Kurdish basting on a slow roasting Turkey .... yummy !

Read the article  below  if you want to glimpse into how extremely complicated the situation is .... not only on the Syrian front but also in the regions of Turkey and Kurdistan.  The increased involvement of Kurds, now deeply involved  fighting the  Turkey funded and armed Al Qaeda fighters, who have been sent by Erdogan, Saudi Arabia and France to fight Kurds on the Turkish bordering regions, is beginning to only become known of late although its been going on for months.

Turkey and some of the Kurd leaders were supposed to have negotiated a kind of peace treaty last week but there's no indication that  there was a  successful outcome of that meet..... so the fighting continues and might intensify.

And .... this is the mess the West wants to wade into?

Amberin Zaman for Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse 
....CEYLANPINAR, Turkey — Last week, I traveled to Turkey’s border with Syria. I was planning to cross into the Kurdish-controlled northeast to find out how the country’s most influential Kurdish group, the Democratic Unity Party (PYD), was running the string of towns and villages that fell under its control last summer.

I would have to cross into Syria illegally because Turkey’s formal border crossings with the Kurdish region remain sealed. My destination was the PYD-controlled town of Ras al-Ain, or Serekaniye in Kurdish, that stands opposite Ceylanpinar on the Turkish side. Colleagues who had used smuggler routes to get in assured me that I would sail through. But when I arrived in Ceylanpinar, I learned that the trip across included wiggling my way through barbed-wire fencing and risking being spotted by trigger-happy Turkish border guards. I dropped the idea, deciding instead to investigate widespread claims that Turkey is propping up Syrian rebels in a little-reported proxy war against the PYD.
The PYD is the Syrian franchise of the Kurdistan Workers Party, the rebel group known as the PKK that has been fighting on and off since 1984 for Kurdish autonomy inside Turkey. It is, therefore, not surprising that Turkey is nervous about the PYD’s gains.

I started off in Ceylanpinar, a shabby, nondescript town with a mixed population of Arabs and Kurds. Before Syria’s civil war erupted, Ceylanpinar was best known for a gigantic farming complex called TIGEM and its free-roaming herds of gazelles. These days, Ceylanpinar is making headlines with horror stories of locals being wounded by stray bullets and shells fired from Syria. At least four residents have died since fighting broke out in November between Syrian rebel forces and the PYD’s armed wing, known as the People’s Defense Units, or YPG.

In July, YPG forces expelled the rebels from Serekaniye. But clashes continue over the neighboring hilltop village of Tel Halef, which is controlled by the rebels. Tel Halef is a strategic prize because it cuts off the mainly Kurdish towns of Afrin and Kobani from the long stretch of Kurdish-controlled territory lying east of Serekaniye.

My first stop was a government-run hostel that offers one of the clearest views of Syria. YPG fighters could be easily spotted along the rusting railroad tracks that demarcate the border. A small flag emblazoned with the insignia of the Kurdish Supreme Council, which notionally unites Syria’s rival Kurdish parties, fluttered above a wheat silo where a huge YPG banner used to stand. In July, the YPG flag vanished. PYD leader Saleh Muslim, who was invited to Turkey last month, said it was removed to appease his Turkish hosts.

In Ceylanpinar, the word around town was that a fresh batch of wounded rebels had been secretly ferried from the TIGEM compound to the nearest state-run hospitals. A security guard who works at a sprawling refugee camp housed within the TIGEM grounds claimed that the camp doubled up as a “base for the rebels.” He said he had “witnessed with my own eyes” a group of 40 rebel fighters cross over from the camp to Tel Halef.
“It was around a month ago, I was told by the gendarmerie to shut up about it.” He had also seen wounded fighters being brought in. He reckoned they were taken to the provincial capital Urfa. The Turkish government dismisses all such claims.
Before leaving Ceylanpinar, I stopped by the local mayor’s office. A balding former lawyer with a weary smile, Ismail Arslan was elected on the ticket of Turkey’s biggest pro-Kurdish party, Peace and Democracy.
“Our nerves are shattered,” he said. “The entire town lives in fear of death.” Arslan’s other worry is simmering tensions between the Kurds and Arabs..........

...........Was the Turkish government helping them? “Not enough,” he snapped. “These poor boys get bounced around like footballs from one hospital to the other.” “Still,” he added quietly, “Turkey is doing what it can.”
Did this include providing weapons? “Turkey gives us weapons like serum, on a drip,” said Mohammed. “France and Saudi Arabia, they give us the best stuff,” he added...........

From BBC:
Kurdish PKK rebels 'halt Turkey pull-out'. The rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) says it has halted its withdrawal from Turkey, a website linked to the armed militant group reports.
The PKK accused the Turkish government of failing to move towards "democratisation and the resolution of the Kurdish problem", the Firat news agency reported.
The PKK had started the withdrawal earlier this year, under a peace plan.
The 30-year Kurdish conflict has left more than 40,000 people dead.
The PKK said the ceasefire it announced in March would remain in force. But it urged Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government to "take action in line with the project of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan", the jailed PKK commander who negotiated the peace deal.
Ankara insists on a full PKK withdrawal for peace talks to progress.

Under the deal, Turkey is expected to improve Kurdish rights, such as by scrapping a controversial anti-terrorism law and allowing Kurdish children to be educated in their own language.  ....