The next Arab-Israeli conflict, which started after the terrorist attack against Israel carried out by the Hamas organization on October 7, 2023, in which Iran also joined, threatens to turn into a big regional war. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan predictably accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians and threatened that one day Turkish troops would enter Israel the same way they entered Libya and Karabakh. And his foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, compared Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Adolf Hitler. Turkish-Israeli relations have never been so strained, and Israel has lost its only regional Muslim ally, joining the Arab-Iranian anti-Israel camp. However, this policy of the Turkish president completely frees Israel’s hands to create a Kurdish state in the middle of the Middle East, which will be a pawn in the hands of Israel and the US, depending equally on Iran, Syria, Iraq and Turkey.
The Turkish elite is aware of all this, which is very well aware that Israel, with the help of the United States, is able to use the Kurds to create serious threats to Turkish statehood, especially since Erdogan has not managed to solve the Kurdish issue both inside the country and abroad in neighboring Syria and Iraq. Moreover, the number of pro-Kurdish deputies increases after each parliamentary election in the National Assembly, and the number of Kurdish mayors increases after each local government election. As for the Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistans, the plans to conquer them in a very short time and suppress the Kurdish liberation movement failed, and Turkish troops continue to suffer losses in those countries for 8 years, causing an economic, social and political crisis in the country. But the worst thing for Erdogan is that he cannot withdraw Turkish troops from those countries, because the Kurds will immediately create an independent state in those territories, which is already the most serious threat to Turkish statehood, because if the power in the Iraqi Kurdish autonomy belongs to Erdogan’s ally Barzani clan, then the master of the situation in Syrian Kurdistan is the structure created by the Kurdish Workers’ Party and under its influence, the Northern Syrian Federal Democracy (SDF). And now, most likely with information that the Israelis will launch the Kurdish issue, Erdogan and his political allies are forced to make concessions, even promising to discuss the issue of Abdullah Ocalan’s release if he calls on his party members to lay down their arms and self-disband. Although Ocalan is considered the president of the PKK, the real power there belongs to other members of the party, who of course will not agree to lay down their arms, because as they believe, another Arab-Israeli conflict, in which Iran is also involved, is a real possibility provides an opportunity to create an independent Kurdish state. In order to prevent all this, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2023-2024 had to go to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar to restore the relations he ruined and bring investments to Turkey, and he is also making unsuccessful attempts to reconcile with Syrian President Bashar Assad, most likely in order to create a united front against the Kurds. On the other hand, he is trying to prevent the Kurds from joint actions with Israel, realizing that this union can become a serious threat to Turkey.
The attack of November 27, 2024 and the subsequent overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s government was the only logical solution to Erdogan’s Kurdish policy in Syria. By effectively extending his influence in Syria and bringing forces loyal to him to power, Erdogan has gained an insurmountable advantage over the Kurds, which allows him to first finally create a 30-kilometer buffer zone, and then, together with Syrian government forces, drown the Kurdish movement in blood.
