On Wednesday, Turkey's president announced an impending military operation against Kurdish forces in Syria, where the country has been part of a carefully orchestrated ceasefire since September. US forces, a NATO ally of Turkey, are present in the area.
“We will start the operation to clear the east of the Euphrates from separatist terrorists in a few days. Our target is never US soldiers,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised speech Wednesday. “This step will allow for the path to a political solution to be opened and for healthier cooperation.”
US forces are in the region in support of the Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance in the civil war dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG. Ethnic Kurds straddle numerous borders in the mountainous region, living in Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq, closely guarding their independence and seeking greater autonomy from their respective central governments. Kurdish groups in Turkey are considered terrorist organizations and outlawed, and Ankara has repeatedly waged war against their militias in an effort to stamp out any movement for autonomy or independence.
In 2016, Turkey and the Free Syrian Army, another loosely-aligned faction of the civil war dominated by Islamist parties including Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as al-Qaeda in Syria, launched an offensive called “Operation Euphrates Shield” against Kurdish militias in Idlib and Aleppo provinces — militias…
