ANKARA: Turkey and Russia’s relationship, boosted by the duo’s attempts to negotiate an end to the war in Syria, will likely be damaged by Moscow’s decision to invite Syria’s main Kurdish political party to the proposed congress scheduled for Nov. 18 in Sochi. Russia had pledged to invite all of Syria’s rival parties to the congress.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Turkey’s presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin called Russia’s invitation of the Kurdish-led Democratic Union Party (PYD), and its armed affiliate, People’s Protection Units (YPG), to the congress “unacceptable,” and said the Turkish government considered it an “imposition.” ‘
The PYD, which — along with the YPG — currently controls around a quarter of Syrian territories, opened a representative office in Moscow in February 2016 and is regarded by Russia as a legitimate and influential actor in the reconstruction of war-torn Syria.
But Turkey sees the PYD as a spinoff of the Kurdistan Workers Party, which it (along with multiple other countries) lists as a terrorist organization for its decade-long insurgency in Turkey and Iraq. Turkey had vetoed the PYD’s participation in the previous peace talks.
“We have immediately conveyed our reaction,” Kalin told reporters, adding that the Turkish government approves invitations to all other Syrian Kurdish groups.
Kalin also explained that during the seventh round of Russia-Turkey-led peace talks held earlier this week in Astana, Turkish officials told Moscow that “such initiatives will not be welcomed.”
The Syrian opposition announced on Wednesday that they had concerns about any Russian-sponsored congress, preferring the directions taken by UN-led peace talks in Geneva, which have been running in tandem with the Astana talks.
Nursin Atesoglu Guney, dean of the faculty of economics, administrative and social sciences at Bahcesehir Cyprus University, suggested that Russia may have seen its PYD/YPG invitation as a tool to gain concessions from regional actors.
“Russia has always kept the PYD card in hand,” Guney told Arab News. “But it also knows that Ankara will not take a step back on this issue.”
Guney stressed that Russia’s intention to include the PYD and YPG in the Sochi congress should also be viewed through “the lens of US-Russian competition on the ground,” since the Kurdish parties are backed by America against Daesh in Syria.
Guney also said that the partnership between Moscow and Ankara is “issue-based,” so this latest disagreement would likely be resolved without escalation.
Emre Ersen, a Syria analyst from Marmara University in Istanbul, said that while Turkey and Russia currently need each other in order to maintain stability in Syria’s four de-escalation zones — especially Idlib — they “still have significant differences regarding the issue of Syrian Kurds.”
Ersen told Arab News he believes Moscow’s priority is “to oblige the Syrian Kurds to make a deal with the Assad government.”
According to Ersen, the Sochi congress could facilitate that process, since a draft constitution prepared by Russia last year included cultural autonomy rights for the Syrian Kurds.
“It is interesting to note that the Assad regime has also signalled that it could be open to the idea of autonomy for the Kurds,” Ersen said. “Therefore, they can find a common ground with the Syrian Kurds with the influence of Moscow. If Moscow can achieve this, it can also move the Syrian Kurds away from the orbit of Washington.”
However, he warned: “As indicated by the Turkish government’s reaction to the inclusion of PYD in the upcoming congress, Ankara is not happy about the vision Moscow has in mind.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently hinted that the Turkish Army could turn its attention to the northern Syrian district of Afrin — currently controlled by the YPG — once its ongoing operation in Idlib, in coordination with Russian forces, is complete.
Ersen noted that, for Russia, the ongoing Astana process is vital to ensure both Turkey and Iran’s regional ambitions are kept in check and that neither gains significant geopolitical leverage in Syria independent of Russian interests.
“Still, Moscow will need to find a way to appease Turkey in order to implement its own vision in Syria,” he added. “It could be open to making minor concessions to Turkey regarding the Afrin issue, if Ankara silently approves the Russian vision with regard to the future of Syria.”
