President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s partner in his ruling coalition warned Tuesday that the PKK terrorist group's Syrian wing YPG’s plans for so-called elections were grounds for a Turkish offensive against the group in northern Syria.
“Any attempt to meddle with Syria’s administrative structure or so-called democratic maneuvers to establish a ground of legitimacy for the terrorist group is a justified motive for Türkiye to conduct an operation,” Devlet Bahçeli said at a parliamentary meeting of his Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in the capital Ankara.
Bahçeli’s remarks come as backlash has snowballed in northern Syria against the PKK/YPG over its plans to hold so-called elections in the region. Local Kurdish groups like the Kurdish National Council (ENKS) have been protesting the group’s decision as “illegitimate.”
The United States, known for its staunch support for the PKK/YPG, also warned against the elections, saying the conditions were “not feasible.”
The PKK/YPG has since postponed the elections from June 11 to August 2024. Sources said the elections, planned in several regions and towns, from Deir el-Zour and Raqqa to Manbij and Afrin, were postponed due to “intense external pressure.”
For Türkiye, the move is the first step to establishing a “PKK-run state” in Syria’s north, immediately across the border. Türkiye has highlighted that the election was also a threat to the territorial integrity of Syria, which has been mired in a civil war since 2011.
Ankara has pursued diplomatic talks to prevent the elections and has emphasized that the move would endanger border security and regional peace.
Erdoğan recently said the PKK's Syrian extension was intensifying efforts to establish a "terroristan" by oppressing the local population and using various coercive methods, including the expulsion of non-compliant individuals and the use of child soldiers.
Accusing the U.S. of “playing a dangerous game” in Syria, Bahçeli said: “Türkiye respects the political, territorial integrity of Syria and expects other nations to do the same.”
“Türkiye’s rightful and strong reaction has not only made the U.S. backtrack but also delayed the so-called elections,” the MHP leader argued. “But no one can expect us to settle for a delay. These so-called elections the PKK/YPG plans with Washington’s support must be entirely shelved to never again be a topic of contention.”
Bahçeli warned being a “mere spectator to such a betrayal is equivalent to dragging the Turkish land to disaster.”
Turkish forces routinely clash with the PKK/YPG in Syria’s north, where the group seeks to establish a terror corridor along the country’s border, but the operations are a source of strain with Damascus.
After Türkiye warned it would act against the PKK/YPG if it proceeds with its so-called elections, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad last week said the Syrian regime government refuses any dialogue with Türkiye unless it withdraws its troops from the country’s northern territories.
Türkiye has launched three major cross-border operations into Syria since 2016 to liberate regions occupied by terrorist groups and now controls some territories in the north.
Ankara was a main backer of the Syrian opposition fighting against the Assad regime and its allies, as well as the YPG and other assorted terrorist groups. It is also hosting more than 3.5 million refugees from its neighbors.
Attempts to reconcile between Syria and Türkiye have failed to achieve progress since early 2023 despite meetings in Moscow between the countries' foreign ministers and defense ministers.
Taking advantage of the power vacuum created by the Syrian civil war in 2011, the PKK/YPG has since 2015 occupied several Syrian provinces, including Arab-majority Deir el-Zour, a resource-rich region bordering Iraq, bisected by the Euphrates River and home to dozens of tribal communities.
The terrorist group has forced many locals to migrate, bringing in its militants to change the regional demographic structure, conducting arbitrary arrests, kidnapping children of local tribes for forced recruitment, and assassinating tribe leaders to yoke local groups.
It has also seized the region's oil wells – Syria's largest – and smuggles oil to the Syrian regime, despite U.S. sanctions, to generate revenue for its activities.
Since then, U.S. forces in Syria have trained thousands of PKK/YPG terrorists in their military bases in the region under the pretext of combating Daesh terrorism. It has also provided PKK/YPG terrorists with huge amounts of weapons and combat equipment.
The group’s presence weighs on Turkish-U.S. relations, with Ankara often calling on its NATO ally to cut off support to the group and warning against any “interference” on its operations targeting the group in Syria.
