 Welcome to News Clicks, Mapping Fault Lines. Today's area of focus is Syria and we are joined by Prabir Purkayasar. So Prabir, the US armed forces are withdrawing from Syria and they are leaving their allies the Kurds behind alone. And Turkey has also made its intentions clear that it does plan to invade the northeastern parts of Syria which were, which are Kurdish dominated under Kurdish under SDF control right now. So what do you think the Kurds can do now? Do you think they will go to the Syrian government for help? Well, first let's look at what the US has done. You know, Trump had announced three years back, he's going to withdraw from Syria. Three years we have not seen the withdrawal take place. To a lot of observers, they have actually protected a section of the ISIS as well. But they have also in the few months, years that they have been there, they have also sometimes bombed them, sometimes kept them in enclaves, protected them. We're not sure. But what has happened is that they have helped a coalition of forces capture the area east of Euphrates and made that virtually dominated by what's being called the SDF which is really the YPG as the core constituent, the Kurdish as the core constituent with the help of the Americans. So effectively taking over roughly 25 to 30% of Syrian temporary, which also contains its oil and gas resources. So this has been something which has not been liked by obviously the Syrian government who would like to take control of that area. But it is US presence which has protected that area from Syrian government trying to enter and take over that area. So what happens with the American withdrawal is not only about Turkey and the northern border, but also about rest of the country. Coming back to the northern border, the Turkish forces have been poised to strike at that for quite some time now. And their only reason for holding back was that the US was trying to come to an agreement with the Kurdish forces as well as Turkey. Turkey to see that the Turks do not take over that area and the Kurds have to lose their control over this part of the border. You know this is something which is a miscalculation on the Kurdish side. The belief that the US would support them forever and they would be under its umbrella against the regional forces which is one one side Turkey, on the side the Syrian government. So fighting against both with the protection of the US was not a viable strategy but unfortunately the Kurdish reality was that in order to fight Turkey they wanted the American support. Having taken it the thought to be strong enough to be able to withstand all forces including Turkey and Syria. And now that Trump has suddenly pulled the rug under their feet, what do they do? Do they fight Turkey? We have seen earlier the same issue had come up regarding Afrid at that point of time. It was again a two Kurdish enclave which was there on the northern border and that time also Syrian government had said you withdraw from the border let us be posted there and we will talk to Turkey so that they don't invade. So effectively we protect the border from Turkey on one side and also protect Turkey from your incursion if that's what they're talking about so that we will be there as protection in some sense of both sides and it is a border of the Syrian state anyway. But Kurdish forces did not like that at that time even now they don't seem to be willing to enter into at least before the American withdrawal into negotiations. What we saw in Afrid was very clear. It was very difficult for the Kurdish forces without armed artillery aircraft and American presence to be able to withstand the forces of Turkish armed forces. That's what again the Afrid was a very similar condition but the US did not protect the Kurds and the Kurds therefore lost the Afrin enclave. So I do not see that there is likelihood of a prolonged resistance to Turkey. What the Kurdish forces will do will they evacuate from the 30 kilometer stretch which is what the Turkish want to take control of is an open question. Already Turkish forces are poised to strike the area they've started bombing aircraft raids there it also of course poses a question also for the Russians and the Syrian forces what do they do this is their territory and this is also their airspace Syria's airspace Russia has protected this airspace so what do they do I think this is an open question but I do not think the Kurds can really fight the Turkish forces for too long they might strike them they might do a hit-and-run tactic but broadly this is something that they will have to withdraw and of course it then opens a question what the Turkey would do in this 30-kilometer stretch that they're taking over from the Kurds. How do we expect them to respond now the Syrian government and the Russians to Turkey's actions to what Turkey wants to do in that region? You know this is going to really complicate what was called the Astana process as long as the US was in Syria the Astana process which is really Turkey Iran Russia could talk about what is to be done with respect to Syria and they were trying to work out some modus vivendi between them or what the peace process could be in that Turkey was supposed to be responsible for taking out ISIS in Idlib which they hadn't done so there was this unhappiness with Turkey and serious for Syrian forces with Russian support have launched attacks in Idlib but at the same time the US being there made all three see a commonality of interest against what US was doing and of course what Israel was also doing by attacking Syrian forces from the air with now the US suddenly withdrawing Turkey and Russia as well as the Syrian government will have to see in the new condition what