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Turkiye slams France over plans to secure northern Syria border in support of Kurdish militias

January 11, 2025 at 5:15 pm

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan gives a speech in Ankara, Turkiye on January 02, 2024. [Arda Küçükkaya – Anadolu Agency]

Turkiye has slammed France over its reported plans to support Kurdish militias in north-east Syria and secure that border region, telling Paris to focus on repatriating French foreign fighters detained in Kurdish-run prisons.

This week, reports emerged that a senior Syrian Kurdish militia official revealed that talks have been taking place on the potential deployment of American and French forces to secure a border zone in north and north-eastern Syria in order to stabilise growing tensions between the Kurdish groups and Turkiye.

Ilham Ahmed, co-chair of foreign affairs for the Kurdish administration in north-east Syria, was quoted by the French channel TV5 Monde as saying “the United States and France could indeed secure the entire border. We are ready for this military coalition to assume this responsibility”. He called on the French “to send troops to this border to secure the demilitarised zone, to help us protect the region and establish good relations with Turkiye”.

French president Emmanuel Macron also insisted earlier in the week that his government would not abandon the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), calling them “freedom fighters” in direct contradiction to Turkiye’s stance that the Kurdish militants are terrorists linked to the designated Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terror group.

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Addressing the issue at a news conference in Paris alongside outgoing US secretary of state Antony Blinken, France’s foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot stated that “we will continue our efforts… to ensure that Turkiye’s legitimate security concerns can be guaranteed, but also the security interests of [Syrian] Kurds and their full rights to take part in the construction in the future of their country”. He further stressed that “Syrian Kurds must find their place in this political transition. We owe it to them because they were our brothers in arms against Islamic State [Daesh]”.

Since those remarks by French government and Kurdish militia officials, however, Ankara has hit back by entirely ruling out a role for French troops in Syria and accusing Paris of neglecting Turkish security concerns.

Speaking to journalists in Istanbul on Friday, Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan stated that “the US is our only interlocutor” in Syria, as it has been backing and continues to back the Kurdish groups there over the past decade while attempting to keep at bay any new Turkish military operation against the militias.

“Frankly, we don’t take into account countries that try to advance their own interests in Syria by hiding behind the US”, Fidan stressed. “We have said it many times: there is no chance we can live with such a threat [from Kurdish militias]. Either someone else will take the step or we will”.

Accusing France of ignoring Turkiye’s security concerns, the Turkish diplomat said “they always put forward their own demands and don’t take any steps about our concerns”. Instead, he pointed out, “what France should do is take back its own citizens, bring them to its own prisons and judge them”, referring to the dozens of French nationals who had fought in Syria under Daesh, and who the French government has been reluctant to take back.

“It is wrong to ask the YPG, another terrorist organisation, to keep these prisoners in exchange for support”, Fidan said.

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