Fresh Turkish-US crisis: Erdogan refuses to see visiting US adviser, again threatens Kurds

DEBKA

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan waited for John Bolton, US national security adviser, to land in Ankara on Tuesday, Jan 8, before refusing to see him and casting relations into a fresh crisis.  Bolton arrived in the company of Gen. Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff and James Jeffrey, Trump’s special adviser on Syria and the war on ISIS. He came from talks in Jerusalem. The high-ranking US officials had to make do with meeting only presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin, while Erdogan used a speech in parliament to rebuff any American proposals for the US-backed Kurdish group to play a key role in Syria after the US withdrawal.

According to DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources, Bolton had planned to inform the Turkish president of Washington’s consent for the Turkish army which invaded Syria to stay in areas outside the Kurdish-ruled cantons. This would have averted a Turkish military takeover of the regions evacuated by US forces. Erdogan has already slammed a recent statement by Bolton as a “serious mistake” and reiterated that Turkey could never compromise on the issue of the Kurdish YPG militia.

Erdogan then announced that his army “will very soon mobilize to eliminate terrorist organizations in Syria,” in a transparent reference both to ISIS and Syrian Kurdish fighters, whom he refers to as “terrorists” and plans to push out of their lands along the Turkish border. This declaration, say our sources, will make it difficult for the Trump administration to go through with the withdrawal of the US army from northern Syria, given the repeated US commitment to the safety of its Kurdish allies.

This new crisis and the Middle East tours conducted this week by John Bolton and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will be explored in depth in the coming issue 831 of DEBKA Weekly (for subscribers) out on Friday, Jan. 11.  To subscribe, click here.

January 8, 2019 | 20 Comments »

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20 Comments / 20 Comments

  1. @ adamdalgliesh:

    Do you think “licking ” is “clean”…. maybe compared to what they get up to and where they go…. but “cleaning themselves”…. that’s an Old Wives Tale….They’re not doing it to clean themselves….. it’s an inherited age-old trait. It’s silly people who think they’re ‘cleaning ” themselves -because that’s what they think it looks like… Why…? When they don’t look dirty….

    As I said, it’s as natural for them as it is for lions to “yawn” all the time when they’re not tired. or for bears to claw trees….Maybe they like the sensation on their very rough tongues… the way they lick people too….probably I’ve just hit on the reason. Think about it…. Would you lick your hands to “clean” them…..?” Would you then regard them as clean…?? They grab upholstered furniture with their unsheathed claws because they like the feeling..

    Yes I see the beauty of cats …I detailed all of it in my earlier post……. Sorry Adam…

  2. @ adamdalgliesh:
    Hi, Adam

    Sorry for neglecting the cats. Actually, I am averse to them as Edgar is, though I have had a reasonably good relationship with a resident neighbor cat (He’s not allowed in our house, but he does escort my wife and I on walks). With dogs, it’s more complilcated. One had the eminent wisdom to snuggle up behind my sore back while I sat on a friend’s sofa, warming it. Others growl and bare teeth at all strangers. Cats simply don’t have that range of behaviour. All that said,

    https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/187144066.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&zoom=1&resize=644%2C428

    Is that cute enough?

    I would consider a pet moose, if we had land to provide them with. As it stands, my favorite animal pets are probably our neighborhood deer. They interact at close quarters, are friendly and never misbehave for us.

  3. @ Edgar G.: Edgar, I am sorry that you can’t see the beauty and goodness of cats. They are more easily house-traied and less likely to stink up the house than dogs. And they bury their dour far better than dogs. They are always cleaning themselves by licking.

  4. @ adamdalgliesh:

    Cats…UGH…!!! I’ve lost any confidence in you Adam… What about their stinking out the house, and cat hair all over the place, with the destroyed furniture from clawing… and their poorly buried ordure…. which would drive away vultures or even pig-farmers……… Again…Ugh….!!

  5. @ Michael S: Michael, don’t leave out cats! I am a cat person. They are almost incredibly affectionate and loyal. My cats have been real sweeties, very loving and caring friends. By and large they make better, more caring parents than most people do. It is true that their independence and unwillingness to follow orders blindly annoy some people. But I respect “people” who are independent and make their own decisions, rather than blindly obeying orders the way some dogs (and humans) do.

