Why did Russia offer autonomy for Syria’s Kurds?

Clearly you are wrong. Pravda-level wrong.

Sure, Assad has some supporters. Big surprise. Not! But he also has strong opposition, hence this disgusting situation.

You can't blame everything on Americans. Americans can't turn a country full of people against their dictator for life.

 

Fascinating. It looks like the Kurds control more territory than The Top Goon...

 

Judging from the Cedar Revolution the Lebanese weren't too thrilled with their dictator, either.

A lot of people forget that this isn't Bashar's first rodeo...

 

"Assad as president is what the people of Syria" zhanna why in this case he control with Muscovite/Iranian help only 15% of territory? do you really think that YPG fight under Assad flags? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rojava–Syrian_government_relations

 

they won all battles (with limited USA support) , and today control more "Syrian" land than any other ethno- religious group. meanwhile assadists without Muscovite-Iranian armies can hold only 6% of "Syrian" territory

 

than - чем
then - потом

 

"
Syrian Kurds: ‘Signs of Full Support’ from Trump White House in Islamic State Fight"


Syrian Kurdish fighters belonging to a ground coalition known as the Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) say the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State has provided them with unprecedented weapons support, expressing optimism that President Donald Trump will help their struggle more than the Obama administration did.
“Previously we didn’t get support in this form, we would get light weapons and ammunition,” Talal Silo, a spokesman for the SDF, told Reuters. “There are signs of full support from the new American leadership – more than before – for our forces.” Silo specifically attributed the change to a change in leadership at the White House, Reuters added.

Silo also spoke to the Agence-France Presse, telling them that the SDF “have had meetings with representatives of the new administration, and they promised us extra support.” This appears to be in addition to the recent shipment, however, which had been scheduled during the twilight of the Obama administration.

The U.S. coalition confirmed that they had sent a shipment of armored tanks to anti-Islamic State Syrian forces but denied that the forces in question were Kurdish. “The decision was made by military commanders, and has been in the works for some time,” U.S. military spokesman Colonel John Dorrian confirmed, clarifying that the delivery of armored vehicles was meant for the Syrian Arab Coalition specifically. “The Reuters report inaccurately implied that U.S. weapons were transferred to Kurdish elements of the Syrian Democratic Forces,” he said.

The Syrian Arab Coalition is a member of the SDF, however. The AFP reports that two-thirds of the members of the SDF are fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), an official militia of the People’s Democratic Union (PYD) of Syria. The PYD seeks to establish a Kurdish state within Syria.

A spokesman for the YPG told the Russian propaganda outlet Sputnik that they had not received the weapons in question. “We in the Kurdish Popular Defense Units emphasize that these reports are incorrect as we have not received any weapons from the Alliance,” spokesman Redur Khalil said.

A move to arm the YPG would cause significant tension in the bilateral relationship between the United States and Turkey. While the United States often coordinates airstrikes using intelligence collected on the ground by the YPG, the Turkish government considers the YPG a terrorist organization indistinguishable from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The United States has designated the PKK a terrorist organization but treats it as a separate entity from the YPG.

Increased tensions between Turkey and the United States would benefit Russia, which has taken an aggressive stance in Syria to oppose rebels seeking to overthrow dictator Bashar al-Assad and nominally expressed opposition to the Islamic State. Following the capture of Aleppo in late 2016 from rebel groups, Russia began to withdraw some of its military assets, a sign that its mission — to strengthen the Assad regime, not to eradicate the Islamic State — had been completed.

As Russian forces helped Assad recapture Aleppo, which never had a significant Islamic State presence, the jihadist terror group recaptured the ancient city of Palmyra, scene of a Russian victory concert in May 2016.

Russian forces appear to have shifted their focus to helping weaken the YPG, which poses a threat to both Ankara and Damascus due to their advocacy for a free Kurdistan carved out of Turkish and Syrian territory. Despite incidents of violence between Russia and Turkey — including Turkey shooting down a Russian fighter jet in November 2015 and a Turkish terrorist assassinating Russia’s ambassador to Ankara a year later — Russia and Turkey have been conducting joint airstrikes over al-Bab, Syria this week. Erdogan had previously stated his intention in al-Bab and neighboring Manbij was to weaken the YPG, not the Islamic State.

Closer cooperation between Turkey and Russia in Syria followed complaints from Ankara that Washington had been working too closely with the anti-Islamic State Syrian Kurdish forces. “They know as well as we know that the United States provides arms to the YPG because they are fighting [IS],” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu protested in December. “The YPG is exerting pressure on America.” Turkey has also conducted airstrikes directly on YPG locations when claiming to attack the Islamic State.

