President Donald Trump's announcement on 19 December that US troops will be withdrawn from Syria will seemingly clear the way for Turkey to launch its long-threatened operation against Kurdish forces in northeast Syria, while Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies will also look to make gains.Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said the following day that the Kurdish fighters from the People Protection Units (YPG) who are preparing defences on the border "will be buried in the trenches that they dig".As part of the Syrian Demo-cratic Forces (SDF), the YPG has proved to be the United State's most effective local partner in the fight against Islamic State extremists in Syria, but Ankara considers the group to be a terrorist threat because of its close association with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).In 2018 the US military moved to deter Turkish military operations against the YPG by deploying troops in a chain of observation posts around the town of Manbij and on the main border crossings east of the Euphrates.
展开▼
