Dubious deal: Turkey to occupy northern Syria with US blessing

The coming few days will apparently witness unprecedented escalation on the Syrian stage. The unilateral decision of US President Donald Trump to pull US troops out of Syria has effected radical change in Turkish policies in Syria.

Turkey is apparently changing its policy from working to obliterate the Kurdish minority in northern Syria to working to occupy the whole of northern Syria.

The latest understanding between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the buzzword in this policy change. Trump seems to have given Erdogan the green light to do whatever he wants in Syria.

Erdogan's claims

The Turkish president is a master of lying. He also masters the craft of maneuvering. He has understood the logic in which the US president thinks. Erdogan knows well that Trump does nothing without being paid the price.

Erdogan has already paid 3.5 billion Euros to the American president in a deal for obtaining the Patriot surface-to-air missile system. On the same day, Trump said his troops would be withdrawing from Syria.

The two men then worked to convince everybody that Turkish moves in northern Syria aim to eradicate the vestiges of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Trump wrote on Twitter that Turkey “should be able to easily take care of whatever remains” of Islamic State.

Trump added that Erdogan "has very strongly informed" him that Turkey will "eradicate whatever is left of ISIS in Syria" after the U.S. withdraws its troops from the country.

But this is very illusory, according to leaks from Trump's phone conversation from Erdogan. CNN published some leaks from the conversation which took place on December 14.

Mission finished

Qouting informed sources, CNN said that Trump had told Erdogan in the December 14 phone conversation that the US was "done" with Syria.

"OK, it's all yours. We are done," Trump told Erdogan, according to the source.

But this raises questions about whether Trump has the right to gift Syria to the Turkish president.

How then can the US president claim that his troops had defeated ISIS, even as he asks the Turkish president to fight the radical organization?

Syria's occupation

Developments on the ground show that Turkey is already preparing itself to occupy northern Syria. There are many indications of this.

Syrian opposition figure Michel Kilo was quoted on December 13 as saying that Turkey wanted northern Syria very strongly.

Russia, he added, cannot bypass Turkey in this regard. He noted that Erdogan insists to preserve Idlib.

"He told the Russians before that they need to invad Ankara before they invade Idlib," Kilo said.

The conservative Turkish daily Yeni Safak referred on December 25 to major moves in the northern Syrian city of Manbij, especially after the US president said he would pull his troops out.

The Turkish army, the newspaper said, sent new military reinforcements to the city on Saturday, especially in an area on the border that is controlled by Kurdish troops.

Ground attack

These reinforcements show that Erdogan is changing his original blueprint from destroying the Kurdish troops to the occupation of the whole of northern Syria.

The Turkish president has even reportedly ordered his army to stage a ground invasion of northern Syria. According to Turkish media, some of the troops deployed on the border between Turkey and Syria now will cross the border into Syria, whereas the remaining part will continue to be stationed along the border.