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Turkey, ISIS, Kurds and Syria

On ISW Warning Update: Kurdish Terrorism in Europe
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Turkish state media has attributed all the attacks and demonstrations to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – a designated terrorist group which is currently fighting an active insurgency against Turkey. On November 16, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Germany of giving the PKK support “implicitly or explicitly.” He then accused Belgium of supporting anti-Turkish militants, calling it “an important center for [the] PKK.” Erdogan’s accusations against the European governments are overstated, but the unrest does show some links to the PKK. The AYI openly seeks the release of PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan, who has been imprisoned in Turkey since 1999. At the demonstrations, protestors have been carrying placards with Öcalan’s picture. Although European governments have condemned the arrests, they have yet to respond to the protests or attacks officially.

Indicators that the unrest will continue are continued calls for protests by leaders of the Kurdish diaspora. The situation could escalate if the AYI injures a Turkish national. Additionally, if Erdogan-loyal Turkish populations begin counter-protesting, the likelihood for violence is high. The continued AYI attacks and Kurdish protests have the potential to further damage the already fraught relationships between the European Union and Turkey.

European governments will attempt to prevent attacks on consulates but will not suppress Kurdish protests due to protection of free speech, angering a repressive Erdogan. European failure to protect Turkish property or to denounce protest movements could further damage European-Turkish relations. This burgeoning problem could undermine the March 18, 2016 deal between the EU and Turkey, wherein Turkey promised to stem the flow of refugees to Europe in exchange for financial aid, visa-free travel for Turkish citizens, and additional progress towards EU membership. Additionally, soured relationships, as indicated by further statements by Erdogan, could hinder cooperation between Europe and Turkey on the anti-ISIS campaign in Iraq and Syria and further Turkish-Russian rapprochement.
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Been bubbling up between nationalist/Salafi Turks and PKK supporters in Europe for some time. This can turn rather nasty quickly.
 
Haringey has the biggest Kurdish and Turkish community in the uk and it's generally amicable. Neither like Islamists
This lot never came back
 
On POEMPS Why did the PKK declare Revolutionary People’s War in July 2015?
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Counterfactuals are useful if not necessary in the absence of real experiments in the social sciences. In an effort to summarize the five hypotheses outlined in this brief memo, one can summarize each in the form of a counterfactual question and posit a tentative answer on the basis of what we know from publicly available sources. Would the PKK launch its July 2015 offensive in the absence of the HDP’s historically high polling in the June 2015 elections? Would the PKK launch its offensive if the HDP demonstrated unswerving and indisputable obedience to the PKK? My answer to each of these questions would be a tentative “yes.” Would the PKK launch its offensive if Turkey unofficially recognized and even supported the PYD state in Syria? I think the answer to that question is “almost certainly no,” because such recognition would provide the PKK leadership and the rank-and-file both a symbolic and a substantive victory in achieving their ultimate goal of creating a Kurdish socialist state in the Middle East, and hence would justify extending the ceasefire with Turkey. Finally, if Turkey struck a deal with Russia, Iran, and even the Assad regime itself, about the future of Syria that envisioned shrinking the territory controlled by the PYD, would the PKK launch its offensive? My answer would be, “possibly yes, but with much greater difficulty,” because the PKK is not an actor that is entirely or primarily subservient to the Iranian-Syrian geopolitical axis, as some Turkish observers seem to think. The PKK could launch an offensive against Turkey, as long as it felt the PYD entity in Syria or the PKK’s position within Turkey were threatened, even if Turkey mended its relations with Russia, Iran, or the Assad regime in Syria, which are considered geopolitical patrons of the PKK at one time or another.

In short, PKK’s fateful decision to end the ceasefire and launch Revolutionary People’s War against Turkey in the first half of July 2015 had enormous social and political consequences that cannot be overstated. Despite its significance, however, the cause(s) that motivated this critical decision have not been systematically studied and scrutinized. In this brief memo I formulated five potentially plausible hypotheses based on some of the popularly cited reasons for the PKK offensive in order explain this decision, and discussed some of the claims in favor and against them.
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Well with Moscow restarting the USSR's ME policy in Syria it would have been natural for the GRU to look to their old friends in the PKK for possibilities.

