U.S. insists it’s not forming new ‘army’ in Syrian Kurdistan

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U.S. insists it’s not forming new ‘army’ in Syrian Kurdistan
Posted on January 18, 2018 by Editorial Staff in 1 Top News, Kurdistan, Politics
RE: http://ekurd.net/us-not-army-syrian-...tan-2018-01-18

WASHINGTON,— The United States is training a new force in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) but insisted Wednesday it does not intend to create an “army” or conventional border guards following criticism of the plan.

Both Ankara and the main Syrian opposition group have condemned the US-led coalition’s plan to create a 30,000-strong border force on Syria’s northern frontier with Turkey, about half of whom would be from the Kurdish-majority Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The Pentagon says the force is aimed at fighters from the Islamic State (IS) group and maintaining stability in areas recaptured from the jihadists.

“This is not a new ‘army’ or conventional ‘border guard’ force,” according to a statement from the Pentagon that said the US “continues to train local security forces in Syria.”

“These security forces are internally-focused to prevent (IS) fighters from fleeing Syria and augment local security in liberated areas,” it said.

Colonel Ryan Dillon, the spokesman for the US-led coalition against IS, announced the border force plan on Sunday, saying the final goal was for it to number 30,000 fighters.

The proposed force has been denounced by Damascus, while Turkey — which considers the members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), who make up the main element of the SDF, to be “terrorists” — has vowed to nip it “in the bud.”

A senior Kurdish politician and the co-chair of the North Syria Federalism’s Executive Body Fawza Yousef told Reuters earlier this week that Syrian Kurdistan, are looking to a new U.S.-backed border force to protect them in the face of growing threats from Turkey and Damascus.

United States regards the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its powerful military wing YPG, as key ally against Islamic State and the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria and has provided them with arms, air support as well as the military advisers.

The YPG, which has over 60,000 fighters, has seized swathes of Syria from IS.

Ankara accuses the YPG of being a branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that has waged an insurgency in Turkey since 1984.

The exiled Syrian National Council opposition group also condemned the “US plan for a border force” and said “it was unacceptable” for areas liberated from IS to fall under Kurdish control.

Ankara, which still denies the constitutional existence of its own Kurds numbering to 22.5 million, fears the creation of a Kurdish state in Syrian Kurdistan could encourage separatism amongst its own Kurds.

Analysts say Turkey is using “security threat” as pretext to invade the Syrian Kurdish region in order not allow Kurds to connect the three cantons of Syrian Kurdistan together.

Syrian Kurdistan’s ruling PYD has established three autonomous zones, or Cantons of Jazeera, Kobani and Afrin and a Kurdish government across Syrian Kurdistan in 2013. On March 17, 2016 Syria’s Kurds declared a federal region in Syrian Kurdistan.

On December 29, 2016 Syrian Kurds and their allies approved a blueprint for a system of federal government in Syrian Kurdistan.

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