Shorouk Express
Ankara wasted no time in claiming to be the big winner from the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, only to draw premature conclusions about the future of this country completely scarred by decades of violence and suffering.
Motivated by an openly colonial zeal that knows no bounds, since 9 December Turkey has been announcing one project after another for its future “protectorate”. In fact, it acted in exactly the same way when Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood came to power in Egypt, transforming its embassy in Cairo into a headquarters for civil servants of all stripes to give advice on governance to its “untrained” protégés. We know what followed.
Today, Turkish officials are embedded in every ministry in Damascus. “Institution building” would be the catchword for the gigantic projects planned for Syria, ranging from the drafting of a new constitution (no less!) to the training of a 300,000-strong army, from the reorganisation of all aspects of public life to the complete reconstruction of Syria’s urban and road infrastructure. It’s this last project that Ankara is most interested in. The only serious estimate dates from 2019 and gives a range of $250 to $400 billion. Today, the figure is likely to be much higher.
While Ankara is multiplying high-level visits and announcing fanciful new intentions on a daily basis, one point on which it has doubled its fervour is the lonely struggle it is waging against anything remotely resembling a Kurd, whether in Syria or elsewhere.
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In fact, Ankara is already present 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 military force estimated at 3,000 men, but in reality much more, given that the 900 km Syrian-Turkish border is flat and completely porous.
In addition to the regular army, the occupied territory is the theatre of operations of a motley military force under the banner of the Syrian National Army (SNA), created, trained and equipped by Ankara and estimated to number 70,000 men, bringing together mainly irregulars and jihadists of all stripes from around the world. More than forty different nationalities are represented, including many former ISIS fighters. It is this armed force that Syria’s new rulers now want to disband and integrate into the new Syrian army.
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In addition to the armed forces, Ankara has deployed civilian administrators in the area to manage education (in Turkish and Arabic, but not in Kurdish), communications, finance and all aspects of public life. Ankara would simply like to extend this colonial pilot project to the whole of Syria.
But the priority is to extend the model applied in the occupied territories, cleansed of its Kurdish and Christian inhabitants, to the entire border strip and beyond, in order to subjugate the Kurds.
Today, when the guns have fallen silent almost everywhere, except for revenge attacks and a few pockets of resistance against the new power of HTS (Hayat Tahrir ul-Sham) and its strongman Ahmad al-Shar’a, Turkey – like Israel – is trying to pursue its colonial and irredentist aims under the pretext of never-ending “security concerns”, aimed directly at the Autonomous Administration of Northeastern Syria (AANES), led by the Syrian Kurds, victors ten years ago on 26 January against an ISIS openly supported by Turkey. Turkey abhors a neighbour that is trying to function as best it can according to democratic principles, just as Russia abhors Ukraine
The priority is to extend the model applied in the occupied territories, cleansed of its Kurdish and Christian inhabitants, to the entire border strip and beyond, in order to subjugate the Kurds
But the problem is that the AANES has meanwhile created a 100,000 men and women strong army, made up of at least 60% Arabs, trained by the Pentagon, in other words by NATO. In other words, Ankara’s attacks through its mercenaries is far from a cakewalk, as we can see nowadays with massive setbacks suffered by pro-Ankara forces around the Tishrin hydroelectric dam. But, incapable to override the resistance of AANES’ army Ankara uses its air superiority to indiscriminately kill soldiers and civilians alike.
On the other hand, Turkey’s armed one-upmanship is being noticed everywhere, by war-weary Syrian actors and regional and Western players, eager to slowly extinguish at least the Syrian fire and allow refugees to return. Turkey, with its stubbornness, promises just the opposite, in concert with the other war machine, Israel.
Ankara spares nothing to impose its modus operandi on the new Syria, also for the future of AANES. Intelligence chief İbrahim Kalın, dispatched in hurry to Damascus to meet al-Shar’a, reportedly intimated Ankara’s irritation at the dialogue between AANES and HTS with the aim of seeing Syria’s Kurds sit down at the table to negotiate with Damascus over Syria’s future and their own. Since 2015 they have been excluded, in line with Ankara’s veto. Within this framework, the French Quai d’Orsay has officially invited AANES to the International Middle East Conference which is set to take place in Paris on 13 February.
Ankara’s paternalistic one-upmanship
Yet, while Turkey controls the SNA, its influence on the HTS is limited. Its support during the rebellion, vital to the HTS, naturally provided it with a credit which, since 9 December, has continued to erode as its paternalistic one-upmanship irritates Damascus, not only in the ranks of the HTS leaders but also among all the other Syrian components.
On 31 December, Kurdish military leaders finally met the new government in Damascus, despite Ankara’s opposition. The meeting was facilitated by the US, and the dialogue has continued unabated since then. It is plausible that the NATO-trained forces of the AANES will form the backbone of the new Syrian army.
More generally, the ethnic, religious and linguistic richness of Syria is unfamiliar to Turkey since the great ethno-religious cleansing of the early 20th century.
To impose its authoritarian, hyper-centralised, unitary and assimilationist model at all costs, disregarding all differences and trying to grind them into the Sunni mould. This is the “institution-building” Ankara is offering the Syrians. Thank God, it does not have the technical, financial or intellectual means to impose it, except by force, but with obvious limits.
Nevertheless, despite its misguided course, Turkey remains an essential actor for the stability of Syria. If only for the voluntary return of refugees, just like Jordan and Lebanon. It is up to all other actors, both inside and outside Syria, to urge Turkey to abandon its irrational pretensions and anti-Kurdish monomania.
