Robert Ford’s slanted Article in favor of the Turkish expansionist Policy

Omar Sindi | Exclusive to iKurd.net

A misguided vision of Former Ambassador Ford’s article published on January 25th, 2021; recommends that the US should rely on Turkey and Russia in Syria. Ambassador Ford mentioned Russia, but Russia is only lip service, his main lobby is Turkey. If President Erdogan is to write an op-ed to defend his expanist policy in Syria; he most likely wouldn’t be able to defend his expansionist policy in the way that Ambassador Ford defends it.

Mr. Ford’s ill-advised venture will create more chaos, more wars, more refugees, more displacement of people, and more ethnic cleansing than the Middle East could ask for. Turkey’s invasion of sovereign states and neighboring countries under the cover of their own security is illegal under international law. Turkish forces are fighting in Iraq, and along with their cohort Jihadis, are also fighting in Syria, Libya, and in Nagorno Karabakh-Armenia. President Erdogan is threatening the Greek government over gas and oil explorations in the eastern Mediterranean.

President Erdogan’s Turkish expansionist flail upheaval policy is similar to Benito Mussolini’s expansionist policy of imperial colonization of the mid 1920’s to early 1940’s on the Horn of Africa, in Somalia, Ethiopia, British Somaliland, and Libya…

“Biden Should rely rely on Turkey, Russia in Syria”

Erdogan’s trust deficit goes back years. His Turkish state failed to prevent thousands of jihadis crossing the Turkish border and joining the so-called caliphate. With Turkey being a NATO member and supposedly a strategic partner! The Obama government along with the Saudis government allocated funds and spent millions of dollars training and equipping Syrian Arabs to fight the jihadis, and those militias failed to fight the nihilistic terrorist state “Daesh”’ ISIS.

As a last ditch effort, President Obama turned to the Kurds as an option in 2014. The Kurds became the foot soldiers in both Iraq and Syria for the world to fight the so-called Caliphate state until they were physically defeated; meanwhile it was widely reported that wounded terrorist foot soldiers were treated at the Turkish hospitals. One has to wonder why Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the terrorist leader who was killed on October 27, 2019 by US forces in the northwestern Idlib province of Syria, when this area was controlled by Turkish Forces along with their Jihadi terrorists?

US President Trump had no foreign policy to speak of; his US policy was mostly based on personal friendships and Trump was following an isolationist policy. Joe Biden’s administration will have to confront many issues and problems that the Trump administration totally ignored globally. Trump, with a telephone conversation, gave Erdogan a green light to invade Rojava Kurdistan. Turkish forces, along with their jihadis, attacked people indiscriminately in the towns and villages killing many innocent people and over 300,000 people were displaced and Turkish jihadis took over their homes, their lands, and properties. Brett McGurk, a top US official in the fight against ISIS and US, and Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned as a protest against Trump policy in Syria.

The Turkish State under President Erdogan has ignored all international norms and standards; any dissent is treated as treason: Many opposition leaders in Turkey are in jail or have been given long term prison sentences. The International community needs impose strict economic embargo and economic sanctions on Turkey until Turkey abides by international norms; just like in the 1980’s, an economic embargo was imposed on South Africa for their apartheid system.

“Trump’s ignorance of the world has never been very blunt”- New Yorker Magazine.

Kurdish people have inhabited this area of the Middle East (Kurdistan) prior to the Arab and Turkic tribes’ migration to Anatolian land as long as recorded history can remember!

And they have suffered greatly at the hand of tyrannical regimes, in Baghdad, Tehran, Ankara and Damascus, especially from the early 20th century to date they have been subjected to the denial of their existence as a people, denial of their language, political assassinations, mass killings via use of chemical weapons, land confiscations, forceful deportations, and the list goes on…

In 1960, Syrian Arab chauvinist, minister Mohammed Talib Hilal performed ethnic cleansing of Kurds in Rojava Kurdistan (Jazira Province); now Turkish President Erdogan “The New Sultan” is on par with Hilal’s project of ethnic cleansing of demographic change from Afrin all the way to Qamishli City…

Mr. Ambassador, your Jan. 25th slanted article “urging” Biden administration to hand over Northeastern Syria (Rojava Kurdistan) to Turkey; is not only unfathomable, it’s also beyond realpolitik comprehension. This is also not a single article against Rojava Kurdistan. You have a long record against autonomous regions of Kurds in Rojava, for example a statement from one of your other articles: “Syrian Kurds cannot unilaterally declare an autonomous region without reference to the other Syrians”.

Omar Sindi, a senior writer, analyst and columnist for iKurd.net, Washington, United States.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.