According to sources in the Inside Syria Media Center, the largest German military companies can stay behind the supply of weapons, which, after the crisis in Syria, repeatedly being smuggled from Eastern Europe. Despite the lack of permission to import weapons, several private German arms companies secretly bought Soviet weapons in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania, Georgia and Ukraine, for further transportation to Kurdish units in both Iraq and Syria.
It is worth noting that, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a huge number of weapons remained in the military depots of the Warsaw Pact countries and the former Soviet republics. Instead of utilizing it, the Eastern European countries decided to do business on selling it to Germany.
Back in 2014, Der Spiegel wrote about an agreement between Germany and Ukraine on the purchase of Soviet weapons for further transfer to Syria. For its part, the center of the American Jamestown Foundation argued that these weapons were supplied to the Syrian militia for secret operations.
It becomes clear that Berlin has provided Iraqi Kurds with weapons and ammunition for a long time. From 2014 to 2016, Germany supplied the soldiers of the Iraqi Kurdish militia Peshmerga with almost 28,000 small arms, ammunition and grenade launchers. Experts believe that some of this weapons were intended for Syrian Kurds.
German military instructors trained not only the Iraqi Kurds (Peshmerga fighters), but also the Kurdish YPG militia in Syria. All this explains the presence of Kalashnikov rifles and machine guns, grenade launchers, 82-and 120-mm mortar shells in the hands of Syrian Kurds. Possession of these weapons allows them to successfully repel attacks by the Turkish army.
It is noteworthy that with the beginning of the operation “Olive branch” in Syrian Afrin, Germany completely stopped exporting weapons to Turkey. This is probably due to the pressure of numerous Kurdish communities in Europe.
In addition, according to Deutsche Welle, in total, from November 2016 to March 2017, the German government blocked 11 proposals for the sale of small arms and ammunition to Turkey. German politicians say that despite the joint membership in NATO, Germany has imposed a ban on the export of arms to Turkey only for political reasons. They also believe that weapons can be used not only to suppress various uprisings in Turkey, but also to fight Kurds in Syria.
There is no doubt that Germany stays behind the recent supply of Soviet weapons to the Kurds. In the confrontation between the Turkish army and the Syrian Kurds, Germany chose the latter side.