Will Turkey reach out to the Syrian-Kurdish group PYD?

Brett McGurk, a special presidential envoy to the global coalition to counter DAESH, paid a surprise visit to the town of Kobani in northern Syria, during which many candid photographs were taken of top American diplomats with former PKK officers, concerned Ankara. When the photographs were followed by tweets from McGurk referring to PKK-linked People's Protection Units (YPG) soldiers who died in clashes as martyrs, the Turkish media responded by interpreting these events more as signs of American disregard for Turkey's national security worries.

Two different views have been circulating recently in Washington in response to Turkey's policies against the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria. The first, summarized by Dov Friedman on the American interest, suggests that Turkey should try to broker a similar mechanism with the PYD as the one Ankara established with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in the recent past. The second, an article by Amberin Zaman on the Wilson Center's website, proposes that the U.S. should reach out to the PKK through the PYD and pressure Ankara to approach Kurds in a comprehensive way in order to both end bloodshed in Turkey's southeast and pave the way for a sound collaboration between Turkey and Syrian Kurds.

It is true that both make significant points with regard to issues currently challenging Turkey in the region. However, I disagree with them. Let's face it, both prioritize Kurdish interests while ignoring Ankara's concerns about the PYD and overlook the government's past efforts to reach out to it.

While the PKK delayed the crucial reconciliation process, Turkey invited PYD leader Salih Muslim to Ankara in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Turkey also opened a passage for KRG forces and their heavy weapons to travel to Kobani as the city was about to fall in late 2014. Turkey transferred logistics, ammunition and light weapons to KRG forces, provided food and medical supplies to the city's defenders and gave treatment to YPG militants in Turkish hospitals.

This started to change when PKK, through the PYD, began to control large swaths of territory in Syria where up to 30,000 militants were stationed. The soldiers consisted mainly of PKK militants from Turkey who were both trained and supported by the U.S. government. Then when the international media started to sympathize with the group and portray female PPK militants as heroic figures, demands skyrocketed in American outlets to remove the PKK from the list of foreign terrorist organizations. Therefore, there was little interest on the PKK's side to uphold a cease-fire that ran counter to its aim to imitate another "Rojava revolution" in Turkey's southeast. Winning both the hearts and minds of the international community, the PKK had little interest in continuing something they no longer saw as crucial.

With a strategy based on its urban warfare experience against DAESH in Syria, the PKK has been preparing for this fight. Senior militants organized its youth to dig trenches, build barricades and plant improvised explosive devices in city centers against Turkey's state authority. The PKK's recently established urban force, the Civil Defense Union (YPS), even copied the YPG's organizational structure.

Turkey regards the PYD's rise in northern Syria to counter Ankara's domestic struggle against the PKK and treats Syrian Kurds as adversaries to its domestic security, which Turkey would never compromise in exchange for another profitable alliance with Kurds in northern Syria. Pundits should also note that the Turkish military and KRG President Masoud Barzani have a different history from that with the PYD considering Irbil and Ankara's past joint operations against PKK. In multiple military operations throughout the 1990s peshmerge forces helped the Turkish military to pursue the PKK in Northern Iraq. In the early 2000s, Turkey kept its collaboration with Barzani intact against the PKK and continued to intervene whenever it liked despite Turkish generals' dislike of Kurds on the whole.

Having said this, there is no chance of a positive dialogue between Ankara and the PYD in the future unless the PKK declares another cease-fire and withdraws its forces from Turkey. If the PYD violates Turkey's red line by crossing the Euphrates, Ankara will not hesitate to strike.

The U.S. has no desire to become involved in Turkey's domestic problems. Everyone needs to face the fact that the U.S. is no longer interested in playing the role of the world's policeman. Its one and only concern is DAESH which is a direct threat to U.S. security and interests - the rest is to be taken care of by regional powers. For the U.S., the PYD is simply another sub-state actor serves it aims in Syria. U.S. Army Lieutenant Gen. Sean MacFarland, the top commander leading the anti-DAESH coalition operations in the region, said, "Syrian Kurds know that they owe their existence, really, to the support that we are providing them. If it wasn't for us, they would still have their backs up against the wall in Kobani, if they were standing at all.'

Strategically speaking, the real question is: When the U.S. has the support of Turkey, its NATO ally, why should it ever be concerned with the interests of Syrian Kurds who depend on American aid for their existence?