A piece by Sigmar Gabriel, Foreign Minister of Germany. Translated by google.
Afrin is a message to the USA
Sigmar Gabriel Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs SPD
Turkey is prepared to pay a high price for its offensive in the Syrian Kurdish areas: to no longer bind itself to the West. What that means for the German Turkey policy.
The Turkish military intervention in Afrin is a clear message to the United States of America: no post-war order in Syria should be made without the consent of Turkey, and no Kurdish control of any kind of regional entity would be accepted by it. To make this message clear, the Turkish Republic deployed ground forces in Syria, which unleashed the largest air operation in its history, mobilizing around half of its air force. By the way, in an area under Russian sovereignty. However, Russia allowed the Turkish attack on the Afrin region because it served its long-term interests: driving a wedge between the US and Turkey.
The military intervention in Afrin is a message to the US: no area under Kurdish control.
This was preceded by fierce discussions between Turkey and the US on the role of Kurdish associations in northern Syria. The US had begun to distinguish between the armed organizations of the Kurdish YPG ("People's Defense Units") and its Kurdish-Syrian "Democratic Union Party" (PYD) as well as the Kurdish Workers' Party PKK. Unlike the PKK, unlike the PKK, YPG and PYD are not banned in the United States as a terrorist organization, nor in Europe or Germany. For Turkey, and for most international observers, this separation is rather artificial. The relationship between PKK and YPG is not only ideologically and symbolically very close. One must continue to assume that the YPG and the PYD are under the strategic leadership of the PKK, but have relatively large operational freedom. However, the General Staff of the US armed forces wanted to use the undisputed capabilities of the YPG in the fight against the terror of the so-called Islamic State. Therefore, despite warnings from Turkey, the United States supplied arms to the Syrian-Kurdish militias. The US general and political leaders were prepared to pay a price: the creation of a largely self-governing territory in northern Syria on the border with Turkey under Kurdish control. Less consideration and more provocation towards the Turkish interests are hard to imagine.
Turkey as well as the PKK strive to internationalize the conflict.
Both sides - Turkey and the PKK with their allies - thus follow the failure of the internal Turkish peace talks of an internationalization logic. The fact that the fight for self-government in Turkey should take place after a Kurdish regional state in Iraq and a similar entity in Syria is a matter of course for the PKK. And for Turkey the biggest possible threat. The fight for and against this will therefore continue to be carried out by military means. The acts of violence, torture and tragedy which the civilian population of the Kurds has suffered for decades are never ending. Innocent people die for carrying out a regionally deeply rooted political conflict. Yet it was precisely the current Turkish President, who very early demonstrated great courage in his time as Prime Minister and sought ways to national pacification. The failure of these talks in 2015 has today as a long-term consequence the extension of the military conflict to Syria and possibly beyond. As unrealistic as it may be now, only the return to intra-Turkish peace negotiations will effectively end the further expansion of the military confrontation.It requires enormous effort on the part of the international community to reopen such a window of understanding. Currently it is locked tight.
Turkey is ready to pay the price for the intervention from the West.
Instead, the fight against Kurdish groups in their non-Turkish retreat areas now dominates the Turkish foreign policy. The procedure shows: Turkey is also prepared to pay a high price for it. And ultimately, this prize consists of the solution to the Western ties that have existed for more than six decades.Turkey is not afraid of the geopolitical consequences of a conflict with the US, or at least estimates it as less than the consequences of a growing regional Kurdish dominance at its borders. And at the same time, the US seems to either assess the conflict with Turkey as manageable and limited in time or to lose sight of Turkey's geostrategic role. The first assessment could be a mistake. The second would have catastrophic consequences - especially for us Europeans.
A Turkey that is detached from the West, from NATO and not oriented towards Europe would be a new and considerable risk.
A Turkey detached from the West, from NATO, and ultimately also from its orientation towards Europe, would pose a new and very serious risk for us Europeans. Not only a turn to Russia would completely change the balance of power between Russia and NATO. We no longer have an ally at the external borders of Europe, but a potential adversary. But other developments are conceivable: an even stronger turning away from secular state structures to more susceptibility to Islamist movements.And last but not least: the example of a nuclear armament, as in North Korea, which apparently wants to follow other countries like Saudi Arabia, could very quickly be repeated right at our borders.
Germany must continue to make offers to Turkey. Value-based policy alone is not enough.
All this is not yet a reality and does not have to be. But to prevent it, a new Europe-wide strategy is needed in dealing with Turkey in its current state. It is right to criticize human rights violations, the lack of press freedom and Turkey's military action in Afrin. But that alone is not enough. It is easy to be satisfied with publicly expressed criticism, because besides Russia, one has identified a second international villain who can hold one's own values daily. The threat situation will not reduce that. And the experience of sanctions against Russia will hopefully have taught us that this too can not be a way out. Turkey certainly would not be impressed. To enforce our interests requires more effort.
And these interests are many-sided: first and foremost, of course, is a ceasefire, compliance with international law, and assistance to the civilian population: in Syria, but also in south-eastern Turkey, in the Kurdish areas. This starts with being honest: Neither are the violence and living conditions in eastern Turkey in any way acceptable, nor is the concern of the Turks against the PKK and its proxies unjustified. Taking on the cause of the Kurds, demanding respect for their human rights, advocating for their freedom and better living conditions must not mean drawing a folkloristic picture of the PKK and its substructures. Incidentally, the PKK was also banned in Germany because it is a criminal organization that did business with drug, arms and human trafficking and blackmail.
Let us not fool ourselves: Turkey will not accept a PKK / YPG-dominated regional state and, if necessary, oppose it with Russian, Iranian and Syrian toleration. The winners would be Moscow and Damascus. Our interest must therefore be above all to keep Turkey "involved" in geopolitical terms - one can also say "curbing" so as not to allow it to permanently drift into a special role, the consequences of which entail incalculable risks for us. We Germans, in particular, should know how dangerous special paths of great military powers are for everyone else.
Once the military operation in Afrin has been completed, resumption of armaments cooperation will be among the offers.
So we will have to make the extraordinarily difficult attempt, on the one hand, not to conceal criticism, and on the other to mobilize all available offers for cooperation. Turkey has to feel that it has something to gain from us - and without losing us much. From the customs union to cooperation in refugee policy, from economic development to educational and scientific cooperation. And yes, we should actively approach Turkey in order not only to offer a dialogue on the rule of law, but also to be ready to participate in the reconstruction of the Turkish judiciary after the consequences of the coup attempt. It was simply a mistake of conservative politics, years ago, of all people, not to open the rule of law chapter in the accession negotiations of Turkey to the EU. And if there were to be an end to Turkey's military operations in northern Syria, our offer also included the resumption of a closer arms cooperation with the NATO state of Turkey.
The fact that the German government no longer supplies arms to Turkey after the Turkish invasion of northern Syria was a correct decision. But Turkey should start thinking about armaments cooperation with Russia, but we should not be indifferent.
All this will put our political debate in Germany under stress. All this is uncomfortable, exhausting and truly not free of contradictions. And the moral and normative concerns that can be voiced against it can not be denied. But our interests are not. It is a path that does not guarantee success and involves risks.
But a Turkish special way, a Turkish turning away from the West, from Europe and from NATO would be a much greater risk for us and for the citizens of Turkey