Turkey expected to sit out Raqqa offensive

While the U.S. is not ruling out a future role for Turkey, discussions with Ankara have continued for months without producing any agreement that would include Turkish forces in the coming offensive.

“We have made clear … that we are open to a Turkish role in the continued operations to defeat ISIS in northern Syria,” said Col. John Dorrian, a U.S. military spokesman briefing Pentagon reporters from Iraq.

“We haven’t come to an agreement about what that role will be or if there will be one,” Dorrian said, “but we talk to Turkey through military channels and I believe at diplomatic levels every day.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is adamantly opposed to U.S. plans to back Kurdish fighters, including elements of the YPG, to help carry out the liberation of the city that the Islamic State has claimed as its capital.

Turkey considers the YPG to be linked to the PKK, a group that both the U.S. and Turkey consider a terrorist organization.

The U.S. says the local forces surrounding Raqqa in preparation for the final assault include the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian Arab Coalition, which is made of about 75 percent ethnic Arabs, which it says is “demographically consistent” with the population of that part of Syria.

Asked directly if the Kurdish forces preparing to enter the city included YPG fighters, Dorrian said, “I think I’d like to leave it at we would expect Kurds to be involved. And that’s probably about where we’re at.”

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain warned last week that proceeding with plans to liberate Raqqa with Kurdish forces risks alienating a key U.S. ally, one that provides critical logistical support by allowing U.S. and coalition warplanes to operate out of Incirlik Air Base, in southern Turkey.

“I’m not sure there’s an understanding of how seriously Erdogan views this issue, and I’m not sure we appreciate the importance of the role Turkey plays in our effort to retake Raqqa, particularly in the use of Incirlik and other activities that require Turkish cooperation,” McCain said.

“I foresee a train wreck here,” McCain said. “I think there’s a possibility of an impending conflict between Turkey and the Kurds.”

But the U.S. continues to insist that Kurds must be a part of the liberation force. “There have been Kurds that lived in Raqqa for a very long time,” Dorrian said. “We expect the demographic makeup of the force that liberates the city will likely reflect the residents of the city, either the present ones or the historic presence within the city.”

Meanwhile, Raqqa is close to being surrounded, and while some Islamic State leaders have fled to the south, many more remain in the city prepared to fight to the death.

Dorrian scoffed at a reporter’s question suggesting the defeat of the Islamic State in its self-proclaimed capital might be the “death knell” for the terrorist group in Syria.

“I’m not sure what spokesman you heard that from, but you didn’t hear it from this one,” Dorrian said, adding that while the liberation of ISIS’ twin capitals of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria are important and hugely significant, they are not the end of the fight by any means.

“Defeating ISIS in Mosul and defeating them in Raqqa is a necessary step. It’s a very important step because of the value they place on these two cities,” Dorrian said. “But make no mistake, we don’t consider the taking of those two cities to be the death knell. We consider it a very necessary and important step in the demise of this barbaric organization.”

U.S. officials say it appears that the Islamic State knows its hold on Raqqa is tenuous, and that some leaders already are setting up shop in other havens in Syria, including the town of Deir ez-Zor to the south.

Dorrian said it will soon be much more difficult for Islamic State fighters and leaders to escape from Raqqa, and as for Deir ez-Zor he said, “That may be where we go next.”