QAMISHLI, Syria - In Kurdish-administered northeast Syria (Rojava), locals accused ceasefire guarantors Russia and the United States of staying silent as Turkey threatens a new military offensive against Kurdish forces.
“They do their businesses here at the expense of us. There is no hope for us. Turkey, Russia and the US are following their own interests here at the expense of Kurds,” Fekhri Ferho, a resident of Qamishli, said on Monday.
Moscow and Washington brokered separate ceasefire agreements to end a 2019 Turkish incursion into Rojava, the goal of which was to push Kurdish forces back from the Syria-Turkey border around the cities of Sari Kani (Ras al-Ayn) and Gire Spi (Tal Abyad). Turkey is now threatening another offensive.
Russia and the United States “put their interests above what Kurds demand. Though they claim they attack, I do not think it will happen. Russia has brought its warplanes to the Qamishli airport. God willing, nothing will happen on the ground,” Hejar Derwish, a resident of Qamishli, told Rudaw on Monday.
“We hope [Turkish President] Erdogan will avoid this country and let people and families once again return to their homes and properties and rebuild them. We were very saddened by what happened in Sari Kani. We are predicting that the same thing will happen to us as well,” said a resident of Qamishli, Rami Eyshe.
Turkey has already carried out three major military operations in Syria, two of them directly targeting Kurdish forces, and Turkish politicians frequently say they are concerned about security along the border. Ankara considers the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) to be a branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and a threat to its national security.
Tal Rifaat is a focus of Turkey’s new threats. Tal Rifaat is located in northwest Syria. The city is surrounded by farmlands, located halfway between Aleppo and the Turkish border. The YPG seized control of the sub-district and the nearby Menagh airbase from the Islamic State (ISIS) in early 2016 and established a Kurdish administration there, named Shahba Canton.
Today, it is a small pocket of territory with Turkish-backed militias to the west, north, and east, regime forces to the south, and rebel-held Idlib to the southwest. It houses thousands of Kurds who fled Afrin when Ankara and its Syrian proxies invaded in 2018, forcing the YPG out.
Turkey accuses Kurdish forces of using the Tal Rifaat area to attack its forces, a charge the Kurdish forces deny.
The two ceasefires between Turkey and Russia and the US in Rojava, and a third between Turkey and Russia in rebel-held Idlib in 2020 have brought some stability but have been violated multiple times.
Video editing by Sarkawt Mohammed
