Turkey has begun training a police force for its proposed buffer zone inside Syria, officials have told the Telegraph, bringing in a Turkmen militia to push back Islamic State fighters from the border.
Ankara increased its cooperation with a US-led military coalition last month, after an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil)-linked suicide attack killed 33 students in the border town of Suruc.
Turkmen groups have issued a call for volunteers to enlist in a proposed police force that will be tasked with policing the buffer zone, in addition to those Turkmen fighters who have enrolled in the US-led Train and Equip program.
Turkish and American officials are now struggling to meld different visions for a 55-mile “Isil-free” zone into a practical reality.
Despite deep links with Turkish opposition factions, it is Syria's Turkmen, an ethnic minority of Turkish descent, who have emerged as Ankara’s favoured proxy force.
Their deployment in a prospective buffer zone would heighten fears of yet more ethnic strife in a war already riven with hatreds and tensions. Turkmen leaders claim that thousands of their number have been forced from their homes by Kurdish militants battling Isil.
But many accuse Turkey of using the buffer zone as an excuse to thwart nationalist aspirations by the People’s Defense Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia that protects Kurdish-majority areas in northern Syria.
Turkmen officials say they would not tolerate the emergence of any Kurdish state inside Syria. “The main aim of this buffer zone is to go against the project of Syrian Kurdistan, Ahmet Mahli, head of the Gaziantep branch of the Syrian Turkmen Nationalist movement, said in an interview with the Telegraph. He described the YPG as “terrorists”.
Although support from Ankara is not a new development for the Turkmen, community representatives say that Turkey has reconstituted defunct Turkmen militias in recent weeks. It has offered them food, clothing and, in some cases, training.
“We have lists of 1,500 to 2,000 men ready to be trained as police who will protect the buffer zone in cooperation with Turkey,“ Mehmet Oglu, deputy head of the Gaziantep branch of the Syrian Turkmen Nationalist movement told the Telegraph.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11824264/Turkmen-militia-enlisted-to-patrol-Syria-anti-Isil-buffer-zone.html