  6. Another very troubling report from Syria on the Kurds problems and the continued iSIS threat:

    IS counterattack in east Syria leaves 32 dead: monitor
    Die-hard jihadists defending their last bastions in eastern Syria used the cover of bad weather to launch a vain but deadly counterattack against Kurdish-led fighters.

    The Islamic State group was unable to hold on to the positions they attacked but the assault killed 23 members of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and also left nine jihadists dead.

    IS fighters took advantage of poor visibility to unleash suicide attackers on SDF forces along the front line in the Euphrates valley late on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday.

    “Twenty-three SDF fighters were killed and nine IS jihadists were also killed in fighting that lasted all night and into Monday morning,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

    The jihadists often launch attacks under the cover of bad weather that cancels out their opponents’ advantage of US-led coalition air power.

    The SDF launched what is meant to be the final offensive on the jihadist organisation four months ago with air and ground support from coalition forces.

    The Kurdish-Arab alliance has deployed some 17,000 fighters for an operation aimed at flushing out IS from the last rump of its now-defunct “caliphate”.

    IS fighters “launched deadly counterattacks in three different directions against the Syrian Democratic Forces, including in the villages of Sousa and Al-Shaafa,” Abdel Rahman said.

    – Final push –

    He said they used at least two suicide bombers in their attacks, which inflicted the latest in a string of heavy losses on the SDF.

    According to the Observatory, 1,087 IS jihadists were killed since the start of the operation on September 10 while 602 members of the SDF also died.

    “On Monday morning, the SDF launched an offensive and retook all the positions they lost,” the Observatory said.

    “Due to its depleted manpower, IS was unable to hold on to the positions it attacked,” it said.

    Abdel Rahman said the jihadists’ defences in the area have collapsed and the end of the battle is near.

    The IS jihadists who remain however include seasoned fighters who have little to lose and are prepared to die in a last stand.

    The meanders of the Euphrates in those areas of the Deir Ezzor province near the border with Iraq are considered the heartland of IS and are a perilous terrain for the SDF.

    In mid-December, the SDF took Hajin, the last town of note in the IS-controlled pocket, signalling the imminent fall of the jihadists’ last bastion.

    An announcement by US President Donald Trump last month that he was ordering a complete troop pullout from Syria rattled the Kurds.

    It left them exposed to the threat of a cross-border operation by their archfoe Turkey and protesting that they had been poorly rewarded for doing much of the heavy-lifting in the battle against IS.

    They have pressed on with their operation in eastern Syria regardless and Washington has since stressed any withdrawal would be gradual.

    Trump’s announcement was badly timed.He should have waited until IS had really lost its last territorial base

  9. @ Bear Klein:

    Don’t totally buy the spin about phone call. A- I must assume Bolton or another senior National Security Staff Member was with Trump monitoring the conversation which I assume was not made in English of both sides. B- Turkey has contracted with Russia to purchase their S-400 and are also involved in F-35 production and are scheduled to take delivery soon of their first deliveries. I don’t see how Trump can sell turkey f-35 if he is purchasing the S-400 system from Russia. Patriot missiles don’t come close to capabilities of the S-400…. At Best, I think he was duped by Erdogan who promised not to purchase S-400 if trump removed American troops and purchse $3.8 billion of Patriots. I think his 2nd thought revisons of his original statement delaying removal of troops is tied more to Erdogan stating after the fact that he would not cancel the deal for the S-400. Then I add to my contention that the original announcement was made public to deflect bad news to Trump in the media and he assumed his base and supporters would joyfully approve of his move in Syria… Besides Ran Paul and a few Libertarians, he was scorched by the negative reaction across the board. Don’t think he expected it… Making his decision in the way he did without extensive consultations and internal feedback is worrying. Gauging the temperament of his base and supporters wrong is also troubling. Not having anyone inside his closed circle reminding him that his announcement and desire to remove the troops goes against most of his criticisms of Bush and Obama in Iraq and Afghanistan and makes him look like a major political flip-flopper.

  12. @ yamit82:
    He had finished talking to Erdogan is what spurred his decision at the time to leave then. Which was first reported as one month time frame. Then commanders in Iraq plus some of his close advisors like Bolton plus Lindsay Graham got him to slow down and even change course for a while.

  13. The Day Trump announced his planned troop pullout from Syria I asked myself “why now” It wasn’t like we have tens of thousands of troops in Syria and have taken too many casualties or the cost of the operation compared to all others was a big drain on the Defense budget… I came to the immediate conclusion that he made a shooting from the hip emotional decision …not thought through to deflect from bad press he was receiving at the time. It was an ad-hoc decision without consultations with any of his senior advisers, Military, Intelligence, and the State Dept. He and his staff have been engaged in clean up ever since.

