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Context:
Turkish President has announced that Turkish forces alongside the Free Syrian Army had begun armed operations in the Syrian town of Afrin
What is in the news?
- With the conflict with the Islamic State (IS) almost coming to an end, Turkey has taken a major step against the Kurdish fighters on Syrian borders.
- This will bring the US- backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)in direct war with Turkey.
- This a mere extension of the already ongoing war against the Kurds within Turkey’s southern provinces.
What is SDF?
- The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was created in 2015 by the various Syrian Kurdish political forces and their military wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), and the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ).
- The SDF was created as a platform for the Syrian Kurds to join with these other groups into an anti-IS military alliance
What is the background of the conflict?
- Turkey has always ideologically opposed the SDF as it considers it as a Kurdish resurrection movement
- SDF with air support from the U.S., routed the IS from Raqqa in October 2017.
- Subsequently, the Kurdish leadership asked Raqqa’s people to join the Kurdish-run state of “Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (Rojava).
- Rojava is essentially the heart of the conflict
- “Rojava” which means “Western Kurdistan” highlights the Kurdish ambitions of a greater Kurdish state that would include land in Iraq (Eastern Kurdistan) and Turkey (Northern Kurdistan).
- The attempt by Iraqi Kurds in 2017 to declare independence was curtailed by the armed intervention of the Iraqi army into the Kurdish autonomous region.
- A similar attempt by Syrian Kurds to produce an autonomous region on the Syria-Turkish border gave rise to conflicts in Ankara.
