Translated material
Divided
It seems that Syria oil fields will not go to Russia after Turkey entered the war
Moscow took on serious obligations regarding Syria, but the main prize - the oil and gas deposits of Euphrates seemed to swim by. Trump was convinced to maintain US control over them. What will the agreements of the Russian and Turkish presidents have to reduce the redistribution of foreign territory?
After many hours of negotiations and stubborn trading in Sochi, presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed on a loved section of the North-East Part of Syria, which since 2014 was called the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, or the maximum, an autonomous, actually independent area with the Kurdish leadership, its own armed forces (SDS, or Syrian democratic forces), under the USA), under the American a protectorate and with an American military contingent of up to two thousand people.
Erdogan pressed for quite some time President Donald Trump, demanding the right to clean Rozhava from the SDS, the basis of which are the detachments of Kurdish folk self -defense (YPG) and which, according to Ankara, are closely connected with the Kurdish labor party banned in Turkey. Erdogan persuaded Trump, threatened to start the cleaning of Rozhava without permission, and on October 6, during the telephone conversations, Trump, who generally liked brutal Erdogan, decided contrary to the opinion of the Pentagon and the State Department of the Kurds anymore.
On October 9, the Turkish operation “Source of the World” began to clean up Rozhava, and the Americans began to hastily withdraw their forces, throwing the inhabited bases and strongholds. At the same time, by agreement with the SDS, the Syrian regime Bashar al -Assad, along with the contingent of the Russian military police, entered the territory of Rozhava, where the Chechen and Ingush security officials, as well as immigrants from other Muslim regions of the Russian Federation, serve as a contract.
So, the Summit in Sochi was supposed to resolve an acute conflict that had arisen, reminiscent of a miniature situation in Poland in September 1939, when German and Soviet troops entered there from different sides. Putin and Erdogan agreed. In accordance with the joint memorandum released in Sochi:
The Turks take control of the site about 120 km long along their border-between the cities of Tel Abjad and Ras-El Ain-and 32 km deep into Syria.
The rest of the border from the Syrian side-west of Tel Abjad and east of Ras El Ana-occupy Syrian border guards who have launched 15 border guns.
The detachments and heavy weapons of the SDS (YPG) are diverted from the Turkish border by 32 km.
In the ten-kilometer border strip outside the Turkish occupation zone, joint Russian-Turkish patrols are introduced, which should convince the Turks that the SDS units (YPG) have really gone, and to the Kurdish population to guarantee that it will not fall under the Turkish sweep.
From Chechnya to Syria, they urgently transferred the freshly -shaped battalion of local security forces 300 people with armored vehicles. Military police battalions for Syria are specially formed from Muslims so that the local population treats them loyally.
They are recruited to Syria willingly because of solid currency per diem, especially since the military police actually practically do not participate in hostilities.
In the capital of Rozhava, the largest city in the Kamyshla region, where a significant part of the population is local Christians, Turkish patrols on the Sochi protocol will not be allowed.
In the course of the operation “Source of the World”, the Turks crossed the border in the areas of the cities of Tel Abjad and Ras-El Ain, where most of the population is Arabs, although there are Kurds, Assyrians, and Armenians. To reduce the level of losses among the Turkish military (recruits), the detachments of the Syrian Arab militants under the flag of the opposition “free Syrian army” (SSA), equipped and trained by Turkish military, were launched forward. The militants of the SSA, among whom are many extremists-Islamists-veterans of the bloody many years of Syrian Civil War, quite easily cleaned with the support of Turkish aviation and high-precision NATO heavy artillery, rural areas in the Turkish occupation zone, but stuck in stubborn city battles-primarily in Ras-El-Ana, which was completely occupied only after it was completely occupied after SDS fighters themselves retreated within the framework of the ceasefire.
The Proleturetskaya SSA includes more than 20 thousand people, but it was impossible to use them all in the operation “Source of the World”: the SSA units participate in the occupation of Afrin-the Kurdish city of North-Western Syria, which the Turks captured and cleaned last year, and are also present in the non-controlled Damascus of the Idlib province, the division of which Erdogan and Putin agreed in September 2018 also in Sochi.
The SDS contains up to 50 thousand fighters, of which the Kurds themselves (YPG) are 35–40 thousand, there are few heavy weapons, there are no anti -aircraft weapons. The Assad regime and the Russian command nominated symbolic forces in Rozhava. The Americans moved away.
In the Turkish 2nd Field Army, deployed in the south of the country, three army corps, 120 thousand people. And from the composition of the 1st and 3rd field armies, reinforcements can be thrown. The Turks could go through the Rozhava hurricane, occupy the entire border zone and more, but since the PR submission, that they say, “the Syrians free themselves from the Kurdish terrorists,” they sent the SSA fighters ahead, then there is no need to count on a sustainable occupation of the territory of 120 by 30 km. This explains why in Sochi, Erdogan agreed to take only one piece of the border zone so far.
