Tag Archives: Syria

Russia warns Assad not to snub Syria ceasefire plan

MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Bashar al-Assad was out of step with the views of his main ally, Russia, when he said he planned to fight on until he re-established control over all of Syria, Russia’s envoy to the United Nations was quoted as saying on Thursday.

In the first public sign of cracks in the alliance between Moscow and Damascus, the envoy, Vitaly Churkin, said Russia had helped Assad turn the tide of the war so it was now incumbent on him to follow Russia’s line and commit to peace talks.

Churkin said Russia was working toward a peaceful settlement for Syria, and that attempting to take back control over the whole country would be a futile exercise which would allow the conflict to drag on indefinitely.

Asked in an interview with Kommersant newspaper about Assad’s comments that he would keep fighting until all rebels were defeated, Churkin said: “Russia has invested very seriously in this crisis, politically, diplomatically, and now also in the military sense.

“Therefore we of course would like that Bashar al Assad should take account of that.”

“I heard President Assad’s remarks on television… Of course they do not chime with the diplomatic efforts that Russia is undertaking…. The discussions are about a ceasefire, a cessation of hostilities in the foreseeable future. Work is underway on this.”

Moscow and Damascus have been in lock-step since the end of September last year, when Russia launched air strikes on Syria which focused on attacking rebels opposed to Assad’s rule.

The Russian strikes saved Assad’s forces from imminent collapse and turned the tide of the fighting in his favor, exasperating the United States and its allies which have been working for years to defeat him.

Western diplomats expressed hope that Russia could use its influence over Assad to persuade him to start talks with armed opposition groups and eventually agree to step down.

Unofficial reports have emerged of Assad refusing to meet opposition figures proposed by Moscow as potential negotiating partners, but Churkin’s remarks are the first public sign that Moscow is frustrated with Assad’s reluctance to compromise.

On Assad’s comments about fighting on in Syria, Churkin said in the interview: “In this case I think that we ought to be guided not by what he (Assad) says, with all my respect to the remarks of such a high-ranking person, but by what he does in the end.

“If the Syrian authorities… follow Russia’s lead in the resolution of this crisis, then they have a chance to get out of it with their dignity intact.”

“But if in some way they are knocked off that path — and this again is my personal opinion — then a very difficult situation could arise. Including for the Syrians themselves. Because whatever the capabilities of the Syrian army, it was the effective operations of Russian air forces that allowed them to push their opponents back from Damascus.”

“If they take the position that they don’t need any ceasefire, and they need to fight on to the end and to victory, then this conflict is going to carry on for a very long time. And it’s frightening to imagine that,” Churkin said.

(Reporting by Alexander Winning; Editing by Christian Lowe)

Snyder: Middle East developments put world at risk of WWIII

Recent developments in the Middle East have placed the world dangerously close to an event that could potentially ignite another world war, Michael Snyder said on Thursday morning.

Snyder made the comments during a taping of The Jim Bakker Show.

He was referring to a potential ground invasion of Syria, which he wrote about earlier this week on his blog “The Economic Collapse.” Snyder’s post cited a Saudi Arabia state media report that stated 20 nations would participate in a “military exercise” in the northern part of kingdom.

The Saudi Press Agency said the exercise would include troops, fighter jets, artillery, tanks, naval forces, and air defense systems, according to the announcement. The agency called it “the largest and most important military maneuver in the history of the region” and said it showed the 20 nations “stand united to face all challenges and to maintain peace and stability in the region.”

Snyder, though, noted in his post that “military exercises” are sometimes used as an excuse if governments are planning to prepare for a ground invasion. He argued that Saudi Arabia and Turkey could both benefit from invading Syria, though noted an invasion may lead to backlash from Russia and other nations with conflicting interests in Syria’s nearly five-year civil war.

“We could literally be looking at the spark that sets off World War 3,” he wrote.

Snyder went into more detail about the political, religious and economic sides of the conflict in Syria and the potential fallout of any ground invasion during Thursday morning’s taping.

“With interlocking relationships and alliances, they could draw in the entire world eventually — including the United States,” he said.

The show is scheduled to air on Feb. 23, but viewers can get exclusive early access through the PTL Television Network on Roku or the Video on Demand section of jimbakkershow.com.

The United Nations says 250,000 people have been killed and another 12 million are currently displaced as a result of the Syrian violence. The nation is the world’s largest source of refugees.

At a meeting last week, the International Syria Support Group agreed to try to implement a “nationwide cessation of hostilities” in Syria by this Friday. But violence and airstrikes have continued this week, and a medical charity known as Doctors Without Borders said at least 25 doctors and patients were killed on Monday when missiles targeted a hospital in Idlib Province.

