sitting on the floor in a rest home. A.P. Chekhov. Photo: RIA Novosti

Equally unsuccessfully, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party sought refuge in Italy and Greece. In February 1999, the Turks arrested Ocalan.

Opinions were divided. Some considered him a terrorist, a criminal, they said that he had blood on his hands and his place was in the dock. Others called him the leader of the national liberation movement and asked to take into account the plight of the Kurds. The Kurds themselves say that in the eyes of the people, Ocalan is the personification of the centuries-old dream of a strong leader. He was sentenced to death, which was commuted to life imprisonment.

The brutal war against the Kurds prevented Turkey from becoming a modern state and damaged the reputation of the Turkish military. But in 2013, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then prime minister, promised to give the Kurds more rights. In return, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, Ocalan, ordered his fighters to stop the armed struggle with Turkey, which had claimed more than forty thousand lives over three decades, and declared that equality in rights would be won exclusively through political means. Erdogan then longed for Kurdish support in the elections.

But then events began in Syria. Islamic terrorists killed Yazidi Kurds. Kurdish troops desperately resisted the jihadists and played a significant role in this war. In Syria, torn by civil war, they conquered territory for a future state. But Türkiye is determined to prevent the Syrian Kurds from creating, following the example of the Iraqi Kurds, their own public education and intends to defeat the Kurdish troops in the northeast of the country after the departure of American troops.

Kurdish People's Protection Units in Iraq. Photo: Zuma\TASS

US National Security Adviser John Bolton said Washington will protect its Kurdish allies in Syria. Turkish President Erdogan responded by refusing to meet with him. All this means is that fighting in Syria will continue. But the Kurds will not soon gain their own state.

The territory of historical Kurdistan is incredibly rich in natural resources, especially oil, but the Kurds live poorly. They are offended when they are considered nomads, mountaineers, pastoralists, deprived of an independent culture and national identity. In reality, the Kurds say, we are a people with a rich and varied culture, although we are considered strangers everywhere and are forced to vegetate at the lowest rung of the social ladder. Why are we worse than the Turks, Arabs, Persians, and other peoples?

The Kurds are convinced that they are left to the mercy of fate and can only rely on themselves. More precisely, on the strength of his weapon. They believe that only armed struggle will help them gain independence. Kurds are good warriors. But they are not fighting against faint-hearted Americans or Europeans who keep count of every death, but against the Turks, Iranians, and Iraqis. Who will win this war of attrition?

The less attention the world pays to the Kurds, this persecuted people, the stronger the position of those who believe that only terror will force the world to pay attention to them and help them. Unfortunately, it is impossible to say anything more optimistic.

First of all, modern Turkey is a fragment of the huge Ottoman Empire, parts of which were Armenia, Syria, Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula, and the state-forming religion was Sunni Islam. But in the 19th century after Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt and Patriotic War 1812, which famously ended in Paris, the Ottoman Empire became the West's trump card against Russia in the game on the Great Chessboard, and all sorts of Masonic lodges penetrated into the Ottoman Empire. As a result, it became the “Sick Man of Europe”, which the European Union had to save through military action along its entire perimeter Russian Empire and this prototype of the world war was called the Crimean War after the place of the most fierce fighting. But after Russia admitted its partial defeat, the saviors of the Ottoman Empire began to dismantle it with the help of the aforementioned Masonic lodges. The Grand Orient of France unfolded in Syria and Istanbul, and the English Templars in the form of the Ostind campaign in Kuwait and the Arabian Peninsula. Moreover, the British (Templars) once again proved the advantages of their strategic thinking compared to the followers of Philip the Fair, creating “radical Islam” specifically for the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, called “Wahhabism,” which, according to the Hamburg account, has nothing to do with Islam.
At this time, Russia, offended by Crimean War, ceased to interfere with Bismarck’s attempts to unite Germany, and after the Franco-Prussian War in Istanbul, the Livonian Order and the Theosophists of Malam Blavatsky, who were poorly compatible with traditional Islam, came to the forefront. The further history of the Ottoman Empire showed that an Empire without a state-forming religion is an object of world politics, and not its subject, and after the First World War the victors began cutting up the carcass that had once been the Sublime Porte. But the Turks were lucky, and the Armenians, Greeks and other “foreigners” did not manage to get even with the Turks, since a revolution took place in Russia and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin helped the Turkish general Ataturk create a completely new state, the state-forming religion of which was Turkish nationalism, sewn according to the patterns of the Great Orient France. Of course, the Entente would still have devoured Ataturk along with his nationalism, but in 1925 the Kurds rebelled against the policy of Turkification, and this uprising was led by the leader of the Naqshbandi Sufi order, Kurd Said Pirani, and the Kurdish national liberation movement merged with traditional Islam. As a result, the Entente came to the conclusion that Ataturk was the least evil, assisting him in suppressing this uprising, as well as the uprising of the Greeks and Armenians.

