The Erdogan government is currently under extreme pressure since its economy is still in trouble with high levels of unemployment and the financial crisis creating a great amount of tension within Turkish society and the opposition parties blaming it on the refugees.
It is also still dealing with its own Kurdish community and under such context Erdogan has chosen now to advance with talks with Bashar Al Assad to reallocate the Syrians and deal with the Kurdish resistance movement in Syria which he has failed to successfully end.
Previously, Erdogan tried to use mercenaries to battle the Kurds while his long-term plan would be to reallocate the Syrian Arabs that are staying in Turkey to the in Kurdish northern area of Syria and use their vast numbers to demographically replace the Kurds and thus weaken their presence along the Turkish border.
However, Erdogan´s plans have not succeeded and now his government is being forced to play a last carefully orchestrated plan to arrange through strategic talks with Bashar Al Assad a resolution for the refugee problem and the Kurdish security situation before the elections.
In the wake of new tensions with the Kurds and Erdogan being accused of using professional state hired assassins to murder Kurds in France by the Kurdish community, Turkey will proceed to take a series of new steps this year, which is election year.
Erdogan has established in the past years a 30-kilometre buffer zone in northern Syria along its southern border and as a result of military incursions carried since 2016, the Turkish military and its state-backed rebels in Syria have managed to control some areas along the western side of the Euphrates with the ultimate goal of closing the “security gap” of Kurdish YPG presence, which in spite of Turkish pressure has managed to survive.
Turkey´s “Claw-Sword” operation, launched on 20th November was part of a last response to the increasing tension with the Kurds inside Turkey and a reaction to the terror blast incident in Istanbul that happened near the end of 2022.
However, this is operation and Turkeys strategy comes in open confrontation with the US´s strategy for the region, since it has for the past years financed the Kurdish YPG militias in order to fight off ISIS and now fears that if Erdogan succeeds in his plan to eliminate Kurdish presence, ISIS might rise again.
It is under this context that Erdogan is teasing its important up-coming strategic meeting with Syrian authoritarian leader Bashar Al-Assad, with Russia serving as the broker between both sides.
The meeting and possible initiation to a final resolution is also happening due to the partial success of Turkey in playing the Ukraine War as a result.
Regarding the prospects of reconciliation with Assad, Erdogan has given a clear position that the meeting is for a serious conversation between the three states, showing that Turkey´s intentions are strategically real.
In addition, Defence Minister Hulusi Akar has also issued a warning to Turkish backed opposition groups to remain calm and not provoke an escalation of violence that could upset the delicate balance of power and the potential rapprochement between Syria and Turkey.
Erdogan has now the strategic need to find an effective way to whiter away the power of Kurds in northern Syria and due to his lack of success, the current meeting is of central importance to achieve some sort of measures in cooperation with Bashar Al Assad´s regime that might show to his domestic voter base that he still has power in the Middle East and is still effective.
It is however debatable how the Turkish state under the current constraints will find enough resources to effectively bring 4 million Syrian refugees back to Syria even if he finds help from the Assad regime, given the fact that it would take an enormous amount of human and monetary resources for such a goal to be achieved.
Erdogan is however expecting to play strategically into Putin´s hand since Putin has long sought to establish a reconciliation between the Assad regime- that only managed to survive thanks to Iran and Russia- and use Syria as a clear example of Russia super-power conflict resolution.
Erdogan as already to a certain extent succeed by positioning Ankara as a mediator between Russia and West, arming Ukraine with drones, providing a safe haven for Russian businesses and leveraging Turkeys position in NATO to hold for some time Sweden and Finland from entering NATO- shifting with these calculated strategic decisions the power dynamic with Russia in its favour and emboldening itself in order to seek a diplomatic advantage in the upcoming strategic talks for Syria.
In the first stage of the Ukraine war, Moscow managed to leverage its influence with Turkey and dissuade Ankara from further intensifying its contact in northeast Syria despite Erdogan´s repeated threats. However, according to Moscow-based Russian analysts, as power dynamics have shifted and Turkish pressure´s mounted, Putin made an agreement that permitted Turkey to launch tactical air assaults on high-value targets of the YPG forces such as Kurdish senior commanders while being protected by Russian air defences.
It should be taken into account that ever since 2016, Putin has been cultivating and prodding the Russian created and funded “Astana Group” for Russia, Iran and Turkey to manage their conflicting interests in Syria which has been a centre of regional power conflicts and dynamics.
Israel on the other hand, will not wait in Syria for the Assad regime to regain power and consequently resumed its low-intensity aerial war against Iran’s proxies and Assad by bombing Damascus.
Meanwhile, with Assad seemingly entrenched and Russia unable to balance Iran’s dominance, the Gulf states have made increasing efforts to fill the vacuum of power where they can, with the UAE resuming relations with the Assad regime and giving a sign of the Arab world re-embracing Assad, something the US does not approve.
Erdogan knows however that the US is also to focused on Ukraine and to change anything drastically in Syria and will also use the little or rather lack of focus of the Biden administration there for his advantage to push with Assad for changes that are convenient for Turkey’s relocation of refugees and Kurdish confrontation strategy.
With the elections being slated for June 2023, Erdogan needs to have positive results or, failing that, it will undertake a more intense but limited invasion in 2023.
It should be taken into account that today, Russia’s military leverage over Turkey has diminished considerably and in Syria it is still decreasing with Russian commanders and war material such as the S-300 air defence system being reallocated to Ukraine.
Consequently, Russia´s primary leverage over Turkey today is rather economic and should Erdogan see after these upcoming talks with Syria that his political victory in the next election can only be salvaged by ordering another military operation in Syria, Russia will not be able to prevent such an attack.
The US is thus justified in being strategically worried since if this happens, these moves could foretell a dramatic shift in the Syrian conflict landscape that can ultimately destroy the realist viability of the continuation of their partnership with the Kurdish militias and their cooperation to counter the rebirth of ISIS.
If pushed to the limits, the US will most likely seek to reinvigorate its presence or push more sanctions on Turkey.
Neither of these things would be convenient for Erdogan and thus he is aware that he must play his strategy carefully and not go overboard or else he might cause even more economic sanctions on the part of the US.
However, the question in the end will be if Turkey´s ambitions fail to come into fruition, will Erdogan take even more radical measures.
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