During Thursday’s taping, Pastor Zach Drew asked Snyder if people should expect to see an invasion within the next 18 days, a reference to the reported length of the military exercise.

“We’re certainly in the danger zone, Zach, because this unprecedented military force has gathered right now,” Snyder replied. “If we get past a few weeks, well then, presumably, they would start to go home and go back to their countries. But they’re gathered right now in northern Saudi Arabia. It’s a real, real potential.”

During the taping, Pastor Jim Bakker said headlines from around the world are “crying out” that a world war could start in a matter of weeks or days, yet they were being largely ignored.

“We are in a moment where suddenly things will happen, and we’re not going to be able to do anything about it,” Pastor Bakker said. “Most people are not prepared for the world to come apart. We’re not prepared at all.”

Turkey blames Kurdish militants for Ankara bomb, vows reprisals

ANKARA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed a Syrian Kurdish militia fighter working with Kurdish militants inside Turkey for a suicide car bombing that killed 28 people in the capital Ankara, and he vowed retaliation in both Syria and Iraq.

A car laden with explosives detonated next to military buses as they waited at traffic lights near Turkey’s armed forces’ headquarters, parliament and government buildings in the administrative heart of Ankara late on Wednesday.

Davutoglu said the attack was clear evidence that the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia that has been supported by the United States in the fight against Islamic State in northern Syria, was a terrorist organization and that Turkey, a NATO member, expected cooperation from its allies in combating the group.

Within hours, Turkish warplanes bombed bases in northern Iraq of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state and which Davutoglu accused of collaborating in the car bombing.

Turkey’s armed forces also shelled YPG positions in northern Syria on Thursday, a security source said. Davutoglu said the artillery fire would continue and promised that those responsible for the Ankara attack would “pay the price”.

“Yesterday’s attack was directly targeting Turkey and the perpetrator is the YPG and the divisive terrorist organization PKK. All necessary measures will be taken against them,” Davutoglu said in a televised speech.

President Tayyip Erdogan also said initial findings suggested the Syrian Kurdish militia and the PKK were behind the bombing and said that 14 people had been detained.

The political arm of the YPG, denied involvement in the bombing, while a senior member of the PKK said he did not know who was responsible.

The attack was the latest in a series of bombings in the past year mostly blamed on Islamic State militants.

Turkey is getting dragged ever deeper into the war in neighboring Syria and is trying to contain some of the fiercest violence in decades in its predominantly Kurdish southeast.

The YPG militia, regarded by Ankara as a hostile insurgent force deeply linked to the PKK, has taken advantage in recent weeks of a major Syrian army offensive around the northern city of Aleppo, backed by Russian air strikes, to seize ground from Syrian rebels near the Turkish border.

That has alarmed Turkey, which fears the advances will stoke Kurdish separatist ambitions at home. It has been bombarding YPG positions in an effort to stop them taking the town of Azaz, the last stronghold of Turkish-backed Syrian rebels north of Aleppo before the Turkish frontier.

Hundreds of Syrian rebels with weapons and vehicles have re-entered Syria from Turkey over the last week to reinforce insurgents fending off the Kurdish-led assault on Azaz, rebel sources said on Thursday.

TENSIONS WITH WASHINGTON

The co-leader of the YPG’s political wing denied that the affiliated YPG perpetrated the Ankara bombing and said Turkey was using the attack to justify an escalation in fighting in northern Syria.

“We are completely refuting that. …Davutoglu is preparing for something else because they are shelling us as you know for the past week,” Saleh Muslim told Reuters by telephone.

Washington’s support of the YPG – it views the group as a useful ally in the fight against Islamic State – has strained relations with Turkey. Both Erdogan and Davutoglu have called on the United States to cut ties with the insurgents.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said Washington was not in a position to either confirm or deny Turkey’s charge the YPG was behind the attack. He also called on Turkey to stop shelling the YPG.

Turkey has said its shelling of YPG positions is a response, within its rules of engagement, to hostile fire coming across the border into Turkey, something Saleh Muslim also denied.

“I can assure you not even one bullet is fired by the YPG into Turkey … They don’t consider Turkey an enemy,” he said.

The co-leader of the PKK umbrella group, Cemil Bayik, was quoted by the Firat news agency as saying he did not know who was responsible for the Ankara bombing. But the attack, he said, could be an answer to “massacres in Kurdistan”, referring to the Kurdish region spanning parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Turkey has been battling PKK militants in its own southeast, where a 2-1/2 year ceasefire collapsed last July and pitched the region into its worst bloodshed since the 1990s. Six soldiers were killed and one wounded on Thursday when a remote-controlled handmade bomb hit their vehicle, the military said.

