How Turkey is playing with fire in Syria with its backing of new anti-Assad offensive

Cengiz Candar is a lawmaker for the pro-Kurdish DEM party in Turkey who has spent long years in the Middle East. Candar outlines how Israel has hugely benefited from the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, while Turkey — another big winner — is seeking to thwart Kurdish aspirations.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

French academic Fabrice Balanche, who has written extensively on Syria and just returned from a ten-day -long trip there, believes Turkey is paying a high stakes poker game in Syria through its backing of a Salafist group that has made stunning advances against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jim Jeffrey, the director of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center and former Syria Envoy under the first Trump administration, says in his new term Trump could pull US forces out of Syria.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Human Rights Watch’s Turkey director, Emma Sinclair Webb, analyzes new legislation targeting journalists and civil society and the ouster of Kurdish mayors. The new wave of repression is being greeted with silence by Turkey's western allies.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is holding exploratory talks with Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK, to end the 40-year-old Kurdish conflict. Turkey has made clear its expectation that the PKK lay down its arms and end the conflict. What would it take for the PKK to comply? Giran Ozcan, executive director of the Kurdish Peace Institute in Washington, believes Turkey needs to grant its estimated 16 million Kurds basic rights such as being able to teach and learn their long banned mother tongue if the effort is to succeed.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Fethullah Gulen, the Sunni Muslim Cleric who was accused of engineering the failed coup to overthrow Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has died in self imposed exile in the United States. Once feted as a moderate who steered generations of young Muslims away from radicalism, Gulen did untold harm to Turkey's fragile democracy, says Turkish analyst Selim Koru.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The risk of a region-wide war is growing as Israel carries out ground and air operations against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and beyond. Hezbollah and Iran have been irreversibly weakened in this latest cycle of violence, argues scholar Lina Khatib of Chatham House. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jim Muir, one of the most seasoned Western journalists in the Middle East, has been covering the Arab-Israeli conflict for almost 50 years. Muir tells Al-Monitor that the latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is unlike any other in the past, with unforeseeable consequences for both sides, as well for Lebanon and Iran.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On Sept. 9, Cyrus and the United States inked a defense cooperation agreement, sparking angry reactions from Turkey. The agreement was signed as Turkey's relations with Washington remain essentially on the rocks. Turkey charges that the United States is using Cyprus to ship weapons to Israel, an accusation that Cyprus denies. However, what goes on at two sovereign British bases on the island remains unknown to the public.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Few know the true story behind Syria's support for Kurdish militants fighting Turkey. Turkish academic Behlul Ozkan explains how and why Turkey's pro-military rulers backed an Islamist uprising in the early 1980s against the regime of Hafez al-Assad, leading Damascus to open its doors to the PKK.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.