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The freshly appointed U.S. Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, should reject Turkey’s plans to establish a buffer zone in northeast Syria in order to prevent further escalations in the eastern Mediterranean or Syria, said analyst Michael Rubin in the Washington Examiner on Wednesday.

Turkey has been planning to launch a military operation in northeast Syria against the Kurdish People Protection Units (YPG) since November. Washington and Ankara have been discussing Turkey’s demand to establish a 20-mile deep safe zone in northeast Syria since December, but they are yet to agree on a plan.

While Turkey justifies its demand saying that Kurdish-controlled regions in northern Syria are terrorist dens, in fact counter-terror concerns is not the real reason that motivates Turkey’s demands, Rubin said.

Turkey’s primary concern is a land grab, Rubin said, as the planned buffer zone will allow Turkey to control almost all Kurdish-governed towns and cities in northeast Syria. But the move could spark a civil war as Kurds who fled Turkey have nowhere else to go, the analyst said.

Secondly, a military campaign in Syria would help Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to distract Turks from his own failings, Rubin said. The Turkish government has for a year been struggling to reverse an economic downturn.

“Third, and perhaps most important, is Turkey’s thirst for oil,” Rubin said. Turkey’s aggression in Cyprus is motivated by the desire to maintain its monopoly over pipelines, and it wishes to acquire oil and gas resources of its own, he said. In Syria, what Turkey seeks is not only the expulsion of Syrian Kurds from the buffer zone, but also the possession of the oil reserves in the region, according to the analyst.