Satoshi Ikeuchi 池内恵

http://13.An  end to the Western policy of supporting the YPG&PKK coupled with guarantees that NE Syria will onot be used as a zone to challenge Turkish security will move Turkish body politic to overhaul the country’s ailing politics and expand the sphere of liberties.

12.Under those conditions and as a third element, Turkey’s Western partners could incentivize Ankara to return to an agenda of domestic political reforms also designed to tackle the country’s long standing Kurdish problem

11.Secondly, Turkey and the West should restart a strategic dialogue to foster a common approach to the constitutional order and security arrangements for a new Syria. A failure will only further enhance the influence of Moscow and Tehran in reshaping the regional order

10. The first and indispensable element is the acknowledgment that the policy of support to the YPG has ended. No long term constructive engagement with Turkey can be envisaged unless especially Washington comes to terms with the calamity of its approach to whitewash the YPG.

9.Instead of sanctions therefore, the West should seek to devise a mutually agreed plan of action with Ankara that would incorporate three major elements.

8. Sanctions by the United States and Europe on Turkey could also decouple Turkey from its Western geostrategic orbit by weakening its allegiance to NATO and accelerate the ongoing drift towards Russia and away from democratic values.

7. Against such a political backdrop, US and EU sanctions on Turkey will only backfire. They will be perceived at home as a reactive measure to penalize Turkey for unsettling the American plan to retain influence in the ME on the back of its partnership with YPG.

6. Turkey’s big mistake was betting on the gradually more radical and islamist elements of the opposition like the Syria Islamic Liberation Front and the Tawhid Brigade to achieve its objective of regime change in Syria.

5. Turkey is justifying its cross-border operation into northern Syria as partly motivated by its desire to set up a safe zone, where at least a million Syrian refugees can be resettled.

4. Europe’s ongoing resistance to a substantive resettlement program for Syrian migrants has created the political conditions for Ankara to seek another solution to this urgent problem.

3. Europe’s biggest failure was outsourcing its Syrian refugee policy to Turkey. Turkey-EU refugee deal now under severe strain following the downturn in the Turkish economy. Turkey has been hosting about 3.6 million Syrians.

2. For the US, main failure was to naively believe that the partnership established with the Y.P.G., an organic offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or the P.K.K., which is recognized by Ankara, Washington and Brussels as a terrorist group, could be long lived.

1. The harsh truth is that the United States, Europe and Turkey share the responsibility in the creation of this crisis with a series of policy mistakes they all made since the beginning of the Syrian war in 2011.

My oped for @nytopinion where I argue about the disingenuity of imposing sanctions on Turkey and propose a different roadmap for the West. Main arguments +https://twitter.com/nytopinion/status/1184535039889100800 …

Turkish Lira likely to tumble on news Halkbank charges (thread)https://twitter.com/michaeltanchum/status/1184218119541268480 …