Ankara wasted no time in claiming to be the large winner from the autumn of the Assad regime in Syria, solely to attract untimely conclusions about the way forward for this nation fully scarred by many years of violence and struggling.
Motivated by an brazenly colonial zeal that is aware of no bounds, since 9 December Turkey has been asserting one mission after one other for its future “protectorate”. In actual fact, it acted in precisely the identical manner when Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood got here to energy in Egypt, reworking its embassy in Cairo right into a headquarters for civil servants of all stripes to offer recommendation on governance to its “untrained” protégés. We all know what adopted.
At this time, Turkish officers are embedded in each ministry in Damascus. “Establishment constructing” can be the catchword for the big initiatives deliberate for Syria, starting from the drafting of a brand new structure (no much less!) to the coaching of a 300,000-strong military, from the reorganisation of all points of public life to the entire reconstruction of Syria’s city and street infrastructure. It is this final mission that Ankara is most enthusiastic about. The one severe estimate dates from 2019 and offers a variety of $250 to $400 billion. At this time, the determine is more likely to be a lot greater.
Whereas Ankara is multiplying high-level visits and asserting fanciful new intentions every day, one level on which it has doubled its fervour is the lonely battle it’s waging in opposition to something remotely resembling a Kurd, whether or not in Syria or elsewhere.
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In actual fact, Ankara is already current in north-western Syria. It occupies 8,835 km2 there, from which its Kurdish and Christian inhabitants have been cleansed manu militari. It administers this territory with a army power estimated at 3,000 males, however in actuality way more, provided that the 900 km Syrian-Turkish border is flat and fully porous.
Along with the common military, the occupied territory is the theatre of operations of a motley army power below the banner of the Syrian Nationwide Military (SNA), created, skilled and outfitted by Ankara and estimated to quantity 70,000 males, bringing collectively primarily irregulars and jihadists of all stripes from world wide. Greater than forty totally different nationalities are represented, together with many former ISIS fighters. It’s this armed power that Syria’s new rulers now wish to disband and combine into the brand new Syrian military.
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Along with the armed forces, Ankara has deployed civilian directors within the space to handle schooling (in Turkish and Arabic, however not in Kurdish), communications, finance and all points of public life. Ankara would merely like to increase this colonial pilot mission to the entire of Syria.
However the precedence is to increase the mannequin utilized within the occupied territories, cleansed of its Kurdish and Christian inhabitants, to the whole border strip and past, so as to subjugate the Kurds.
At this time, when the weapons have fallen silent nearly all over the place, apart from revenge assaults and some pockets of resistance in opposition to the brand new energy of HTS (Hayat Tahrir ul-Sham) and its strongman Ahmad al-Shar’a, Turkey – like Israel – is making an attempt to pursue its colonial and irredentist goals below the pretext of endless “safety issues”, aimed straight on the Autonomous Administration of Northeastern Syria (AANES), led by the Syrian Kurds, victors ten years in the past on 26 January in opposition to an ISIS brazenly supported by Turkey. Turkey abhors a neighbour that’s making an attempt to perform as finest it might probably in keeping with democratic ideas, simply as Russia abhors Ukraine
The precedence is to increase the mannequin utilized within the occupied territories, cleansed of its Kurdish and Christian inhabitants, to the whole border strip and past, so as to subjugate the Kurds
However the issue is that the AANES has in the meantime created a 100,000 women and men robust military, made up of at the very least 60% Arabs, skilled by the Pentagon, in different phrases by NATO. In different phrases, Ankara’s assaults via its mercenaries is much from a cakewalk, as we will see these days with huge setbacks suffered by pro-Ankara forces across the Tishrin hydroelectric dam. However, incapable to override the resistance of AANES’ military Ankara makes use of its air superiority to indiscriminately kill troopers and civilians alike.
Alternatively, Turkey’s armed one-upmanship is being seen all over the place, by war-weary Syrian actors and regional and Western gamers, desperate to slowly extinguish at the very least the Syrian hearth and permit refugees to return. Turkey, with its stubbornness, guarantees simply the alternative, in live performance with the opposite warfare machine, Israel.
Ankara spares nothing to impose its modus operandi on the brand new Syria, additionally for the way forward for AANES. Intelligence chief İbrahim Kalın, dispatched in hurry to Damascus to satisfy al-Shar’a, reportedly intimated Ankara’s irritation on the dialogue between AANES and HTS with the goal of seeing Syria’s Kurds sit down on the desk to barter with Damascus over Syria’s future and their very own. Since 2015 they’ve been excluded, in keeping with Ankara’s veto. Inside this framework, the French Quai d’Orsay has formally invited AANES to the Worldwide Center East Convention which is ready to happen in Paris on 13 February.
Ankara’s paternalistic one-upmanship
But, whereas Turkey controls the SNA, its affect on the HTS is restricted. Its help throughout the riot, important to the HTS, naturally supplied it with a credit score which, since 9 December, has continued to erode as its paternalistic one-upmanship irritates Damascus, not solely within the ranks of the HTS leaders but in addition amongst all the opposite Syrian elements.
On 31 December, Kurdish army leaders lastly met the brand new authorities in Damascus, regardless of Ankara’s opposition. The assembly was facilitated by the US, and the dialogue has continued unabated since then. It’s believable that the NATO-trained forces of the AANES will type the spine of the brand new Syrian military.
Extra typically, the ethnic, spiritual and linguistic richness of Syria is unfamiliar to Turkey for the reason that nice ethno-religious cleaning of the early twentieth century.
To impose its authoritarian, hyper-centralised, unitary and assimilationist mannequin in any respect prices, disregarding all variations and making an attempt to grind them into the Sunni mould. That is the “institution-building” Ankara is providing the Syrians. Thank God, it doesn’t have the technical, monetary or mental means to impose it, besides by power, however with apparent limits.
Nonetheless, regardless of its misguided course, Turkey stays an important actor for the soundness of Syria. If just for the voluntary return of refugees, identical to Jordan and Lebanon. It’s as much as all different actors, each inside and out of doors Syria, to induce Turkey to desert its irrational pretensions and anti-Kurdish monomania.