Arming the Arab SDF forces, which bolsters the overall abilities of the mostly Kurdish fighters while not specifically arming the YPG, appears to be a move meant to suppress protests from the Islamist government of President Erdogan." http://www.breitbart.com/national-s...ing-islamic-state-say-trump-admin-supporting/

 

oil- gas

 

Hey Goebbel, need I remind you once again. The Syrian people are paying with their lives not to have the sociopaths in Washington impose a government on them that they do not want.

 

Question: Why are elected leaders always referred to as dictators when they refuse to bow to US interests... even when they were voted in by majorities so overwhelming that western leaders can only dream about such popularity?

 

How sure are you Russia will let go of Assad L? I'm thinking Russians will remain in Syria indefinitely and Assad as puppet gives them the authority to do so.... their Chechnya 2.0

 

That's most unfortunate. The Kurds deserve their own homeland.

 

well. not "Syria" but Alawite lands, and once they (much like Kurds) get Independence why they (and Iran) need a Muscovite army base , ? when it comes to Assad , i am 100% sure his time has pasted , after the last gas- attack no will talk to him

 

"elected leaders always referred to as dictators" zhanna LOL. you sound like Koba. elected )))) yeh in Syria and NK

 

i found very interesting article http://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-trump-should-support-kurdish-state-19102?page=2

"
Why Trump Should Support a Kurdish State
Some believe that the Trump administration will finish off the ISIS caliphate and then withdraw American forces from much of the region. Others hope it will reassert the American role in the Middle East and push back against Iran and Russia. In either case, the United States should support a Kurdish state. True, such a move will run into opposition from the governments in Baghdad and Ankara. However, the Kurds have more than earned the right to independence. Moreover, such a move will help reassure other U.S. allies in the region, in Europe and in Southeast Asia that the United States will stand by them rather than abandon them, as the United States has done repeatedly to the Kurds in the past.

The time has come to redraw the map. Iraq’s borders were forged by the colonial powers at the end of World War I, throwing the Kurds in with other ethnic and confessional groups, with whom they have little in common. Ever since, the Kurds have been fighting for the right to govern themselves, to the point that even the tyrannical government of Saddam Hussein granted them a high level of autonomy.

At the same time, the United States often finds itself supporting nations or groups of fighters in the Middle East who make for rather dubious allies. It supported the mujahideen in Afghanistan, which turned into the Taliban. The rebels the United States supported in Libya committed about the same level and kinds of atrocities (including ethnic cleansing) as the Qaddafi forces. The Shia dominated government of Iraq has used U.S.-trained and equipped forces as death squads against the Sunnis. The Free Syrian Army is a motley crew of defectors from the Syrian Army, many of whom would then go on to join the Nusra Front. Most of these forces turned out to be rather feeble fighters and rather unreliable allies.

In sharp contrast, the peshmerga, the Kurdish forces, consistently proved themselves to be a very effective fighters. Rep. Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, pointed out in December 2015, “The Kurds are the sole US allied force operating on the ground against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. . . . For the last year and a half, we've had one effective fighter in this fight: It is the 160,000-strong Peshmerga force.” Michael O’Hanlon and Ömer Taşpınar observed that the Kurds “appear to be the only element of the so-called moderate opposition gaining any real traction, or showing any real military competence, within Syria.” Moreover, Kurdistan was the one part of Iraq where the United States suffered no casualties since the invasion in 2003, a place U.S. troops could go for their R&R breaks during the meandering decade and a half of civil war.

Although Western media frequently refers to the peshmerga as a united force, loyal to the Kurdish Regional Government, most peshmerga belong to one of the two main political parties in Iraqi Kurdistan: the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The two parties fought a civil war between 1994 and 1998. The parties still control different areas within Iraqi Kurdistan; the KDP dominates the region around Erbil (and has Turkish support), while the PUK area is centered around Sulaymaniyah. Indeed, each of these two major groups contains splinter groups with their own leaders and commanders and loyal fighters. One cannot predict if, after decades of oppression, the Kurds will rise to the occasion if given a chance to form their own state, not to mention find a sufficient level of unity to agree on the foundations of such a state and how it is to be governed. Some people use such a “constitutional moment” to curb their differences; others let it slip away. However, the Kurds deserve a chance to make that decision for themselves.

