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Erdoğan can crow because, at this NATO sum­mit, he has just won a diplo­mat­ic vic­to­ry that opens up new hori­zons for him.

In exchange for the lift­ing of his veto on Swe­den and Fin­land join­ing the alliance, he obtained that the West­ern­ers reit­er­ate the hold­ing of the Kur­dis­tan Work­ers Par­ty (PKK) as a ter­ror­ist enti­ty and tar­ring the YPG and “oth­er asso­ci­at­ed orga­ni­za­tions” with the same brush, at least in the two Nordic coun­tries, with min­is­te­r­i­al dec­la­ra­tions to that effect.

Even if these are only the terms of a mem­o­ran­dum signed on June 28th between Turkey, Swe­den and Fin­land, in the wings of the NATO sum­mit, a mem­o­ran­dum that also clas­si­fies the Fetul­lah Gülen orga­ni­za­tion under the label of ter­ror­ist, the very fact that NATO’s sec­re­tary gen­er­al used the oppor­tu­ni­ty to reit­er­ate a recog­ni­tion of the legit­i­ma­cy “of Turkey’s con­cerns over the export of weapons and the fight against ter­ror­ism”, is significant.

The doc­u­ment and the accom­pa­ny­ing dec­la­ra­tions speak of “show­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty with Turkey in the fight against ter­ror­ism in all its guis­es and of not impos­ing restric­tions or embar­gos on defense indus­tries.” These were the two con­di­tions demand­ed by Turkey. This will rapid­ly trans­late into the accep­tance of extra­di­tion demands for­mu­lat­ed by Turkey and the pro­hi­bi­tion of polit­i­cal activ­i­ties by the Kur­dish move­ment, notably for “fund rais­ers” on Swedish and Finnish ter­ri­to­ries. Turkey has already pro­vid­ed a num­ber of extra­di­tion demands.

Note­wor­thy also is the fact all the press releas­es insist in not­ing that Turkey did not use the oppor­tu­ni­ty to for­mu­late “any spe­cif­ic demand” direct­ed toward the Unit­ed States, despite the fact this intro­duces a con­tra­dic­tion with the list­ing as “ter­ror­ist” of Fetul­lah Gülen and his broth­er­hood, since the man is in exile in the USA, and the fact the YPGs were and remain the only trust­wor­thy allies of the Unit­ed States against ISIS in the region.

A “per­ma­nent mech­a­nism” is includ­ed in the agree­ment to fol­low up on the com­mit­ments, and Turkey has made it known it would block the pur­suit of the two Nordic coun­tries’ join­ing NATO should it con­sid­er its demands were not being met in accor­dance with its wishes.

Thus, Erdoğan presents the end of his black­mail as a “vic­to­ry” and a recog­ni­tion. In fact, it is the acknowl­edge­ment of his nui­sance value.

And what if the main issue were elsewhere?

See­ing at a NATO sum­mit a legit­imiz­ing of the so-called “fight against ter­ror­ism” con­duct­ed by Turkey, when it is not hid­ing its inten­tions to seize by force, in vio­la­tion of all agree­ments, anoth­er part of North­ern Syria’s ter­ri­to­ry, calls in ques­tion the future polit­i­cal immo­bil­i­ty of all NATO mem­bers, should Erdoğan car­ry out his plans. Under the excuse of a “buffer zone”, already a very old con­cept, and of tak­ing a por­tion of the Syr­i­an ter­ri­to­ry in order to “relo­cal­ize” the refugees it wish­es to be rid of, Turkey seeks in fact to weak­en and divide the North­ern Syr­i­an ter­ri­to­ry, a region it is already depriv­ing of its water resources by hold­ing them back. It also tar­gets one of the main dams.  This is the pur­suit of the project West­ern­ers have already allowed in Afrin, which has since become a lair for jihadist fac­tions and  apil­lag­ing zone, as well as one of ter­ror against the pop­u­la­tions who do not sub­mit to it. Access to the essen­tial road known as the M4 and its total con­trol, in vio­la­tion of past agree­ments, is also part of the plans, at a time when Turkey has shown itself unable to car­ry out this con­trol   planned for in the agree­ments around Idlib, leav­ing jihadist fac­tions use it and pros­per for its benefit.

For the time being, only move­ments of jihadist groups affil­i­at­ed with Turkey and aer­i­al bomb­ings by planes or drones are ongo­ing in the cov­et­ed region, but we know how the inva­sion and the seiz­ing of Afrin began. France, among oth­ers, had under­lined at the time “the legit­i­mate right of Turkey to defend its secu­ri­ty.” We are not far from achiev­ing this dur­ing this NATO summit.

Thus, uni­ty in sup­port­ing Ukraine would jus­ti­fy a ter­ri­to­r­i­al attack else­where, espe­cial­ly since Rus­sia, at Bachar’s side, would not direct­ly oppose a Turk­ish inva­sion either.

The rep­re­sen­ta­tives and par­ties in North­ern Syr­ia call for a “aer­i­al exclu­sion zone” in order to pro­tect the pop­u­la­tions. They do so address­ing both the West­ern allies of the coali­tion against ISIS and the Russ­ian Federation.

But in the con­di­tions caused by the war in Ukraine, this appeal is extreme­ly con­tra­dic­to­ry. Con­sid­er­ing a mil­i­tary coop­er­a­tion in order to estab­lish an exclu­sion zone between Rus­sia and the Unit­ed States against a NATO mem­ber coun­try, Turkey, is cer­tain­ly a way of point­ing out all the aber­rant aspects of the sit­u­a­tion, but also some­thing of the order of wish­ful think­ing. It is also rely­ing on unscrupu­lous “allies”, all of them old hands at Real Politik.

On the ground, only what is left of the Amer­i­can mil­i­tary forces are aware that this Turk­ish offen­sive may facil­i­tate a major upsurge of ISIS forces, and had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to say so by the voice of its mil­i­tary, notably at the time of the attack against the Has­sake prison.

France, embroiled in its refusal to repa­tri­ate women, chil­dren, but also ter­ror­ist crim­i­nals from its own coun­try, crim­i­nals cur­rent­ly guard­ed by North­ern Syr­i­an author­i­ties, clear­ly does not mea­sure the dan­ger involved, and pur­sues its pol­i­cy of coop­er­a­tion with Turkey, as a direct con­se­quence of the Euro­pean agree­ments on migrants.  One can’t see it play­ing the guardians of the skies, espe­cial­ly since its pres­i­dent is inclined toward friend­li­ness with Turkey over the mat­ter of Ukrain­ian grain.

It is hard to tell at the moment which of the cow­ardices of the West­ern world that will prove most ben­e­fi­cial for Turkey. But there can be no doubt of the way Putin and Rus­sia could take advan­tage of the con­tra­dic­tion on this sec­ondary front, even if its mil­i­tary forces are in no posi­tion to inter­vene massively.

Erdoğan’s will in sat­is­fy­ing his polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary appetites pri­or to next year’s elec­tions could open a Pandora’s box, far from the North­ern coun­tries of Europe search­ing for NATO’s mil­i­tary “secu­ri­ty”.

The pop­u­la­tions of North­ern Syr­ia could see the threats grow heav­ier still, dur­ing this NATO sum­mit, so laden with new trea­sons are the dis­cus­sions with the Turk­ish regime, trea­sons added onto the already con­sum­mat­ed aban­don of the Kurds and their allies after they had fought ISIS.

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Translation from French by Renée Lucie Bourges