Tillerson Signals Long Anticipated U.S. Betrayal of the Kurds

The news from Tillerson's meeting today in Turkey with foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is not good. The oft-anticipated U.S. sellout of its Kurdish partners in northern Syria appears to be in the works.

Rudaw is reporting that

The United States and Turkey are “locking arms” in Syria, said Tillerson in a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu. “We’re not going to act alone any longer… We are going to act together from this point forward.”

They will begin in Manbij, the northern Syrian city under control of US-ally the Manbij Military Council and the Kurdish YPG, a force Ankara alleges is a terror group.

The US promised the YPG will leave the Manbij region, Cavusoglu stated. And once the Kurdish forces are gone, Turkey will be able to take steps forward with its NATO ally, he said.

Tillerson asserted that they “share the same objective in Syria” – to defeat ISIS, stabilize the country in order to allow refugees to return home, and support a political solution for a unified Syria, with no internal demarcations dividing the country.

They will closely coordinate on the final defeat of ISIS “and other terror groups” inside Syria, Tillerson added.

Bloomberg does not mention the "The U.S. promised that the YPG will vacate Manbij" statement by Cavusoglu:

The incursion has created an unprecedented military face-off between the two largest armies in NATO, with U.S. forces fighting alongside the YPG in northeastern Syria while Turkey attacks members of the group to the west. The two sides said the top priority of the working group established Friday will be addressing Manbij, a town in northern Syria held by the YPG with the backing of American forces. Erdogan has threatened to attack the town.

Manbij should stay under the control of the U.S. or its allied forces, Tillerson said.

“We have made clear our expectations from the U.S. in terms of its support for the YPG and the fight against terrorist groups,” Cavusoglu said. “We’d like to think that our vital security concerns are taken seriously.” He said previous promises made to Turkey by the U.S. were broken, but that the two sides had “reached an understanding to normalize our relationship again."

Previously, Tillerson has spoken of allowing the Turks to create a buffer zone in northern Syria in territory that is now Rojava.

Something is definitely happening here. There are contradictory reports that the Syrian government will join the Kurds in battling the invading Turks in Afrin. It seems Turkey's "Operation Olive Branch" is a slow, methodical grind. Turkey is peeling off villages. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that Turkey now controls 7% of the canton.

For an excellent overview of what is going on with the Kurds and Turkey, as well as a fulsome defense of Rojava, read "Defending Afrin" by ROSA BURÇ  and KEREM SCHAMBERGER.