Turkey: Russian invitation to Kurdish party for Syria talks ‘unacceptable’
Turkey: Russian invitation to Kurdish party for Syria talks ‘unacceptable’
UK foreign minister urges UN Security Council to confront ‘bitter truth’ of ‘catastrophically failing Sudan’
- Yvette Cooper recounts harrowing stories of atrocities during the country’s civil war, including ‘point-blank executions of civilians’ and sexual violence against women and girls
- The diplomatic momentum that secured the Gaza ceasefire must now be harnessed to secure peace in Sudan and ensure those guilty of atrocities are held to account, she says
NEW YORK CITY: Britain’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, on Thursday called on the UN Security Council to confront “the bitter truth” that the world has been “catastrophically failing the people of Sudan.”
The UK is chairing the Security Council this month, and Cooper is serving as its president. Setting out the scale of the crisis in Sudan, which has been locked in civil war since April 2023, she cited a report by a fact-finding mission on atrocities in El-Fasher, commissioned by the UK, that was published on Thursday.
She highlighted its accounts of “indiscriminate shootings, point-blank executions of civilians in homes, streets, open areas or while attempting to flee the city.”
In one incident, Cooper said: “A pregnant woman was asked how far she was in her pregnancy. When she responded ‘seven months,’ he fired seven bullets into her abdomen, killing her.”
Hospitals, medical personnel and the wounded “were not spared,” she added, and survivors reported being raped in front of relatives, including children.
The report concluded that the atrocities “bear the hallmarks of genocide,” Cooper said. “El-Fasher should have been a turning point. Instead, the violence now is continuing.”
More than three months after the fall of the city, she said, reports of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights abuses persist. Aid agencies face barriers to access, while schools, hospitals, markets and humanitarian convoys, including those belonging to the World Food Programme, have come under attack.
Since the start of the month alone, she said, there have been reports of strikes on aid operations by both of the warring military factions, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces.
Cooper described what she had witnessed firsthand during a recent visit to the border between Chad and Sudan, and warned that behind the statistics lie shattered lives.
“At the Chad-Sudan border, in a camp of over 140,000 people who have fled Sudan’s conflict, 85 percent of them are women and children,” she said.
A Sudanese community worker told her she believed “half, more than half, the women in the camp had been subjected to sexual violence,” Cooper revealed.
She recounted the case of “three sisters arriving at one of the Sudanese emergency response rooms, who had all been raped. The oldest sister was 13. The youngest was eight.
“There is a war being waged on the bodies of women and girls. The world must hear the voices of the women of Sudan and not the military men who are perpetuating this conflict; voices that ensure that this council confronts the bitter truth, because the world has been catastrophically failing the people of Sudan.”
She described the conflict as “the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st Century,” with 33 million people in need of assistance, 14 million forced from their homes, and famine “stalking millions of malnourished children.”
It is also a regional security crisis and a migration crisis, Cooper added, as she warned of destabilization across the Horn of Africa and the Sahel, opportunities for extremist groups to exploit the instability, and the risk of increased migration affecting Europe.
Cooper commended US-led efforts to convene regional powers, including Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, to discuss peace plans, as well as support from the African Union and the EU.
“We will need pressure from every UN member state,” she said. “I urge all of those with influence on both the RSF and the SAF not to fuel further conflict, but instead to exert maximum pressure on them to halt the bloodshed.”
She warned that “the reason that the military men still convince themselves there is a military solution is because they can still obtain ever-more lethal weapons.”
Arms restrictions “need to be enforced and extended,” Cooper said, adding: “Now is the time to choke off the arms flows and exert tangible pressure for peace.”
She also called for greater accountability, saying it was time for more sanctions against the perpetrators. The UK has already sanctioned senior RSF commanders linked to atrocities in El-Fasher, she said, and joined the US and France in proposing that they be designated by the Security Council.
Recalling the diplomatic momentum behind efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza last year, Cooper said: “We need that same energy and determination to bring peace for Sudan so we can
secure an immediate ceasefire, humanitarian truce, and so that those responsible for atrocities are held to account.
“Let this be the time that the world comes together to end the cycle of bloodshed and to pursue a path to peace.”