WARNING TO RUSSIA

Davutoglu named the suicide bomber as Salih Necar, born in 1992 and from the Hasakah region of northern Syria, and said he was a member of the YPG.

A senior security official said the alleged bomber had entered Turkey from Syria in July 2014, although he may have crossed the border illegally multiple times before that, and said he had had contact with the PKK and Syrian intelligence.

Davutoglu also accused the Syrian government of a hand in the Ankara bombing and warned Russia, whose air strikes in northern Syria have helped the YPG to advance, against using the Kurdish militant group against Turkey.

“I’d like to warn Russia, which is giving air support to the YPG in its advance on Azaz, not to use this terrorist group against the innocent people of Syria and Turkey,” he said.

“Russia condemned yesterday’s attack, but it is not enough. All those who intend to use terrorist organizations as proxies should know that this game of terror will turn around like a boomerang and hit them first.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told a teleconference with reporters that the Kremlin condemned the bombing “in the strongest possible terms”.

(Additional reporting by Seyhmus Cakan in Diyarbakir, Daren Butler and Ece Toksabay in Istanbul, Orhan Coskun in Ankara, Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow and Lesley Wroughton in Washington; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Andrew Heavens and Andrew Hay)

U.N. aims to air drop food to ISIS-besieged city in eastern Syria

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations plans to make its first air drops of food aid in Syria, to Deir al-Zor, an eastern town of 200,000 besieged by Islamic State militants, the chair of a U.N. humanitarian task force said on Thursday.

U.N. aid agencies do not have direct access to areas held by Islamic State, including Deir al-Zor, where civilians face severe food shortages and sharply deteriorating conditions.

Jan Egeland, speaking to reporters in Geneva a day after U.N. aid convoys reached five areas, some besieged by government forces and others by rebels, said the U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP) had a “concrete plan” for carrying out the Deir al-Zor operation in coming days.

He said the WFP hoped to make progress reaching “the poor people inside Deir al-Zor, which is besieged by Islamic State. That can only be done by air drops,” said Egeland.

“It’s a complicated operation and would be in many ways the first of its kind,” Egeland said, giving no details of the air operation, which is far more costly than land convoys.

Egeland, who is head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, later told Reuters in Oslo: “It is either airdrops or nothing. Airdrops are a desperate measure in desperate times.”

A WFP official was not available to comment on where cargo planes would depart from or what they would carry.

Deir al-Zor is the main town in a province of the same name. The province links Islamic State’s de facto capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa with territory controlled by the militant group in neighboring Iraq.

Egeland chaired a three-hour meeting of the humanitarian task force on Syria, where he said that many member states pledged support for the attempt to reach Deir al-Zor.

Russia is Syria’s main ally in the five-year war, while Western and Arab states support rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

The U.N. estimates there are 486,700 people in around 15 besieged areas of Syria, and 4.6 million in hard-to-reach areas. In some, starvation deaths and severe malnutrition have been reported.

“We hope to be able to reach the remaining areas in the next days,” Egeland said, adding the group would meet again in a week.

Britain’s foreign minister Philip Hammond said in a statement: “Starvation of civilians as a method of combat is unacceptable. The international community and particularly Russia, which has unique influence, must put pressure on the Assad regime to lift sieges and grant full humanitarian access.”

In the past 24 hours, 114 U.N. trucks delivered life-saving food and medical supplies to 80,000 people in five besieged areas, enough for one month, Egeland said.

These were Madaya, Zabadani and Mouadamiya al-Sham near Damascus, which are under siege by government forces, and the villages of al-Foua and Kefraya in Idlib province, surrounded by rebel fighters.

It marked the “beginning of the task” assigned by ministers from major and regional powers who met a week ago in Munich.

But some “vital medical items” were not delivered, he said.

A spokesman for the World Health Organization (WHO) said that government forces had removed some medicines for emergency and trauma care from supplies bound for Mouadamiya, but had allowed a hemodialysis machine for diabetics, medicines and nutritional supplements.

(Reporting and writing by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; additional reporting by Gwladys Fouche; Editing by Dominic Evans and Katharine Houreld)

United States wants NATO to step up fight against Islamic State

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The United States is pressing NATO to play a bigger role against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, putting Washington at odds with Germany and France which fear the strategy would risk confrontation with the alliance’s old Cold War foe Russia.

