Inside Story

Will Turkish and Syrian armies fight in Afrin?

Tensions escalate amid reports the Syrian military is deploying forces to fight the Turks alongside the Kurdish YPG.

After seven years of war, the complex mosaic that is the battlefield in Syria can still surprise.

The US, Russia, Iran, Turkey, and the Syrian regime are all involved with forces on the ground and desperate to make political gains.

Afrin, in northern Syria, is now the focus of the conflict, and the situation is getting even more complicated.

Last month Turkey launched an operation to seize Afrin from the Kurdish fighters of the YPG – a group Ankara considers “terrorists” and a threat so close to its border.

The US has been supporting YPG in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in Syria and continues to do so, making relations with Ankara even tenser.

And Turkey is now facing a new and more direct confrontation.

Syrian pro-government forces will help the US-backed Kurdish soldiers in fighting Turkish troops for control.

What’s next for war-torn Syria?

Presenter: Peter Dobbie

Guests:

Mehmet Yegin – affiliate of the political science department at Bilkent University

Salih Muslim Mohammed – diplomatic committee member of Tev-Dem – The Movement for a Democratic Society

Joshua Landis – director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma