QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – At last, silence was broken in the Syrian capital Damascus. It has been emerged that Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has rejected a Russian-brokered bid to reconcile al-Assad with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
It seems whenever Erdogan fails to obtain a green light to a potential operation beneath his country’s southern border in Syria, he courts al-Assad. However, since 1950s Syria has always embraced a cautions and attentive foreign policy.
Recently, the Turkish President has started mentioning a possible meeting with al-Assad. On November 23 Erdogan said “A meeting with Assad can take place. There is no resentment in politics. Sooner or later, we can take steps.”
Turkish signals to Syrian government
Erdogan’s statement came amid an unprecedented aerial escalation against Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and high prospects of a new ground invasion by Turkish forces of north Syria known otherwise as Rojava which is run by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).
The AANES was first formed in 2014 in the Kurdish-majority regions of Afrin, Kobani and Jazira in northern Syria following the withdrawal of the government forces. Later, it was expanded to Manbij, Tabqa, Raqqa, Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor after the SDF defeated ISIS militarily there.
Initially mediated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, talks on a Syrian-Turkish rapprochement came to the fore late in summer following a Putin-Erdogan meeting in the Black Sea tourist resort of Sochi on August 5.
Throughout September, October and more recently in late November, Erdogan and his officials sent repeated signals to the Syrian President that they were ready for a meeting; however, Syrians laid doubts over the “seriousness” of Turkish bids.
At the time, as Erdogan failed to obtain a Russian okay to his long-announced operation into north Syria, instead, he said he was to engage in a process of political reconciliation with the Syrian government. However, no fruits were yielded by such alleged talks, if any.
With a lot of diverging points – Idlib among others – both Syria and Turkey have a common enemy in the north of the country – SDF – that could make them converge tactically at least.
Syria, Turkey share one enemy
Turkey has always sought to dislodge the SDF from its southern borders. With the SDF controlling large swathes of Syrian territories home to oil, gas and grain resources, among others, the Turkish President hopes that could create a common ground for both neighboring countries to come closer.
Previously, Turkish officials said they were ready to help Syria terminates the SDF in the north. However, for Syria, to deal with Turkey goes beyond the SDF.
While on the surface, any Turkish rapprochement could benefit al-Assad politically in the sense to re-emerge in the north as he did with Arab countries in the south, and economically in the sense to avert the heavy burdens of the US imposed “Caesar Act” sanctions, however, in essence, the obsession of new territorial annexations in repetition of Sanjak of Alexandretta daunts Syrian authorities.
In 1939, Sanjak of Alexandretta – now Turkey’s Hatay – a large Syrian territory beneath that indentation at the northeast coast of Mediterranean, was annexed by Turkish authorities. At the time, Syria was a mandated country under the French mandatory forces.
Assad prefers normalization with Arabs to Turkey
Based on this, the Assad of Syria well comprehends that any talks with the northern neighbor would tacitly mean a Syrian recognition to the de facto Turkish presence in Syria.
In 2019, just two months to the “Operation Peace Spring” in both Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) and Tel Abyad, Syrian President said during an interview with Italy’s Rai 24 News in Damascus that he would although unwillingly agree to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan only if such a meeting would serve the “interests of Syria.”
The Peace Spring operation was a military invasion of the two cities of Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) in the north of Hasakah and Tel Abyad in the north of Raqqa in which Turkey has occupied both cities with their countryside and displaced more than 300.000 people of their original inhabitants.
“I always say: my job is not to be happy with what I’m doing or not happy or whatever. It’s not about my feelings, it’s about the interests of Syria, so wherever our interests go, I will go,” al-Assad said.
But what makes al-Assad to reject such a bid made by his Russian allies at a time he seems more open to Arab states that had grudging against him over the past decade and how could a meeting with Erdogan serve Syria?
Turkey uses UN Charter Article 51
By looking into the map of influence in Syria today, Turkey as a main supporter of Syrian opposition forces in Idlib, Afrin, Azaz, al-Bab, Jarablus, Tel Abyad and Sere Kaniye is an occupying state of Syrian land.
Since 2016, backed by armed factions, also known as Syrian National Army (SNA, formerly Free Syrian Army-FSA), Turkish armed forces carried out three major cross- border ground operations in northern Syria.
Turkey launched three military operations against northern and northeastern regions in Syria. The first was “Euphrates Shield” operation in 2016 where it occupied Jarablus and al-Bab, the second was “Olive Branch” operation in 2018 where it occupied Afrin region, and the third was “Peace Spring” in 2019 which resulted in the occupation of the two cities of Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) and Tel Abyad with their countryside.
Syrians have said time and again any talks with the Turks necessitate the pre-condition of Turkish troops withdrawal from those areas of Syrian soil. The Turks reply by saying their presence in those areas was in line with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter implying self- defense.
The Article includes, “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”
Being a successor state to the decrepit Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of the World War I, Turkey has always considered Syria a historical backyard. The 911 km long indented and discordant border has always remained a shaky question between the two countries.
Prior to any agreement on the Turkish observations posts deep in Syrian soil in Idlib and Hama and the occupied areas in the north of the country, sharing Turkey’s main obsession of eliminating the SDF cannot heal all Syria’s wounds.
After more than a decade of the crisis that swept Syria in which Turkey had a substantial destructive role, and as Assad seems more steadfast and ever stronger than his once true-blue friend, the Syrian President could never approach the Turkish counterpart whose political fate hinges upon the elections that are scheduled to take place next summer, without playing his cards.