All 28 NATO allies are already part of a 66-nation anti-Islamic State coalition, so the United States is looking to NATO as an institution to bring its equipment, training and the expertise it gained leading a coalition in Afghanistan.

“It is worth exploring how NATO, as NATO, could make an appropriate contribution, leveraging for example its unique capabilities, such as force generation,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said after meeting allies at NATO headquarters in Brussels last week and referring to NATO’s know-how in drumming-up troops, planes and ships from allies.

Seeking to recapture the Islamic State strongholds of Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, Washington wants a bigger European response to the chaos and failing states near Europe’s borders.

Carter’s call for NATO’s help came as defense ministers from the anti-Islamic State coalition met last week at NATO headquarters in Brussels for the first time, albeit with NATO insignia removed from the walls.

Despite support from Britain, the U.S. push has not been received well by France and Germany.

Given Russia’s concerns over NATO expansion in eastern Europe, Paris and Berlin are worried that deeper NATO involvement in Syria could be taken by Moscow as a provocation that the alliance is seeking to extend its influence.

As the Russian-backed Syrian government advance nears NATO’s southeastern border, growing hostility between Russia and Turkey only makes some members of the alliance more reluctant, diplomats say.

Notwithstanding an agreement between Russia and the United States to avoid accidental military air incidents, France and Germany worry Russia’s targeting of opposition groups other than Islamic State increases the risks.

“NATO and Russia would not be fighting a common enemy,” a NATO diplomat said.

NON-COMBAT OPTIONS

Carter has sought to distinguish between Syria’s civil war and the fight against Islamic State, saying the campaign against the militant group will go on regardless, and has pushed allies to accelerate their efforts.

In that vein, Washington tested waters by making a request for NATO to provide its surveillance AWACS aircraft to the anti-Islamic State coalition fighting militants in Syria.

Germany pushed back on the AWACS request. That has forced a compromise by which NATO will send the planes to allied countries so as to free-up allies to send more of their own equipment to fight Islamic State in Syria, diplomats said.

France also sought assurances that the AWACS request did not mean NATO as an institution was being involved more deeply in the anti-Islamic State coalition.

Still, NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Philip Breedlove said planning for a bigger alliance role was “a natural shift … a natural evolvement of the thinking.”

“All our nations are under greater pressure, so this is just beginning. There is no detail but there are lots of opportunities that are being considered,” he said.

NATO involvement in Syria could help answer critics who say the alliance has watched passively as Russia has widened its role there. It could also address concerns expressed by southern allies, such as Spain, Italy and Portugal, that NATO does not have a strategy to address risks on the Mediterranean, the entry point for huge numbers of people fleeing conflict in the Middle East.

British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said NATO might not yet be ready to move ahead along the lines suggested by Washington, “but the very fact that we brought together 45 members of the anti-IS coalition, inside NATO headquarters, shows you that we want to see a stronger governance of the coalition.”

“We want to be able to measure the progress of the campaign and to review it more regularly,” Fallon told Reuters.

For the moment, discussions on various options include more NATO training of Iraqi troops and police, as well as strengthening government departments in areas taken back from Islamic State, according a U.S. defense official.

The United States has made clear it does not see a role for Western combat troops. “Territory retaken from ISIL (Islamic State) has to be occupied and governed by people who are from the area and want to live there,” Carter said.

(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington and Sabine Siebold in Berlin; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Aid reaches besieged Syrian towns as planned

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered five besieged areas of Syria scheduled for deliveries on Wednesday in a U.N.-backed deal to deliver help to thousands of trapped residents, an aid agency source and conflict monitor said.

The Syrian government approved access to seven besieged areas after crisis talks in Damascus on Tuesday, a week ahead of a planned resumption of peace negotiations between Syria’s warring parties.

The United Nations estimates there are 486,700 people in around 15 besieged areas of Syria, and 4.6 million people in hard-to-reach areas. In some, starvation deaths and severe malnutrition have been reported.

One hundred truckloads of aid were given to about 100,000 people, the United Nations said, as convoys entered Madaya, Zabadani and Mouadamiya al-Sham near Damascus which have been under siege by government forces, and the villages of al-Foua and Kefraya in Idlib province, which are surrounded by rebel fighters.

There have been several aid deliveries to Madaya and Zabadani and to al-Foua and Kefraya this year, but each has to be carefully synchronized between the warring sides so that convoys enter simultaneously.

The Syrian Red Crescent coordinated with the United Nations on the deliveries, which include wheat and high-energy foods, with medical teams being sent to some areas.

