The Kurds in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are a source of friction with Turkey “and we are doing all we can to mitigate their concerns, not only about how we are going after ISIS in Raqqa and the Euphrates River Valley, but the long term relationship we have with Turkey,” Four Star General Joseph Dunford explained at the annual Aspen Security Forum.
"I will tell you that any political and military solution in Syria is going to be completed with full recognition of Turkey’s long-term interests are from a security perspective,” he added.
The US-led international coalition has supported the SDF in military operations against ISIS in the Euphrates River Valley with arms, training, air support and vetting, much to the dismay of Turkey, which views the sizeable Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
The PKK has continued its three-decades-long guerrilla insurgency against the Turkish government. This has often caused tensions between the United States and Turkey, two important NATO allies.
Dunford stated that two years ago there were only 200 partners on the ground.
“Tonight, we have over 50,000 Syrians on the ground taking the fight to ISIS, and about half of them are Arabs and half are Kurds,” Dunford said. "[These Syrian Democratic Forces] are the ones who have taken back this wide swath of land in Northeast Syria and really put us in a position where ISIS in Syria will no longer be in possession of ground.”
Turkey has backed the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in northern Syria, sometimes clashing with Kurdish fighters. Dunford repeated the coalition line of all players in the Levant staying focused on defeating ISIS.
The strategy now is to sever the links connecting ISIS, including foreign fighters, the flow of money and resources, and the ideology. So far this strategy has been successful, he explained.
The US coalition established an information-sharing base in the Middle East in order to exchange information and intelligence, Dunford stated, referring to the program US President Donald Trump announced earlier this summer on his visit to Saudi Arabia. The general said that there are now more than 20 countries participating in the effort.
Dunford was asked if Russia still had the greatest influence over the Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s regime or if Iran was now the primary influencer.
He replied, “In my judgment, Iran and Russia have divergent long-term political objectives inside of Syria and the longer the campaign goes on the more exposed those divergent political objectives are in my assessment.
“And I think it's fair to say that Russia and Iran are competing for influence on the regime at this point. I'm not sure I'd call whether Iran or Russia is the most influential, but I think that marriage of the Syrian regime, the Russian Federation and Iran is not one that will endure.”
While he believes that there must be a political solution to end the six-year civil war in Syria, Dunford believes that divergent political objectives will be necessary to address the issue of Iran and Russia’s interests in Syria.
“What Iran wants at the end of the day in the region is different than what Russia wants at the end of the day,” Dunford said. “I think they can agree on stabilization in Syria - of course that's why Russia intervened in the fall of 2015.
“But when you look at what Russia wants in the long-term, which is a presence inside of Syria, an effective naval base and air base to be able to project influence in the region, and what Iran wants, it's hard for me to see how you reconcile those two perspectives.”
