by Eli Leon, Daniel Siryoti, Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
Moscow, Ankara seek to broker deal that would leave Syrian President Assad in power until a less polarizing Alawite candidate emerges • Tehran remains unconvinced • Plan aims to cement narrative that Russia is regaining its mantle as a key Mideast player.
Syrian President Bashar
Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin [Archive]
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Photo credit: Reuters  |
Syria would be divided into informal zones of
regional power influence and Syrian President Bashar Assad would remain
president for at least a few years under an outline deal between Russia,
Turkey and Iran, sources say.
Such a deal, which would allow regional
autonomy within a federal structure controlled by Assad's Alawite sect,
is in its infancy, subject to change and would need the buy-in of Assad
and the rebels and, eventually, the Gulf states and the United States,
sources familiar with Russia's thinking say.
"There has been a move toward a compromise,"
said Andrey Kortunov, director general of the Russian International
Affairs Council, a think tank close to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
"A final deal will be hard, but stances have shifted."
Assad's powers would be cut under a deal
between the three nations, say several sources. Russia and Turkey would
allow him to stay until the next presidential election when he would
quit in favor of a less polarizing Alawite candidate.
Iran has yet to be persuaded of that, the
sources said. But either way Assad would eventually go, in a face-saving
way, with guarantees for him and his family.
"A couple of names in the leadership have been mentioned" as potential successors," Kortunov said, declining to name names.
Nobody thinks a wider Syrian peace deal,
something that has eluded the international community for years, will be
easy, quick or certain of success. What is clear is that President
Vladimir Putin wants to play the lead role in trying to broker a
settlement, initially with Turkey and Iran.
That would bolster his narrative of Russia regaining its mantle as a world power and serious Middle East player.
"It's a very big prize for them if they can
show they're out there in front changing the world," Sir Tony Brenton,
Britain's former ambassador to Moscow, said.
If Russia gets its way, new peace talks
between the Syrian government and the opposition will begin in
mid-January in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, a close Russian ally.
The talks would be distinct from intermittent U.N.-brokered negotiations and not initially involve the United States.
That has irritated some in Washington.
"So this country that essentially has an
economy the size of Spain, that's Russia, is strutting around and acting
like they know what they are doing," one U.S. official said. "I don't
think the Turks and the Russians can do this without us."
Foreign and defense ministers from Russia,
Turkey and Iran met in Moscow on Dec. 20 and set out the principles they
thought any Syria deal should adhere to.
Russian sources say the first step is to get a
nationwide ceasefire and then to get talks underway. The idea would
then be to get Persian Gulf states involved, then the United States, and
at a later stage the European Union which would be asked, maybe with
the Gulf states, to pick up the bill for rebuilding.
The three-way peace push is, at first glance, an odd one.
Iran, Assad's staunchest backer, has provided
militia fighters to help Assad, Russia has supplied air strikes, while
Turkey has backed the anti-Assad rebels.
Putin has struck a series of backroom
understandings with his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan to ease the
path to a possible deal, several sources familiar with the process say.
Moscow got Iran to buy into the idea of a
three-way peace push by getting Turkey to drop its demands for Assad to
go soon, the same sources said.
"Our priority is not to see Assad go, but for terrorism to be defeated," one senior Turkish government official said.
"It doesn't mean we approve of Assad. But we
have come to an understanding. When Islamic State is wiped out, Russia
may support Turkey in Syria finishing off the PKK."
Turkey views the YPG militia and its PYD
political wing as extensions of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party,
which has long waged an insurgency in its largely Kurdish southeast.
"Of course we have disagreements with Iran,"
said the same Turkish official. "We view some issues differently, but we
are coming to agreements to end mutual problems."
Aydin Sezer, head of the Turkey and Russia
Centre of Studies, an Ankara-based think tank, said Turkey had now
"completely given up the issue of regime change" in Syria.
Turkey's public position remains strongly
anti-Assad however and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Wednesday a
political transition with Assad was impossible.
Brenton, Britain's former ambassador, said
Moscow and Ankara had done a deal because Moscow had needed Turkey to
get the opposition out of Aleppo and to come to the negotiating table.
"The real flesh in the game the Turks have,
and the fear they have, is of an autonomous Kurdistan emerging inside
Syria that would have direct implications for them," he said.
Ankara launched an incursion into Syria,
"Operation Euphrates Shield," in August to push Islamic State out of a
90-kilometer (60-mile) stretch of frontier territory and ensure Kurdish
militias did not gain more territory in Syria.
The shifting positions of Moscow and Ankara
are driven by realpolitik. Russia does not want to get bogged down in a
long war and wants to hold Syria together and keep it as an ally.
Turkey wants to informally control a swathe of
northern Syria giving it a safe zone to house refugees, a base for the
anti-Assad opposition, and a bulwark against Kurdish influence.
The fate of al-Bab, an Islamic State-held city
around 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of Aleppo, is also a factor.
Erdogan is determined that Turkish-backed rebels capture the city to
prevent Kurdish militias from doing so.
Several sources said there had been an
understanding between Ankara and Moscow that rebels could leave Aleppo
to help take al-Bab.
Iran's interests are harder to discern, but
Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's top
adviser, said Aleppo's fall might alter a lot in the region.
By helping Assad retake Aleppo, Tehran has
secured a land corridor that connects Tehran to Beirut, allowing it to
send arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Russian and Western diplomatic sources say
Iran would insist on keeping that corridor and on Assad staying in power
for now. If he did step down, Tehran would want him replaced with
another Alawite, which it sees as the closest thing to Shia Islam.
Iran may be the biggest stumbling block to a wider deal.
Iranian Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan has
said Saudi Arabia must not take part in talks because of its stance on
Assad -- Riyadh wants the Syrian leader to step down.
Scepticism about the prospects for a wider deal abounds.
Dennis Ross, an adviser to Democratic and
Republican administrations, now at the Washington Institute for Near
East Policy, said he did not think a deal would bring peace to Syria.
"I doubt this will end the war in Syria even after
Aleppo," Ross told Reuters. "Assad's presence will remain a source of
conflict with the opposition."
Eli Leon, Daniel Siryoti, Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=39143
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