'Safe zone in Syria would stop attacks on Kilis'

A senior commander who defected from the Assad regime's army said the Turkish border province of Kilis would not have become a frequent target for terror attacks if Ankara's proposal to impose a safe area into northern Syria had been approved by the international community.

“Those opposed to the proposal of a safe zone, and those behind the attacks on Kilis are actually the same powers," General Zahir Sakit said, speaking to Yeni Şafak newspaper. Kilis, a Turkish province bordering Syria, has become a frequent target for Daesh and PYD attacks after the conflict intensified in Syria. Since mid-January, Kilis suffered around 50 attacks which killed 18 including eight Syrian refugees and wounded over 60.

The rockets have been fired from Daesh-held region in Syria, where the extremist group and Syrian opposition factions have been fighting to expand their control over the territory between the towns of Azaz and al-Rai since early April. Turkish military responded by shelling Daesh-controlled positions in lines with the engagement rules.

“Syria would not have become a safe haven for terrorist organizations if a safe zone had been set up in its northern territory so that hundreds of thousands of people could have stayed in their own country, despite being displaced internally," the commander asserted.

“The proposed safe zone would have served as a draft project for the construction of a new Syria by being a model to similar projects in the south, the east and the West," he said. “This would have helped to prevent civilians from suffering catastrophic losses."

Since early 2012, authorities in Ankara have pushed for a safe zone that will run along the Syrian-Turkish border. The proposed buffer zone includes a safe zone stretching from Jarabulus to Marea, and will be about 40 miles deep, reaching the outskirts of Aleppo.

The main goal of this proposal is to carve out an area of Syrian territory where internally-displaced civilians would be free of violence and to stem the stream of refugees to Turkey. Turkey says the safe zone must include a no-fly zone, while the US administration rejects any possibility of setting up a no-fly zone because it seems to be too costly.

Turkey is now home to around three million Syrian refugees. It has accused the international community of failing to act decisively to stop the ongoing bloodshed in Syria.

Sakit said that Turkey already recognized the political trap that the international community tried to set in north of Aleppo over the Kurdish militia.

“PYD is only a tool which is used to reshape the Middle East. The powers aim to reshape the Mideast in lines with their interests and stir chaos in Turkey in the long run," he said, referring to the political rift between Ankara and Washington over the role of Syrian Kurdish militia.

“That's what they have planned with the proxy war in which PYD and Daesh have been involved in the areas close to Syrian's border with Turkey," he added.

The biggest rift between Turkish and US administrations that they have failed to narrow is their view of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG) in Syria. Turkey regards PYD and YPG as terrorist organizations because of their links to the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) which has carried out a nearly four-decade-long armed campaign for Kurdish self-rule in the Southeast.

Officials in Ankara say PYD-linked militia forces have recruited nearly 1,500 terrorists, trained in PKK camps in northern Iraq. However, the Obama administration says the PYD is not classified as a terrorist group under US laws. Rather, they see PYD as a partner in their fight against Daesh.

The PYD-linked militia spells another major concern for Ankara. Turkey warned PYD leader Saleh Muslim over his ambition to move beyond western bank of the Euphrates River because officials in Ankara are concerned that a corridor will be opened stretching from Jarablus to Afrin, if the PYD-linked militia advances in Jarablus, now held by Daesh.

Muslim is eager to connect non-contiguous zones of territory he holds in northern Syria. In other words, he aims to expand his control in northern Syria by uniting the Afrin Canton with other cantons in the east.

If the Syrian Kurdish leader achieves his aim, more than 500 kilometers of Syria's border with Turkey will be controlled by the PKK's offshoot. This is regarded as a threat to national security in Ankara.