Mark Townsend - Syria’s Kurds march on to Raqqa and the sea
Syria’s Kurds have
revealed plans to redraw the northern part of the country by linking the
Kurdish region of Rojava with the Mediterranean Sea, in a move that will
infuriate neighbouring Turkey.
In a further sign of growing
Kurdish confidence in Syria’s north, officials say that they plan to ask the US
for political support in creating a trade corridor to the Mediterranean as part
of a deal for their role in liberating
Raqqa and other cities from Islamic State (Isis).
US Troops to Patrol Turkish-Syrian Border as Ankara Threatens US Allies
Only one fighting force in Syria is practically speaking taking on Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) on the ground, and that is the Syrian Democratic Forces, the bulk of whose fighters are leftist Kurds of the “People’s Protection Units” (YPG).
Senior figures have
also indicated that the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), a 50,000-strong
collection of fighters dominated by the YPJ Kurdish militia and a crucial
US partner in its offensive against Isis, is preparing to occupy Raqqa
after eradicating Isis before pushing deeper into Arab territory, along the
Euphrates valley, and seizing the city of Deir ez–Zor from the extremist group. In another startling
development, an official even revealed it was possible that SDF forces might
eventually push west to liberate the city of Idlib, 170km west of Raqqa, and
currently controlled by a coalition of Islamists and jihadis including the
former al-Qaida affiliate Nusra
Front.
Hediya Yousef, in charge of the federalism project for the self-declared autonomous “democratic federation of north Syria”, which has expanded from the Kurdish region of Rojava to include considerable Arab territory, told the Observer: “Arriving at the Mediterranean Sea is in our project for northern Syria, it’s a legal right for us to reach the Mediterranean.”
Hediya Yousef, in charge of the federalism project for the self-declared autonomous “democratic federation of north Syria”, which has expanded from the Kurdish region of Rojava to include considerable Arab territory, told the Observer: “Arriving at the Mediterranean Sea is in our project for northern Syria, it’s a legal right for us to reach the Mediterranean.”
When asked if that
meant asking the US for its political backing to achieve a trading route to the
sea once they had helped eradicate Isis from north Syria, Yousef said: “Of
course.” Speaking in the Syrian
city of Malikiyah near to where recent Turkish
airstrikes struck Kurdish targets, killing 20 fighters of the People’s
Protection Units (YPJ), Yousef added: “If we arrive at the Mediterranean it
will solve many of the problems of the population in northern Syria, everyone
will benefit.”
Opening the region to
international trading routes would significantly empower northern Syria,
circumventing the existing blockade on Rojava caused by the closed border with
Turkey and tensions with Iraq… read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/06/syria-kurds-raqqa-mediterranensee also
