Mar 04 2025 41 mins 7
It’s a volatile world these days. While Europe wonders if it’s just lost its US security umbrella, while a Gaza ceasefire hangs by a thread, while Syria figures out how to hold it together after the fall of Assad, major regional player Turkey looks to get its own house in order with the announced dissolution of a 40-year-old Kurdish insurgency. Why did Recep Tayyip Erdogan and imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan agree to open a path to peace? And why now?
Will it work this time? The pair have tried and failed before to bury the hatchet.
We discuss the cross-border consequences in Iraq, where many guerrillas have their base, and in Syria, where Ankara-backed militias are openly fighting Syrian YPG Kurdish fighters, the secular Syrian Kurds who as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have the backing of US troops as they take on the remnants of the Islamic State group.
On that score, will that support from Washington continue? With Iran in retreat and Russia elsewhere occupied, how does the Trump administration see its role?
Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Ilayda Habib and Aurore Laborie.