The Persian way would be to offer Ankara the destruction of Rojava and tease the PKK command up in Qandil Rojava's unification. While planning they slam into each other with much blood and feathers at somewhere like al Bab. Incidentally buggering up the Great Satan's under thought plans for Syria.

I suspect restarting the war in SE Turkey was simply what Qandil had been preparing to do for some time despite Apo's attempt at peace making and the comrades got a bit over excited because of some combination of all of the above. In retrospect it looks like hubris but the signs were favourable; history appeared to be marching the PKK's way. The morale effect of US airpower flipping the PKK's desperate losing grind against IS in Syria into the relatively easy conquest of large chunks of Syria should not be underestimated. It perhaps would have been wiser to see that as a moment of strength in the political process to protect those fragile gains but how could the PKK resist the revolutionary momentum.

As the article points out the war in the SE drastically cut HDP support. A major part of the HDP's appeal was that in Troubles terms it represented the "ballot box" not the "Armalite". Incremental advances in Kurdish empowerment under the AKP in Turkey were really as unwelcome as the Civil Rights movement peacefully sought for reforms were to the IRA. IS's well conceived provocative attacks on PKK targets in Turkey were reflexively blamed on the Deep State by the PKK. The sudden igniting of a savage civil war in Turkey seems to have been a big factor in tensions in the Turkish military that led to a failed mutiny centred on the TAF. That led to the rapid empowerment of Sultan Erdogan and that to both Euphrates Shield and the pursuit of PKK aligned politicians. Which will leave just the old men (and women it's the PKK) of violence in their cave wondering what bit of Rojava the TSK will chew on next.
 
On Lawfare Four Myths about the Kurds, Debunked
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The United States has found itself in a difficult position. It has cobbled together an alliance of groups bound only by their opposition to the Islamic State. The Kurds are at the heart of this conundrum: the United States has partnered with Kurds in Iraq and Syria at the expense of a long-standing NATO ally in Turkey and a delicate relationship with Baghdad. What happens between these parties when the Islamic State falls could have significant consequences for U.S. policy in the region. The Kurds expect U.S. support post-Islamic State, but they will likely be disappointed. The U.S. partnership with Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria, along with Erdogan’s increasing authoritarianism, is damaging the U.S.-Turkey relationship. And the United States has long-supported a unified Iraq, a reality that is once again being called into question. And all of this falls during a time when many of our traditional alliances are facing an uncertain future. The United States needs to assess its core strategic priorities, rather than react to near-term objectives. In the end, this is a problem of our own creation and one that we will continue to struggle with (and repeat) without a coherent strategy.
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It's got to be a much more knotty problem once the Russians intervened in Syria making Turkey much more salient in NATO's containment strategy. The PKK is becoming a victim of its own territorial conquests and running headlong into Syria's Sunni Arab rebels and the TSK at al Bab. Barzani in Irbil looks increasingly like a Central Asian Stan despot while his boss Sultan Erdogan overreaches. Tensions between the alphabet soup of Kurdish factions seem to grow rather than diminish with aspirations to nationhood.
 
On MEE How the Turkish army and Kurdish fighters reduced this town to ruins
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“No one here can explain the whole truth for you – we are afraid,” says one Sirnak resident, who didn't want to give his name.

“We think they will take Arab refugees to live in the new flats. Two thousand flats have been destroyed but the state is building 6,000. Maybe the state will sell us the 4,000 flats and earn money.”

MEE contacted the Sirnak governorate for a statement but received no response. “We gave out all information through official channels and we will not answers any questions," they said.

Sirnak, like much of the southeast, has felt the constant ebb and flow of the PKK-Turkey war since it began in 1984. While the Turkish army is most often the subject of residents' anger, many also blame Kurdish militants, often arguing that “if they hadn’t brought the clashes to the city centre, this wouldn’t have happened”.

Repeated attacks by alleged PKK militants in urban centres and continuing operations by the Turkish state mean that a solution to the current crisis appears less and less likely in the near future.
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Not the first time, Sirnak was wrecked in 92 as well. Utterly pointless, the TSK can't eliminate the PKK and the PKK isn't really getting anywhere in decades of warfare in Turkey. Worse indirectly this daft campaign in SE Turkey endangered their gains in Syria and finally led to Euphrates Shield.
 