should be their modus vivendi now it's a possibility that Russians negotiate some kind of a peace between Syria and the Turkish forces and also the Syrian government acts to control the border this would require the Kurds also to agree to the Syrian government representing them and that's a big if as of now whether the Kurdish forces will like to do that or not because don't forget apart from the 30 kilometer the zone that we are talking about rest as we can see in the east of Euphrates that still belongs to at the moment is under under control of the Kurds supported by the Americans so what the Americans are going to do is also not clear will they withdraw from that they have also an enclave in El Tanaf which is to the south of Syria and that is still an enclave which the Americans are controlling so is this said to withdraw from only the 30 kilometer zone over there or is it a withdrawal from whole of Syria something we have to see and I think a lot of the calculations what the Syrian government the Russians and what the Turkish government would do would depend on that as well so it's not just the northern belt that we are talking about we're also talking about the rest of Syria I think it does change the correlation of forces at the moment and Turkey and Russia have been playing a very intricate dance as it were in that they have not fought each other after remember Turkish Turkey down to the Syria the Russian aircraft after that they haven't had this kind of a confrontation whether there is chance of a new confrontation or not will Russia be able to control Turkey will Turkey actually break away completely from NATO which is there in the process of doing or any conflict between Russia and Turkey over for instances and claim would again force Turkey back to the NATO are all open questions so I think suddenly the chessboard has been sort of rearranged in a completely new way and what moves who will make is not clear at this stage I expect Syrian government to become a player in this process over here in the northern zone that Turkey wants to get an entry and act in some way to regain control of the territory with Russian support and that could be negotiation between Turkey Russia and Syria that may take place as long as they ensure the Turks the Kurds don't control that that part of it I think Turkey might be willing to also let go but Turkey has another issue they have something like a million million and a half Syrians who have crossed over into Turkey and Turkey has a problem what to do with them a lot of them have been ISIS sympathizers supporters families and that's something also Turkey has to resolve whether they use it in Idlib to settle them Idlib under their protection in this area under the protection are all open questions so I think as we said the chessboard has been reset and we have to see what now emerges between Syria Turkey and Russia what is important is US seems to be taking itself out of the game so what do you think is the long-term plan of the United States and also what implications do we see for the larger region here I think in the larger region Trump's this moves also seems to show that US is no longer going to be a major player in the region and Trump has made various statements in the context of his withdrawal that he said and essentially unless people pay us to do something over here why should you be there we don't really have an interest in this region now that's strictly not true this is an oil rich region the region as a whole the US has a real deep interest in this for two reasons one is all trade in oil is it denominated in dollars mostly even today and therefore this is the lynchpin of the dollar's economy the global reserve currency being dollar is linked actually to the oil trade as well so that's one interest and secondly oil is a strategic resource even if US does not need oil imports other countries do and if they can choke that oil to other countries then US obviously has a strategic upper hand and particularly visa be China who doesn't have any resource in terms of hydro hydro hydrocarbon resource true for India as well so both of us really don't have hydrocarbon resources so this acts as a strategic lever on the rest of the world so the US has two reasons why they still have a strategic interest in the region apart from the allies of Arabia United Arab Emirates and so on so I think we are not going to see US look evacuate or leave this region but as far as Syria is concerned I think is very clear the strategically it's no longer a tenable proposition for them to continue occupation of parts of Syria which they're there illegally and claiming to be against ISIS ISIS is no longer there as a Syrian government who's really fought it so given that I think we are going to see weakening of United States strategic presence in the area and I think therefore what Russia has been presenting for some time which have discussed visa be also Yemen earlier and Iraq that there is increasingly going to be a need for the countries in this region to talk to each other and resolve their differences and not use American umbrella or American hegemonic presence in the area as shall we say a bargaining lever with each other I think they need to work out within themselves what should nation states do in this region and I think this is really perhaps a start of the process as a slum some thaw in the Saudi-Iranian relationships are also appearing to show I think so we are looking at a larger reconfiguration of the strategic political map of the region in terms of US lowering its presence though I do not think they're going to withdraw from the region so thank you for joining us today and that's all the time we have keep watching news click