Then a lot happened, in particular, many Turks and Arabs abandoned traditional Islam, swallowing the poison pill of Wahhabism, but the key to understanding the current situation is that for the West, the Kurds have since been a threat to the restoration of traditional Islam and a reminder that once they had already expelled a Kurd named Salladin from the Middle East.

Originally posted by matveychev_oleg at Who are the Kurds, why do they not have their own country and what do they want

The guest of the first broadcast was Middle East expert Taimur Dwidar. Abbas Juma talked to him about the Kurds. This is an ancient people, with a rich history and traditions, but without their own country. Who are they and what do they want?

“Kurdistan is when you look down at the clouds”

Everyone in the world talks about freedoms, democracy, human rights and other delights of life, however, the oldest ethnic group - the Kurds - still does not have the right to self-determination and state sovereignty. And there are, by the way, no less than 35 to 45 million people (according to various estimates). That is, five times more than the Jews in Israel. But if everything is clear about the Jews and everything is written in the Bible, then who are the Kurds, where did they come from, what do they want and why are they treated so unfairly? - Abbas Juma asked the expert.

Taimur Dvidar replied that the mention of this people was first heard from 4 to 6 thousand years ago and now representatives of this ethnic group are found everywhere.

I want to talk about my impressions of Kurdistan and the Kurds in Iraq. I remember the people who live there for their warmth, kindness, and responsiveness. The people are very clean. Kurdistan is when you look down at the clouds...

According to the expert, the Kurds have been “undeservedly nomadic” throughout their history:

Because they were forced to wander. They were expelled from the Persian side to the Iraqi side, from the Iraqi side to Syria, to Turkey. The largest part of Kurdistan is located in Turkey. And in terms of population - in Iraq. Kurds make up 12% of Iraq's population. By the way, they had autonomy in Iraq back in 1970.

De jure. De facto - since 2006,” our radio host corrected.

De facto, nothing worked out and it all grew into a war, quite a bloody one, where Persia helped, and Russia also helped the Kurds in the confrontation with Iraq,” Dvidar responded to this.

“The Kurds had the opportunity to acquire a state”

The expert recalled that Civil War in Iraq between the Kurds and Arabs “still happened due to the fact that autonomy was promised by the Iraqi state in 1970, but, unfortunately, it did not happen and it all ended with the mass destruction of people, after which the Kurdish leaders of the uprising or confrontation dispersed across neighboring countries, and some in the USA.”

By the way, there was an opportunity for the Kurds to acquire a homeland and a state. This was in 1920, according to the Serbian treaty they had this opportunity. They sort of received this territory, which included four states, modern four states, their territory was divided there - Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Persia, Iran, excuse me. But Mr. Ataturk, the great Turkish leader, made a military maneuver and, in general, rewrote this agreement. As a result, the Kurds were left without Kurdistan. But what is characteristic. In Iraq, I remember, in the early 80s, a Kurdistan sign. And the word "Kurdistan". And that was normal,” the expert recalled.

Taimur Dvidar also noted that Kurds have been treated throughout history as gypsies. But this, in his opinion, is absolutely unfair:

Undeserved treatment of them as gypsies. And all this pain of the Kurdish people, I feel it precisely in the fact that they are treated like gypsies. Why?

Iraqi Sinjar came under Kurdish control.
Photo: REUTERS

In general, it’s a pity, of course, that they didn’t manage to acquire a state, but since we are now on the threshold of border redistribution, I want to remind you that the borders of Turkey, Iraq, and Syria were formed in 1916 as a result of the Sykes-Picot Treaty. And now experts and political scientists are speaking almost unanimously about some kind of revival of the Sykes-Picot treaty,” recalled Abbas Juma.

The Kurdish issue is very acute in Turkey. You were in Iraq, you saw how the Kurds are, that they do not pose a danger. This precedent - Iraqi Kurdistan - proved that the Kurds can coexist normally with those within whom they are located. Why Türkiye? - the expert asks.

“They could even team up with the bald devil just to free Raqqa.”

Our radio host also recalled on air that today the Kurds are the most effective in fighting ISIS (an organization banned in Russia - editor's note). They liberated Kobani and Sinjar.

