MESOP NEWS SAMPLER OF RELEVANT SOURCES : TOP OF THE AGENDA SYRIA

Iran Joins Countries Against U.S.-Backed Syria Force

Iran has condemned a U.S. plan (AP) for a Kurdish-led border force to comprise some thirty thousand troops in northeastern Syria, joining Russia, Turkey, and the Syrian government in protest of the move.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Syria said that the coalition is working with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to train a new Syrian Border Defense Force (Al Jazeera), drawing up to fifteen thousand of its members from SDF ranks. On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened action against Kurdish forces along his country’s southern border, where the new U.S. force is to be stationed, saying an offensive there “may begin at any time” (Rudaw).

ANALYSIS

“Amid all the vacillations in Turkish policy on Syria there has been one constant throughout: Ankara’s unequivocal opposition to [Syrian-Kurdish Democratic Union Party]-controlled territory along its borders,” Suraj Sharma writes for Middle East Eye.

“The SDF is basically a new occupying power that is imposing a rigid, dictatorial one-party system and completely ignoring the struggle for freedom and change that began in 2011,” Yassin al Haj Saleh said in an interview with Muftah.

“The Syrian conflict is on a trajectory to continue to expand during 2018,” Jennifer Cafarella said in an interview with the Carnegie Middle East Center.