US to work with both Turkey, anti-Daesh forces in Syria

By Michael Sercan Daventry

LONDON

The U.S. will work with both Turkey and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) group in an operation to envelop the city of Raqqah, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Thursday.

Carter, who is in London to attend a UN peacekeeping meeting, said the main objectives in the fight against Daesh were the northern Syrian city, which is Daesh’s self-declared capital, and the Iraqi city of Mosul.

He was responding in a BBC radio interview to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s comments earlier this week that a joint U.S.-Turkish operation was being planned to liberate Raqqah, which was taken by Daesh in 2014.

“We certainly have joint action with Turkey, which is a member of the coalition and does a great deal, including hosting a number of the aircraft that are involved in the air campaign,” Carter said.

“Right now we are working with Turkey to help it secure the last remaining part of the border between Turkey and Syria on both sides of the border, which has been one of the avenues, the arteries through which ISIL [Daesh] has supplied itself with foreign fighters, with equipment and so forth, and we are working with Turkey in that respect.”

Carter said the U.S. was also working with the SDF, which is made up of forces including the PKK/PYD. Turkey considers the later a terrorist organization due to the PKK’s decades-long war with Ankara.

“At the same time, we’re working with the Syrian Democratic Forces in a plan to envelop and collapse ISIL’s control of Raqqah,” Carter said.

“We have worked with that group also in Manbij city, which was an important city, and we intend to work with both of these parties. They have their differences with one another, we understand that.”

Carter said the U.S. intended to complete the plan to “envelop and contain” Raqqah and Mosul within months, before President Barack Obama’s term ends in January.

Turning to plans for peace in Syria, which has been ravaged by a five-year civil war that, according to the country’s UN envoy, has seen at least 400,000 people killed, Carter said the only hope for ending the war was for “some of the structures” of the Syrian government, although not Bashar al-Assad himself, to be part of a transitional administration.

Last weekend’s G20 meeting in China raised hopes of a U.S.-Russia sponsored cease-fire in Syria although such a deal failed to materialize. Carter said Russia’s entry into the conflict had fueled violence in the country and called on Moscow to use its influence over Assad to end the conflict.