THE REGIONAL PLAYGROUND-TURKEY’S ROLE

SYRIA-THE REGIONAL PLAYGROUND OF THE MIDDLE EAST -AGAIN;
IRAN /HIZBALLAH-SYRIA

By Josef Olmert

Of all the countries bordering Syria, Turkey seems to be the one which is most heavily involved in the conflict, and this is a multidimensional involvement, one with a long history coming as an added baggage on top of more recent developments. The historic baggage has to do with four centuries of Ottoman control and their implications, which are still being felt in Syria. It is something about the Middle East, which is not always understood outside of it, particularly in the US-the role of historic legacies. Turkish relations with Syria are therefore a combination of past and present circumstances, with obvious repercussions about the foreseeable future.

In March of 1941, then British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden visited the Middle East primarily in order to lay the groundwork for what would be Operation ‘’Exporter’’, the British invasion to Syria and Lebanon, then under the control of the collaborationist Vichy French regime. Ahead of the invasion, the British wanted to mobilize Turkey to their cause, offering them the city of Aleppo and the area around as a bribe. No, was the Turkish answer given by Foreign Minister Mehmet Şükrü Saracoglu, “we want nothing to do with the Syrians, as we have had a centuries-long experience with them’’.

This was not a totally genuine answer, as the Turks were afraid to break their neutrality in the war by alienating Nazi Germany, which seemed such a dominant force at the time. Also, just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, Turkey completed the annexation of the region of Alexandretta, henceforth known as Hatai, the current name of a province of Turkey. Situated along the Mediterranean in the Northwestern corner of Syria, the province was populated by Sunni Arabs, Alawites, Turks and Armenian Christians who came as refugees after the genocide against them by the Ottoman Empire. Turkey demanded the territory, as of the mid-1930s claiming the right of self-determination of the ethnic Turks in the region. France, the custodian of the entire Syrian territory on behalf of the League of Nations, handed over the territory to Turkey in 1939. Clearly, the bells of war in Europe were uppermost on the minds of the French, and the British who supported the move. Big, independent, strategically-located Turkey was the big winner, not the weak, mandatory-controlled Syria.

From a Syrian perspective, the loss of Alexandretta added up to the overall sense prevailing there that its territorial integrity was violated due to Western imperialist machinations. But, while not accepting the annexation, successive Syrian regimes accepted this reality as a fait accompli. Still, the Syrians had a foothold there with hundreds of thousands of Alawites (the exact numbers are hard to calculate, as the Turks are not so keen on releasing this information, living on the other side of the border cutting themselves off from the main body of the Syrian Alawite community. An Alawite from Hatay, Zaki Arsuzi, was one of the historic founders of the Syrian Ba’th party. Relations between the two countries did not improve also after the Ba’th Party took over the reins of power in 1963. After the start of the Syrian civil war, Michael B.Bishku referred to’ ‘the checkered history’’ between the two countries. [Michael B.Bishku, Turkish-Syrian Relations;A Checkered History, Middle East Policy, vol xix , no.3, Fall 2012]. This history which was characterized by tensions during the Cold War, when Syria viewed the Baghdad Pact (1955), which the West wanted to establish with Turkish participation, as a threat to its very independent existence.. One crisis in particular, comes to mind as an example of the latent tension in the relationships, especially alluding to Turkey’s attitude of suspicion and fundamental mistrust towards Syria. This was the crisis of 1998, when the Turkish army concentrated troops along the Syrian border, threatening to invade Syria in retaliation for Syrian support of the Kurdish terror P.K.K organization. The crisis was resolved when the late Hafiz Assad’s intelligence chief was sent to Adana in South Turkey with the mandate to simply capitulate to all Turkish demands. Hence, sometime later [not just by coincidence], Abdallah Ocalan, the leader of P.K.K was thrown out of Syria, which had given him shelter for years, and soon afterward found himself in a Turkish jail, where he is still being held. This incident happened at the height of the Turkish-Israeli military/strategic cooperation and the Turks knew full well that, as they were about to attack Syria from the North, their Israeli ally would do what was necessary to pressure Syria from the South, with obvious strategic implications. Under these circumstances, the surrender of Hafiz Assad makes sense, indicating the dictator’s careful approach to regional crises, which was primarily informed by his desire not to jeopardize the very existence of his regime.

The AKP government in Turkey, led by Prime Minister and later President Recep Tayyip Erdogan adopted as of his inception in 2002, a more active regional Middle East policy. That was a policy designed by Ahmet Davutoglu, who was Erdogan chief diplomatic adviser, and as of 2009 [until they fell out] his Foreign Minister and PM. The policy conformed with the overall Islamic vision of Erdogan himself which assigned Turkey an active role in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean affairs, as well as in other neighboring regions while at the same time seeking membership in the European Union. In the case of Syria, during the early years of Erdogan in office, the relations improved dramatically. In 2004, Bashar Al Assad visited Turkey, an unprecedented visit for a Syrian president, and the relations extended to the economic sphere, with a free trade zone agreement signed in 2004, and with an interesting Turkish effort to mediate between Israel and Syria.

