Stephen Lendman: Turkey seeks to annex northern Syria

Press TV has interviewed Stephen Lendman, an author and radio host in Chicago, to discuss the remarks made by the Russian foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, censuring Turkey’s plan to establish a buffer zone in Syria, saying such a proposal contradicts the international law and will heighten tensions in the region.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: You have seen on the one hand Turkey saying that they have to create this free zone and on the other hand you have seen what Russia is saying about their intentions. What do you think is going on here? Why does Turkey want to do this now?

Lendman: I think it is important to realize first of all that Turkey will do nothing without US permission and ... complicity. Turkey all along throughout the Syrian war has wanted to cut off a piece of northern Syria and annex it. Well Russia’s intervention absolutely destroyed those plans. There is no chance of Turkey establishing a piece of Syria, annexing it into part of Turkey’s territory.

At the same time Turkey continues to saber-rattle, it threatens to send troops across border into Syria. I think what it might do at most is to make a brief incursion over a limited area, if it intends to do that in fact. I am not sure what it intends to do. I think Russia will respond according to exactly what Syria does and I think what Russia will mainly do is use international law as its main weapon. Russia does not want a greater military confrontation than already. It wants to use the power of the law and its righteousness using the law to intervene against any extra belligerence that Turkey or anybody else might have in mind including Saudi Arabia.

Press TV: Let’s talk about that then, you talked about the power of the law and its righteousness. Which law? Whose law? Who is enforcing it? We look at the situation especially we have seen in Syria and how basically I would say the law has been used against the government in Damascus. How likely is the possibility that the law could actually be used in a way that would be against still the Syrian government?  

Lendman: I think that is a very key point and I have said it so many times in my writing. There is no question, the Syrian war is not a civil war, the Syrian war is Obama’s war and it is naked aggression using Daesh and other terrorist groups as US imperial foot soldiers so you talk about international law right down the drain from the start and Turkey of course is a valued US ally and NATO member supported by America and the other NATO forces, other NATO states.

So at the same time I think Turkey is very concerned about how far it will go. I think America will not let Turkey go more than a certain amount, more than a certain degree in advancing more belligerence than already because the situation is already explosive, the possibility of having direct confrontation with Russia, while it is acting as a supreme peacemaker [that] may be too much for Washington. We will have to wait and see what happens and it is a very inflammatory situation right now and literally anything possibly could happen here. I am hoping that maybe the worst that I fear won’t happen but who knows.

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