Assad hands control of Syria’s Kurdish areas to PKK, sparking outrage in Turkey

[TomClash]

Source: McClatchey

Assad hands control of Syria’s Kurdish areas to PKK, sparking outrage in Turkey
By Roy Gutman | McClatchy Newspapers

ISTANBUL — President Bashar Assad, facing a growing rebel presence in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and its commercial hub, has turned control of parts of northern Syria over to militant Kurds who Turkey has long branded as terrorists, prompting concern that Istanbul might see the development as a reason to send troops across its border

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in comments late Wednesday, said that Turkey would not accept an entity in northern Syria governed by the Iraq-based Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has long waged a guerrilla war against Turkey, and its Syrian affiliate, the Democratic Union Party.

He said the two groups had built a “structure in northern Syria” that for Turkey means “a structure of terror.”

“It is impossible for us to look favorably at such a structure,” he said in an interview with a private television channel.

He warned that if Syrian Kurdish militants mount a terror operation or some other form of cross-border provocation against Turkey, “then intervening would be our most natural

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/07/26/157943/assad-hands-control-of-syrias.html

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Ominous.

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. Why am I reminded of Yeats' "The Second Coming"?

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[SteveG]

7. One of the few poems I ever bothered to memorize

I seems to reflect our times well.

[still_one]

2. Should this come as any surprise? When someone tweaks something in the Mideast it always brings on

Unintended consequences

That is why when bush and company decided to invade Iraq, based on a lie, it also had unintended consequences

Hopefully they can gag Romney because who knows what unintended consequences he will provide if he opens his mouth

[David__77]

3. If it's true, it's a smart strategic move.

And it is absolutely moral to cede power to them instead of the Salafist terrorists.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

5. It's a delaying tactic.

He could spend years negotiating borders.

In the process he would get to identify the leaders.

[bemildred]

13. It's a desperate move, but clever.

It does not bode well for an early peaceful resolution of the war, among other things it shows Assad is willing to drag some other countries into the war in an attempt to change the dynamic, and it indicates a "to the death" attitude.

And it makes clear that Syria is about to become another failed colonial political pasteup.

[Kaleva]

4. An independent Kurdistan would mean several nations losing chunks of territory

The Kurds make up a majority in parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

[amandabeech]

6. This is not good. n/t

[David__77]

9. Why is this not good?

I am asking because I'd like to hear a contrary analysis.

The party active in the Kurdish region of Syria is secular and aligned with the National Coordinating Body, the leftist/patriotic Syrian opposition. They do not even want independence - just recognition of Syria as a multi-national federative state.

[TomClash]

12. It may transform the war

. . . from a civil war to a border war, a regional confrontation or worse.

[Igel]

14. It's already done.

Turkey's opening defending the rebels and their HQ in Turkey. They're helping with logistics and supplies. The supplies aren't just humanitarian and they're assisting with other states' supplies of aide and munitions.

If there's a civil war and you're openly helping your opening, it's an act of war.

Once you're sufficiently biased, however, nothing you do is an act of war. It's just a necessary step for helping to achieve a just peace. It's helping to secure your borders. It's all defensive--the seige of Tripoli was part of defending Benghazi, and denying medical supplies to hospitals was "humanitarian" because it ended the war sooner. (Heck, by that measure a-bombing Nagasaki was a 'humanitarian gesture'.)

So take this. The Kurds in Turkey are rebels. They'd merrily do things like blow up a Turkish defense minister or take over police checkpoints. All things that we think are great when the Syrian rebels do it. They operate across the Turkey-Syria border, something we think is great when the Syrian rebels do it. There's an ethnic/religious dimension to it--oppression by a stranger, in some sense--in both cases. Sunnis fighting Alawites, Kurds fighting Turks.

But Turkey can say, "I'm not actually doing the fighting." Now Syria can say the same thing. But Syria has the added bonus of telling the Kurds, "The Arabs want to take over your territory. Look at Iraq. You should defend it." Scorched earth, if nothing else. But then again I tend to think having a Kurdish state wouldn't be a bad thing.

[MNBrewer]

10. It's wonderful

The Kurdish people deserve a homeland.

[riderinthestorm]

8. Are there still ANY DUers who still believe this is an Arab Spring type revolution?

Or are they starting to finally realize this is a dangerous regional, sectarian problem?

Overthrowing/assassinating Assad will blow the lid off this Pandora's box....

This is ominous news. Scary but the only thing Assad could rationally do.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

11. I do not and haven't...

... headlines a week or two ago said, "Al Qaeda in Iraq heading to Syria", so this seems like an appropriate response from Assad. I wonder when Assad is going to release his files on suspected terrorist that were, "renditioned", to Syria so the Syrians could do our dirty work for us under uncle Dick.

The Assad regime(s) in Syria have been amongst the most secular in the Middle East. The Alewites are actually. "quasi Islamic and quasi Christian", as it shares some beliefs and holidays, under different names, as both of the mentioned religions. I cannot see any of the other involved groups in this, "revolution", being as stable as the Assad regime(s) have been. Much of the fighting, as elsewhere in the Middle East (look to all the factions that were actively fighting in Lebanon the past 30 years) is all based on religious differences, old animosities between such groups, etc...