    The good part is he got rid of dumbo Mattis and his groupies The last vestige of the original junta self-styled Trump minders of McMaster, Mattis and Kelley

  14. Meanwhile, Trump himself seems to have reversed course. Although he noted on Sunday that “we are pulling back in Syria, we are going to be removing troops,” he stressed that “I never said we’re doing it that quickly.”

    “We won’t be finally pulled out until ISIS is gone,” he said—the same position that Mattis took before his resignation.

    Adding to the confusion, Trump a day later pushed back against a reports that he had altered plans for the Syria withdrawal, writing on Twitter: “No different from my original statements, we will be leaving at a proper pace while at the same time continuing to fight ISIS and doing all else that is prudent and necessary!”

    https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/08/while-trump-sows-confusion-its-business-as-usual-for-u-s-troops-in-syria/

  15. An Excellent article on this this topic is linked below:

    Donald Trump’s national security adviser miscalculated if he thought he was going to dissuade Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from his planned offensive against U.S. allies in Syria.

    Erdogan rebuffed a meeting in Ankara on Tuesday with National Security Adviser John Bolton, then took to live television instead to insult him for a lack of perspective. The lira sank as investors recalibrated their views on a rapprochement between the two nations, which run the largest armies in NATO and have long been at odds on how to handle Syria.

    The impasse highlights how Trump’s hasty announcement of a U.S. exit from the war-torn country is causing confusion and generating blowback from allies and adversaries alike. Erdogan has been massing Turkish troops on the Syrian border for weeks, preparing for an invasion to eradicate Kurdish forces that the U.S. has vowed to protect.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-08/trump-shift-on-syria-leaves-bolton-to-get-turkey-to-play-along

  17. This from today’s New York Times, essentially confirming Debka’s account:

    Erdogan Snubs Bolton Over Comments That Turkey Must Protect Kurds
    Jan. 8, 2019
    President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey denounced comments from the U.S. national security adviser John Bolton that Turkey must agree to protect Kurds if Americans withdrew from Syria. Mr. Bolton was denied a meeting with Mr. Erdogan during his visit to Ankara on Tuesday.
    ISTANBUL — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey denounced the White House national security adviser John R. Bolton for comments he made ahead of his arrival in the Turkish capital and refused to meet him on Tuesday, making any agreement between the two NATO partners over a United States withdrawal from Syria increasingly difficult.

    Mr. Erdogan said Mr. Bolton had made a “grave mistake” when he said that Turkey must agree to protect Syria’s Kurds in the event of an American withdrawal.

    “It is not possible for us to swallow the message Bolton gave from Israel,” Mr. Erdogan said in a speech to political party members in Parliament. Turkey was only opposed to Kurdish militant groups and not ordinary Kurds, he insisted.

    Mr. Bolton was in Ankara, the Turkish capital, on Tuesday for meetings with his national security counterpart Ibrahim Kalin but left after he was denied a meeting with Mr. Erdogan, the pro-government English-language newspaper Daily Sabah reported.

    In a news briefing after Mr. Bolton’s departure, Mr. Kalin said that a meeting between Mr. Bolton and Mr. Erdogan had not been scheduled and had been deemed unnecessary after the national security advisers had met.

    Mr. Erdogan had hailed President Trump’s decision to pull out of Syria as the “right call.”

    In an Opinion piece in The New York Times, he made the case that Turkey, with the second largest standing army in the NATO alliance, was the only country with the power and commitment to replace United States forces in northeastern Syria, to fight terrorism and ensure stability for the Syrian people.

    In Jerusalem, in addition to demanding guarantees that Turkey would not attack Kurdish forces allied with the United States, Mr. Bolton told reporters that American forces would remain in Syria until the Islamic State was defeated, seemingly contradicting his boss, Mr. Trump.

    “We don’t think the Turks ought to undertake military action that’s not fully coordinated with and agreed to by the United States, at a minimum so they don’t endanger our troops,” Mr. Bolton had said.

    Yet even before Mr. Bolton’s comments angered Mr. Erdogan, discussions were bound to show how far apart the two sides are in their priorities in Syria, political analysts said.