The world body has demanded unhindered access to all besieged areas of the country, where it says hundreds of thousands of people are trapped by fighting and deliberate blockades by various warring sides.

In Madaya, near the border with Lebanon, dozens have starved to death after months of siege by government forces and their allies.

In the city of Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria, parts of which are under siege by Islamic State militants, unverified reports have said up to 20 people have died of starvation.

Deir al-Zor was one of the seven areas to which the aid convoys were expected to head within the next few days, the United Nations said.

Yacoub el-Hillo, U.N. humanitarian and resident coordinator in Syria, said aid operations must continue beyond recent efforts to restart peace talks, but a solution to the root of the problem must also be found.

A humanitarian task force will meet in Geneva on Thursday to take stock of humanitarian access to besieged areas, a statement from the office of the special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said. That was in line with an agreement on humanitarian assistance reached in Munich last week by major and regional powers.

UNRELENTING FIGHTING

Syria’s opposition says it will not negotiate with Damascus until sieges imposed by government forces and their allies have been lifted – one of many issues that led to a suspension of the peace talks in Geneva earlier this month.

Talks are scheduled to resume on Feb. 25, but fighting and air strikes continue unabated throughout the country, where 250,000 people have been killed in five years of war.

In the town immediately next to Mouadamiya, Daraya, the Syrian army and allied forces continue a major offensive to take back the rural suburbs of Damascus still in rebel hands.

In Deraa city, south of Damascus, jets believed to be Russian pounded insurgent positions on Wednesday near a now-closed rebel-held border crossing with Jordan. The attacks appeared aimed at cutting rebel supply lines.

A fighter from al-Tawhid al-Janub Brigade, part of the Southern Front rebel alliance, said the bombing of the old quarter of Deraa city, which has been in rebel hands for nearly three years and whose residents have fled since the start of the conflict, was the heaviest in over two years. The army controls the rest of the city.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Kinda Makiyeh and Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by John Davison; Editing by Dominic , John Stonestreet and Peter Cooney)

Kurds’ advance in Syria divides U.S. and Turkey as Russia bombs

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – The rapid advance of U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, taking advantage of Russian air strikes to seize territory near the Turkish border, has infuriated Ankara and threatened to drive a wedge between NATO allies.

Washington has long seen the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its YPG military wing as its best chance in the battle against Islamic State in Syria – to the chagrin of fellow NATO member Turkey, which sees the group as terrorists and fears it will stir up greater unrest among its own Kurdish minority.

Russian bombing has transformed the five-year-old Syrian civil war in recent weeks, turning the momentum decisively in favor of Moscow’s ally President Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian army has come within 15 miles of the Turkish border and says it aims to seal it off altogether, closing the main lifeline into rebel territory for years and recapturing Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war.

Meanwhile, the YPG has exploited the situation, seizing ground from other Syrian opposition groups in the area.

Washington says it does not believe the Kurds are coordinating directly with Moscow. But the YPG’s advance may represent a masterstroke by Russia, which could benefit from any discord between NATO allies Turkey and the United States.

“Now this is the YPG’s dilemma: Will it continue with America or Russia? The consequences of this strategic choice will influence Syria’s future, as well as the ongoing clashes in Turkey,” said Metin Gurcan, an independent security analyst and retired Turkish military officer.

Turkey has shelled YPG positions inside Syria for four straight days. Ankara sees the militia as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a three-decade insurgency for autonomy in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast.

Turkey also portrays the Kurds as a pawn of Russia. Relations between the former Cold War rivals hit a low last year after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane over Syria.

Turkey now accuses Russia of deliberately targeting civilians in Syria, including hospitals struck this week, in what it calls a “war crime” to depopulate territory ahead of a government advance. Moscow denies this and accuses Turkey of covertly supporting Syrian jihadist militant groups.

The United States, which has supported the Kurdish fighters elsewhere in battle against Islamic State, has called for the YPG to stop actions that would heighten friction in northern Syria. It has also urged Ankara to stop shelling YPG positions.

Washington has seen no evidence that the YPG are cooperating with the Russians, U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said at a briefing this week.

DECADES OF REPRESSION

Some 30 million Kurds are estimated to live in Iran, Turkey, Iraq and in Syria. Syria’s Kurds are the largest ethnic minority and suffered decades of repression under President Bashar al-Assad and his father before him.

Under the Damascus regime, Kurds were forbidden from learning their own language, frequently evicted from their land and even denied full citizenship. Their region is home to a chunk of Syria’s estimated 2.5 billion barrels of crude oil reserves, but Kurds enjoyed little benefit.

