ANALYSIS - Turkey Unlikely To Resume Full-Scale Military Action In Syria's North Despite Threats

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th November, 2019) Turkey will not relaunch a military operation in northern Syria despite threats because the move would put it on a collision course with Russia, a prospect Ankara feels uneasy about, experts have told Sputnik.

In a surprise announcement on Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that Ankara would launch a new operation if its objective to clear the border area from the Kurdish YPG militia was not met. This was cited by the state-run Anadolu news agency.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday that only residue Kurdish forces could have remained in the Turkish-designated area and ruled out a restart of the operation. He said no mention of a new military action was made by senior Turkish officials during Tuesday talks with the Russian envoy.

Gareth Jenkins, from the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy's Silk Road Studies Program, told Sputnik on Wednesday that the Turkish operation had never stopped but was relying on pro-Turkish rebels for small-scale action. The time for a full-fledged invasion involving Turkish forces has passed, he argued.

"I would be surprised if Turkey now resumes a full-scale operation deploying its own troops in the front-line. This would bring Ankara into direct confrontation with Russia and Ankara is afraid of a direct confrontation with Russia," he said.

He suggested that the whole military campaign was a ploy to boost President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's sagging popularity at home.

A resumption of fighting by Turkey would achieve nothing but "more death and destruction," he warned, seeing that the Turkish operation had only prolonged the bloodbath in Syria.

Moscow is focused on helping the government in Damascus restore control over the entire country, he pointed out, and, despite showing some flexibility toward Ankara, it will first try to limit Turkish presence in Syria and then roll it back.

NEW TALKS INSTEAD OF NEW FIGHTING

Turkey began a cross-border operation in early October with a stated goal to create a "safe" zone where migrants could be moved by driving away YPG militia, which it considers an offshoot of PKK separatists.

The incursion was halted under a ceasefire deal mediated by the United States on October 18 and stopped officially five days later after Ankara reached a pact with Russia that would have seen Kurds cleared from a swathe of land bordering Turkey, while Russian military police helped patrol parts of the border.

Ozturk Yilmaz, a member of the Turkish parliament, told Sputnik that Turkey seemingly had no "desire" to launch another operation but would want to discuss with Russia how to better implement the existing arrangements.

"I don't think Turkey would launch [a] new military operation in Syria after this moment, but definitely negotiations with Russia over how to implement the agreement [are a] fully another matter," he suggested.

The legislator said he understood that dialogue between Moscow and Ankara on their October 22 agreement was already in progress and predicted that differences would be resolved so that a new "grandiose land operation" could be avoided.

Yilmaz did warn that an attack by the Kurdish militia on the Turkish-held "safe" zone could push Ankara to restart the operation. Disagreements also persist between the US and Turkey on the withdrawal of US-backed militias from the zone, which could lead to "more discussions, more claim, more counter claim, but not operation in some months."