{"id":28920,"date":"2019-01-13T07:22:57","date_gmt":"2019-01-13T07:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=28920"},"modified":"2019-01-13T07:22:57","modified_gmt":"2019-01-13T07:22:57","slug":"pompeo-optimistic-clashes-between-turkey-and-sdf-can-be-avoided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=28920","title":{"rendered":"Pompeo ‘optimistic’ clashes between Turkey and SDF can be avoided"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Washington’s top diplomat said he was “optimistic” an agreement with Ankara could be reached which will protect Syrian Kurdish groups while allowing Turks to “defend their country from terrorists” following a US pullout from Syria.<\/p>\n

“We are confident we can achieve an outcome that achieves both of those,” UnitedStates<\/a>\u00a0Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told journalists on Saturday in the Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n

The Gulf emirate is his latest stop in a regional tour aimed at reassuring allies after a shock December announcement by President Donald Trump that US troops would be withdrawn from Syria.<\/p>\n

Pompeo’s remarks follow tensions between the US and Turkey<\/a> over the fate of Washington’s Syrian Kurdish allies in the fight against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL<\/a>, also known as ISIS)\u00a0fighters.<\/p>\n

Turkey had reacted angrily to suggestions that Trump’s plan to withdraw troops was conditional on the safety of the US-backed Kurdish fighters, seen by the Turkish government as terrorists.<\/p>\n

US-led operations against ISIL in Syria have been spearheaded on the ground by the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces.<\/p>\n

Ankara sees the backbone of that alliance, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), as a terrorist group linked to the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) which has fought a decades-long campaign against the Turkish state.<\/p>\n

Pompeo said that Washington recognised “the Turkish people’s right and (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan’s right to defend their country from terrorists”.<\/p>\n

But, he added, “We also know that those fighting alongside of us for all this time deserve to be protected as well”.<\/p>\n

Pompeo said he had spoken to Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, but did not elaborate on how the protections would be achieved.<\/p>\n

“Many details (are) still to be worked out but I’m optimistic that we can achieve a good outcome,” he said.<\/p>\n

Threatened assault<\/h3>\n

Multiple operations including American-backed assaults have ousted ISIL fighters from most of the swathes of Syria and Iraq they captured in 2014.<\/p>\n

But Trump’s announcement raised fears of a long-threatened Turkish assault against the Kurds.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Cavusoglu repeated that threat, telling NTV television: “If the (pullout) is put off with ridiculous excuses like Turks are massacring Kurds, which do not reflect the reality, we will implement this decision.”<\/p>\n

That came after a tense meeting between Turkish officials and Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton in Ankara, aimed at coordinating the pullout process after Bolton set conditions that appeared to postpone it indefinitely.<\/p>\n

The terms included the total defeat of ISIL – still active in some parts of Syria – and ensuring protection for Kurdish fighters.<\/p>\n

The US-led coalition launched operations against ISIL in September 2014, forming the SDF a year later with some 25,000 Kurdish fighters and 5,000 Arabs.<\/p>\n

Backed by US arms and air support, the YPG-dominated group has overrun the de facto Syrian capital of ISIL, Raqqa, and a large part of Deir Ezzor province.<\/p>\n

But that stirred Turkish fears of a breakaway Kurdish state on its border.<\/p>\n

As well as fighting ISIL, the YPG has also battled pro-Ankara forces in northwestern Syria.<\/p>\n

Trump’s announcement last month prompted the YPG to call on Syrian government troops to deploy alongside their own forces in the north to help counter a potential Turkish offensive.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the US military said Friday it had begun “the process of our deliberate withdrawal from Syria”.<\/p>\n

But US defence officials quickly sought to clarify that while gear was being pulled out, “we are not withdrawing troops at this stage”.<\/p>\n

In an interview with US broadcaster CBS on Saturday, Pompeo said “the president’s guidance is incredibly clear” on the withdrawal.<\/p>\n

Syria’s devastating conflict began in 2011 with anti-government demonstrations that were brutally crushed, sparking a complex war involving multiple foreign armed groups, as well as regional and international powers including the US.<\/p>\n

The withdrawal announcement had also sparked concerns among Arab states and Israel that it could open the way to growing Iranian influence.<\/p>\n

Pompeo has pledged to “expel every last Iranian boot” from Syria, and on Saturday sought to downplay the impact of the US pullout on this goal.<\/p>\n

“The fact that a couple of thousands of uniformed personnel in Syria will be withdrawing is a tactical change,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It doesn’t materially alter our capacity to continue to perform the military actions that we need to perform.”<\/p>\n

The US is looking to create an anti-Iran front – the Middle East Strategic Alliance – bringing together Gulf countries as well as Egypt and Jordan.<\/p>\n

Washington is set to convene an international summit in Poland next month focusing on stability in the Middle East, including countering Iran’s influence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington’s top diplomat said he was “optimistic” an agreement with Ankara could be reached which will protect Syrian Kurdish groups while allowing Turks to “defend their country from terrorists” following a US pullout from Syria. “We are confident we can achieve an outcome that achieves both of those,” UnitedStates\u00a0Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told journalists…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":28921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}