Page 36 - The Economist Asia January 2018

36
Middle East and Africa The Economist January 27th 2018
Also in this section
37 The Kurds of Syria
38 Less aid for the Palestinians
38 Notes for former colonies
39 Integrity idols
39 Political prisoners in Ethiopia
40 Land reform in South Africa

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The war in Syria (1) general staff, Hulusi Akar, has said he will
push forward “until we eliminate every
Into the abyss terrorist”. Other officials liken the offen-
sive to one in 2016 that saw Turkey wrest
from IS a 100km stretch of Syrian territory
west of the Euphrates river. The jihadists
hardly put up a fight and local Arabs and
Turkoman welcomed the Turks as libera-
ISTANBUL tors. (Turkish troops and Syrian rebels are
Turkey’s offensive in northern Syria complicates an alreadychaoticwar
still in control ofthe area.) “We’re hopingto
EVENTY-TWO Turkish fighter jets cut called Operation Olive Branch, appears to repeat this example in Afrin,” says Bekir
Sthrough the skies above north-west Syr- enjoy wide support across Turkey. The me- Bozdag, Turkey’s deputy prime minister.
ia on January20th, droppingbombson the dia have whipped themselves into a But the Turks will face a much tougher
Kurdish enclave of Afrin, while thousands nationalist frenzy almost as big as the one fight in Afrin. Around 10,000 battle-hard-
of Turkish troops massed at the border. that followed an abortive coup in 2016. Of ened YPG fighters are in the area. Local
They were joined by busloads ofSyrian re- the four main parties in parliament, only Kurds, who are most of the enclave’s
bels, Turkey’s proxies in the fight against one, a pro-Kurdish outfit whose leaders 600,000 or so residents, seem uniformly
Bashar al-Assad’s blood-soaked regime in have been locked up for over a year, re- hostile to the Turks and their Syrian allies.
Damascus. So it was that Turkey opened a fused to support the offensive. Mr Erdogan The YPG has closed roads out of the city,
new front in the Syrian war, and in its un- argues that an emboldened YPG plans to while the Assad regime turns back those
ending conflict with Kurdish insurgents, use the Syrian borderlands in the same who manage to leave. Accordingto the Syr-
with reverberations rippling to Washing- way as the PKK has used the mountains of ian Observatory for Human Rights, a Brit-
ton, Moscow and Istanbul. northern Iraq: as a launching pad for at- ain-based monitoring group, at least 28 ci-
The offensive pits NATO’s second-big- tacks against Turkey. Most Turks seem to vilians, 42 Kurdish fighters and 48 Syrian
gest army against a Kurdish militia called agree with him. rebels were killed in the first five days of
the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which the operation. Officials in Ankara con-
Turkey says is a branch of its domestic foe, The stubborn sultan firmed the deaths of three Turkish soldiers
the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The MrErdogan haswaysofdealingwith those and claimed to have killed 268 militants.
separatist PKK has fought an on-off insur- who do not. Having caught wind of possi- Rockets believed to have been fired by the
gency against Turkish security forces for ble protests, he pledged to “crush anyone YPG killed three people in the Turkish
over three decades. But the YPG is best who opposes our national struggle” and towns ofKilis and Reyhanli.
known for fighting Islamic State (IS) in Syr- warned that police would be “breathing America is caught in the middle—and
ia. American support, in the form ofweap- down the necks” of those who took to the sending out mixed messages. The Penta-
ons and air strikes, helped the Kurds repel streets. Dozens ofpeople, includingat least gon hopes to continue using the Kurds as a
the jihadists and, to Turkey’s dismay, take five journalists, have been detained for so- bulwarkagainstIslamistmilitancyin Syria.
control of vast stretches of land in the cial-media postscriticisingthe offensive. In The White House, though, has disavowed
north (see next story). When America said Northern Cyprus crowds of Turkish na- plansto create a newKurdish-led force and
itwould create a 30,000-strong“border-se- tionalists attacked the office of a local downplayed America’s relationship with
curity force” in north-east Syria consisting newspaper that likened Operation Olive the Kurds. In general, American officials
largely of YPG fighters, Recep Tayyip Erdo- Branch to Turkey’s invasion ofthe island in have been loth to criticise Turkey, but in a
gan, Turkey’s president, vowed to “strangle 1974—ie, an illegal occupation. phone call with Mr Erdogan on January
it before it is born”. The precise aims (and limits) of the op- 25th, President Donald Trump expressed
The incursion, which is inexplicably eration are unclear. Turkey’s chief of the concern about the violence in Afrin. So 1