Last July, in the midst of the presidential election campaign, Donald Trump declared in an interview that he was “a big fan of the Kurds.” Speaking about the fight against ISIS on the ground in Syria, Trump said he hoped there was a way to get the Kurdish forces, which have been supported by the U.S. for the last two years, to join forces with their bitter enemy, the Turkish government.
“I’m a big fan of the Kurdish forces. At the same time, I think we could have a potentially very successful relationship with Turkey. And it would be really wonderful if we could put them somehow both together,” Trump explained. When asked how he would do that, he answered – “meetings. We will have meetings very early on,” without providing any further details.
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As for Trump's hope of getting Turkey and the Kurds to work together, Stein is very skeptical about it (“No,” he replied to a question on whether Trump can get both sides satisfied). So is Aykan Erdemir, a former Turkish member of parliament who is currently a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The Obama administration tried to pursue a balancing act between Ankara and the Syrian Kurds. It is difficult to argue that U.S. tactics were successful. U.S.-Turkish relations continued to deteriorate over the years. The Trump era might be marked less by opaqueness and balancing than bold and frank messages and actions. Ultimately, Erdogan might have to adapt to the new reality on the ground whether he likes it or not.”
Erdemir told Haaretz that he also thinks “the future of Syria will be marked by decentralization and self-governing entities. This is the de facto situation on the ground, and we'll see whether there might one day be a constitutional framework to formalize the status of existing status quo. I think the U.S. administration would be sympathetic to such an arrangement.”
Erdogan, however, is expected to at least try and put up a fight, before accepting this reality on his border. “Ankara sees a contiguous Kurdish entity in northern Syria as an existential threat,” Erdemir explained. “Erdogan is already very concerned about the existing relationship between the U.S. and the Syrian Kurds. Any further deepening of that cooperation would certainly lead to strong criticism from Ankara.” Last week, after the Erdogan-Trump phone call, CIA director Mike Pompeo made a brief visit to Ankara to discuss the fight against ISIS. The hastily arranged visit gave hope to some in Turkey that the Trump administration would at least consider decreasing its support of the SDF, and increasing instead its cooperation with the Arab forces supported by Turkey. Yet at a time when the SDF is only miles away from Raqqa, they have a strong argument to make in front of the administration when asking for more support from the new president.
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