WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is currently visiting Washington to attend the Nuclear Security Summit, is imposing a major security crackdown on his 20-million Kurdish minority, 25 percent of the total population in the south-east of Turkey.
At least 500 people are believed to have been killed in the repression so far.
"For now, the greater threat facing the Kurds is not Assad or Russians, but the Turks," Xulam said in an interview. "The dislike of Assad towards the Turks and vice versa may become the insurance policy of the Kurds. It is not a good insurance, but the Kurds live in Middle East after all."
The Syrian Kurdish community has produced the Peshmerga forces that have effectively fought the Daesh, which is also the common foe of Syria and Russia, Xulam noted.
In addition, the Kurds have never looked on Russians as their enemy and share the same enemies and concerns, Xulam pointed out.
"What Assad may not like to admit is that the Russians and the Kurds get along well."
The United States has supported the Kurdish communities in both Iraq and Syria in the struggle against the Daesh, but it also supports Turkey, which has been a member of NATO since 1955.
Relations between Turkey and Russia have plunged since Turkey shot down a Russian Sukhoi-24 bomber carrying out a strike mission against Daesh targets in November. One of the crew members who successfully bailed out of the plane was later murdered on the ground in Turkish territory.
