comment by
Tobias Mater
The election campaign in Turkey is imminent, and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan primarily wants to score points on the home stage. And in such moments, the already chronically tense relationship with the West is of secondary importance to him. Erdoğan has now again bombed positions of the PKK and the Kurdish militia YPG in Iraq and Syria. In doing so, he escalates a conflict that continues to smolder in the shadow of the Russian war in Ukraine. With his strategy, the Turkish President is also distancing himself from the United States. Washington is close to the YPG in Syria, which has been fighting the so-called Islamic State.