Now, Kurds have started to carve out a fiefdom in the north of fragmenting Syria, similar to the autonomy enjoyed by their kin in northern Iraq.

“Russia is using this instrument to put Turkey in a difficult position,” Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said this week, vowing to prevent the YPG from expanding its territory.

In the early stages of Syria’s civil war, there were signs Turkey was willing to work with the PYD and other Kurdish groups if they met three demands: remain resolutely opposed to Assad, vow not to seek autonomy through violence or before the wider conflict was resolved, and pose no threat to Turkey.

“We have no problem with their aspirations … What we do not want from any group is that they use this situation opportunistically to impose their will by force,” a senior Turkish government official told Reuters in August 2013, days after PYD co-chair Saleh Muslim was invited to Istanbul for talks.

RELATIONS SOUR

But relations soon deteriorated, reaching a nadir in late 2014, when Islamic State fighters besieged the predominantly Kurdish town of Kobani on the Turkish border for four months as Turkish tanks looked on from surrounding hills.

Turkey allowed Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces through its territory to help defend the town, but its failure to intervene directly in support of the YPG, even as a U.S.-led coalition carried out air strikes against Islamic State, infuriated Kurds in both Syria and Turkey.

That added to pressure on the Turkish government’s relationship with its own Kurds. PKK attacks on Turkish security forces last year helped put an end to a more than two-year ceasefire between the government and the insurgents, and the once-dormant conflict within Turkey has since stayed hot.

Wary of an escalation, Washington has urged all parties to focus on the “common threat” of Islamic State, calling on Turkey to cease cross-border artillery fire and on the YPG not to seize new territory from groups that Turkey supports.

Turkey has repeatedly criticized the United States for its position, saying that Washington should deem the Syrian Kurds terrorists, as it does with the PKK, and halt support.

The Syrian Kurdish militia has not explained the aim of its latest advance but a source told Reuters on Jan. 28 it planned to seize the stretch of border held by Islamic State east of Azaz – the only part of the frontier still in the hands of the jihadist group.

But the YPG’s advance into territory held by other rebel groups looks likely to continue for now, causing headaches for Washington as it tries to manage its strategic relationship with Turkey and check Russia’s influence in the region.

“The YPG is pushing as far as it can.… (Its) focus right now is making the most of its momentum,” said Gurcan, the analyst. “This has put the U.S. in a very bad position.”

(Additional reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley and Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul; Warren Strobel in Washington; Tom Perry in Beirut and Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman; writing by Daren Butler; editing by David Dolan, Nick Tattersall and Peter Graff)

EU ‘silent’ on migrant rights abuses in Turkey, rapporteur says

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Anxiety about refugees streaming to its shores has led the European Union to turn an apparent blind eye to rights abuses in Turkey, whose help the EU needs to reduce the migrant influx, the European Parliament’s rapporteur on Turkey said on Tuesday.

The number of Syrian war refugees in neighboring Turkey has swelled to 2.6 million and the EU has promised Ankara 3 billion euros to help it cope with them in the hope this will dissuade many from making onward journeys to Europe.

EU officials have also voiced renewed support for Turkey’s long-held aspiration of joining the 28-nation bloc if it does more to stem the outflow of migrants to Europe.

The European Parliament’s rapporteur on Turkey said the delay of a European Commission progress report on Ankara’s EU qualifications until after the November 2015 election, won by the party that backs President Tayyip Erdogan, suggested the bloc was staying “silent” in the face of a deteriorating rights record in Turkey.

Turkish security-force operations against Kurdish militants in southeast Turkey since July have killed at least 160 civilians, according to rights groups. Journalists and academics critical of the government’s policies have been detained.

“The (EU) accession process … should be connected to democratic reforms or rule of law or what’s happening with the Kurdish question,” rapporteur Kati Piri told Reuters. “The European Union gave a pretty bad signal by connecting it so directly to migration.”

Ankara’s peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) collapsed in July, ending a ceasefire. Some 400,000 people have been displaced since the conflict reignited, Piri said in the telephone interview.

“If the EU does not engage actively in calling for an immediate ceasefire and the peace process to be resumed, we could face another refugee inflow, and this time it will be coming from Turkey,” she told reporters in Brussels, presenting the draft report that will be voted on by European lawmakers.

STEPS TO CURB FLOW

More than 1 million migrants reached Europe via illegal routes in 2015, and another million will seek to do so in 2016, according to the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Turkey has yet to receive any of the 3 billion euros of EU aid, but Piri said the government had boosted efforts to stop refugees, including blocking Syrians coming from Jordan and Lebanon and breaking up people-smuggling rings.

