the fear of a new Turkish military offensive against the Kurds

Since 2016, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched three offensives in northern Syria. Offensives that allowed him to establish a buffer zone 30 kilometers deep and 120 km long to separate Turkey from the territories in the hands of the YPG, these Kurdish fighters assimilated by the Turkish regime to a terrorist organization, because of their links with the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers’ Party). President Erdogan has never hidden his desire to take control of a much larger strip of land that would go from the Afrin region in the west, conquered by Turkey in 2018, to the city of Qamishli in the west. This is where Russia, by the way, has an air base.

In the middle of this strip of territory is Kobané. A symbolic city since it was besieged by Daesh in 2014 before being liberated a year later by Kurdish fighters supported by Washington and who have not left it since. The United States, which still has around 2,000 soldiers present in eastern Syria, has repeatedly expressed its concern and is stepping up its diplomatic efforts to stop a possible Turkish offensive, which it believes could destabilize the region. But nothing seems to stop Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the timing works in his favor. Isolated on the international scene after the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Russia, although a stakeholder in the Syrian dossier, has other priorities. Part of the Russian contingent in Syria, made up of 5,000 men, has been redeployed to Donbass. Moscow does not seem determined to curb the ardor of Turkey, which President Erdogan intends to take advantage of to advance his pawns in the region.

The Turkish president is also convinced that his Western allies will not oppose a new operation in Syria at a time when Sweden and Finland hope to join NATO. Two countries accused by Turkey of harboring Kurdish militants whom it considers to be terrorists. This sensitive issue could serve as leverage to obtain concessions from Washington. Recep Tayyip Erdogan finally has another project: he wants to repatriate to northern Syria one million Syrian refugees out of the 3.7 million who live on Turkish soil and whose presence is a source of tension in the country. The refugee issue has become an electoral issue in Turkey. One year before the presidential election, a military offensive could reinvigorate its sluggish popularity and galvanize nationalist sentiment, as was the case in 2019 during Operation “Source of Peace” which was launched in northern Syria after the defeat of his AKP party in the municipal elections of Istanbul and Ankara.