Journalist İsmet Konak states that the Ankara administration seems to be engaged in plans for taking control over an area reaching Aleppo in Syria. He added that Ankara could be ready to make any kind of concession to Russia to achieve this objective.

“The Erdoğan administration has been knocking on the doors of Russia and the United States to enter the Shahba canton. (…) Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is trying to convince Russia and the US about a possible military operation. He’s winking at the two, negotiating to purchase F-16 war planes on the one hand and purchasing SU-35 or SU-57 war planes on the other,” Konak wrote in an article for Mezopotamya News Agency.

“The coalition of the Justice and Development Party [AKP] and the Nationalist Movement Party [MHP], now trapped like a scorpion in a circle of death, sees waging a war against the Kurds as the only exit. (…) The Beştepe [Turkey’s presidential palace], shaken by a pychological trauma, regards an incursion into the territories of Rojava [North and East Syria] as an anti-depressant.”

Konak said that while the earlier Turkish attacks on the cities of Afrin (Efrîn), Girê Sipî (Tall Abyad) and Serêkaniyê (Ras al-Ayn) were demonstrations of the primitive political style of the Ankara administration which tried to extend its ‘rotting’ authoritarian regime, war drums are now beating over the Shahba canton with towns like Manbij, Tall Rifat, Tishreen and Arima.

“It is likely that the Erdoğan administration will take some steps to ‘annex’ this region. (…) For instance, he can accept leaving Idlib in return for occupying parts of Rojava,” Konak wrote.

“Beştepe is carrying the drum while Russia and the US have the sticks. All critical moves in Syria [by Turkey] up until now could be carried out with the ‘consent’ of these two powers. It will be the same in the future.”

Konak indicated that the real objective of the Ankara administration could actually be to extend its control as far as Aleppo: “It looks like the Ankara administration is making plans to occupy the Shahba canton and subsequently reach as far as Aleppo.

“It is trying to get the consent of the powers in the field, especially Russia. It is ready to make any kind of concession for this. We’ll see what will happen in the following days, though it doesn’t seem too likely that Russia will give the green light for a possible Turkish incursion at a time when moves for a new Syrian constitution are accelerating.”