DAMASCUS, Syria (North Press) -Specialists in political affairs and history in Damascus say that Turkey’s ambitions in northern Syria are not new, and that it has been working for a long time to expand its borders within the Syrian territories and annex areas to the Sanjak of Alexandretta, which it annexed to its lands in the 1930s.
Since the beginning of the Syrian war in 2011, Turkey has sought to establish its presence in Syria through its military points or loyalists from the armed opposition groups before beginning its process of Turkification in the lands it occupies.
Emptying areas
Sami Abdullah (a pseudonym), a journalist specializing in political and international affairs living in Damascus, said that Turkey’s direct military intervention in Afrin, al-Bab, Idlib, and more recently in Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) and Tel Abyad (Gre Spi), does not aim only to control, as in all wars.
Turkey aims, through its military intervention, to empty the region of its residents, as it worked shortly after its takeover of Afrin with the support of armed group to replace the people of Afrin with new displaced residents of eastern Ghouta.
On March 18, 2018, Turkey and its affiliated armed opposition groups began their occupation of the Afrin region.
The Turkish control of Afrin coincided with the reconciliations conducted by the Syrian government with Russian mediation in eastern Ghouta, as those who refused reconciliation were deported, so that their final destination would be Afrin after Idlib.
Abdullah said, “The armed groups that are affiliated with Turkey, which have taken control of the border cities with the support of the latter, are implementing all the policies that Ankara dictates to them.”
Turkification
Abdullah added that Turkey began to take concrete steps on the ground to transform the character of these areas years ago.
He pointed out that the most prominent of these steps is the imposition of dealing in Turkish currency in the regions of northwestern Syria, and in return for that, a decision was issued to ban dealing in the 5,000 Syrian pound (SYP) note, which was preceded by the decision to prevent circulation of the 2,000 SYP note.
In addition, the Turkish flag was raised and pictures of Erdogan were placed in the institutions that manage these areas, and the street names were changed, such as replacing al-Ra’i town with the Turkish name “Joban Bey” after the inauguration of the communications project in that town.
In addition to that, Turkish officials opened a popular center in the city of Jarabulus in the eastern countryside of Aleppo, and the Turkish flag was raised inside the Syrian territories with a clear absence of the opposition’s flag.
The most prominent measure that Turkey has implemented within its Turkification policy is the education it provides in the northern regions, from schools to universities, especially with its decision to open a university and a higher institute in the countryside of Aleppo.
Ali Mare’i (a pseudonym), a university professor in the history department at Latakia University, told North Press that these measures constitute a flagrant violation of international law and the United Nations Charter.
In 2016, Turkey began changing the school system in the areas held by Turkey in northwestern Syria, as the program became affiliated with Turkish schools and educational institutions.
One of the conditions for renewing contracts for Syrian teachers was their proficiency in the Turkish language, because it has become a basic subject in the education curriculum in the Turkish areas of control.
In February, the Turkish President issued a decision to establish a Faculty of Medicine and a Higher Institute for Health Sciences in al-Rai town in the Aleppo countryside.
Although it was not the first of its kind, the Turkish decision required a response from the Syrian government to the Turkish president’s announcement that it would create a university branch in northern Syria, as if the Turkish-controlled areas are part of Turkey, according to Mare’i.
Darem al-Taba’a, Minister of Education in the Syrian government, said at the time that the ministry is communicating with international organizations against the Turkish campaign in northern Syria, which is preventing students from entering schools that teach the Syrian curriculum.
Al-Taba’a stressed that the organizations working on this issue stand by the Syrian state, and it is not with the politicization of educational work.
Long live dream
Ammar Ghanum (a pseudonym), a former diplomat who represented Syria in more than one country, said, “The Turkish dream of annexing new lands from Syria has not stopped.”
Ghanum told North Press that Turkey seeks to achieve this by providing support to armed groups with the intention of emptying the northern region of Syria of its residents.
He pointed out that the goals of this are not only the expansionist ambitions of the Turks, but rather the destruction of what Turkey believes is the Kurdish dream of establishing a Kurdish state on its borders, and what it considers a threat to it due to the presence of more than 20 million Kurds in Turkey.
The former diplomat said, “Turkey benefits from achieving its expansionist policies from the terrorist groups that entered Syria through its airports and ports, and it possesses a strong card against Europe because it has an accurate archive of the numbers and nationalities of terrorists who left from Syria to Europe via its territory.”
It also exploits the refugee issue to threaten Europe with a wave of Middle Eastern refugees.
He pointed out that Turkey wants to create a reality similar to what it created before the annexation of the Sanjak of Alexandretta in order to benefit from a global situation that allows it to seize these areas and annex them under the title of the will to live under the authority of the Turkish state.
“What helps reinforce this feeling is the suffering of the Syrian people and the difficulties of life due to the war, sanctions and siege,” Ghanum said.
He said that “Turkey might also benefit from its observance of Russia’s interests in Syria, meaning that both Russia and Iran turn a blind eye to the Turkish policy in exchange for their interests in other areas in Syria.”
In a historic return to Turkish policies, the he said, “The Ottoman Sultanate pursued its policy at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century in the ethnic cleansing of some minorities in northern Syria.”
He pointed out that Turkey worked for 30 years (1894-1924) to exterminate approximately one and a half million Armenians and 750,000 Syriacs, and the culmination of its crimes was in what was known as the Seyfo genocide in 1915.”
The Ottoman massacres led to the emigration of what remained of the Syriacs, Armenians and other minorities, to prepare itself to annex large areas of Syria along the borders, and to benefit it at a later time from the balance of power that preceded the Second World War and seized these areas.