And now this is an alarm bell - they are uniting in a campaign against Raqqa with the Free Syrian Army. As the guys from the EPG tell me, we simply have no choice. Because no one else is helping us. Why shouldn't Russia take the initiative? - asked Abbas Juma.

Well, the Americans are helping them, let’s not forget - and this is their main ally,” Taimur Dvidar recalled. “But they will at least unite with the bald devil just to liberate Raqqa, because Raqqa is, after all, the main city of the Kurds in Syria. Free Syrian Army, I don’t know why you are reacting so strongly to it. We must not forget that in the regular Syrian army, 70 thousand people deserted not out of fear of anything, but in avenging their relatives... I was in Syria too.

You see, I just saw that these people - the FSA - are doing the same thing as ISIS,” Abbas Juma answered.

The expert objected:

But this is not some kind of united group, this is a disparate militia. These are small groups, partisan detachments, they call themselves the Free Syrian Army. They called themselves that in order to somehow distinguish themselves. These are very small units, and in terms of influence on earth they are not particularly significant. They began to unite three weeks ago, after Russia fucked up in such a way that no one thought it was enough. And we saw in the north, in Aleppo, in particular, from the Free Syrian Army, three units united...

Sinjar was under the control of the ISIS group banned in Russia for more than a year.
Photo: REUTERS

A Middle East specialist is confident: “These units, although small, are successfully resisting ISIS. Therefore, there is no better ally to resist this evil in the Middle East, anti-Islam, let’s call it that, except the Syrians themselves.”

"The Kurds are warriors from God"

According to our radio host, “if Russia took some steps towards the Kurds, the Kurds would not mind.” But why doesn't Russia do this?

I completely agree with you. You are absolutely right. You know, I remembered the meaning of the word “Kurd”. This also means horseman-hero. And this was six thousand years ago, when, in general, horses were not particularly known. The Kurds already used horses back then... These are warrior people. They are warriors from God. When they were in an alliance in the Ottoman Empire with the Sultan, even on the southern borders of Russia, we remember them from history, what kind of warriors they were. They sometimes provided services to Russia, including. People are very negotiable, they, even with the bald devil, can liberate their land and protect their families... You know, I’m not an intelligence officer, I have little information now, I don’t know who is interacting with whom, but for me, too, Is it surprising to you why we don’t see some kind of alliance between Russia and the Kurds? It is in confrontation. It is quite possible that the Americans are closing this topic themselves.

Meanwhile, Taimur Dvidar recalled that “among ISIS there are quite a large number of Kurds who are fighting with their own people.”

You can call them whatever you want, but in terms of the effectiveness of warfare, they are, unfortunately, quite effective. Let's see today or tomorrow what this war will result in. Unfortunately, now her figure is such that she is turning into a global one. Taking into account the terrorist attacks that we have seen against Russian citizens, against the French. We don’t know how our day will end today and what awaits us all together. Unfortunately, we have come very close to a tragedy and, I think, if we have always talked about the beginning of the third world war, which in general is already underway, then it is now flaring up in a spiral every day more and more strongly.

The struggle for strategically important areas of northern Syria inhabited by Kurds has entered a key phase. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announces his intentions to establish full control over the border territories of the neighboring state, promising to continue Operation Olive Branch in the stronghold of Kurdish resistance - the city of Manbij, after the capture of Afrin. Ankara's plans are becoming a test for its relations with the United States, which considers the Kurds to be agents of its influence in Syria. Mr. Erdogan criticized Washington, accusing it of “supporting terrorists.” The current situation puts Russia in a difficult position. Not wanting to quarrel with Turkey, Moscow is trying to preserve the integrity of Syria, which is threatened by Ankara’s ambitions.

Afrin fell, but did not surrender

Two months after the Turkish army launched Operation Olive Branch in the border areas of Syria on January 20, its main intermediate result was the establishment of Turkish control over the city of Afrin, the center of the enclave where 1.5 million Syrian Kurds live. As follows from the statement of the Turkish General Staff, on Sunday the last units of the People's Self-Defense Forces left Afrin. On Tuesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan assured: “Turkish troops and fighters of the Free Syrian Army will continue the operation in Afrin to clear (the territory.- “Kommersant”) from mines and explosives, as well as to ensure security and stabilize the situation in the city.”

The decision of the Kurdish command to leave Afrin avoided new casualties, given that final stage During the assault, the city was subjected to intense shelling and airstrikes, killing dozens of civilians. The loss of water, food and medicine supplies has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in Afrin.

As the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs said on Tuesday, more than 100 thousand civilians fled the city area due to the escalation of fighting.