    The main reason that Ankara supports a withdrawal of United States forces, said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, the Ankara director for the German Marshall Fund of the United States, is that it would end support for the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or Y.P.G., which Turkey regards as a terrorist group, and would also put paid to the idea of Rojava, a Kurdish-run autonomous territory across northern Syria.

    The Y.P.G. is widely seen as the Syrian franchise of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the P.K.K., which has been fighting an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s and is recognized as a terrorist organization by that country, the United States and the European Union.

    If it means an end to American support for the Kurds in Syria, Mr. Unluhisarcikli said, Turkey is even prepared to accept an end to United States air space in eastern Syrian and to lose NATO air and logistical support.

    “If the alternative is continued cooperation with the Y.P.G., they would want them to leave,” he said, describing Turkey’s view of the American presence in Syria.

    Turkish officials would be likely to disabuse Washington of some of its expectations in the meetings, he added.

    “America will request Turkey’s further cooperation against Daesh,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “I am not sure Turkey will deliver.”

    Turkish forces have been mustering for an operation into northeastern Syria, but the Turkish military is intent on dealing with the Kurdish militant threat and does not want to extend more than 15 to 20 kilometers, roughly 10 miles, into Syria, Mr. Unluhisarcikli said.

    The United States would like Turkey to agree not to move against the Y.P.G. and its political branch, the P.Y.D., in the event of an American withdrawal.

    “That is a hopeless cause,” Mr. Unluhisarcikli said. “It is not a question of whether. Turkey will not tolerate the P.K.K. on its borders. So it is only a matter of time.”

    Kurdish representatives in Syria complained that American officials had left them out of talks so far and expressed concern at the conflicting messaging.

    A United States Special Forces soldier, right, with local forces near Manbij, a strategic crossroads in northern Syria.Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

    A United States Special Forces soldier, right, with local forces near Manbij, a strategic crossroads in northern Syria.Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
    “We’re expecting to hear from the Americans soon, but so far they have not involved us in the talks,” said Nasser Haj Mansour, a Kurdish politician and former adviser to the United States-backed Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces. “We are hoping that Turkey would avoid any military action within our borders,” he said.

    Newaf Khalil, head of the Europe-based Center for Kurdish Studies, warned that Turkish forces would not listen to American requests not to target Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces.

    “The U.S. is saying that the Turks won’t kill the Kurds if they deploy, but definitely they will kill S.D.F. fighters, their families, and many more,’’ he said. ‘‘We’re talking about thousands. There’s a big contradiction in the U.S. statements, and this is not acceptable.”

    Turkey supports rebels fighting the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria but opposes groups it considers to be terrorists, including the Islamic State and the Y.P.G. It backs the 30,000-strong Free Syrian Army, renamed the National Liberation Front, which has fought against both the Islamic State and Y.P.G. forces in Afrin.

    In his Opinion article, Mr. Erdogan called for “a stabilization force featuring fighters from all parts of Syrian society” as a first step to replace the American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which are commanded by members of the Y.P.G.

    Turkish officials have said their immediate concern is what happens to the United States bases, and the matériel and weapons America has brought into Syria, in the event of a withdrawal.

    “There are many issues such as how it is going to happen,” Mr. Kalin, the national security adviser and presidential spokesman, said in an interview last week with NTV news channel. “How they will withdraw, what will happen to the bases there, the recollection of the weapons given to P.Y.D./Y.P.G., the type of the relationship with them, the continuation of the struggle against Daesh, avoiding a security void there: We will handle those in those meetings.”

    One area where United States and Turkish officials could find some agreement is how to proceed with the Syrian town of Manbij, a strategic crossroads in northern Syria where United States forces have a base and where the local council is dominated by the Kurdish Y.P.G.

    Turkey has been threatening to advance on the city, demanding that the Y.P.G. leave and complaining that the United States is dragging its feet in bringing that about. Nevertheless American forces have been conducting joint patrols with Turkish forces around Manbij and a joint working group has finally reached agreement on the criteria for vetting officials to run the local council.

    Although slow, the Manbij road map offers a way for the United States to pull out and leave a workable system behind in a string of northern towns along the Turkish border.

    “The primary issue is naturally Manbij, the withdrawal of entire P.Y.D./Y.P.G. forces from Manbij,” Mr. Kalin said. “Of course it is not only that. It is important for them to withdraw from other Arab cities they have invaded. We will go on negotiating those.”

    Turkey would not, however, fill the entire void that a United States departure would leave, Mr. Unluhisarcikli said.

