Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
From my armchair a good explanation of what is the situation in Afrin, NW Syria; an area controlled by the Kurdish YPG, but cut off from the main YPG enclave along the Turkish border.
It's the largest area clearly controlled by the PKK.

Of course, the latter is appearing under the 'PYD/YPG' banner...

The Turkish military operation against the Efrin enclave was a matter of time; really expected 'since years'. There was never any kind of a doubt that Turkey would attack: question was only when, and under what circumstances.

As a reminder: the PKK/PYD/YPG-conglomerate is dominated by the PKK, an organisation considered ‘terrorist’ by all of the NATO, by the USA, and at war with Turkey since more than 30 years. The PKK/PYD/YPG-conglomerate continues to consider Turkey as its primary enemy. Regardless of the nature and politics of its government, as a nation-state, Turkey has a vital-interest in neutralising the PKK’s control over any areas along its borders.

Secondary reason for this operation seems to be the Turkish conclusion that the latest Russian and Iranian operations against Turkey-supported Syrian insurgents in northern Hama, Idlib and southern Aleppo provinces are violating earlier agreements between Ankara, Moscow and Tehran.

Finally, Turkey has another national security interest – which is to prevent the intake of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria. Because the latest Iranian and Russian offensives have created a movement of thousands of refugees in direction of the Turkish border, Ankara was forced to search for alternatives. Wrestling the control of the Efrin enclave from the PKK/PYD/YPG conglomerate would enable Turks to harbour additional refugees in that zone instead inside Turkey.

BTW, the propaganda machinery of the PKK/PYD/YPG conglomerate is already in tears. For example: the WP published the article ‘We’re trying to build democracy in Syria. So why is Turkey attacking us?’

While declared ‘pluralist’ and ‘tolerant’ by most of the Western media, the PKK/PYD/YPG-conglomerate not only never distanced from its violently authoritarian history, but is showing clear intentions to continue ruling parts of Syria under its control in the very same fashion. Contrary to the widespread practice of uncritical forwarding of the PKK/PYD propaganda by the international media, the group has shown no intention to establish anything like a pluralist, democratic system of rule in the areas it controls. On the contrary, it made itself responsible of widespread atrocities and violations of human rights, such war crimes like ethnic cleansing of the Arab population, intimidation and executions of other Syrian Kurdish leaders and their political parties, forceful recruitment and similar.

Foremost its online fans insist on terming the Kurdish militants controlling the Efrin enclave as ‘SDF’ – i.e. as a part of the US-run ‘Syrian Democratic Force’, acclaimed as ‘the most effective anti-IS force in Syria’. Even the Deutsche Welle claims ‘Turkey (is) attacking the most effective anti-IS force in Syria’.

The PKK/PYD/YPG militants controlling the Efrin enclave are no ‘SDF’: they have never received any kind of support from the Pentagon, nor were ever a part of the CENTCOM-controlled command structure of the SDF. Unsurprisingly, when directly challenged about this issue, the Pentagon clearly stated:

‘We don’t consider them as part of our Defeat ISIS operations, which is what we are doing there. We do not support them, we are not involved with them at all.’

And finally: no matter what they babble, neither the PKK, nor PYD or YPG are anything like 'representatives of all the Kurds'. I.e. Turkey is not 'attacking Kurds' in the Efrin enclave, but a terrorist organisation.