Erdogan clashes with the United States and launches an offensive against the Kurds

Paris the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today resumed the standoff between him and the Democratic governments of United States, accusing Washington to support the Kurdish “terrorists”, after calling for the death of 13 Turks in Iraq, which were held by PKK rebels.

“The statements of the United States are deplorable. (Washington) He claims not to support the terrorists, but stands unambiguously on their side, ”Erdogan said in a speech.

Ankara accompanied its tirade against the White House with a broad crackdown on pro-Kurdish media, which ended in the arrest of more than 700 people.

Turkey accused on Sunday Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) for having “executed” 13 of its citizens, members of the security forces, detained by the movement in northern Iraq for several years.

According to Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, the Turkish military discovered 13 corpses in a cave in the Gara region of northern Iraq, where Ankara launched an anti-PKK operation last week, a group described by the Turkish authorities and its Western allies as “terrorist”. During the three days of fighting, Turkish forces killed 48 Kurds and lost three of their members.

The PKK acknowledged the deaths of the prisoners, but rejected Erdogan’s version, saying the prisoners were killed in Turkish airstrikes.

On Sunday, the US State Department declared “deplored” these deaths.

“If the information on the deaths of civilians at the hands of the PKK, an organization considered to be terrorist, is confirmed, we condemn these actions in the harshest terms,” ​​a statement read.

Erdogan’s statements rejecting this condemnation by Washington reflect his distrust of US policy towards the Kurdish rebels. Well, although the new Biden administration regards the PKK as a terrorist organization, it continues to support other related Kurdish militias that are fighting in Syria against the radical Islamic State (IS) organization.

This support, which began under the presidency of Barack Obama, has always been a source of tension between Washington and Ankara. Now, after four years of the Trump administration, in which the White House ignored the many human rights violations committed by Erdogan against the Kurds – inside and outside his country – things could change.

In October 2019, Donald Trump has withdrawn American troops from the Syrian-Turkish border, give Erdogan the green light to invade the Kurdish enclaves in the region and carry out ethnic cleansing that has killed tens of thousands of civilians.

The Kurdish militias in Syria, who were ending a successful campaign against ISIS, were thus betrayed by an unpredictable US administration. A few days before Trump gave Erdogan this telephone authorization, Washington had convinced the Kurds in Syria to dismantle their fortifications near the Turkish border, in order to “reassure Turkey”.

Today, the majority of Kurds are waiting for a change in policy from Joe Biden. In Turkey, where half of the world’s 30 to 40 million Kurds live, there are many who want the new administration to put pressure on Ankara to end its military extermination campaigns and return to the table. negotiations with the PKK, a peace process that Erdogan abandoned in 2015, when Obama was still in power.

At that point, the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) made a dizzying electoral advance due to which Erdogan lost his majority in parliament. Through an institutional ruse, the Turkish president succeeded in calling new elections six months later, abandoned negotiations with the Kurds and restarted the war against the PKK. This strategy of “national union against the enemy” rekindled nationalism and enabled his party, Justice and Development (AKP), to win the elections. Erdogan then formed a government with the far-right, violently anti-Kurdish National Action Party (MHP).

Between 2015 and 2016, a number of Kurdish towns and small towns in southeastern Turkey were wiped off the map as part of the counterinsurgency campaign. In the city of Cizre, the army burned alive dozens of Kurdish civilians hidden in the basements of houses.

The PKK was partly responsible for this destruction due to its decision to use a new strategy of urban guerrilla warfare. But countless actions decided by Erdogan in those two years were indescribable and they should have been condemned by Washington.

The Obama administration did not. The State Department had just obtained permission from Turkey to use NATO bases there in its campaign against ISIS. Ankara has also promised to participate in the operation.

There is no indication, however, that Biden will make the same decisions he then assumed as vice president. The new president, who knows the region well, describes Erdogan as an “autocrat” and has always expressed sympathy for the Kurds and their demands.

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