    Surprise changes in the top of the Turkish military indicate internal disagreement over the Syrian deployment, Metin Gurcan, a military analyst, wrote this week in a column for the news site Al-Monitor.

    Two top generals — Gen. Metin Temel, commander of the Second Army, a rising star who commanded the operation in Afrin last spring and is known to be close to Mr. Erdogan; and Brig. Gen. Mustafa Barut, commander of the Fourth Commando Brigade — were abruptly removed by presidential decree on Dec. 31 and reassigned to desk jobs in the General Staff.

    The demotions appear to be because of differences between them and Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and the chief of staff, Yasar Guler, including over deployments into Syria.

    “Temel wants Ankara to have no part in cooperating with the United States in northeast Syria,” Mr. Gurcan wrote. “He thinks that because Kurdish forces there get substantial U.S. support and are well equipped and trained, it would be risky to launch a midwinter operation there while relying on confusing and undependable messages from the United States.”

    Meanwhile Mr. Erdogan will be meeting President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in coming days, the Turkish media reported.

    “The Russians as well are happy about the U.S. withdrawal plan,” Mr. Kalin said. Moscow wants the Syrian government to take control of northeastern Syria while Turkey was still holding out for it to be handed to local councils, he said.

    “They have such an inclination but they are not insistent on that,” Mr. Kalin said of Russia. “We believe that it would be more right to do it with elements of local people.”

    Mr. Erdogan told reporters after his speech in Parliament that an incursion into Syria might happen “at any moment after the Bolton meetings,’’ the news channel NTV reported. He also added that he might have a phone call with Mr. Trump.

    Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut and Karam Shoumali from Berlin.

    That Erdogan is still having rouble getting his military commanders to obey his orders is a hopeful sign. It may mean that either the Turkish army will refuse to move on the Kurds or will prove ineffective and suffer defeat if sent into action. I can’t imagine that the Turkish soldiers don’t resent having so many of their officers sacked for political reasons-especially since Erdogan is persisting in this behavior even now.

    I don’t know if there is still any possibility of the Turkish military overthrowing or assissinating Erdogan in a coup. If U.S. intelligence had a way of contacting key army officers and urging them to do this, and promising them covert assistance If there is a realistic possibility that such a covert operation might be successful,, I think it would be would be justified. But I am reasonably sure that the CIA and DoD have urged Trump to back Erdogan. Stupid.

    Realistically, the U.S. should suspend its quite substantial military aid to Turkey and impose economic sanctions on it. It should backtrack on its green light to the Turks to invade Syria. It is even possible that these two measures might lead the military to attempt a second coup against Erdogan, since they do not want to be deprived of U.S. arms.

    The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria is justified to protect them, since it would be very difficult logistically for the u.S. to defend them if they came under heavy attack. But it increasingly appears that the “green light” to Turkey was wrong. Trump now seems to be searching for ways to correct this blunder. I believe that his hope was that a Turkish invasion would weaken the hold of Assad, Russia, and Iran on Syria. But Erdogan’s refusal to cancel his arms deal with Russia makes that now seem unlikely. I suspect that Erdogan’s refusal to cancel the arms deal may have led Trump to have second thoughts about his pro-Turkish policy.

  18. 1. Erdogan is taking advantage of the Schumer Shutdown, to do this incredible nose-thumbing of the US and its president.

    2. Combine this audacity, with Erdogan’s insisting on purchasing the anti-F35 missile defense technology from Russia — while at the same time expecting the US to supply him with F-35s. What does he want? working models to give to the Russkies in exchange for favors in his Syrianinvasion plan? I hope Trump & others are aware of what’s happening. Can they possibly miss it?

    3. The Syrian Kurds are beginning to come under the protection of Assad and the Russians. Assad is nothing; but the Russians are able to eat Turkey for breakfast! Erdogan wouldn’t dare move against N. Syria without Russian consent.

    If the Democrats continue their antics. the US will soon be under martial law. If someone had predicted this a year ago, I would have put him on my kook list. I guess I should spend more time listening to Alex Jones and the “conspiracy” crowd. Reality is becoming stranger than fiction.

    Good news. View film footage of a moose wandering into a hospital, and a whale splashing sightseers:

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/moose-wanders-into-alaska-hospital-for-a-morning-snack

  20. Oy vay.I hope this will lead to Trump to impose sanctions on Turkey if they invade Syria and attack the Kurds.