Kuwaiti Girl
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Geographically speaking, the Azaz-Jarabulus corridor doesn't really put Turkey in a better position against the YPG. The Kurds to the east are protected by the Euphrates river as well as a substantial presence of American and French troops. The Kurds to west are protected by Afrin's rugged terrain.Why would you hand over the Area to Assad on an empty promise to remove YPG control when you are in a better position now and can do so afterwards?
You underestimate how nationalistic Turkish people are and that no one is interested in a poor region being added to Turkey. Not going to happen.
Moreover, the Azaz-Jarabulus is filled with ISIS sleeper cells since most of the Euphrates Shield Syrian fighters are jihadists. In fact, another ISIS terrorist attack was carried out today in Azaz, which killed 20 FSA fighters. This is only a week after dozens of FSA fighters were killed by an ISIS suicide bomber in Sousyan.
So, technically speaking, Turkey's entry into the Azaz-Jarabulus corridor is meaningless with respect to using that area as a launchpad against the Kurds.
If Turkey hands the area over to Assad, then the YPG will never be able to connect the cantons again since they'll never fight a war against Assad's forces. That's out of question.
But the longer the Azaz corridor remains under Turkish control, the more likely it'll end up getting annexed into Turkey, which will ironically encourage the Kurds east of the Euphrates to declare independence and merge with their Iraqi Kurdish brethren.
And this looks increasingly likely since the Azaz corridor is mainly being settled by ethnic Turkmens right now, including many Sunni Iraqi Turkmens who've recently fled Tal Afar in order not to get caught by the Iraqi PMU.
Anyway, I think Turkey needs to stop playing the Sunni card and start playing more of the Turkmen card from now on. Ankara should ask Syria to drop the "Arab" from the country's official name and recognize Turkmen autonomy. If Damascus refuses to do that, then Turkey should annex the Turkmen areas.