Syrian Kurdish forces to push on IS capital this summer

The SDF is spearheaded by the PKK/PYD and its armed wing, the PKK/YPG. ISIS has considered Raqqa as its capital for the past four years.

If that’s true, then Erdogan will find out shortly just how committed we are to retrieving our heavy materiel. Approving a plan of sending arms to Kurdish rebels fighting ISIS, he aggravated the situation in the Middle East even more.

The announcement to equip the SDF with weapons was a snub to Turkey, which doesn’t want the Syrian Kurdish-led force to take Raqqa and has offered its own troops instead. The seizure of this important strategic facility has practically opened the way to the capital of ISIS, Raqqa. We are in need of weapons ourselves, and as support we are asking for weapons. But this step is necessary in order for our forces to liberate Raqqa.

US-backed forces got ISIS fighters to surrender a Syrian town near Raqqa, and, surprisingly, it’s not the first time.

Turkey’s pro-government Daily Sabah suggested that Obama administration holdovers had somehow snookered Trump officials, ramming through the decision on arming the Kurds before Erdogan arrives here.

“As a volunteer that has spent years supporting the YPG, I’m astonished this sort of help didn’t come sooner. If the alliance is to be overshadowed we’ll have to sort things out for ourselves”, Erdogan told reporters on Sunday, according to the pro-government Sabah newspaper. “The renewed commitment from the U.S.to provide heavy weapons will double the Kurds’ effectiveness in defeating Daesh [ISIS]”, Macer Gifford, a British former volunteer with the YPG, told Syria Deeply.

Yildirim said Turkey proposed cooperation for a more effective fight against the PKK, that is also banned in Britain. Turkish air strikes carried out against Kurds in Syria and Iraq last week displayed Erdogan’s seriousness of goal and resolve. As evidence, it points to US weapons seized from the PKK – saying they were funneled from the YPG – and the fact that the United States has been unable to dislodge Kurdish fighters from controlling Arab parts of northern Syria that they have seized, with USA assistance under Obama, along the Turkish border.

The advance came after Turkey hit out at the USA for allying itself with a “terrorist organisation” over its own troops, with Ankara claiming support for Kurdish SDF factions it considers extremist “will have consequences”.

No, “Turkey has concluded it is better to be on the in than the out”, Stein added. The airport is located in the hardline militants’ remaining enclave in the eastern Aleppo countryside, a region where they have mostly lost control to competing forces ranging from the Syrian army, US-backed Kurdish-led forces to Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels.

Next week’s meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will be an opportunity to “correct the mistake” of the U.S. decision to arm Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said. And the weapons delivered to the YPG by Turkey’s allies have been used against Turkish civilians and security forces in the past.

In this April 6, 2017 photo, President Donald Trump speaks at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., after the USA fired a barrage of cruise missiles into Syria.

But Trump’s strongest case-which he should make to Erdogan in their scheduled meeting next week in Washington-is that it’s in Turkey’s interest to accept this policy.

Turkey’s short-term response is likely to include increased pressure on YPG positions in Syria.

He said: “With the Raqqa operation in Syria there has been a difference of opinion about the Raqqa operation – but regarding our relationship with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, our strategic partnership with the United States – it will not be destroyed by this, the mistake will be fixed”.

“We agree 100 percent with Turkey’s concern about PKK, a named terrorist group”. The prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, sounded more realistic when he stated that Turkey can not possibly declare war on the U.S. Nevertheless, his words only express desperation.

Dr. Nasr Haji Mansour, a senior SDF adviser in Syria, disagrees.

The Kurds, meanwhile, will assume that the blood and treasure they have spent in the fight against Islamic terrorists has earned them long-term support from Washington.

Last week, the Pentagon announced that US President Donald Trump had approved arming what it called “Kurdish elements” of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group dominated by the YPG.