Why Turkey is invading Syria

 

    This plume of smoke is rising from a town in Syria.

    

    A similar scene unfolded in another town about a hundred kilometers away. These attacks were the result of Turkish airstrikes on October 9th 2019, when Turkey's invasion of northern Syria began. The long-planned Turkish military operation in Northeast Syria has been launched. Turkey pushing ever deeper into Syria. At least 160,000 civilians are believed to have fled the fighting in the border area. Over the next several days, the Turkish military moved further into Syria and attacked several other towns. All of these attacks are concentrated here, on this strip of land in Northeast Syria. It's part of an area that Turkey has been wanting to turn into a so-called safe zone for years.
    So what is this safe zone? And what purpose does it really serve for Turkey? Syria descended into armed conflict in 2011. Protests broke out against the country's authoritarian government in major cities. When the government turned its attention to the uprisings and violently cracked down, it left a power vacuum in the north. 

    That's where the jihadist militant group ISIS swept in starting in 2013. Significant portions of this region, which was home to Syria's largest ethnic minority group called the Kurds, were eventually conquered by ISIS. But Kurdish militias successfully fought back. So the US backed them with air support and on the ground training against ISIS. In 2015, Kurdish and non Kurdish militias in the region banded together to form the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, and started pushing ISIS back.
    This paved the way for the expansion of a Kurdish-led territory which was already being established here. By 2019. the SDF effectively broke the ISIS stronghold in the north. They set up prisons that held around 11,000 captive ISIS fighters and housed tens of thousands of Isis family members in displacement camps. US military bases also cropped up in this Kurdish-run area. And US troops began patrolling the Syrian-Turkish border Across the border in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has long viewed the rise of the Kurds in Syria as a threat. 

    That's because a Kurdish separatist group in Turkey called the PKK has fought the Turkish government for decades. The PKK has pushed for greater autonomy for Kurds living in Turkey. But the Turkish government has rejected their autonomy and fought back. 

    The violent conflict between the two has left tens of thousands dead. Erdoğan claims the PKK is aligned with Kurdish forces in Syria And he sees their growing influence across the border as a risk. A Kurdish-governed territory in Syria could inspire Kurds in Turkey to import the same model back home. Erdoğan has launched attacks on Kurds in Syria multiple times. 

    The first came in 2016 when Turkish troops attacked here in the northwest to push back ISIS and block Kurdish expansion along the border. And in 2018, they attacked Syria again - this time in an attempt to wipe out the SDF. Turkey gained control over these areas but by this time it was facing problems within its borders. A trade war with the US and economic mismanagement by the country's leaders had caused Turkey's economy to crash. And many found themselves unable to find work as unemployment increased. This economic downturn caused many in Turkey to look for a scapegoat in Syrian refugees.

    The war in Syria forced over six million to flee the country. And 3.6 million of those refugees fled to Turkey, more than any other nation. As Turkey's economy slumped, more and more Turks disapproved of President Erdoğan and resented the influx of refugees. In 2014 Erdoğan's Justice and Development Party had broad support. It won 50 mayoral seats, more than half the country's local leadership. But in March 2019, his party lost 11 of those seats in local elections. To make matters worse, a pro-kurdish party, the People's Democratic Party, won 8 mayoral seats and helped other opposition candidates win across the country. Voters delivered the Turkish president his worst night ever at the ballot box. This is all reflecting some major discomfort with the president. 

    The Kurds have become the key in this result. To regain political popularity, the pressure was on Erdoğan to act. After the elections, he doubled down on an idea he'd been proposing for years, a safe zone between Turkey and Syria. Erdoğan had already taken control of this region in Northwest Syria Now he wanted to expand that territory to the east, further into Kurdish-led land. Erdoğan claimed that the purpose of this safe zone would be to move Syrian refugees back into this strip of Syria. He took this plan to Russia and the US but he couldn't get them on board. With political pressure mounting at home, Erdoğan and his government threatened to move into Syria on their own. But just but there was an obstacle in their way. The US, an ally to Turkey and a military supporter of the Kurds, still had troops stationed in northern Syria. 

    So Turkey couldn't make its move. In August 2019, Turkey made some progress with the US. The two agreed to a safe zone that they would patrol together. This zone would extend 5km into northern Syria. The SDF cooperated by withdrawing some of their forces.

     But this agreement wasn't enough for Erdoğan. At the UN a month later, he proposed a much larger zone. We intend to establish a peace corridor with a depth of 30km and the length of 480km in Syria and enable the settlement of 2 million Syrians there. Soon after this address, Turkey found a way into Syria. After a phone call with Erdoğan, President Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal of US troops from northern Syria. It's now time to bring our soldiers home. I don't want to leave troops there. It's very dangerous. We never agreed to protect the Kurds for the rest of their lives. 

     

    Trump broke the US alliance with the Kurds and pulled troops from along the border. Erdoğan finally seized his opportunity and sent troops into northeastern Syria. Turkey's invasion has been brutal and destabilizing. What's happening in Syria can only be described as chaos. Kurdish hospitals have been overwhelmed. Thousands are still on the move trying to escape this violence. Families desperate to get out of here. Turkey is sending in Arab militias that would displace the Kurds from their homes. As the SDF defends itself against Turkish forces, they're leaving ISIS prisons unguarded. And according to Kurdish sources, hundreds have already escaped. 

    

    The US withdrawal and Turkey's invasion have created a new power vacuum in northern Syria, one that's quickly being filled. As the US leaves, another force roars in. The Kurds have made a deal with Syria's President. Turkey's president and Russian President Vladimir Putin making a deal about the future of Syria. Withdrawal of US troops is leading to more change than the area has seen in years.