ISTANBUL—Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Saturday his country is willing to accept a role for Syrian President Bashar Assad during a transitional period but insisted he has no place in Syria’s future.
The comments came after Assad’s forces began attacking Kurdish positions this week, leading some Kurdish officials to speculate that a Syrian-Turkish rapprochement was underway at the expense of Kurdish autonomy in northern Syria.
“There will be concessions on the Kurdish question,” said Nasser Haj Mansour, an adviser to the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, which expelled the Islamic State group from their northern Syrian stronghold of Manbij this month. “I do not know where this will lead.”
Turkey is one of the main supporters of rebels fighting to overthrow Assad, and hosts more than 2.7 million Syrian refugees. But Istanbul is concerned about the growing power of U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces across the border and opposes any moves toward Kurdish autonomy or independence. The Syrian government, too, has grown uneasy with the Kurdish forces in the north, who enjoy close relations with the U.S. government, an open antagonist of Syria’s Assad.
Damascus has largely refrained from attacking its homegrown Kurdish forces, which have successfully defeated the Islamic State group in multiple battles while expanding their own autonomous footprint.
However on Friday, the Syrian military’s General Command released a statement referring to the Kurdish Asayesh internal police force as the “military wing of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).”
The military’s statement appeared to be a concession to the Turkish government, which is battling its own Kurdish insurgency in the southeast and has long pressed the Syrian government to label the Syrian Kurdish political movement as an extension of Turkey’s outlawed PKK.