In 2008, there were clouds already hovering over the Turkish-Israeli relations, with AKP in power and the distinct Islamist tendency of the new government. No more military-strategic alliance, but still a healthy trade and overall diplomatic relations. So much so, that then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was ready to accept PM Erdogan’s offer of mediation between Israel and Syria, and in a dramatic meeting between the two leaders in Ankara, there was a third party on the telephone line: Bashar Assad from Damascus. Amazing situation, especially as it was Turkey, not the US, which was the third party. The famous telephone discussion was preceded by some direct Israeli-Syrian contacts. Reportedly, one of the envoys sent by Prime Minister Olmert to Assad returned with a pack of the finest Syrian hummus, a gift of the Syrian leader to his Israeli counterpart. Hummus notwithstanding, the talks failed, as a few days later, Israel conducted a military operation against Hamas in Gaza, and Islamist PM Erdogan strongly opposed it. The countdown to the great crisis between Israel and Turkey had begun, but the truth is, that Assad rejected the very generous Israeli offer, as he was not ready to sacrifice in return his relations with Iran, which is what the Israelis expected as a Quid Pro Quo. Not too much time passed, and in March 2011, the Syrian civil war started, and the Iranian came to the Syrian regime’s help. Bashar Assad had reaped the fruits of his loyalty to Iran.

The Turkish role though was not so obvious in the early stages of the conflict. On May 29, 2011, FM Davutoglu of Turkey praised Assad in these words; “His Excellency President Bashar Al Assad is very popular and a beloved president by Syrian people’’. Four years later, on March 17, 2015, Davutoglu had totally different words to describe the ’’beloved’’ Assad; ’’Despite all these massacres, despite the use of chemical weapons, if you still shake the hand of Assad, that handshake will be remembered throughout history… there is no difference between shaking hands with Assad, or with Hitler, Saddam, Karadzic, Milosevic’’.

So what happened in between?

It is a combination of various factors, but two seem to be of paramount importance. First, the sectarian nature of the conflict, pitting Sunnis against Alawites. Second it was the Kurdish factor. A Sunni-Alawite civil war on the other side of the border was something that Erdogan could not watch passively. Here was Erdogan’s God-given opportunity to position himself as the new leader of the Sunni world. The deterioration of the relations between Turkey and Israel, especially following the Mavi Marmara incident, did not increase Turkey’s popularity in the region as the Arab world did not champion Turkey’s cause. Nor did the events in Egypt, even after the accession to power of the Muslim Brotherhood following the election of President Mohammed Morsi. Erdogan visited Egypt in September 2011, and for a short while, it seemed that he was becoming the modern-day Islamic leader of the region, but also this proved to be short-lived, as a e military takeover in Egypt deposed Morsi and proceeded to suppress the Islamists. Without a joint border with Egypt, all that Erdogan could do was to scream anti-Egyptian slogans, but no more. It was clear, that Erdogan’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood was a major reason as to why countries like Saudi Arabia viewed him with so much suspicion. For them, the Muslim Brotherhood was a subversive element, and Erdogan seemed to pose a challenge to their central role in the Sunni Muslim world. Syria however was another story, for both the Sunni countries as well as for Erdogan and the AKP.

The sectarian nature of the conflict, Alawites versus Sunnis and Iran supporting Assad, immediately lit all the red lights in Riyadh, where the Saudis felt, that they had to support the Sunni rebels. What they could do though was by far less than what the Turks could do. Having a joint border with Syria meant so much, but also the demography of Syria on its border with Turkey. Not much was known about one group of people in Syria prior to the civil war, and these are the Turkmen of northwest Syria. In Syria of the Ba’th party, any census revealing the ethnic diversity of the country pretending to be ‘’the heart of Arabism’’, was, of course out of the question, but all this changed after 2011. The disintegration of the central government in Syria gave vent to the grievances of the different ethnic and religious communities which were suppressed until then, and so Syrian Turkmen came into play as well. These Turkish speaking people are not related to the Turkmen of Central Asia, rather they are descendants of the Ottoman Turks who invaded Syria and conquered it in 1516. While most of them have maintained their traditional, rural, tribal way of life, residing along the Syrian-Turkish border as drawn after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, others settled in the big Syrian cities and mingled with the local, Arab Sunni population. Members of some of these families played enormously important roles in the history of Syria, under the Ottomans and also later on in the newly established Syrian state. Families like Barakat, Mardm, Asm, Al-Azma, Qabbani, Atassi, Tlass and Turkmani. The civil war is the time when this minority got its chance to play a meaningful role in Syrian politics. Numbers of Turkmen in Syria are hard to come by, and the estimates reflect the political agenda of those who use them, and they range from 200,000 [L.Clarke, Turkmen Reference Grammar, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, p.11] to 1.5 million [E.J.Pardo and M.Jacobi, Syrian National Identity; Reformulating School Textbooks During The Civil War, Institute for monitoring peace and cultural tolerance in school education, 2018, p.42.]Their main population concentrations are in the Aleppo, Homs, Hamah, Latakiyya and Idlib governances, but a large number, perhaps a majority around the Northern Euphrates.

From the beginning of the civil war, Turkmen, though not all, showed their opposition to the Assad regime, and clearly, Turkish assistance from the other side of the border, with arms and military instructors came their way. They formed themselves in militias and political organizations, a Turkmen Assembly was established, and the overall direction was to side with the Sunni Arab militias, many of which have become Turkish-led front organizations. Some Turkmen though sided with their Kurdish neighbors, organizing the Seljuk Brigade. The overall presence of Turkmen along the border and their political awakening have provided the Erdogan government with a good excuse to justify its growing intervention in the Syrian civil war.

Another, probably more significant one, is the Kurdish dimension of the civil war. In fact, while for some time, the Erdogan government used ISIS and its activities as a reason for its involvement, it has always been the Kurdish question which has been the most important factor in the Turkish calculus about Syria.

Dr. Josef Olmert is a Senior Fellow at the Palm Beach Center for Democracy and Policy Research and an adjunct professor of Political Science at the University of South Carolina

Image by ErikaWittlieb from Pixabay