Turkey seeks US support to attack IS group Syria bastion

Bloomberg

Turkey is seeking US support to lead a ground offensive against IS main stronghold in Syria, a Turkish official said, a move that could give President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more influence in the conflict and undermine Kurdish groups linked to separatists he’s fighting at home.
Troops and Syrian rebels loyal to Ankara would advance on Raqqa through areas controlled by Kurdish fighters whom Turkey classifies as terrorists, the official said on condition of anonymity to discuss the confidential talks. The attack could start within a month but hinges on US support, which would include airstrikes and intelligence sharing, the official said.
A go-ahead by the Trump administration would bring an immediate gain for Erdogan by signaling that the US no longer sees Kurds as an essential element in the fight against IS, a view that has infuriated its NATO ally. Turkey, embroiled in a three-decade conflict with Kurdish separatists, regards Kurdish attempts to establish autonomy in northern Syria as a direct national security threat.
The proposal, however, may face opposition from people who still consider Kurdish fighters the most effective force against IS in Syria, said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, who runs the Ankara office of the German Marshall Fund, a think tank.

MORE RELIABLE?
“There are some people in Washington who think that PYD is more reliable compared to what Turkey is proposing on the ground,” Unluhisarcikli said by phone from Istanbul on Tuesday, using the acronym of the main Kurdish militant group in Syria.
After a flurry of terrorist attacks blamed on IS, Turkey deepened its involvement in the Syrian war in August, sending troops across the border to create a so-called safe zone of 5,000 square kilometers. More than 70 Turkish soldiers have been killed in the operation.
Erdogan said on Tuesday in Istanbul that troops are on the verge of capturing the town of Al-Bab, an IS stronghold. He’s also asked the US to persuade Kurdish groups to withdraw from the border town of Manbij.
Turkey is proposing that its soldiers and allied fighters from the rebel Free Syrian Army attack Raqqa using a route that passes through the border town of Tal Abyad, currently under PYD control. The city is the capital of IS self-declared caliphate and lies about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the Turkish border.
“Turkey has two objectives here, one of them is to prevent Kurdish autonomy in northern Syria, the second one is to gain leverage in Syria so that Turkey can play a bigger role in the future of this country,” Unluhisarcikli said.
Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a US Defense Department spokesman, told reporters in Washington on Monday that no decisions have been made on the operation to retake Raqqa.
Asked whether the Pentagon thinks an initial push on Raqqa should also be launched by the Syrian Democratic Forces, an umbrella group that includes Kurdish fighters, Davis said past assessments showed the “the only force that’s capable of retaking Raqqa quickly is the Syrian Arab coalition with the SDF.”
“Any other answer would require a longer lead time,” he said.
Three years after a lightening rise that helped reshape the course of conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Libya, IS is on the retreat, ceding territories in the three countries.
After months of planning, Iraqi forces, backed by a US-led coalition and pro-Iranian militias, have started an offensive to retake Mosul, the radical group’s stronghold in OPEC’s second-biggest oil producer.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on Tuesday reiterated his government’s opposition to any Kurdish participation in an attack on Raqqa.
“Turkey can’t be side by side with terrorist organizations,” he told ruling AKP party lawmakers in parliament.

Merkel risks tension with
Erdogan over reporter’s arrest

Bloomberg

Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the arrest of a German reporter in Turkey as excessively harsh, risking tension with President Reccep Tayyip Erdogan as she counts on him to stem refugee flows to Europe.
Merkel’s comments on the arrest of Deniz Yucel, a correspondent for German newspaper Die Welt, brings her previously muted criticism of Turkey’s record on media freedom and human rights out into the open. As she runs for a fourth term as German chancellor, Merkel is under pressure to take a stand on Turkey while depending on a European Union refugee accord with Turkey that’s cut the influx of asylum seekers from the Middle East.
“This measure is disproportionately harsh,” Merkel said of Yucel’s arrest in a statement issued in Berlin late Monday. It’s “bitter and disappointing,” particularly since the reporter turned himself in to Turkish police, she said.
Yucel, 43, was detained on Feb. 14 for reporting on e-mails published by the Redhack hacking group from the account of Erdogan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak, Turkey’s energy minister. Authorities have now placed him under arrest on charges of spreading terrorist propaganda, Turkish media group P24 reported.