MESOPOTAMIA NEWS TODAYS DEBATE : SYRIA IS NOT CYPRUS ! – Russia likely to quash Turkey’s aspirations in Syria
Financial Times – 22 Jan 2019
While Ankara is aiming to crush the Kurds in northern Syria, its ambitions in the region will likely be quashed by Russia, which wants the country’s President Bashar Assad to reassert complete control, wrote the Financial Times.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s Dec.19 decision to withdraw troops from Syria has predictably emboldened Turkey to step up its campaign against the U.S.-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighters in the north of the country.
A U.S. proposal for Ankara to set up a 30km-wide “buffer zone” inside Syrian territory across Turkey’s southern border appears to be underway, the article said. However, its outcome remains unclear until Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visits Moscow this week for talks on Syria and the buffer zones with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
There is no question that staunch Assad-backer Russia has brought victory to the regime of Syria through its presence in the war-torn country, Financial Times wrote.
‘’It is with Mr Putin’s blessing that Mr Erdoğan has been able to establish two Turkish-run buffer zones in north-western Syria: through Operation Euphrates Shield in 2016, which carved out an enclave from Jarabulus on the Euphrates river to Azaz in the west, and Operation Olive Branch, the cover for last year’s Turkish invasion of the Syrian Kurdish canton of Afrin,’’ the Financial Times said.
Where Moscow backed Assad, Ankara lent its support to the opposite side of the civil war, by supporting a variety of jihadi rebels against the Assads, the article stressed.
Putin saw an opportunity after the July 2016 coup attempt against the Erdoğan government, the Financial Times noted, ‘’drawing Turkey into his orbit, forming a tripod of power by adding Turkey to its alliance with Iran.’’
But there was a price to pay Russia, and Turkey received the go ahead to invade after leaving in the lurch its Sunni allies in Aleppo.
Russia was similarly happy for Turkey to invade the Kurdish enclave of Afrin a year ago, Financial Times said, ‘’so long as it shared the burden with Russia of policing the jihadi-infested nearby province of Idlib, the last redoubt of the rebels.’’
Soon thereafter, Erdoğan started reviving past claims on adjoining territory in the region — from Aleppo in Syria to Mosul in Iraq — by putting down roots in north-west Syria in the way of Turkish-speaking schools, hospitals, administrators from the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep, and even universities.
However, Turkey’s muscle-flexing in the region may be coming to an end, the Financial Times said, as the new buffer zone will push the Syrian Kurds into a deal with the Assads, which will be to the benefit of Russia and Iran.
Arab leaders, forced to come to terms with the Assad victory, will not greet Erdoğan’s neo-Ottoman revival with joy, the article said, stressing that ‘’Syria is not Cyprus.’’