Cyprus-Forum.com

[Cap]

Kurdish YPG welcomes foreign volunteers into its ranks in defense of Afrin against Turkish invaders.

[Robin Hood]

The problem is that Afrin is a part of Syria it is not Kurdish YPG/PKK's to defend ...... no more than Turkey has the right to invade Syria to drive them out. Seems to get more complex every day!

Syria - Turks Attack Afrin, U.S. Strategy Fails, Kurds Again Chose The Losing Side

After negotiations between Russia/Syria and the Kurds of Afrin had failed, the Russian side made a deal with Turkey. Now Turkey attacks Afrin while everyone else looks aside. The main impetus for this development was the announcement of a U.S. occupation in north-east Syria with the help of the Kurdish YPG/PKK. The occupation strategy is already failing. The Kurds made the false choice. They will be the losers of this game.

The Turkish operation to go after Afrin was triggered by two events. The more important one was the U.S. announcement of a permanent occupation of north-east Syria with the help of a 30,000 men strong SDF "border protection force" consisting of mainly Kurds and some Arabs who earlier fought under ISIS.

The Turks were not consulted before the U.S. move and are of course not amused that a "terrorist gang", trained and armed by the U.S., will control a long stretch of their southern border. Any Turkish government would have to take harsh measures to prevent such a strategic threat to the country.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/01/syria-turks-attack-afrin-us-strategy-fails-kurds-again-chose-the-losing-side-.html

[Cap]

Robin, if they don't defend themselves who will?

[Sotos]

The problem is that Afrin is a part of Syria it is not Kurdish YPG/PKK's to defend ...... no more than Turkey has the right to invade Syria to drive them out. Seems to get more complex every day!

The Kurds are the local population, the Turks are foreign invaders. So it is not that complex at all. The Kurds have right for their own independent state which includes parts of Turkey, Syria and Iraq, which are the native lands of the Kurds and where Kurds are the majority.

[Robin Hood]

Robin, if they don't defend themselves who will?

CAP .... they have effectively taken the area from ISIS but it is Syrian territory ......... so it looks like the Syrians are going to do what the US does ...... get other useful idiots to do the fighting for them. In this case the Kurds vs their old enemy, Turkey. Very sad, because Assad did offer the Kurds an autonomous region inside Syria more or less where they are now which they turned down and decided to rely on back-up from the US to get an independent State of their own. Big mistake!

[Robin Hood]

Sotos:

The Kurds are the local population, the Turks are foreign invaders.

Just as I said but it is recognised Syrian territory, just like the Golan Heights!

So it is not that complex at all.

I can’t agree with that. It is not a simple problem to solve .... that’s for sure.

The Kurds have right for their own independent state which includes parts of Turkey, Syria and Iraq, which are the native lands of the Kurds and where Kurds are the majority

.

NOW it gets complicated because they have never had their own State!

I am certainly no expert on the Kurds but this seems to say they are a nomadic tribe of sheep/goat herders and their claim to a state of their own is quite recent. The Treaty of Sevres of 1920 made provision for the Kurdish state. Three years later however, the borders of Turkey were drawn in the Treaty of Lausanne and Kurdistan was not included. The Kurds were thus left with minority status in the states of the Middle East.

So there has never been a Kurdistan as such …… they got sold out!


http://www.newhistorian.com/history-kurds/2654/

Applying the same logic …. don't the Crimean’s, Eastern Ukraine’s, Sth. Ossetian’s, Palestinians, Basques, Catalonians and quite a few others, not deserve the same consideration? After all the US was quick to declare Kosovo as an independent state and they didn’t even get to vote! There seems to be a lot of hypocrisy when it comes to who can and who can’t declare they want an independent State.

However, I read somewhere that Assad had offered them an autonomous region in the north of Syria along the border with Turkey which upset Erdogan but is roughly where they are now. But they refused and with the backing of the US held out for an independent state of their own. It is not the first time the Kurds have rejected offers and have relied on others only to be let down. They are heading the same way again!

The complication is that Turkey is a member of NATO but the US supports a group the Turks regarded as terrorists. The US has used them to clear areas of Syria/Iraq of ISIS but it is now pay back time, promises need to be honoured but the US does not want to upset a NATO member.

So, as I see things ..... it is very complicated.

[repulsewarrior]

Who remembers the leader of the Kurds, who stood at the invitation of Ataturk beside him in Parliament with the world witnessing Turkey born?

...and at his execution his last wish was to be buried in a grave by the side of a road so that his fellow Kurds could spit on him?

I remember.

...betrayal, indeed.

[Sotos]

Applying the same logic …. don't the Crimean’s, Eastern Ukraine’s, Sth. Ossetian’s, Palestinians, Basques, Catalonians and quite a few others, not deserve the same consideration? After all the US was quick to declare Kosovo as an independent state and they didn’t even get to vote! There seems to be a lot of hypocrisy when it comes to who can and who can’t declare they want an independent State.

I don't know about the history of all the cases you mentioned, but several of those do indeed have right for an independent state... and in fact more so than the Albanians of Kosovo who actually do not have deep roots in Kosovo even though they became the majority there in the last centuries.

[Robin Hood]

Another very capable analyst, Moon of Alabama, giving a view on the fighting specifically in Afrin and the background of previous attempts to avoid this and give the Kurds an autonomous territory within the State of Syria. They turned it down ..... and this is the result! They turned down a settlement which would have given them much of what they wanted and decided to rely on the US promises to give them everything they wanted instead.

I don't think that will turn out to be a good decision.

"Who Lost Turkey?" - The U.S.-Kurdish Project In Syria Endangers NATO

The Turkish attack on the Kurd held Syrian canton of Afrin (Efrin) is not progressing as fast the Turks had hoped. The infantry component of the operation are Turkish proxy forces in Syria. These Chechen, Uighur, Turkestanis and other Takfiris are cannon fodder in the operations, not a well integrated component of an army.

The Kurds know their local mountainous territory, are well armed and willing to fight. They can holdout for a while. Politically they will still be the ones who will lose the most in the conflict. The above linked piece noted that the Kurdish YPG/PKK leaders had rejected the Syrian and Russian government offer that would have prevented the Turkish attack. The offer still exists but the conditions will become less favorable as longer the Kurds hold out.
[url]
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/01/wh ... nato-.html[/url]

[B25]

Here is an interesting writeup about the US and Turkey relations, more interesting is this:

' ... According to a report in the Washington Examiner, the Pentagon has a low opinion of Turkish capabilities. Turkish troops lack “the training, logistics and weaponry to successfully launch the siege of a fortified and well-defended city.”....'


read the whole report here:

http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018 ... in-turkey/