Kurds Warn Turkey of ‘Big War’ Russia has promised to protect Kurdish fighters

[mitty14u2]

Russian aircraft backing Kurdish offensive in northern Syria

Kurds promised federal status in Syria, envoy in Moscow says

Russia has promised to protect Kurdish fighters in Syria in case of a ground offensive by Turkey, a move that would lead to a “big war,” the Syrian group’s envoy to Moscow said in an interview on Wednesday.

“We take this threat very seriously because the ruling party in Turkey is a party of war,” Rodi Osman, head of the Syrian Kurds’ newly-opened representative office said in Kurdish via a Russian interpreter. “Russia will respond if there is an invasion. This isn’t only about the Kurds, they will defend the territorial sovereignty of Syria.”

Conflicting interests in Syria have created a dangerous new phase in the country’s five-year war, even as world powers struggle to implement a truce agreement. Turkey fears Kurdish gains along its border will morph into an autonomous state and inspire similar ambitions among its own Kurdish minority. But a ground intervention risks conflict with Russia, which backs the Kurds militarily, and would anger the U.S., which sees the group as a major ally in the fight against Islamic State.

Turkey has been shelling Syrian Kurdish forces since the weekend, and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed them for a bombing in Ankara that killed 28 people on Wednesday.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-18/kurds-warn-turkey-of-big-war-with-russia-if-troops-enter-syria

Wow, I think a lot is gong on we don't know about! That could be good news in Syria!

[Meldread]

1. I feel no sympathy toward the Turkey or the United States.

Turkey has been a bad actor for some time. The United States refuses to put Turkey in its place or dump it entirely and favor Kurdish forces.

Never forget that the Kurds are the liberals here.

[Cayenne]

3. Two foreign policies at play

Congress expresses their foreign policy through funding. The CIA was already funded to overthrow Assad when Obama took office. Obama, rightly, wants to keep us out of that quagmire while the deep state/CIA is willing to start world war to achieve their objectives which could be different than Obama's.

[Meldread]

5. My focus is not on either agenda.

My focus is on protecting and defending liberals and liberal ideas. The Kurds are imperfect, and I strongly reject their ethno-nationalism. However, they've made clear where they stand. Meanwhile, on the opposing side, we see increasing anti-liberal ideas and values. We watch as Turkey, under Erdogan, slides the country toward Islamic fascism.

Always, it appears to me, the mistake we have made in the Middle East, is that we have neglected to support liberal and reforming forces. We made so many mistakes due to the Cold War, and as a consequence we are reaping what we sowed and the people of the region suffer. We had the opportunities to support liberal and secular reformers in Saudi Arabia. We instead supported the House of Saud. Now it's a dictatorial Wahhabi state. We had the opportunity to support Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran, but instead planned a coup d'état which installed the Shah, which ultimately in turn led to the Iranian Revolution.

At every single opportunity where we had the power to support liberalism, we failed to do it. This is why the Middle East looks the way it does today. All of the problems stemming from the Middle East come as a failure to support secularizing liberal forces. The Kurds are one such force in existence in the Middle East today. They need to be protected at all costs--even at the expense of Turkey, a nation which has problems all of its own making.

[joost5]

6. Revisiting older "Kurdish" threads and came upon this.

Still relevant.

The new factor in the mix is a corrupted drumpf that made a deal with Erdoğan (to cover-up the Khashogi massacre and/or to protect his tower in Istanbul) to sell out the Kurds, our allies that have fought against and contain ISIS from spreading.

We live in interesting times.

[LittleBlue]

2. Hahaha, been waiting for this

Kurds federal status

Russia: Fuck you, Turkey!
Turkey:

[Wounded Bear]

4. Kurds have wanted their own country for many years...

I hear they've softened their stance, in favor of a enhanced federal status in Iraq, but still.

Obviously, the Russians don't really give a shit about that, but are using it as leverage against the Turks, because of long standing issues there.

The whole region has issues that stem from before WWI and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, not to mention the whole Sunni-Shia thing going back to the 7th Century. It's a clusterfuck, and our going in and trying to seize/"open up" the oil resources have not helped. For all of his brutality-a probably largely because of it-Saddam's Iraq was the most secular, stable country in the region. Toppling him released a lot of regional power brokers trying to be the next BMOC.

Thanks, Bush/Cheney. I hope this whole fucking war period is named after them in perpetuity. The Bush/Cheney War. So much more accurate than the Second Middle Eastern War, don't you think?