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May 22nd, 2017 
Awake Goy 
Fahwad Al-Khadoumi (nsnbc) : Turkey has further stepped up its training and support of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in a bid to crack down on Kurds in Syria and to further carve out a Turkish sphere of interest in northern Syria.
FSA and Turkish Army units headed toward Jarablus in 2016 (archives)
A source within Turkey’s military intelligence told nsnbc Sunday night that the AKP government decided to increase its support of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to fight the YPG / YPJ, the military wings of the Syrian Kurdish PYD, while its intelligence service MIT aims to coopt circles within Syria’s Kurdish National Council.
Increased support of the FSA – which is linked to a cohort of Islamist organizations, some of them with links to Al-Qaeda affiliated insurgencies – has two utilities the source said. One is to combat the PYD’s military wings the YPG / YPJ to weaken the position of the PKK allied Kurds while bolstering the position of the Kurdish National Council which is politically aligned with the Kurdistan Democratic party in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Autonomous Region.
The other utility is to carve out a buffer zone and Turkish “sphere of interest” in a Syria that, according to Turkish intelligence estimates, is at the brink of disintegrating with a growing number of breakaway regions.
Turkish special forces are training new batches of FSA recruits in the use of weapons including assault rifles, standoff machine guns, mortars, rocket launchers, as well as unconventional, improvised weaponry and guerrilla tactics.
Turkey deems the Syrian Kurdish PYG and its military wings the YPG / YPJ as terrorist organizations on par with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). Turkey has also made its influence felt in northern Iraq where it carried out air strikes against PKK units and where it supports the KDP’s hardline position against the PKK.
The United States considers the PYD and its military wings the YPG / YPJ as allies in the fight against ISIL (ISIS, Daesh). Officially, Turkey and the USA disagree about the role of the YPG/YPJ which has about 60,000 fighters that constitute the core of the Syrian Democratic Forces.
However, both Turkey and the USA benefit from this “apparent” divergence in policies, said nsnbc editor Christof Lehmann last week. Speaking over the phone Wednesday morning on March 17, Lehmann noted that the apparent discord over Syrian Kurds is real but that both the United States, Turkey as well as NATO benefit from the rhetoric and the exaggeration of disagreements.
Lehmann stressed that the PKK as well as the Syrian Kurds with close ties to the PKK (now the PYD – YPG – YPJ) have long been part of the Soviet, Russian, Syrian as well as in part Iranian strategy aimed to have a “stay behind” force or guerrilla that can operate in Turkey and Syria in the case of a conflict between Turkey and Syria, or between the Soviet Union (now Russia) and Turkey – and by extension between Russia and NATO.
“Turning the PYD – YPG – YPJ into a U.S. ally in the war against ISIS is really a strategic scoop for both the USA and NATO, and it is also a scoop for Turkey” said Lehmann. He added that the PKK and PYD have not turned their back on Syria or Russia, but that the USA and NATO gained a fair amount of leverage.
Asked how Turkey would benefit from this development Lehmann said “Turkey can use the PKK – PYD – YPG – YPJ nexus as a pretext to continue Turkey’s invasion of Syrian territories with Islamist ´rebels`. … In other words, Turkey can use the Kurds as a pretext to carve out a Turkish sphere of interest in Syria; A buffer to protect Turkey against the Kurds if you will – all under the guise of fighting ISIS which both Turkey and the USA helped unleash in the region”.
Asked why NATO would benefit from these dynamics Lehmann said “It is no secret that influential circles with links to core NATO members’ states governments have long planned to re-organize the Middle East; to carve out new countries from the territories of Syria, Iraq and Iran. We are likely to see the establishment of a Kurdish State in Iraq in the near future. Regardless whether Syrian Kurds will achieve independence or not it is clear that they will, at the very least, achieve a great degree of autonomy from the government in Damascus. This will of course weaken Syria or Damascus. Moreover, a Kurdish state in Iraq will likely also function as springboard for increased Kurdish militant activities in western Iran. … The question here is not whether or not one endorses these developments; What is important for us as a newspaper is to be objective about these facts, among others, that all, Turkey, the USA and NATO benefit from the apparent “discord” about the Syrian Kurds.”
F/AK – nsnbc 22.05.2017
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/05/22/turkey-steps-up-training-of-free-syrian-army-in-bid-to-crack-down-on-kurds-and-balkanize-syria/
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