by Burak Bekdil
Contrary to Erdoğan’s prediction, the Turkish-Russian détente meant that Ankara would acquiesce to Moscow’s terms in Syria, not the other way around.
Mass gathering in Idlib, Syria in support of Free Syrian Army, photo via Freedom House Flickr CC
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 971, October 10, 2018
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
does not understand that his biggest divergence with Russia is over the
future of all of Syria, not just a Syrian province. In theory, it is
understandable that he wants to protect the “moderate fighters” because
he feels indebted to them for their help to the Turkish army in two
cross-border operations. But more than that, he wants to protect them in
order to maintain a force that can eventually fight either or both of
his two nemeses in Syria: President Assad and the Syrian Kurds.
At first glance, the plan looked viable: using the
“Arab Spring” as a legitimate pretext, Turkey would convince Syrian
President Bashar Assad to resign; the Syrian ballot box would establish a
Sunni-majority regime loyal to Turkey; and the regime would cooperate
with Ankara to eliminate the emerging security threat to Turkey embodied
by Syria’s Kurds. When Assad refused to quit, Ankara brought together
various factions of (Sunni) armed opposition to oust him from power in
what would later become Syria’s sectarian civil war.
In the early days of the war, the architect of
Turkey’s “Syria design,” then Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, was very
optimistic. The war will end “in weeks, or months,” he said, and “we
will pray in Damascus.” Seven-and-a-half years later, Davutoğlu is a
retired politician, armed opponents of the Assad regime are holed up in a
northern province surrounded by Syrian and Russian forces, and Turkey
is struggling to protect selected opposition groups through negotiations
with Russia. Idlib is today a small battleground that represents
Turkey’s big miscalculations.
On a number of occasions in 2014 and 2015, Erdoğan
claimed that Moscow would eventually join Ankara’s Syria policy. It was
only a matter of time, he said, until the Russians would agree to an
Assad-less Syria. In that confident frame of mind, the Turkish military
shot down a Russian Su-24 in November 2015, claiming the Russian fighter
had violated Turkish airspace along the Syrian border. Speaking to
Russia in February 2016, Erdoğan said: “You don’t even have a border
(with Syria). What business do you have here?” He then called Russia an
“occupier” in Syria.
However, after facing a slew of punishing Russian
sanctions, Erdoğan had to apologize to President Putin in June 2016. By
the time Ankara and Moscow normalized relations, the Russians had
established themselves as the major foreign military power in Syria.
Contrary to Erdoğan’s prediction, the Turkish-Russian détente meant that
Ankara would acquiesce to Moscow’s terms in Syria, not the other way
around.
Two years later, Assad is winning his country’s
civil war, and more than 50,000 opposition militants of several Islamist
flavors are holed up in Idlib province, neighboring a
Turkish-controlled area in the north and under threat of attack from
government forces in the south. Idlib is surrounded by 29 military
observation points (12 Turkish, 10 Russian, and seven Iranian)
monitoring a ceasefire in four de-escalation zones agreed to in 2017 by
Turkey, Russia, and Iran. The deal paved the way for close cooperation
between Turkish and Russian military headquarters. In August, Turkish
Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and intelligence chief Hakan Fidan visited
Moscow twice within the same week.
As Syrian artillery came close to Idlib and
Russian planes showed their might in a few preliminary raids over
rebel-held villages, worries surfaced over the possible imminent deaths
of hundreds of thousands and a new refugee wave approaching Turkish
soil. The world feared that a Syrian-Russian attack would
indiscriminately kill both militants and innocent people in an area
where the population is estimated at over three million. That did not
happen. The world sighed with relief as Erdoğan, at a summit in Sochi,
Russia, convinced Putin to hold off on a military operation.
But Putin’s agreement was a quid pro quo, and
tough conditions are attached. Erdoğan’s victory at Sochi has turned
into a nightmare: he must somehow disarm and remove all radical
Islamists listed as “terrorists” in the 2017 agreement. This is a
Herculean task for Turkey and its security and intelligence agencies.
The biggest radical group in the area is Heyet
Tahrir-el Sham (HTS), a Syrian derivative of the former Nusra Front. The
Free Syrian Army (FSA), a less radical but armed Sunni group backed by
the Turkish military, has been meddling between Ankara and HTS for a
farewell to arms but with no success so far. There are even reports that
HTS has refused to surrender and, instead, has attacked FSA and Turkish
forces.
Another problem is that the FSA has many factions
that sometimes fight each other. (These FSA-affiliated brigades are:
Jaysh al-Thuwar, Liwa Thuwar ar-Raqqa, Liwa Suqour ar-Raqqa, Liwa
Shuhada ar-Raqqa, Revolutionaries of Tal Abyad Front, Saraya Jarabulus,
Liwa al-Qawsi, Lions of the Euphrates Movement, Knights of the Euphrates
Brigade, Tajammu Kataib Furat Jarabulus, Freemen of Jarabulus
Battalion, Hawks of Jarabulus Battalion, Martyrs of the Euphrates
Battalion, Gathering of the Euphrates Brigades, Liwa Ahrar ar-Raqqa,
Liberation Brigade, Northern Democratic Brigade, Syrian Elite Forces,
Liwa Tahrir al-Furat, Manbij Turkmen Battalion, and Revolutionaries of
Manbij Brigades.)
Then there is the bigger problem of identifying
terrorists in a population of three million. Terrorists do not wear
badges, and a considerable number of non-terrorists in the region are
armed people who oppose Assad. When is armed resistance to the regime
terrorism and when is it not? Which armed groups are terrorists and
which are “moderate opposition” (often a misleading term when it comes
to people holding up weapons and firing them)?
Smaller groups of militants often change sides and
banners. Would a small brigade of HTS militants who have now joined a
less violent group be considered “moderate opposition” or “former
terrorists”?
Another unknown is how much influence Turkey would
have over armed groups it has worked with. What if Ankara’s Islamist
allies refuse to surrender? And if some of those groups do agree to give
up arms, where will they go? If Ankara accepts former comrades onto
Turkish soil, would they stay there or wish to sneak into Europe? Can
Turkey neutralize Chechen and Uighur fighters and prevent their return
to Russia and China to commit acts of terrorism?
The most plausible scenario is to expect Turkish
intelligence to do its best to convince the greatest number of former
comrades, especially leaders, to give up arms in order to be protected
from Syrian and Russian fire. What will work will work, and those who
prefer to keep fighting will have to fight a much stronger enemy. It is
rational to expect groups of fighters to withdraw into the Afrin
province north of Idlib, a safe zone under control of the Turkish
military.
But once Idlib has been “cleared,” Assad and his
Russian allies will start looking to Afrin, which is potentially a
future Idlib.
Erdoğan does not understand that his biggest
divergence with Russia is over the future of all of Syria, not just a
Syrian province. In theory, it is understandable that he wants to
protect the “moderate fighters” because he feels indebted to them for
their help to the Turkish army in two cross-border operations. But more
than that, he wants to protect them in order to maintain a force that
can eventually fight either or both of his two nemeses in Syria: Assad
and the Syrian Kurds.
Turkish troops in Syria, Erdoğan has said, will
withdraw after “Syria has been returned to its rightful owners, the
Syrian people, after elections (that would oust Assad).”At the moment,
elections in Syria in favor of Erdoğan’s Sunni allies are unimaginable.
BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family
Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based columnist. He regularly writes for the Gatestone Institute and Defense News and is a fellow at the Middle East Forum. He is also a founder of, and associate editor at, the Ankara-based think tank Sigma.
Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/turkey-syria-quagmire/
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