With few options, Europe looks to limit damage from Turkish offensive

PARIS/BRUSSELS - Turkey's offensive on Kurdish-led forces in Syria has left its European allies incensed and fearing new jihadist militancy, but they are scrambling to form a coherent response beyond refusing to pay for any new humanitarian crisis on their doorstep.

It complicates further any prospect of Ankara joining the European Union and threatens a migration deal between Brussels and Ankara that has slashed refugee numbers entering the bloc but which was under renewed pressure by new refugees trying to reach Europe. All 28 EU governments on Wednesday rejected those plans, saying it would not provide aid and warned that such an idea would not past muster with the United Nations.

"We have put ourselves in a position where the Turkish-EU relationship is one-dimensional, based on one topic that has created a balance of power that disfavours us," said a European diplomat of the 2016 migration deal. However, there was also recognition in the alliance that there was nothing it could do to stop Turkey because NATO is not active in Syria and there was no demand for a NATO role.Even more pressing for Europe is the fate of its Kurdish ally and a potential resurgence of Islamic State militants, which the Europeans are especially sensitive to after several major deadly attacks in the bloc.

"Betraying the Kurds would be morally awful but let's not fool ourselves: with or without Allied forces in northern Syria, the U.S. and Europe don't have any identifiable and credible policy to ending the Syrian civil war," France's former envoy to Washington, Gerard Araud, said on Twitter.

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