Turkey Continues Military Intervention in Syria to Push Back ISIS and Kurds

Turkish tanks continued to cross into Syria on Thursday, backing a rebel operation against the so-called Islamic State in Jarablus, Reuters reported.

The offensive, known as Operation Euphrates Shield, aims to simultaneously “cleanse” the Turkish border of ISIS militants and thwart Kurdish ambitions in solidifying their territory in northern Syria.

ISIS has been driven out of Jarablus, according to Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan, who said on Wednesday the town is currently under Arab and Turkmen rebel control.

Kurdish advances in northern Syria have alarmed Turkey, which views the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish group that has been fighting for autonomy in Turkey since the 1980s. YPG forces are a key ally of the U.S.-led coalition in the fight against ISIS.

However, U.S. vice president Joe Biden on Wednesday said Kurdish forces in Syria will no longer receive U.S. support if they do not retreat to east of the Euphrates River, echoing an earlier call from Ankara that Syria should remain united.

A phone call between U.S. secretary of state John Kerry and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu on Thursday confirmed YPG forces moving east of the Euphrates, and the two countries’ continued cooperation fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

U.N. Team Says Assad and ISIS Used Chemical Weapons in 2014 and 2015

The Syrian government and the so-called Islamic State carried out chemical attacks in Syria in 2014 and 2015, according to an international team from the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

The Syrian government reportedly used chlorine gas twice, and ISIS used mustard gas in one attack, according to the joint U.N.-OPCW council.

The investigative team was created last year by the U.N. Security Council to uncover who was responsible for nine reported chemical attacks in Syria.

Three of the nine cases were inconclusive, and the government was likely responsible for another three but the evidence was not indisputable.

The Syrian government violated a September 2013 Security Council resolution, said Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. She called on the council to take “strong and swift action.”

Syria accepted a Russian proposal in 2013 to give up its chemical weapons to avoid U.S. military strikes in response to its use of chemical weapons in the Damascus suburbs in August 2013.

An additional 130 reports of chemical weapons or toxic gas used in attacks in Syria were raised by U.N. member states between December 2015 and August 2016.

U.S. Urges Russia to Influence Assad Government to Meet Goals Before Meeting in Geneva

U.S. officials stressed that Russia must pressure the Syrian government to stop attacking moderate rebel forces and open humanitarian corridors ahead of upcoming talks, the Associated Press reported.

U.S. secretary of state John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, are meeting later this week in Geneva to discuss greater cooperation in Syria, attempting to resume peace talks and a political transition for a conflict now in its sixth year.

U.S. officials said the goals are not new but are more urgent now, with Turkey intervening militarily in Syria and pushing back ISIS as well as a key U.S. ally, the Kurdish YPG forces.

The fact that the meeting is taking place is a good sign, said Elizabeth Trudeau, State Department spokeswoman on Wednesday.

“We want to be very measured in our expectations as we go forward into this meeting, but we believe the meeting is worth having,” Trudeau said.

ٌRecommended Reads:

• Foreign Policy: Why Turkey Went to War in Syria
• Al Jazeera: Syria War: Money Transfer a ‘Matter of Life or Death’
• The Wall Street Journal: U.S.-Backed Groups at Odds in Syria
• NPR: Syrian Conjoined Twins Died While Waiting for Lifesaving Surgery
• The Associated Press: Syria’s Kurds: An Embattled U.S. Ally in a Complex Civil War