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Turkey's
Wrong Bet on Syria
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It was supposed to be simple: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's days
in power were numbered; the Nusayri (Alawite) man would be toppled
by Syria's Sunni majority in a popular revolt. The Sunni majority would
set up in Damascus a Muslim Brotherhood type of regime that would be
subservient to Ankara, and Turkey's southern border with Syria would be
now be a borderless Sunni "Schengen" zone; cross border trade
would flourish with the free movement of labor and capital. Peace would
prevail along the 900-km border, and Turkish and Syrian Sunni
supremacists would advance their agenda in the not-always-so-Sunni lands
of the Middle East.
Today, instead of the free movement of labor and capital, there is,
around the border area, the free movement of bombs and bullets. Turkey's
miscalculated foreign policy on Syria has led to the creation of a
neighboring Peshawar (Afghanistan) across its border.
Turkey's Islamist rulers were unhappy with Assad as their neighbor.
Their efforts to unseat Assad have dramatically resulted in creating even
less pleasant neighbors: an unknown number of jihadist groups, the
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Kurdish militants fighting to
create an autonomous enclave.
Instead of a predictable Assad,
Turkey faces an assortment of unpredictable, violent groups too
unwieldy to control.
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Instead of a predictable Assad, the Turkish gambit has resulted in
having as next-door neighbors an assortment of unpredictable, violent and
alien groups too unwieldy to keep under control.
After the Syrian Kurdish militia, PYD -- which has links to the
Turkey-based PKK, the outlawed Kurdish group that has fought a violent
war for an independent Kurdish state since 1984 -- took over the northern
Syrian town of Tel Abyad from ISIS, Ankara did not know if this was good
or bad news. For Turkey, ISIS is "officially" a terrorist
organization. But it is an open secret that Ankara has supported ISIS in
its campaign for the downfall of Assad and the formation in Syria of an
Islamist regime.
Fighters
with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) celebrate after
seizing Tel Abyad, Syria from ISIS on June 15.
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Immediately after Tel Abyad fell into the hands of Kurds in late June,
ISIS jihadists staged bomb attacks, killing over 200 Kurds in Kobane, a
Kurdish stronghold in northern Syria.
Figen Yuksekdag, a leader of Turkey's pro-Kurdish People's Democracy
Party (HDP), said
that, "There is a high probability that Ankara facilitated the
attack." She added that Turkey has for years supported ISIS.
Turkey's government vehemently denies that.
But, with or without any Turkish involvement in the Kobane attack, the
"official Turkey" reveals where it positions itself in the
multiple-party warfare in Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said
it in very clear, loud words:
We will never allow the establishment
of a [Kurdish] state in Syria's north and our south. We will continue our
fight in this regard no matter what it costs... They want to complete the
operation to change the demographic structure of the region. We will not
turn a blind eye to this.
Once again, Turkey's threat perceptions are deeply divergent from its
Western allies'. Ankara considers the real security threat from Syria as
not the jihadists, but the secular Kurds who fight the jihadists. There
are reports that the government has ordered the military to prepare for
cross-border operations in order to destroy the Kurdish enclave --
siding, therefore, with ISIS, which also wants to destroy the emerging
Kurdish enclave in northern Syria.
In Ankara's view, the real security
threat from Syria is not the jihadists, but the secular Kurds fighting
them.
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Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that any cross-border
operation into Syria would be discussed
at a meeting, which took place June 29, of the National Security
Council. After the four-hour meeting, a statement
from the Council said that the efforts aimed at a demographic change in
Syria [in favor of Kurds] were worrisome.
Once again, the Turks openly tell the world that they view the secular
Kurds more of a security threat than the jihadists.
The Turkish military, generally known for its hawkish stance on the
Kurdish issue, is surprisingly (and realistically) opposed to a
cross-border adventure to smash the Kurdish enclave. A senior general
told this author on June 25: "We have warned the government about
possible costs [of such an operation]. If they give us orders for an
operation, supported with perfect domestic and international legitimacy,
we will act. In any case the government should be responsible for any
breach of domestic or international law, and/or for the political
consequences."
This means that the Turkish government is preparing for an
illegitimate military operation in Syria, although it probably will fail
to initiate it for legal and logistical reasons. Against whom would the
Turkish army be fighting in such a deeply contested territory? Who are
its friends and foes? How would a cross-border operation be logistically
supported? How would the ruling AKP party justify Turkish casualties,
especially at a time when it is trying to compromise and form a coalition
government after it lost its parliamentary majority for the first time
since 2002 in June 7 elections?
Turkey has worked so hard to create a "Peshawar" across its
border with Syria -- hoping instead to create a Muslim Brotherhood zone.
It has its own cross-border "Peshawar" now. It just does not
know how to deal with it.
Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is
a columnist for the Turkish daily Hürriyet and a fellow at the Middle East
Forum.
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