Iraqi Kurdistan is located east of Kamyshly - an officially autonomous, semi -dependent region. On the checkpoint on the Syrian-Iraqi border-Kurdish officials from both side. To the north across the Turkish border-the southeastern provinces of Turkey, inhabited by millions of Kurds, which achieve the official recognition of national autonomy and language. Erdogan and other Turkish military-political leaders scares the potential for aggregation of Kurdish militarized state-owned state-owners in Iraq and Syria with twenty million Turkish Kurds and the formation of the Kurdish Confederation.
Erdogan claims that Turkey does not need Syrian land, and this is true - he has his Kurds in abundance. The defeat of the SDS (YPG) is also not the main goal of the operation "Source of the World".
Erdogan's general plan is the relocation of Syrian refugees to the border “security zone”, which are now in Turkey.
Erdogan is ready to build houses, schools and hospitals there. First relocate one million, then the other, then the third (total refugees 3.6 million). These people are mostly arabs, and they never lived in Rozhava. As a result, a strip of the Arab population, sharing the Turkish and Syrian Kurds, may form, and the threat of the National Kurdish association will go forever.
According to the UN, as a result of the operation “Source of the World” up to 180 thousand people (of which 80 thousand children) fled south of the battles and to 10 thousand moved to Iraqi Kurdistan. But since the Turks and their allies occupied the territories mainly inhabited by the Arabs, the SDS agreed to retreat. Kamyshls, Kobani and other Kurdish areas have been covered so far. The press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov announced to the Kurds that the United States “abandoned them and, in fact, betrayed”, and if they do not obey, “Syrian border guards and Russian military police will move”, and then the Kurds will “fall under the skating rink of the Turkish army”.
Everything is extremely clear. On October 23, the Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and the head of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov held on the video, negotiations with the Commander of the SDS (YPG) General Mazlum Abdo, who thanked Russia and Putin for the safety of the Kurdish people, and for the Sochi agreement. According to Abdo, "units of the Russian military police and regular troops of Syria are deployed in many areas, and we provide them all kinds of help."
Since 2015, the Russian command in Syria is the main problem is that there are no well -motivated and prepared troops, ready to resolutely go forward when the VKS will lay their road with bombs. Syrian Arab warriors leave much to be desired. Rights -out formations are more trained, but they have their own master with their own agenda. I had to import contractors from the Russian Federation - such as PMC Wagner, but there are few of them, and they are dear. The Americans had the same problems until they found, armed and did not prepare the Kurds, which they themselves now abandoned. Probably, our bosses would not mind reconfiguring such fighters, especially since Moscow has long -standing relations with the Kurds: for several years now, the unofficial diplomatic mission of Rozhava has been operating, and the structures of the Kurdistan working party are present without particularly hiding.
It seems that everything turned out well in Sochi, but one - cardinal - the problem remained unresolved: the fate of the main Syrian oil and gas fields on the eastern coast of the Euphrates, in the territory controlled by Kurds and Americans. Oil production can provide money for current expenses in Damascus, as well as all local and foreign frauds. There once a combined Syrian-Russian tactical battalion group of contractors across the bridge through the Euphrates, which was drawn by our sappers near Deir ez-Zor, but received on February 7, 2018 by the teeth of the Americans with the support of the Kurds.
Now the Americans seem to be leaving, but from Washington they report that Senator Lindsay Graham several times drove to Trump to the White House of the retired Army General Jack Keane, who now works as a military observer on Fox News Trump's favorite channel. Trump in 2017 wanted to appoint Kin the pentagon chief, but he refused.
On October 8, Kin brought the president of the Syrian oil fields in Rozhava, which should not be given, but Trump still announced the withdrawal of troops. On October 14, Graham and Kin again came with the map and convinced Trump: to quit the Kurds is one thing, and only a fool throws working oil oils. The White House changed his mind to “send a soldier from Syria home” and decided to leave the contingent to protect the deposits. Since it is not clear to whom the Kurds are now serving, Washington announced that the “limited contingent” that would remain in Rozhava to protect oil towers from IG ( the organization is prohibited in the Russian Federation. - Ed. ), Iran and from all others, will strengthen Abrams tanks and BMP Bradley. Until now, Rozhava had an American special forces with light armored vehicles with powerful aircraft support. Tanks and BMP with motorized infantry are a completely different logistics and other structure of the contingent. It will not be easy to get them there, and it is even more difficult to take them out.
If the Americans still stay in Rozhava, and even with tanks, then it is not clear who the Kurds are now with, what is the long -term meaning of the Sochi pact and on whose side Türkiye is on.
Erdogan announced that he had an excellent relationship with Trump, that he was an honest man, and in November he was going to Washington on a visit. At the same time, Erdogan demanded that the Americans give him the leader of the SDS General Kobani. On the same day, Graham and a group of senators demanded from the State Department an accelerated to General Kobani to a visa in the United States so that he could speak in the Congress of the situation in Syria.
General Kobani said that he was ready to forgive everything to the Americans and cooperate if they return to the border with Turkey. It seems that Trump will not do. Moscow holds the Kurds firmly, remaining their only guarantee from the "Turkish rink". But the Kurds will not attack the remaining American contingent, the Turks too. The obligations of Russia took over in Sochi serious, but the main prize - oil seemed to swam by.