A U.S. State Department official is pushing for talks between Turkish- and Kurdish-led factions in Syria as part of a broader push for a political solution that would edge out Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad.
The United States has attempted to court both Turkey and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces\u2014who have been at war with each other multiple times\u2014as part of its strategy in Syria. Col. Rich Outzen, the State Department\u2019s senior advisor for Syrian engagement, suggested bringing the two factions together at the negotiating table.
\u201cThe autonomous administration\u2014whatever you want to call it, I don\u2019t want to get into pejoratives, whatever, the folks that are running most of the northeast right now\u2014and the folks that are running the other parts of it, like the Turks and the Turkish-supported opposition, and the broader opposition all need to talk,\u201d Outzen said at a Wednesday video discussion hosted by the SETA Foundation, a pro-government think tank in Turkey.
Outzen said that the talks could fit into a political solution for all of Syria under United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254, which calls for UN-supervised elections to create \u201ccredible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s not so much regime change that we\u2019re after so much as a change in the nature of the regime\u2019s treatment of its people,\u201d Outzen said. \u201cWe don\u2019t see how this happens with Assad.\u201d
He warned that the alternative to a \u201cpolitical compromise\u201d between Assad and other factions would be \u201ca lot of killing,\u201d referring to reports of renewed violence in southwestern Syria as \u201ca good fast-forward to how the rest of Syria will look if there’s no 2254.\u201d
The Trump administration has leaned on Turkey and its Syrian rebel allies to push back against Assad\u2019s forces in northwestern Syria.
The United States has backed the SDF and other Kurdish forces in the fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, in northeastern Syria.
Turkey mistrusts the SDF and considers Kurdish nationalism a threat to its internal security.
The two sides had their first major fight in 2018, when Turkish forces invaded the Syrian territory of Afrin to root out the SDF. Turkey and pro-Turkey militias are accused of using kidnapping and population transfers to displace local Kurds.
Ending the Turkish-Kurdish conflict has become a priority for some members of Congress. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A U.S. State Department official is pushing for talks between Turkish- and Kurdish-led factions in Syria as part of a broader push for a political solution that would edge out Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad. The United States has attempted to court both Turkey and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces\u2014who have been at war with each …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1665,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[213,285,48],"class_list":["post-1664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-report","tag-north-syria","tag-talks","tag-turkey"],"yoast_head":"\n