But it will have to lift its geographical limitation on accepting refugees in order to meet EU criteria, she said.

Turkey only considers those fleeing Europe to be refugees, although there has been no such migration for decades, and gives those from other regions only limited rights to live and work.

“This will be a very important point in the coming months. It is one of the conditions Turkey needs to fulfill for visa liberalization with the EU. This could be a huge step forward for improving the lives of asylum seekers in Turkey,” said Piri.

Turkey opened membership talks with the EU in 2005 but the slow pace of reforms there, a dispute over the divided island of Cyprus and worries in Europe about taking in a country with a large Muslim population has stalled its accession bid.

(Additional reporting by Francesco Guarascio in Brussels; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Mark Heinrich)

U.N. envoy wins Syria government green light for aid convoys

GENEVA (Reuters) – The Syrian government has approved access to seven besieged areas and U.N. convoys are expected to set off in days, the United Nations said on Tuesday after crisis talks in Damascus.

U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura, who won the green light at talks with Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem, said the world body would test the government commitment to allow access on Wednesday but gave no details.

Their meeting in Damascus came at a time when government forces have been advancing rapidly with the aid of Russian air strikes, and just days before an internationally agreed pause in fighting is due to take effect.

De Mistura said they had discussed the issue of humanitarian access to areas besieged by all sides in the five-year war.

“It is clear it is the duty of the government of Syria to want to reach every Syrian person wherever they are and allow the U.N. to bring humanitarian aid,” de Mistura said in a statement. “Tomorrow we test this.”

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that Syria had approved access to Deir al-Zor; Foua and Kafraya in Idlib; and Madaya, Zabadani, Kafr Batna and Mouadamiya al-Sham in rural Damascus.

“Humanitarian agencies and partners are preparing convoys for these areas, to depart as soon as possible in the coming days,” the OCHA said. It was not immediately clear whether the convoys would begin on Wednesday, as de Mistura had indicated.

Nor was there any indication of a breakthrough on access to areas besieged by armed opposition groups.

U.N.-backed peace talks are scheduled to resume in Geneva on Feb. 25, after de Mistura suspended a first round earlier this month.

Last Friday global powers meeting in Munich agreed to the pause in fighting in the hope that this could allow the talks to resume, but the deal does not take effect until the end of this week and was not signed by the Syrian warring parties.

“We are witnessing a degradation on the ground that cannot wait,” U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi told a news briefing. “The reason (de Mistura) suspended (the talks) was, as you know, that cities were still being bombed, people were still being starved on the ground.”

SUPPLY ROUTES

The Syrian government is meanwhile advancing in the north of the country with Russian air support. Damascus says its main objectives are to recapture Aleppo – Syria’s biggest city before the war – and seal the Turkish border, lifeline of rebel-held territory for years.

Those would be the biggest victories for Damascus of the war so far, and would all but end rebel hopes of overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad, the goal they have pursued since 2011 with the support of the West, Arab states and Turkey.

Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Hussam Aala, said in an interview in the daily Tribune de Geneve: “We have done all we could to facilitate the passage of aid convoys in January and February.”

“The advance of the Syrian army in this region has allowed us to break the siege imposed against two towns, Nubul and al-Zahra. It opened the way for the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to deliver aid to 70,000 residents. Our objective was to cut all the supply routes for arms and for men to the terrorist groups armed by Turkey.”

The United Nations has reported that hospitals have been struck in northern Syria in areas where Russian and Syrian warplanes are launching air strikes as part of their advance.

U.N. rights spokesman Rupert Colville condemned the air strikes on hospitals and schools in Idlib and Aleppo provinces.

“If it’s deliberate, intentional targeting, then it may amount a war crime. But at this point, we’re not in a position to make that judgment. Ultimately that’s only a court that can make that judgment, and you need sufficient evidence,” he said.

“Clearly those two, both Russian and Syrian planes, are very active in this area. So obviously they should know who is responsible.”

Russian news agencies quoted a Russian Defence Ministry spokesman as saying on Tuesday that Russia’s Caspian Sea flotilla did not have a boat capable of firing a ballistic missile on the hospital in Idlib province.

International humanitarian law says hospitals and health care personnel must be protected, Colville said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Kevin Liffey, Katharine Houreld and Peter Graff)

Turkey seeks allies’ support for ground operation as Syria war nears border

ANKARA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey, Saudi Arabia and some European allies want ground troops deployed in Syria as a Russian-backed government advance nears NATO’s southeastern border, Turkey’s foreign minister said, but Washington has so far ruled out a major offensive.

