US encouraging Syria's disintegration
Syrian civilians running for cover as smoke billows following an airstrike on Ain Tarma, in the eastern Ghouta area, a moderate opposition-stronghold, east of the capital Damascus on March 27.

Whether deliberate or not, the U.S.'s policy of supporting Kurdish militant groups poses a threat to Syria's unity and integrity



The U.S.'s policies on Syria is leading to the disintegration of Syria and the establishment of mini-states on Syrian territory. So all the talk by Moscow and Washington about how they support Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity is up in smoke in light of their actions on the ground.It is no surprise to Turkey that the Syrian Kurdish militant group, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), has turned out to be a secessionist movement that disguises itself as a proponent of a federal Syria but is in fact edging toward creating a mini-state just across our border with the blessing of the Americans and, to an extent, of the Russians.Bashar Assad played into the hands of the Kurdish militants, who are affiliates of Turkey's secessionist PKK terrorist organization, when he vacated the northern areas bordering Turkey and allowed the PYD to settle into these areas. Assad did that to punish Ankara for opposing his bloody regime that has killed nearly 1 million Syrians so far and drove at least 3 million into Turkey as refugees. He wanted to teach a lesson to Ankara by stationing the PKK terrorists and their PYD affiliates and its military wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG), across our border.The areas that the PYD managed to grab were threatened by the militants of Daesh in 2015 but thanks to the U.S., Turkey and the peshmerga forces of Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Masoud Barzani, the Daesh hordes were driven back and the key Kurdish Syrian town of Kobani was saved. But then the PYD used Kobani to spread its influence in the region, regroup its fighters with the help of the U.S. and drive Arabs from villages and create three "cantons" to the east of the Euphrates River. They called the region Rojova and later declared it a federal state, which even the Americans rejected. Yet they continued their quest to gradually change their grip on these settlements to a mini-state in the north of Syria. They started to grab Arab towns like Manbij and throw the population out to replace them with Kurdish militants and all this was done with the blessing of the Americans as Washington was deceiving Ankara saying the Kurdish militant presence was temporary and that the Kurdish militants would withdraw. That was a year ago. The Kurdish militants did not withdraw and on the contrary declared their presence was permanent and that they enlisted American protection. The U.S. simply deceived their NATO ally Turkey.Turkey foiled the PYD plot to create a mini-state across its border all the way from the Iraqi border to the Mediterranean Sea by launching Operation Euphrates Shield and wrestled large chunks of the border areas in Syria with the help of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) from Daesh and thus prevented the Kurdish militants creating a long corridor of influence across our land. Even the Americans could not prevent this. The successful military operation helped Turkey set up a safe zone all the way down to the city of al-Bab and just to the west of Manbij.President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a TV interview on Tuesday night said Turkish forces are edging toward Manbij, which means Ankara is openly telling friends and foes alike that creating Russian buffers to help the Kurdish militants in Manbij or bringing in American bodyguards to save the PYD will not deter the Turks.While all this is going on, the U.S. started an operation to capture Raqqa and enlisted the help of the YPG and PYD. They have heavily armed the Kurdish militant groups and hope they will be the main fighting force to drive Daesh out of the Arab city.However, even here we see the dark intentions of the militant Kurds. Salih Muslim, the co-chairman of the PYD, says he hopes Raqqa will be a part of the "Kurdish federation." So as we have always said the Kurdish militants want the Arab city for themselves. The Americans are thus playing into the hands of the Kurdish militants willingly or unwillingly as they continue to embolden the Kurdish militants' dreams of a mini-state in Syria. So much so for American claims that they support Syria's unity and territorial integrity.