Thread by @Raman_Ghavami

A #thread on Turkey’s #Afrin offensive.
This aggression is indirectly connected to #IranProtests because #Russia and Iran are using Turkey for their own interests and Iran in particular wants to silence and weaken its domestic unrest.

Last year when I was in Moscow I told a Syrian Kurdish representative in Moscow that the Kurds must be very careful about Russians as Putin will try to weaken the Kurds in Syria soon. I suggested that she analyses Moscow’s move and report to their HQ in #Rojava.

However, she responded negatively and she accused me of being paranoid. It was then when I wrote this
fairobserver.com/region/middle_…
piece for @myfairobserver and highlighted a few issues including:

How Kurds were used by Russia, Iran and Syria,
How the PKK weakened its position in Turkey
How Washington can turn the table around.
The future of the Kurds in Syria and Turkey is becoming more uncertain.

In October 2017 after IRGC and Hashd-Al-Shaabi took control of Kirkuk(with the help of some PUK leadership who betrayed their people and a green light given by the US to Baghdad) Velayati, the senior advisor to Khamenei, threatened the Kurds in Syria that Iran and

Syria’ll take back territories taken by the Kurds in Syria from ISIS like they did in Iraq. A few days after this announcement the PKK attacked the IRGC base and killed more than 12 of their forces.After this attack Iran got quiet and never talked about attacking Kurds in Syria.

Iran knew if they attack the Kurds the way they did in Iraq then the PKK, which has a strong presence in Iran, would challenge Iran and that could endanger Khamenei’s cult.
Russia was waiting for a moment to move on the Kurds in order to weaken US position.

After announcing the training of a 30000 strong border force, Russia started pumping an idea into Turkey’s mind -as it is very easy to fool Turkey when it comes to Kurdish question- that US wants to establish an independent Kurdistan in Syria.

This aggression on Afrin is not in the interest of Turkey at all because when spring comes the PKK will try to take revenge and there will be some powers who will be willing to help them to weaken Turkey. Many soldiers will die as a result of this and Turkey’s economy won’t be

able to survive in a long run conflict, and Qatar will no longer be able to finance Turkey and other terrorist organisations in the region because of the blockade imposed by Gulf countries.
Lavrov accusing the US of trying to establish an independent Kurdistan in Syria was not

only a lie but the main aim was to fuel the fire and make sure Turkey attacks the Kurds as Russia and Iran were not capable of doing it. Russia and Iran know that because Turkey is a NATO ally, Western hands will be tied and on the other hand Western countries won’t risk their

interest because of Afrin. As we saw in the UNSC meeting today, neither France, UK or US were willing to outright condemn the attack on Afrin.
During Iran protests in Hamedan Iranians chanted “Clerics commit crimes and Russia supports them”. This wasn’t a coincidence because

Russia has a base in Hamedan and the latest Russia-Iran energy agreements are not in the interests of the Iranians but only guarantees a protection of the regime in Iran, especially in the Caspian Sea. That’s why Iranians are not happy with Putin-Khamenei relations.Russia and

Iran understood that they cannot face the Kurds directly. However, they understood that Turkey is the best option theyhave in order to weaken EU&US position in Syria and use Afrin as a counter attack for what has been happening in Iran for the past few weeks. As a result, Kurds

should realise they are being deliberately distracted and PJAK and other opposition parties in Iran should remain focused on countering the terrorist organisation, IRGC, which could change the game and turn the table not only for the Kurds but for all the Iranians who want to see

a weaker Khamenei cult. I have been monitoring different insurgency groups for the past 15 years, in particular the Kurdish ones. It is January and PKK doesn’t have much room to manoeuvre in Turkey and even if they do then their attacks could be countered easily by Turkey.

PKK Guerrillas won’t be able to do much till late March, early April because of the way they are positioned in Turkey. However, in Iran PJAK and other Iranian opposition parties such as KDP, KDPI, Komala etc can challenge Russia’s proxy the IRGC easily.

PJAK locations are not as difficult as the ones in Turkey to move and act from. Although Iraqi Kurds are pretending to be friends with Iran, after what happened in Kirkuk and what is happening in Afrin, the Kurds in Iraq will be willing to counter this offensive at any cost.

For the first time the Kurds in Iraq have understood that with having Erdogan and Khamenei in power, Iraq won’t be able to act independently and that is not in the interest of the KRG. Kurds in Syria have two options in order to save Afrin.

One is to move on extremist groups and FSA from the Eastern side and the second to challenge the IRGC in order to weaken Putin’s elements. More support will be offered to the Kurds to challenge the IRGC as it is a terrorist organisation, but in Syria the help they could receive

would be very limited because of Turkey’s geopolitical importance for the West and NATO in particular. Kurds must make sure that they don’t put themselves in the position which Russia wants.In the past few years we have seen that the IRGC’s offensives successfully

defeated in Urumiyah,Marivan,Sanandaj,Maku,Mahabad,Saqez, Kermanshah, ilam etc so it can be done again.
If the Kurds don’t take smart measures, then they should be ready to give up Afrin-despite the fact they are tough fighters-because the situation is not comparable to Kobane.