Supporting a Kurdish state raises a whole host of challenges; there is nothing simple in the Middle East. First, such a move will antagonize the government in Baghdad. Indeed, one reason the United States was so slow in arming and financing the Kurdish forces, despite their dedicated fighting against ISIS, was the legalistic notion that such assistance has to come via the national government. (A U.S. court blocked the Kurds’ independent sale of oil for similar reasons). However, the Baghdad government has continuously disregarded the United States’ urging to form an inclusive government and instead has continued to be mainly a government for the Shia by the Shia, under growing Iranian influence. Its displeasure is not a sufficient reason for the U.S. to refuse to support a Kurdish state.

The Turkish opposition is surely going to be fierce. The Turks fear that a Kurdish state on their borders will embolden the Turkish Kurds’ quest for autonomy, if not for a secession in order to join the new Kurdish state. And the Turks consider a major part of the Kurdish forces to be a terrorist organization. In the past, the United States tended to support Turkey rather than the Kurds, because it considers Turkey a major ally, a NATO member and a country that provides U.S. bases. The United States agreed to label the PKK a terrorist organization.
Recently, two days after Turkey agreed to let the United States use air bases to launch strikes against ISIS, Turkey bombed PKK positions in Iraq and later deployed troops there. The United States and its allies had very little to say about these gross violations of international law. Much of the problem stems from Turkey’s extreme oppression of its Kurdish population. For decades, Ankara made it illegal for Kurds to use their own language, attempted to erase Kurdish culture, to deny their distinct identity by classifying them as “Mountain Turks,” and banning the words “Kurdish” or “Kurdistan.” (When an MP spoke Kurdish, she was charged with treason and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.) In response the Kurds rebelled, were severely punished by Turkish authorities and resorted to terrorism led by the PKK. In 2013 the PKK agreed to a truce with the Turkish government, but in July 2015, after Turkey bombed Kurdish targets in Iraq and Syria, the PKK withdrew and announced a new drive against the government. The new U.S. administration would do well to urge the Turks to grant its Kurds autonomy in return for a commitment by the PKK to cease all terrorist acts.

Big powers are known to act rather cynically when wars end. Thus the United States has largely abandoned the Iraqis and Afghans who risked their lives by collaborating with the United States over the last fifteen years, allowing only a few them to find a safe haven in the United States. The Kurds, who rose in the past against Saddam’s regime, either because they were urged on by the United States or had reasons to believe that the United States would come to their aid, found out that they were on their own when Iraqi forces bombed and gassed them.

If the war in Syria winds down, surely there are going to be some realists who will argue that the United States should side with the Turkish and Iraqi governments, whose partnership the United States will need in the future, and neglect the Kurds. This would not only be a moral failure, but also an unwise policy. U.S. allies all over the world are watching. They will see in the way the Washington treats the Kurds when the fighters are no longer needed, as a litmus test of the extent to which they can trust the United States to stand by them if they take risks too in support of American policies in dealing with Iran, Russia, and China.
"

 

Yeah, its nothing significant. Low production and poor quality product.

 

So it seems that the US is providing support for Kurd by supplying their Arab comrades in the SDF.
So with respect, it would seem the US is reluctant to be SEEN to be supporting the Kurds. If this is the case I cannot see them being supportive of Kurdish autonomy. This is unique gift of Russia.

 

Yes, I have a lot of sympathy for them. It would be nice for the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds to form a little nation. The Turks hate the idea, but Erdogan is losing friends seemingly on purpose, so maybe it is a possible outcome.

 

I think their overriding preference is maintain Assad.
Russia seems to prefer contiguous and absolute power where it has ts forces, so I'm not sure whether they would maintain a physical presence beyond the port and airfields...

 

That belies the fact that a Kurdish State should have been created with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, in which case Baghdad would be none the wiser.

Throw the Turks a bone...give them full access to the European Union in exchange for Kurdish autonomy/secession.

 

by EU "access" you mean membership of the EEA? Free movement is a pillar of the EEA and there is no way EU can have free movement across that border.

 

Why not? The Turks have to be integrated somewhere in the grand scheme of things.

 

Why? EU currently has one nice border with Turkey, If turkey joins the EU, the EU suddenly has a border with Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Syria and Georgia. No-one could expect Turkey to maintain adequate border control.

 

Good point. The Charlatans of Brussels are probably so obsessed with the idea of having all those millions of Turkish newcomers to the club all paying their EU subscriptions that they haven't thought of that downside. So whither 'Schengen' then??

 

With Britain gone, I think the EU no longer wants Turkey and Turkey no longer wants the EU.