Talk of Syria Action May be Erdogan’s Latest Gambit to Pressure the West

Alarmed by Syrian Kurds' advances against Islamic State, and irked by Western reluctance to tackle Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, President Tayyip Erdogan has once again raised the prospect of a Turkish military intervention in Syria.

Such a move would risk alienating the West when confidence in Turkey has been already shaken by Erdogan's authoritarian tendencies and a slowdown in growth, and also prevent the AK Party that he founded forming a coalition with the main opposition party.

But Erdogan's drum-beating may be a gambit aimed at influencing the U.S.-led coalition in Syria, and bolstering his popularity at home after a major election setback for the AKP.

Ankara has looked askance as Syrian Kurdish PYD forces, backed by U.S.-led air strikes, have pushed back Islamic State militants from Syrian towns near the Turkish border. Turkey fears the creation of an autonomous Kurdish state in Syrian territory, which would further embolden its own 14 million Kurds.

Erdogan said over the weekend that he would “never allow” the formation of such a state, and since then, pro-government newspapers have trumpeted suggestions of an intervention, including the creation of a 110 by 33 km (70 by 20 mile) “buffer zone” in Syria's Jarablus region, now controlled by Islamic State.

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“This would be a move that would highly destabilize the region and become a major point of contention with the West,” said Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank.

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