Turkey Blames Kurdish Militia for Ankara Attack, Challenging U.S.

By TIM ARANGO and CEYLAN YEGINSUFEB. 18, 2016
The New York Time
BAGHDAD — In blaming a Syrian Kurdish militia supported by the United States for a deadly car bombing in Ankara, Turkey added new urgency on Thursday to a question its president recently posed to the Obama administration: Are you on the side of a NATO ally — Turkey — or its enemies?

The militia, which adamantly denies any role in the bombing, is the administration’s most important ground force inside Syria in the fight against the militants of the Islamic State. But it is also fast becoming an enemy of Turkey, which views the militia as a national security threat because of its links to another Kurdish militant group that is battling for autonomy within Turkey.



More broadly, the situation crystallizes what critics say has long been the problem with United States policy in the Middle East. Though the region is undergoing historic and violent change, with multiple insurgencies, failed states, various proxy wars that have sucked in world powers and the possible breakdown of the entire post-World War I regional order, the United States has focused on only one small part of that: defeating the militants of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

The United States, which quickly condemned the Ankara attack, reiterated support for its Turkish ally on Thursday. But the American response also reflected its narrowly defined purpose in the Syrian conflict. Obama administration officials said it was premature to attribute responsibility for the Ankara attack, and said they had warned the Syrian Kurdish militia forces against taking any action that would undercut Turkey’s relationship with the United States.

“We are cognizant of, and sensitive to, Turkish views on our cooperation with the Syrian Kurds,” said a senior American official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing internal deliberations. But he added, “Our rule of thumb is that this is needed in the campaign against ISIL.”

“Any time that a grievous terrorist attack occurs, it adds emotion and it adds urgency to the situation,” the official said. “We are very mindful of the pain and shock this causes in Turkey.”

Francis J. Ricciardone Jr., a former American ambassador to Turkey now at the Atlantic Council, said the focus on the Islamic State, which controls territory in Syria and Iraq and has carried out attacks in Paris and inspired a mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., distracts from what he called the broader struggle.

“How do we in the West and those in the region collaborate to mitigate the violent, catastrophic breakdown of the post-Ottoman regional order?” he said. “How do we regenerate stability and the rule of law based on legitimate, well-governed states? This is what truly requires a strategy, and it will be the work of a generation.”

Turkish officials said this week that they favored a ground intervention to end the carnage of the multifront war in Syria, where the government of President Bashar al-Assad has been making gains recently, backed by Russian airstrikes and Iranian support on the ground. But the Turks indicated that they would not intervene on the ground without the support of the United States, which is seen as highly unlikely.

Even so, for several days Turkey has been shelling the American-backed Kurdish militia, known as the People’s Protection Units or Y.P.G., and has vowed to keep up its attack as long as the Kurds continue trying to carve out an autonomous enclave in Syria along the Turkish border.

Adding to Turkish anger, not to mention the complexity of the battlefield in Syria, the Syrian Kurds have also drawn support from two Turkish enemies: Russia and, to some extent, Mr. Assad. The United States opposes Russia’s intervention in Syria and has said that Mr. Assad’s ouster is necessary for peace in Syria, although it has done little to achieve it.

In a televised speech on Thursday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said the various Kurdish groups were all connected in one way or another and, in Turkey’s way of thinking, all terrorist organizations, and that Washington was wrong to try to distinguish among them. Mr. Erdogan said he would continue to make this case with Turkey’s allies and at the United Nations.

Nevertheless, analysts said they did not expect any major shift in American policy on Syria, despite growing Turkish pressure, because the Kurds have had success recently in fighting the Islamic State.

“The U.S. has a very specific goal in mind with its current actions in Syria — to degrade and defeat ISIS,” said Aaron Stein, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. “It’s not to topple Assad, and it’s not to roll back Russian aggression.”

The bombing in Ankara, the capital, which struck a military convoy Wednesday evening and killed 28 people, was carried out by a Syrian named Salih Necar, according to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Mr. Davutoglu said the assailant had links to the Y.P.G., which has received ammunition, supplies and air support from the United States and, more recently, the aid of American Special Forces soldiers.

Turkey considers the Y.P.G. — the military wing of the Democratic Union Party in Syria — to be a branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., a militant group that has waged an insurgency in Turkey for decades. A fragile peace process in that conflict broke down last year.

Officials of the Y.P.G. swiftly denied any involvement in the Ankara bombing after Turkey accused the group on Thursday, and some analysts questioned the plausibility of the accusation, since mounting such an attack would jeopardize the group’s American support.

“These allegations are unfounded — lies with no truth to them,” Redur Xelil, a spokesman for the group said via WhatsApp from Qamishli, Syria. He said the Turkish government had everything to gain by blaming the Kurds for the bombing, giving it an excuse to keep shelling the Y.P.G. and putting pressure on Washington to reduce its support for the group.

“We are not enemies of Turkey, and our goal is to fight Daesh inside the Syrian borders,” he added, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “We have no interest in being enemies with Turkey.”

Some analysts doubted the Turkish claim that the Y.P.G was responsible.

“Sponsoring or being involved with car bombings in Turkish cities would break its alliance structure with the U.S. and Russia,” said Michael Stephens, research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security. “Neither of which the P.Y.D.-Y.P.G. wants. In short, the Y.P.G. have nothing to gain and everything to lose by being involved in this.”

United States support for the group dates back almost 18 months to the battle for Kobani, a Syrian town near the Turkish border that came under assault by the Islamic State. Washington maintains that the group is distinct from the P.K.K., which the United States considers a terrorist group, though the Turks and many analysts say they are essentially one organization.

“Is the U.S. going to risk confronting Russia in Syria in order to help Turkey beat the Kurds, on whom the U.S. relies to beat ISIS?” said Halil M. Karaveli, senior fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, a research organization. “Looking at the facts as they are today, there is no way Turkey will get what it wants.”

Tim Arango reported from Baghdad, and Ceylan Yeginsu from Istanbul. Karam Shoumali contributed reporting from Istanbul, Mark Landler from Washington, and Rick Gladstone from New York.