Meanwhile, the Kurdish troops, who also left Afrin, promised to move to guerrilla warfare. “We will attack the enemy without hesitation, whether he is a member of pro-Turkish groups or a Turkish soldier,” Brusk Hasaka, an official representative of the People’s Self-Defense Forces based in Afrin, told Kommersant.

We write Afrin, Manbij in our minds

After the capture of Afrin, President Erdogan reported that the Turkish army had “neutralized 3,622 terrorists.” According to him, “Turkey will fight in Syria until it eliminates the terrorist corridor that runs through Manbij, Kobani, Tell Abyad, Ras al-Ain and Qamishli.”

Meanwhile, the operation in Manbij could become an immeasurably more difficult task for the Turkish army and the Syrian opposition forces fighting on its side than the capture of Afrin. The Kurdish-controlled territories in northern Syria were separated from each other before the start of Operation Olive Branch. At the same time, the defenders of Afrin, which was noticeably smaller in area, had much more limited resources for effective defense.

“In the event of a Turkish offensive on Manbij, the situation for Ankara will be radically different from the operation in Afrin. If in Afrin the Turkish army was opposed exclusively by the Kurdish People's Defense Forces, then in Manbij it will have to deal with the Forces of Democratic Syria - a broader coalition that includes not only Kurds, but also Arabs. In addition, in Afrin, the defenders of the city did not have the support of the United States, which they are counting on in Manbij,” Mark Pierini, a former EU ambassador to Syria and Turkey and visiting researcher at Carnegie Europe, explained to Kommersant.

“Any attempts by Ankara to carry out a blitzkrieg in Manbij will be perceived in Washington as a hostile step,” says Mr. Pierini.

According to him, the United States initially supported the “Forces of Democratic Syria” and the “People’s Self-Defense Forces” in the fight against the “Islamic State” (banned in the Russian Federation), because they did not trust Turkey to solve this problem.

Another Kommersant interlocutor, Cairo-based editor-in-chief of the regional Arab Digest website Hugh Miles, agrees with Mark Pierini’s point of view. “Ankara needs guarantees that Kurdish areas in Syria and Iraq will not come into contact with Turkish territories, also inhabited by Kurds. In Afrin, this problem was solved by creating a “buffer zone”. But in Manbij, where American troops are stationed, the situation is much more complex. The question of whether the United States will agree to give Ankara freedom of action remains open,” said Hugh Miles.

According to the SETA Foundation's Ankara-based security director Murat Yilsiktas, "a military conflict between the United States and Turkey should not happen in Manbij." “The US does not want to lose Turkey. The Trump administration understands: Russia can take advantage of the situation to try to change Turkey’s strategic vector in its favor,” Mr. Yilsiktas told Kommersant. According to him, “Turkey is waiting for the American proposal on Manbij, and if it turns out to be acceptable to it, then it will not take any military action there.”

One of the scenarios for a possible compromise was outlined by President Erdogan himself. “If America truly wants to work with us in the fight against terrorism, it must begin removing terrorists from areas east of the Euphrates,” he said. Ankara believes that a key condition of the deal should be the prevention of any attempts to redeploy Kurdish units from Manbij to Afrin.

The situation around Manbij was declared the main topic of negotiations in Washington between Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. They were scheduled for March 19, but the sudden resignation of Rex Tillerson forced the Turkish minister to cancel his visit to the United States, causing a forced pause in the dialogue between the parties.

“The new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will need one to two weeks to study in detail our plans for Manbij,” said President Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin. According to him, Turkey expects that “the United States will keep its previous promises” to withdraw Kurdish forces from Manbij. However, there was no official confirmation from Washington that such promises were made to Ankara.

Moscow's Kurdish dilemma

The creation of a Turkish zone of control in Syria puts Russia in a difficult position. Not wanting to quarrel with Turkey, Moscow is trying to preserve the territorial integrity of Syria. However, the Turkish side is in no hurry to transfer under the control of Damascus the security zones created as part of Operation Olive Branch and the previous Operation Euphrates Shield.

“On the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, the Americans, with the help of the Kurds, liberated large territories from terrorists. But, having liberated these territories, they are installing local authorities there who are deliberately isolating themselves from Damascus,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Meanwhile, not only Washington, but also Ankara does not want to communicate with Damascus. In turn, having no real levers to limit Ankara’s ambitions, Moscow was also forced to abandon support for the Kurds, although such a step was fraught with serious political costs for it.

“The continuation of the Turkish operation against the Kurds runs counter to the peace process in Geneva and Astana and contradicts the guarantees that Russia has given to the Syrian Kurds since September 2015,” concludes Mark Pierini.

Sergei Strokan, Maxim Yusin, Marianna Belenkaya