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Ancient Yamkhad; Image – Wikipedia
Dr. Jan Best de Vries:
In Northwest Syria, between 1700 BCE and 1630 BCE existed the state of Yamkhad with its capital Haleb (Aleppo), in which Yarimlim reigned as king. In Alalakh (Tell Atchana), on the Mediterranean coast at the time, now belonging to Turkey (and not yet to Rojava), reigned his vassal king Ammitaku, until 1650 BCE, when the port of Aleppo was overrun by the army of Hatttusilis I, king of the Hittites based in what is presently Turkey. Each of the two Syrian kings, being family members, founded his own temple for their common sun god Suruya at Byblos, capital of the Egyptian protectorate Retenu (Ratanu on the tablets of Yarimlim and Ammitaku), in order to please the Egyptian Pharaoh who reigned in the name of the sun god Amon Re (Allah not yet existing as a god in West Asia and Africa….). What they desperately needed was the Pharaoh’s military support against the threat of invasion of their realms by the Hittites. So Amon Re became the owner of the town Ratame in Ammitaku’s realm, his ownership implying that the Pharaoh had fulfilled their request. However, his help never came, and Aleppo fell to Hattusilis, albeit some twenty years later than Alalakh.
Again today the greatest threat to Aleppo is coming from Turkey (the Turks, unlike Jews, Kurds, and Arabs being an ethnic Fremdkörper in West Asia, by the way). It is logical that from 2011 onwards, the Arab army of the Assad regime has tried to wrestle Aleppo from the freedom fighters of the Free Syrian Army in this town because, so long as parts of it remain in the hands of Assad’s opponents, the Mediterranean coast of his Alawite heartland is at risk. However, meanwhile things have become more complicated, since not only have the Kurds in the town (especially in the northern district Sheik Maksud) formed their own regiments against his army, but also the Islamist fighters of Al Nusra and ISIS, sent on purpose from Turkey over the last two years, have occupied several sectors of Aleppo, because they want it to belong to their respective Islamic states… Thus for three years a conclusive battle for Aleppo could not be fought. However, if America were to allow Turkey to form a buffer zone along its border in North Syria, the Turkish army would not only swallow the three independent cantons of Rojava, in which the (distrusted by Erdogan) Kurds form the largest ethnic group, and chase Turkey’s temporary allies Al Nusra and ISIS out of all rural areas. Is there anybody who can guarantee that thereafter Turkey would, unlike Hattusilis’ troops, halt “at the gates of Aleppo”?
Dr. Jan Best de Vries is an archaeologist and historian, decipherer of the so-called Byblos Script from Aleppo and Alalakh (‘How to Decipher the Byblos Script’, Aspekt Publishers 2014, ISBN978-946-153-420-0)
