国际英语资讯:Spotlight: Turkey will have to face Kurdish autonomy in Syria: analysts_时事

国际英语资讯:Spotlight: Turkey will have to face Kurdish autonomy in Syria: analysts

ISTANBUL, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- Turkey could do little to prevent the emergence of a Kurdish autonomous region in Syria if the new U.S. president's decision to establish safe zones there includes as expected Kurds-controlled cantons, analysts told Xinhua.

"Turkey has zero chance of blocking such an eventuality. The area is outside its borders," said Huseyin Bagci, a professor of international relations with Ankara-based Middle East Technical University (METU).

Turkey has long expressed its concern about a Kurdish corridor along its southern border, arguing that the Kurdish expansion in Syria is illegitimate and that the Kurdish fighters are members of a terrorist organization.

U.S. President Donald Trump said last week that he would "absolutely do safe zones in Syria" for people fleeing the civil war in the Arab country.

"Under the current circumstances, Turkey stands no chance of stopping the emergence of a Kurdish entity in Syria," observed Cahit Armagan Dilek, director of the Ankara-based 21st Century Turkey Institute.

Turkey is particularly concerned that the emergence of an autonomous or independent Kurdish entity in northern Syria may set a precedent for its own nearly 20 million Kurds and encourage Kurdish separatism at home.

It is also widely argued that such a Kurdish belt, de facto linked with the territory ruled by the Kurdistan Regional Government in neighboring Iraq, would physically cut off Turkey from the Arab world.