The new era in Syria following the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime has eliminated any source of “legitimacy” for the PKK terrorist group’s Syrian wing YPG, according to a prominent Turkish expert.
“Syrian people have turned a new leaf, which shows they aim to ensure Syria’s territorial integrity and live under a single government. We can see the movement spurred from this has removed all sources of legitimacy for terrorist groups like the PKK/YPG,” associate professor Yenal Göksun, the deputy chief of Türkiye’s National Intelligence Academy (MIA), told Anadolu Agency (AA).
Göksun argued the PKK/YPG had been propped up by Western nations as a fundamental hedge against the Daesh terrorist group, “through which it earned legitimacy and attempted institutionalization” in northern Syria with military, economic and other administrative formations.
“Now this ground of legitimacy has been swept out from under it,” Göksun said.
Türkiye regards the YPG as an extension of the PKK, which fought the Turkish state in a four-decade terror campaign and is classified as a terrorist group by Ankara, Washington and the European Union.
Taking advantage of the power vacuum, the terrorist group occupied much of northeastern Syria early in the civil war with the help of the United States, which calls the group its primary ally in the anti-Daesh campaign. Ankara says the YPG is on par with Daesh and should have no presence in the new Syria.
In recent years, Türkiye has deployed troops and worked with local allies such as the opposition Syrian National Army (SNA) to prevent the YPG advance in the region and keep locals safe from terrorist oppression.
Since anti-regime forces took control of Damascus and toppled the Assad regime, the SNA has pushed back the PKK/YPG from several towns, including key strongholds Tal Rifaat and Manbij.
Göksun hit out at the PKK/YPG’s effort to establish itself as an opponent to Daesh in Syria, calling it a “senseless” attempt that finds “no weight in either the West or Syria.”
“The newly formed administration in Syria addresses a vast consensus, suggesting a government that includes a wider range of Syrian people in the administration. In such a political climate, the PKK/YPG’s political legitimacy is broken,” he said.
The PKK/YPG is now an unsustainable armed group relying on external help, Göksun added, pointing out how neither the Syrian nor Turkish administrations want its existence to the east of the Euphrates River.
“We can, therefore, argue this process will possibly end without bloodshed, with the disarmament of the group and the return of those lands to the Syrian people, indiscriminate of Kurds, Sunnis, Arabs or Turkmen,” he said. “But three is, of course, the possibility of a military operation there if the PKK/YPG refuses to lay down arms.”
‘No room for YPG’
Ankara believes the new Syrian administration in Damascus will take steps to ensure Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, after meeting Syria’s de-facto leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Damascus on Sunday, said there was no room for the PKK/YPG in Syria’s future, calling for the terrorist group to disband and stressing that Syria’s territorial integrity is “non-negotiable.”
Speaking alongside al-Sharaa, Fidan said the YPG “must come to a point where it is no longer a threat to Syria’s national unity.”
He argued the international community was “turning a blind eye” to the “illegality” of the YPG’s actions in Syria but added that he believed U.S. President-elect Donald Trump would take a different approach.
He said the new Syrian administration had told him during their talks that they could manage the Daesh prison camps if needed.
In a Reuters interview last Thursday, YPG leader Ferhat Abdi Şahin, code-named “Mazloum Kobani,” acknowledged the presence of PKK members in Syria for the first time, claiming they had helped Daesh and would return home if a total cease-fire was agreed with Türkiye.
Earlier, Türkiye’s defense minister said Ankara believed Syria’s new leadership, including the SNA, would drive YPG terrorists from all of the territory they occupy in the northeast.
Ankara had for years backed opposition forces looking to oust Assad and welcomed the end of his family’s brutal five-decade rule after a 13-year civil war. Türkiye also hosts millions of Syrian migrants who may return home after Assad’s fall and has vowed to help rebuild Syria.
Fidan said all international sanctions imposed against Assad must be lifted as soon as possible to help Syria start rebuilding, offering Ankara’s assistance on matters such as infrastructure development.
For his part, al-Sharaa said that Syria will remember Türkiye’s contribution, saying: “Our ‘friendly country, Türkiye’ has stood by Syrians since the beginning of the revolution … We will never forget.”
Al-Sharaa also said that all weapons in Syria would be controlled by the state, arguing that any armed groups, whether in areas under their control or those under the control of the PKK/YPG, will not be accepted.