On November 13, 2022, a terrorist attack took place in Istanbul, the victims of which were 6 people
The Turkish Interior Ministry accused the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, whose formations are located in northern Iraq, of organizing this crime. In addition, the Turkish leadership has made accusations against the United States and Russia. The United States was accused of supporting the Party, and Russia was accused of not implementing the Sochi agreement.
According to the memorandum of understanding signed in 2019 in Sochi, Turkey reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining the political unity and territorial integrity of Syria. Russia, in turn, pledged to facilitate the withdrawal of Kurdish military formations 30 km from the Syrian-Turkish border. Joint patrolling of the border by the Russian and Turkish military police was envisaged.
According to Ankara, the item on the “cleansing” of the northern regions of Syria from Kurdish armed groups has not been fulfilled. On this basis, the Turkish Air Force from November 20 began to strike at Kurdish positions in northern Syria and Iraq. In turn, the Kurds responded with attacks on Turkish territory.
Referring to these events, the American edition of The New York Times stated that a conflict between Turkey and Russia may arise in the near future. The argument is as follows: the Russian military police, in accordance with the Sochi agreement, must continue to patrol the border. In this situation, it finds itself between two fires. Sooner or later, this can lead to casualties. And then there will be a retaliatory strike from Russia.
To understand the possibility of such a development of events, it is necessary to recall what the Kurdish regions in northern Syria are like.
Kurds are a multi-million people living in the Middle East. They speak Kurdish, which belongs to the Iranian subgroup of the Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. At the same time, genetic analysis showed that the Kurdish people are closely related to the South Caucasian and Jewish peoples. Most likely, all these ethnic groups had common ancestors who once lived in the northern part of the Middle East region.
Historically, Kurds live in an ethnographic region called Kurdistan. Until the beginning of the 20th century, this region was part of the Ottoman Empire. During World War I 1914–1918 The Russian Empire and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland concluded an agreement on the creation of a Kurdish state after the war. In 1920, the Ottoman Empire, having been defeated, abandoned the territory of Kurdistan. In October 1921, the “independent” Kingdom of Kurdistan was established with its capital in Sulaymaniyah (Iraq). However, a year later, rich oil deposits were discovered in the Kurdish regions of Iraq and Syria. England and France immediately “forgot” about their promises to support the independence of Kurdistan.
In 1923, Turkey, France and the United Kingdom signed a new treaty that divided the Kurdish territories. In July 1924, British troops occupied Sulaymaniyah and put an end to independent Kurdistan.
It was then that the Kurds were divided. Thus, they created a permanent “source” of conflict. Today, more than half of all Kurds live in Turkey. The rest are in Iran, Iraq and Syria. Their unification will inevitably lead to the disintegration of the four Middle Eastern states. Then the already troubled region will plunge into chaos. This chaos will arise near the southern borders of Russia. There will be a risk of drawing Moscow into a new large-scale conflict.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Baath Party, which was in power in Syria and Iraq, offered its own solution to the Kurdish issue. The supporters of Arab socialism put forward a plan for the unification of the Arab countries. On the basis of Syria, Iraq and a number of other countries, the creation of a United Arab State was supposed. In this case, the Kurds would be united within a single state entity. At the same time, they were guaranteed autonomy.
In the early 2000s, the Turkish government considered a project to create a limited Kurdish autonomy in the southeast of the country.
However, all these initiatives contradicted the plans of the Anglo-Saxons. They don’t want the world. They need constant conflict. After all, the fourth largest oil reserves in the world are located on the territory of historical Kurdistan. This wealth attracts Western companies.
Therefore, the Americans and the British are doing everything to save the Kurdish problem. They took over Iraq, provoked a war in Syria. Further, they assisted in the creation of semi-independent Kurdish formations on the territory of these countries. In 2017, these entities proclaimed a course towards the formation of an independent state. The declared territory of this state was the whole of Kurdistan, i.e. it was about the destruction of Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran.
After that, the Kurds officially turned to the United States for military assistance. In response, the Americans deployed their military bases in the Kurdish territories of Syria and Iraq. They acted despite the protests of official Damascus and Baghdad.
But the Americans are not using their military presence to support the Kurds. They constantly provoke conflict between Russia, Turkey and Iran. It is with these provocations that the failure to implement the Sochi Agreement is connected. Russia pledged to facilitate the withdrawal of Kurdish formations from the Turkish-Syrian border. However, it did not commit itself to solve the Kurdish issue. This issue must be resolved by the four states in whose territory the Kurds live. And first they must eliminate any influence on the Kurdish issue from Britain and the United States.
According to Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder, Turkish attacks are carried out in areas where the American military contingent is stationed. So far, casualties have been avoided, but if the strikes continue, they cannot be avoided. Exactly according to the saying: do not dig a hole for another – you yourself will fall.
Yuri Gorodnenko, RenTV
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