PRESS RELEASE
Turkey's and Obama's Syria Policy
on Verge of Collapse
July 27, 2012 (EIRNS)—This release was issued today by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee.
Turkey's policy of supporting the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad is on the verge of collapse, in the face of fears that Syria would break up into Sunni, Alawite, and Kurdish enclaves if the Syrian government collapsed. The prospect of a Kurdish state rising alongside Turkey's ethnic Kurdish provinces, where the government has been fighting the terrorist Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), has created a firestorm of opposition against Ankara's policy.
Alarm bells went off after Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani made public remarks that his Kurdish Regional Government was training Kurdish-Syrian fighters to send back to defend Kurdish territory in Syria. Even more alarming was that this was part of an agreement between the Iraqi Kurds and the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is known to be an affiliate of the outlawed PKK, which has been fighting the Turkish government for four decades.
Barzani's statement enraged Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said he would dispatch his Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to the Kurdish Regional Government to protest the action. It also evoked threats from Erdogan, who warned of a Turkish military response if the Syrian Kurds were to contemplate an attack on Turkey.
Turkey's English-language Today's Zaman, which has until now backed the government, reports that Davutoglu, the "architect of a policy" to overthrow the Syrian government,
"has been at the center of growing criticism, as prospects of a divided Syria and a new autonomous Kurdish administration next to the Turkish border in north Syria ring alarm bells.... Observers are concerned that this could both fuel PKK separatism in Turkey and could be the beginning of the disintegration of Syria into a Kurdish north, an Alawite enclave in and around Latakia, and a Sunni Arab zone."
The leader of Turkey's opposition, Republican People's Party head Kemal Kilicdaroglu, warned,
"It is becoming clearer every day that the Syria policy is wrong. We want to live in peace with our neighbors, but the current situation shows that Turkey will be faced with more difficult problems in the future."
The lead editorial in the mass circulation Hurriyet reports, "Turkish nationalists are up in arms now that conditions which Ankara could not foresee or control are acting as a midwife for a 'Greater Kurdistan,' and are now bombarding the government and especially the overly ambitious Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu with vitriolic criticism over this." It warns that if Ankara authorizes military operations against the Syrian Kurds, this could "drag the country into new and unwelcome adventures" and "aggravate the Kurdish problem in Turkey."
A commentary in the same daily under the headline "Mega Kurdish State Is Being Founded," warns that the current policy is fulfilling "Turkey's biggest fear: Kurds in Iraq and Syria working together" to form a "Greater Kurdistan."
Another commentary in Hurriyet, points out that in one week Turkey has now a 1,200-km-long Kurdish border, which includes the 400 km border between Turkey and the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq, which is a virtual war zone, because the PKK is based there, and the 800-km border with the Kurdish region of Syria. The commentator warns that with the Arab Spring threatening to become a "Kurdish Spring," it could hit Turkey's Kurdish provinces, a situation that "cannot be entrusted to the fantasies of an academic," referring to Davutoglu, who started his career as a university professor.
American economist Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., had already warned associates in 2011 that this Turkish government's Syria policy would come back home to roost in Turkey, warning that "Turkey is also a fragile country."
