Turkey agrees plan for 'Isis-free zone' along Syrian border

Turkey and the US have agreed on the outlines of a plan to drive Islamic State out of a strip of land along the Turkish-Syrian border, according to reports, in a landmark deal that will draw Turkey further into Syria’s civil war and looks likely to increase the intensity of the US air war against Isis.

The agreement to create an “Islamic State-free zone”, as officials are calling it, comes days after a wave of violence linked to the Syrian conflict prompted Turkey, a Nato member, to launch air strikes for the first time against Isis and allow a coalition led by the US to use its airbases to bomb militant targets in Syria.
It is a diplomatic victory for Turkey, which has long demanded the creation of a safe haven in northern Syria, across the 500-mile (800km) border that links the two countries, as a precondition for joining the battle against Isis.

American officials told the New York Times they had agreed to work with Turkey and Syrian rebel fighters to clear a 60-mile strip of land near the border that would constitute a safe haven for Syrian refugees. Turkey hosts about 1.8 million displaced people who fled the civil war.

But it remains unclear how the safe haven will be policed, whether it will have to include a de facto no-fly zone patrolled by coalition planes, and what the response will be if troops loyal to the regime of the embattled Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, attack American allies including the Kurdish militias (YPG) and Syrian opposition fighters battling Isis in northern Syria.

It is also not clear how the safe haven will affect the Kurds. US warplanes have spent months over Syrian skies bombing Isis to help the Kurds take the fight to the militants. But Ankara is worried that the successes of the Kurds across the border will fire up separatists at home, with whom it has fought a 30-year civil war, and has launched a crackdown on the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK), which has links to the YPG’s political arm, the Democratic Union party (PYD).

On Monday, the YPG accused Turkey of targeting its fighters inside Syria as they laid siege to Isis-held positions close to another key border crossing, the town of Jarabulus. In a statement, the YPG said Turkey had shelled a Kurd and opposition-held town near the border with seven tank rounds, and that an hour later it had attacked vehicles belonging to the Kurdish militia.

A Turkish official told Agence France-Presse that the military did not intend to target the Syrian Kurds. Referring to Kurdish separatists in the PKK, he said: “The ongoing military operation seeks to neutralise imminent threats to Turkey’s national security and continues to target Isis in Syria and the PKK in Iraq.”

Turkey has also arrested hundreds of alleged Isis and PKK members in the past few days, in retaliation for a suicide bombing earlier this month in the southern town of Suruç, a cross-border attack by Isis militants that killed a Turkish soldier, and violence against local police by PKK militants.

The crackdown sparked violent demonstrations in Istanbul in which a policeman was killed. Attacks on police and army posts were reported in some cities in the predominantly Kurdish south-east. Kurdish politicians have accused the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, of “setting the country on fire” as a prelude to calling a snap election, in a bid to reverse his party’s losses in last month’s polls.

Turkey’s acting prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, has said military operations against the PKK and Isis would continue as long as the country faced a threat from either group. Speaking during a working dinner with several Turkish newspaper editors on Saturday, he said the military operations had “changed the regional game” and “showed its [Turkey’s] strength”.

The PKK announced on Sunday that three of its members were killed, while seven others were wounded, in the second wave of air strikes and artillery attacks on the Qandil mountain, where the Kurdish group’s military headquarters is based.

The campaign against the PKK throws into question the future of the already very fragile peace process, started in 2012 in an effort to end the bloody conflict between the Turkish state and the Kurdish rebels, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 40,000 people. It also poses questions about the aims of Turkey’s escalation, with more force directed at the PKK than against Isis.