Syrian government forces made fresh advances on Tuesday, as did Kurdish militia, both at the expense of rebels whose positions have been collapsing in recent weeks under the Russian-backed onslaught.

The offensive, supported by Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias as well as Russian air strikes, has brought the Syrian army to within 25 km (15 miles) of Turkey’s frontier, while Kurdish fighters, regarded by Ankara as hostile insurgents, have extended their presence along the border.

The advances have increased the risk of a military confrontation between Russia and Turkey. Turkish artillery returned fire into Syria for a fourth straight day on Tuesday, targeting the Kurdish YPG militia which Ankara says is being backed by Moscow.

“Some countries like us, Saudi Arabia and some other Western European countries have said that a ground operation is necessary,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told Reuters in an interview.

However, this kind of action could not be left to regional powers alone. “To expect this only from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar is neither right nor realistic. If such an operation is to take place, it has to be carried out jointly, like the (coalition) air strikes,” he said.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the “brutal operation” by Russian and Syrian forces was aimed at forging a YPG corridor along Turkey’s border, something Ankara has long feared would fuel Kurdish separatist ambition on its own soil.

Turkey accused Russia on Monday of an “obvious war crime” after missile attacks in northern Syria killed scores of people, and warned the YPG it would face the “harshest reaction” if it tried to capture a town near the Turkish border.

Russian air support for the Syrian government offensive has transformed the balance of power in the five-year-old war in the past three weeks.

World powers meeting in Munich last week agreed to a pause in the fighting, but that is not set to begin until the end of this week and was not signed by the warring Syrian parties.

The U.N. Syria envoy, Staffan de Mistura, held talks with Syria’s foreign minister on Tuesday aimed at securing a cessation of hostilities and said Damascus had a duty to let the world body bring in humanitarian aid.

Damascus says its objectives are to recapture Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the war, and seal off the border with Turkey that has served as the main supply route into rebel-held territory for years.

Those would be the government’s biggest victories of the war so far and probably end rebel hopes of overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad by force, their objective since 2011 with the encouragement of the West, Arab states and Turkey.

SYRIAN MILITARY GAINS

Kurdish forces continued their push eastwards toward Islamic State-held territory northeast of Aleppo.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group which monitors the war, said the Kurdish-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) – of which the YPG is a part – took a village near the town of Marea. That is the last major settlement before territory held by the radical militants stretching into Iraq.

The Syrian army also made advances, with state media saying it had taken two villages north of Aleppo near the town of Tal Rifaat, which fell to the SDF on Monday. With the help of Russian air strikes it also advanced from the coastal city of Latakia, fighting to take the town of Kansaba.

With hundreds of thousands trapped in areas the government aims to seize, Turkey and others accuse Moscow of deliberately firing on civilian targets such as hospitals to force residents to flee and depopulate territory.

Almost 50 civilians were killed when missiles hit at least five medical facilities and two schools in rebel-held areas on Monday, according to the United Nations, which called the attacks a blatant violation of international law.

At least 14 were killed in the northern town of Azaz, the last rebel stronghold before the border with Turkey north of Aleppo. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said a Russian missile was responsible and vowed that Turkey would not let Azaz fall into YPG hands.

Russia’s foreign ministry said Turkey was using Azaz as a supply route for Islamic State and “other terrorist groups”, while the Kremlin strongly rejected Turkish accusations it had committed a war crime after the missile strikes.

“We categorically do not accept such statements, the more so as every time those making these statements are unable to prove their unfounded accusations in any way,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“Our relations (with Turkey) are in a deep crisis. Russia regrets this. We are not the initiators of this.”

DOUBTS OVER GROUND TROOPS

The advances by the YPG risk creating friction between Turkey and its allies, including the United States.

Ankara sees the Syrian Kurdish militia as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has fought a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey’s southeast. But the United States sees the YPG as one of the few effective ground forces fighting Islamic State militants in Syria, and has lent the group military support.

Washington has so far ruled out sending its own ground troops into Syria, apart from small numbers of special forces.

Sunni Arab Gulf states including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) said this month they were ready to send ground forces as part of an international coalition against Islamic State, providing Washington takes the lead.

But Turkey’s focus on the YPG means it cannot necessarily count on support from NATO, which, while reluctant to pressure Ankara in public, is working behind closed doors to discourage it from targeting the Kurds and escalating with Russia.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Barrington in Beirut, Darya Korsunskaya and Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow, Robin Emmott in Brussels, Noah Barkin in Berlin, Daren Butler in Istanbul, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; writing by David Dolan and Nick Tattersall; editing by Peter Graff and David Stamp)