THERE is a disturbing similarity between Turkish and Russian behavior in Syria. Both are supposed to be committed to fighting the terrorism of Daesh, (the so-called IS). Yet their military action has not targeted Daesh. Turkey has used July's suicide bombing in the border town of Suruc, which killed 32, a crime that was widely blamed on Daesh, as an excuse to attack the Kurdish rebel PKK movement. Russia meanwhile has been busy using its newly-arrived military muscle in Syria, to attack the Free Syrian army. Like the Turkish air force, Russian warplanes have rarely assailed the real enemy, Daesh. Given this, there is a grim irony that Moscow and Ankara are at loggerheads over the incursion of at least one Russian fighter into Turkish airspace. It appears that one warplane that flew briefly into Turkey was a Syrian fighter. In both cases Turkish jets launched to intercept the intruding aircraft were “lit up” by the weapons systems on the foreign aircraft, the precursor to launching missiles against them. It is also being reported that a ground radar in Syria fixed on the Turkish planes. On each occasion that this has happened, the intruders withdrew into Syrian airspace after several minutes. Moscow is claiming that the one incident to which it is admitting, was due to a navigational error, though it has not gone so far as to apologize. This itself suggests that the Russian pilot made no mistake at all. Rather the Russians are stirring the pot and goading the Turks into trying to attack one of their warplanes. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can well anticipate the consequences of such a challenge. Ankara gets 60 percent of its gas from Russia, which is also its sixth largest trading partner. Turkish construction firms have big contracts in Russia and Turkey is involved in major oil pipeline projects with Moscow. Erdogan has the example of Ukraine to tell him that Putin is perfectly prepared to turn off the gas taps to send a powerful political message. As Fall turns to winter, Turks will not be pleased with the prospect of shivering with cold on the icy Anatolian plateau. There is a further alarming prospect which ought to be worrying Erdogan. Putin could start backing the Kurds. Syria's Kurds in the northeast of the country have little in the way of confrontation with Assad's forces. They are, however, directly fighting Daesh. It is not a big stretch to imagine that Moscow could start arming and supporting these fighters and using them as a proxy to at least keep Daesh busy. Syrian Kurds would have no problem accepting such aid. The tragedy of Kobane, where Turkish troops sat back and watched for months as Kurds fought inch by inch to drive Daesh out of the town, has not been forgotten and certainly not forgiven. If some Russian arms and supplies found there way via the Syrian Kurds to the PKK, few Kurds would be concerned. Indeed many would rejoice. A Russian link to Syria's Kurds could bring about an Iranian link to Iraqis Kurds. Though there is a deep rivalry between two dominant Kurdish clans, still barely papered over in the autonomous government in Kirkuk, the prospect of open-handed deliveries of Russian weaponry, channeled through Iran would surely be alluring. And some of those armaments would surely also find their way to the PKK.
