Who is the Kurds’ guardian?

US President Trump’s Tweet, “Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds” has sparked off a fresh crisis in US-Turkish relations. First Presidential Spokesperson Kalın said, “Turkey is battling terrorists not the Kurds,” and then Presidential Communications Head Fahrettin Altun commented, “Turkey is the Kurds’ guardian not their enemy.”

A mere month ago (on 14 December), Trump said in a phone call he had with Erdoğan that they would withdraw from Syria and this decision begged the question of whether the US had left the Kurds in the lurch once more, given that, never mind earlier times, in 2017 the US had also failed to give the Iraqi Kurds the necessary support over the “independence referendum” and stood by as the Iraqi central administration intervened. The expectation thus arose that the US’s withdrawal decision would open the way for the operation east of the Euphrates that the Turkish administration had been preparing for a long time.

However, the abandoning by the Kurds (Democratic Syrian Forces-DSF) of Manbij, expected to be the first target of a potential intervention, to the Syrian administration and moreover their commencing talks with the Syrian regime and Russia pointed to the existence other barriers to a potential operation. The Trump administration became uncomfortable with Kurds’ rapid search for a basis for agreement with the Syrian regime and Russia, with whom they had cooperated since 2014 and who provided them with their only support in Syria. A series of comments then started to emanate from the US administration (by US Secretary of State Pompeo and Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton) that they would protect the Kurds. But this latest statement by Trump sets itself apart from the others in containing a threat to the administration in Turkey.

As is known, a delegation including, apart from Bolton, the US’s Special Representative for Syria Engagement and Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS Jeffrey and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dunford held talks in Ankara last week. Even before the visit was made, the media had got wind of a map compiled by the approaching delegation showing the distribution to be made between Turkey and the Kurds in Syria and, according to this map, the aim was for Turkey and the forces it supports to be based in predominantly Arab settlements such as Tel Abyad and, more importantly, the US’s aim by means of this plan was both not to lose the Kurds and to draw the administration in Turkey to its side.

Trump’s threat shows that, at least for the time being, these dealings have not gone as the US wished.

So, looking at the statements that have been made, can we say that the US is the Kurds’ guardian?

Most certainly not. The US granted no audience to the Kurds in Syria from 2011 until the end of 2014 – and for that period the US was the greatest supporter of attempts to overthrow the Syrian regime. But with calculations of overturning the Syrian regime coming to naught and with it starting to lose ground to Russia in the fight for regional (Middle East) domination, it turned to a new policy dubbed the Strategy for Combatting ISIS and entered into cooperation with the Kurds, the most dynamic force combatting ISIS, for this strategy to succeed. That is, as I have said countless times, the US is the friend of its own interests alone and not of the Kurds and it will be no surprise in the least if it leaves the Kurds to face new threats tomorrow as other dealings dictate.

Let us come to the administration’s spokespersons’ comments in reply to Trump that Turkey is the guardian of the Kurds.

The Syrian Kurds set up a de-facto autonomous formation in the summer of 2012 in the north and north-east of Syria along with the Arabs, Syriacs, Armenians and Turkmen living here. These forces are today included among the Democratic Syrian Forces and Syrian Democratic Assembly in the region. So, call the formation here a terrorist formation as much as you will, a very large portion of the people living there support this formation. Moreover, no actual attack or threat against Turkey from these regions up has come into play until now. Under such circumstances, even if you declare your target to be not the people but the terrorist formation, this means you are actually setting your sights on the will the people itself has determined.

Even if you pronounce otherwise, what it boils down to is that you actually see the political formation that has emerged in that region, rather than the military forces, as a threat. For in his time, while talks with Öcalan were continuing, Yalçın Akdoğan described this formation in Syria as a “fantasy” and said it had “created dissatisfaction and arrogance” among the Kurds in Turkey. Let me go further. Wherever the Kurds have made a gain in the region, you have always seen this as a threat to yourselves because you have until now forever acted out of the concern that these gains will stymie the policies you have pursued domestically in the Kurdish problem.

We have also put this to one side. You can convince no one that Turkey is the Kurds’ guardian with it written in your constitution, “Everyone bound to the Turkish State through the bond of citizenship is a Turk” despite being the country that is home to the largest portion of the Kurdish population.

So, who is the Kurds’ guardian?

Until now, the Kurds have only been visible and managed to make gains to the extent they have been able to struggle based on their own strength and organizations. Hence, the Kurds’ guardian is not this imperialist or that reactionary force, but their own organized forces and the struggle they have waged/will wage along with the other oppressed peoples of the region.