There is hope in Washington that the decision by the leader of a Turkey-based, U.S.-designated terror group to ask its factions to lay down their arms could ease tensions with Ankara and facilitate efforts to counter remnants of the Islamic State terror group.
Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), on Thursday issued a statement calling on his followers to end their decadeslong fight for an independent Kurdish state and to instead pursue peace, a decision that could reverberate across the Middle East.
"It's a significant development," said White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes in a statement to VOA.
"We believe it will help bring peace to this troubled region," Hughes said, adding, "We hope that it will help assuage our Turkish allies about U.S. counter-ISIS partners in northeast Syria."
For years, the alliance between the United States and Turkey has been strained by Washington's decision to back the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, in northeastern Syria in order to fight the Islamic State, also known as IS or ISIS.
The U.S. has viewed the SDF as a willing and capable partner. But officials in Ankara have long maintained that the SDF is led by fighters with the People's Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian-based offshoot of the PKK.
The SDF on Thursday echoed Washington's optimism, though its top military commander said his fighters would not give up their arms.
"Just to make it clear, this is only for the PKK. It is nothing related to us here in Syria," said General Mazloum Abdi, speaking to reporters in Washington from his base in northeastern Syria via video.
"When the peace flowers between Turkey and PKK, that will have its own positive consequences on us," Abdi added, speaking through a translator. "That means there is not any reason, and there is not any excuse, to keep attacking these regions on the pretext of PKK."
Turkish attacks against the SDF, whether launched directly by the Turkish military or by Turkish-backed forces in Syria, have repeatedly raised the ire of the U.S.
In one incident in 2022, a Turkish airstrike targeting Syrian Kurdish fighters hit within 300 meters of U.S. forces located north of the Syrian city of Hasakah, prompting the Pentagon to call for an immediate de-escalation.
And as recently as this past December, Kurdish officials in northeastern Syria warned that the actions of Turkey and Turkish-aligned militias threatened security at more than two dozen SDF-run prisons, holding an estimated 10,000 captured IS fighters.
"We [are] doing our best ... securing these prisons, which is not [an] easy task at all due to the constant attacks against us in the region," the SDF's Abdi said Thursday, in response to a question from VOA.
Some of those attacks have come from Turkish-aligned militias. But others have come from what the SDF says is a reinvigorated IS.
"ISIS has taken advantage of the security gap" created by the collapse of the regime of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad this past December, Abdi said. "We see ISIS become more visible. We see them more active recently ... showing more lethal capabilities."
Abdi said the terror group is making good use of weapons caches it seized after they were abandoned by forces loyal to Assad.
IS is also getting bolder, he said, sending terror fighters from their hideouts in Syria's Badia desert into surrounding cities.
The warnings parallel findings from a recent report by the United Nations' Sanctions Monitoring Team, which cautioned that IS exploited the military campaign by the Syrian insurgent group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which led to the Assad regime's demise.
The report, based on intelligence from U.N. member states, said IS controls about 1,500 to 3,000 fighters across Syria and Iraq, and that the group's leadership remains intent on retaking and holding territory in Syria.
For those reasons and others, the SDF's Abdi said it was critical for the U.S. to maintain its military presence in Syria, estimated to include 2,000 troops, despite media reports that Washington is considering a withdrawal.
"In the case of having a withdrawal, that will lead to chaos," Abdi said.
"There is already security vacuum" he added, calling a continued U.S. military presence "essential for the sake of preserving stability and security."
