In this weekly newsletter, Pentagon Correspondent Jared Szuba rounds up the biggest security stories from the region.
The Pentagon is taking a stand against Turkey’s plans to launch another assault against the Kurdish militias that form the bulk of the US-backed force fighting the Islamic State in Syria.
That’s the message Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin delivered to his counterpart Hulusi Akar in a phone call on Wednesday, at least. But Ankara is standing firm, and it’s looking less likely as each day passes that Washington has a substantive plan to paper over the crisis.
That Austin and top general Mark Milley have emerged among the point-men on de-escalation is a sign of just how long the Biden administration has kicked this can down the road.
Turkish officials say they’ve been pressing for nearly two years behind closed doors for more rigorous dialogue with the White House and State Department on the YPG issue, but say their American counterparts have been reluctant to engage in any real depth.
That may well be because Ankara’s foremost demand – that Washington flat-out abandon the Syrian Kurdish-led YPG – is out of the question, for one because it’s the only force keeping tens of thousands of captured Islamic State adherents from bursting out of prisons and camps and rejoining the transnational terror market.