'Rojava' no longer exists, 'Northern Syria' adopted instead


Syrian Kurdish parties and their multi-ethnic and religious allies announced on Wednesday the completion of the draft constitution for a system of federal government in northern Syria.

The groups of the three Kurdish-controlled regions held a conference in Syria's Kurdish-held northeastern town of Rmeilan and agreed on dropping the word 'Rojava' (the Kurdish word for West, indicating Western Kurdistan) from the name of the proposed federal system of government that was adopted in March 2016.

Speaking to Kurdistan24, Luqman Ehme a member of Northern Syria Federal System Organizing Council said the groups discussed the draft of the blueprint and changing the name was one of the agreed decisions.

"The title Democratic Federal System for Rojava-Northern Syria was changed into Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria after long discussions among the groups of northern Syria, though many parties rejected this change," he said.

On the reason of removing the word Rojava, Ehme said Rojava's plan is to join the mainly Arab provinces of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zur in northern Syria...
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Concerning disinformation and lack of press freedom, on the one hand we have IS claiming responsibility for the Istanbul nightclub attack (well it's either going to be them or that extremist Kurdish splinter group, TAK) but the pro government Daily Sabah along with a couple of other pro government publications is apparently claiming that:

Screen Shot 2017-01-02 at 12.47.38.png

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Hürriyet Daily News | LEADING NEWS SOURCE FOR TURKEY AND THE REGION

A women calling for secularism was detained after participating in a speech protesting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) attack on Istanbul’s Reina nightclub that killed 39 people and wounded 65 others.

The video of a speech delivered by a member of the Halkevleri (People’s Houses), Ergin Çevik, at a teahouse in the Istanbul neighborhood of Okmeydanı calling for secularism emerged on social media on Jan. 1, prompting a user to report it to the Interior Ministry asking for the “traitors to be stopped.” ...
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Really fucking helpful:facepalm:

Meanwhile the Indy runs an article

Can Turkey's tourist industry survive this latest atrocity?

which focusses purely on the aspect of whether it is safe a tourist to visit the country and largely ignores the increasingly dictatorial aspect of the government
 
RIP

Briton killed while fighting against Isis in Syria

A British man has been killed fighting against Islamic State in northern Syria, his family and Kurdish activists have said.

Ryan Lock, 20, from Chichester, West Sussex, died on 21 December during an offensive by anti-Islamic State forces to recapture the city of Raqqa, the extremist group’s de facto capital.

Lock’s father, Jon, said in a statement: “Ryan was a very caring and loving boy who would do any thing to help anyone. He had a heart of gold. We ask for privacy to allow our family to grieve.”

Lock, who had no previous military experience and had worked as a chef before travelling to Syria, was one of many foreign volunteers who have joined the People’s Defence Units (YPG), the Kurdish military force fighting in northern Syria.

In a letter, the YPG offered their condolences to his family, saying: “Ryan joined actively in our offensive against the terror threat that Isis caused upon Rojava, Kurdistan. Here, on the dark hours of 21 December 2016, we lost our brave companion Ryan and four other fighters in Jaeber village.

“Ryan was not only a fighter providing additional force to our struggle. In fact, with his experience and knowledge he has been an example for younger fighters. While he has reached a vast amount of achievement up in our frontlines, Ryan has served the purpose of a very important bridge between us, the Kurds of Rojava. He crossed continents for the destiny of our people and humanity.”

It is understood that Lock travelled to Syria last August after telling family and friends that he was going to Turkey on holiday.

In a message on Facebook on 31 August, he wrote: “I’m on my way to Rojava. I lied about going to Turkey. I’m sorry I didn’t tell anyone. I love all of you and I will be back in six months.”

He joined up with the YPG on 4 September where he was given the nom de guerre Berxwedan Givara, meaning “resistance Guevara”, after the Communist revolutionary Che Guevara.

On 24 November he witnessed the deaths of most of his unit when it was bombed, allegedly by Turkish jets, in Arima, a village 13 miles north-east of the Isis-held city of Bab.

Twelve YPG fighters were killed in the airstrike, including an American, Michael Israel, and a German national, Anton Leschek.

Afterwards, Lock posted a picture of himself with facial injuries, along with the words: “We were taking a small village when we got hit by Turkish jets in the night. Two of my friends, Anton and Michael, were killed among many others. I’m staying to finish out my six months. Fuck [Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan and fuck Turkey.”
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