Stanislav Ivanov, Leading Researcher at IMEMO RAS, Candidate of Historical Sciences

It is obvious, with the beginning of the internal armed conflict in Syria, Ankara resolutely took the side of the opponents of the Assad regime in the face of the armed opposition and radical Islamist groups. For several years, the Turkish authorities also provided their territory for the transit of tens of thousands of militants and supporters of the Islamic State (banned in the Russian Federation) to Syria and Iraq, Turkish businessmen bought oil, agricultural products, museum artifacts from jihadists, supplied them with weapons and ammunition, wounded militants had the opportunity to be treated in Turkish medical institutions.

After the Kurdish militias, with the support of the International Coalition and the Russian Aerospace Forces, defeated the IS gangs in the northeast of the SAR, Ankara focused on military and military-technical assistance to Assad’s opponents in the northwest and north of the country, carrying out several military punitive operations and occupying a significant part of the provinces of Idlib, Aleppo, Raqqa, Hasakah.

As a pretext for their aggressive actions in northern Syria, Erdogan and his entourage put forward an alleged Kurdish threat to Turkey’s national security from the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD), allegedly affiliated with the Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). And, although the PKK has long curtailed its armed struggle and abandoned the idea of ​​​​creating a Kurdish state in Turkey, and the PYD militias have never violated the Syrian-Turkish border and have not committed a single sabotage or terrorist attack on Turkish territory, Ankara labels the Syrian Kurds as terrorists and is planning more and more incursions of its troops into the Kurdish regions of the SAR to carry out punitive operations.

How such operations end can be judged by the results of the invasion of the Turkish Armed Forces, opposition groups and Islamists controlled by it in the Syrian administrative region of Afrin, undertaken in January 2018. Hundreds of Kurdish militias and civilians were killed or wounded, tens of thousands of Kurdish families were forced to flee to other parts of the country or abroad. Ethnic cleansing began, instead of Kurds, Sunni Arabs, Turkomans from refugee camps in Turkey or from the Syrian province of Idlib settled in the area.

After a working meeting between V. Putin and R. Erdogan in Sochi on August 5 this year. In a number of media, there were reports of a possible dialogue between Ankara and Damascus on further settlement of the Syrian conflict and Moscow’s proposal to return to bilateral cooperation on security issues under the 1998 Adana Agreement, which concerned mainly the fight against the Turkish PKK in Syria. The agreement signed by Hafez al-Assad under the threat of a military invasion of the Turkish Armed Forces in the SAR provided for the possibility of pursuing Kurdish militias by Turkish units in Syrian territory to a depth of five km.

It is unlikely that in the current conditions it is possible to revive the Adana Agreement, which has long lost its force and legal status. And although the situation to some extent resembles the very atmosphere of blackmail and threats to Damascus from Ankara at the end of the 90s of the last century, the situation here has changed radically. Objectively, Syria broke up into three enclaves: Assad, pro-Iranian; oppositional, pro-Turkish; Kurdish-Arabic, relying on US assistance. It should not be expected that Erdogan will soon drop accusations against Assad of acts of state terrorism and the death of a million Syrians. Most likely, Turkish-Syrian contacts can take place only through the power departments in order to prevent new large-scale clashes. Ankara would not mind interacting with units of the SAR Armed Forces in the fight against Kurdish militias. If Erdogan failed to destroy the Kurds at the hands of IS jihadists, then why not try to do it with the help of Assad or his Iranian partners.

Turkey has already created, as a result of a number of military operations, several extensive bridgeheads in Syrian territory with a depth of 50-100 kilometers or more (Idlib province). For several months now, the Turkish President has been talking about the need for another military operation by the Turkish Armed Forces against the Kurdish YPG in northern Syria and the creation of a 30-kilometer security zone free from Kurds along the entire 900 km of the common border. Erdogan backs up his threats with combat drone strikes and shelling of Kurdish settlements.

On the Syrian lands occupied by Turkish troops and their satellites, alternative authorities to Damascus are being created, armed forces, police, special services, Turkish flags are hung out, the Turkish lira is put into circulation, and the Turkish language is taught in schools. Erdogan announces plans to build about 200,000 new houses in the SAR territories under his control, where over a million Syrian refugees from camps in Turkey will be resettled.

Ankara does not object to a peaceful settlement of the situation in Syria, but only by continuing negotiations between the opposition and Damascus in Geneva, adopting a fundamentally new constitution, holding general democratic elections with the participation of refugees and displaced persons, as well as residents of territories not controlled by Assad. At the same time, Erdogan expects to bring to power the pro-Turkish Sunni Arab majority in Syria, led by moderate Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood (the organization is recognized as a terrorist organization and banned in the Russian Federation).

The general rejection of such aggressive actions by Ankara from Moscow, Tehran, Damascus and Washington somewhat restrains Erdogan’s ambitions, but is not yet able to completely stop Turkish expansion in northern Syria. Taking advantage of the distraction of the world community’s attention by the events in Ukraine, the Turkish authorities have stepped up their actions not only in Syria, but also in northern Iraq, pushing Baku towards a forceful solution to the Karabakh conflict. Erdogan, against the backdrop of the growing financial and economic crisis in the country, is trying to increase his rating due to at least some success on the foreign policy front. After all, on June 8, 2023, parliamentary and presidential elections will be held in Turkey. At stake is the power of Erdogan and the ruling AKP for the next five years.