Kurdish men throw stones at a US military vehicle as it leaves northeast Syria, October 21, 2019 (ANHA)

A statement by Defense Secretary Mark Esper has revived discussion of whether the Trump Administration is abandoning Kurdish groups in northern Syria, despite a four-year partnership to remove the Islamic State from the area.

Esper bluntly responded to a question during his presentation to the Council on Foreign Relations on Friday about US “dependability”. Host Richard Haass suggested, “Haven’t we undermined that in Syria by our treatment of the Syrian Kurds? How can you go to our allies around the world and say, ‘We will be there for you’?”

The Defense Secretary paid tribute to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, created by the US in October 2015 to fight ISIS, but then brought the hammer down on any long-term relationship.

Our understanding with the Kurds was that we would work together to fight ISIS. The SDF were great partners. They took care of a lot of action on the ground, and we supported them, we enabled them from the air.

But nowhere, at no point in time did we tell the Kurds, “We will assist you in establishing an autonomous Kurdish state in Syria.” Nor will we fight against a long-standing NATO ally, Turkey, on your behalf….That was the commitment we made to Turkey as well.

On October 6, Donald Trump — during a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — accepted a cross-border offensive by Ankara to take a zone across two Kurdish cantons in northeast Syria. Three days later, Turkey and anti-Assad fighters attacked, quickly taking a corridor along the border.

With Trump ordering the withdrawal of US forces, Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin soon reached an agreement for joint military oversight of the Turkish “safe zone”, 480 km (270 miles) long and 30 km (19 miles) deep. The area crosses the Euphrates River, extending east to Iraq.

The Pentagon pushed back against Trump’s demand for a complete withdrawal. It used the rationale of helping the SDF protect oil and gas fields from ISIS to retain about 600 troops. But all are outside the “safe zone”, where Erdoğan hopes to resettle up to 2 million of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey.

Ankara considers the Kurdish militia YPG, the leading element in the SDF, as “terrorists” who are part of the Turkish Kurdish insurgency PKK.

Esper foreshadowed his comments last Wednesday, when he told the House Armed Services Committee, “Fighting a longstanding ally [Turkey] was not part of our commitment with the SDF.”

He maintained to sceptical legislators that Turkey — which also overran the Kurdish canton of Afrin in northwest Syria in early 2018 — had stabilized the situation in the country.

See also Syria Daily, Dec 12: US Senate Committee Approves Sanctions v. Turkey

Russia Takes Advantage

Russia, which is pushing Syrian Kurdish groups into discussions with the Assad regime, immediately seized on Esper’s remarks. State outlet RT headlined, “Greater Kurdistan? Just Kidding! Esper Tells Syrian Kurds US Never Promised Them a State.” It laughed at the “anti-Assad proxy of the SDF”:

When the US began pulling out of northeast Syria back in September, leaving the surprised Kurds at the mercy of Turkish forces that view them as terrorists, the Kurds were forced to beg the same Assad government they had decried as the devil incarnate while the US was still propping them up.

The site highlighted an episode from last month, when Kurdish men pelted departing US forces with stones and vegetables.

See also Syria Daily, Oct 22: Confusion and Stone-Throwing as US Troops Withdraw

The leading Kurdish outlet Rudaw avoided direct reference to the Defense Secretary’s answer about US support, instead focusing on “US Deployed 14,000 Troops to Middle East to Address Iranian Threats: Esper”.

But Rudaw implicitly reacted with the analysis, “Why Did the US Pass the Buck to Russia in North Syria?”

The article concludes in resignation, “The regime will continue gradually re-establishing itself in northeast Syria. This inevitable outcome has been clear for several years.”

The Syrian Kurdish site ANHA preferred a flight of fantasy, overlooking the central issue to prefer the headline, “Esper: Turkey is Not a Reliable Partner.”