Loran Ibrahim
The Turkish foreign minister Cavusoglu paved the road for restoring of the Syrian-Turkish ties with al-Assad regime, Erdogan’s statement during the press conference held in 2021 of non-aligned countries was no surprise for anyone in a television interview 27-11-2022 to provide clarity, with his Egyptian counterpart Abdul-Fatah al-Sisi in respect of providing clarity about the meeting course in Qatar 2022. Mentioning that there is no permeant enmity, and what happened with Egypt may happen with the Syrian regime represented by Bashar al-Assad.
This statement comes amid Turkey's constant threats to invade Syrian territory in areas of SDF forces. Turkey is carrying out aerial bombardment of the few remaining infrastructure in the Kurdish areas of Syria. This planned operation, which is opposed by both Russia and America, which are preoccupied with the Ukrainian war and the global energy crisis.
In practice, there is no difference between the positions of Russia and Turkey on the alternative outcome of this crisis fabricated by Turkey. Part of the military operation was carried out by air with drones and F-16s. The concerns, however, underlying in the ground military operation using the notorious Syrian jihadist factions backed by turkey. As happened in its previous military operations in Afrin 2018 and Ras al-Ain 2019. Turkey count on the most radical jihadist groups to terrorize people in the Kurdish cities occupied by Turkey on the border. Such as Ahrar al-Sharqiya accused by the UN Commission of Inquiry 2020, by committing war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Kurds, as well as al-Amshat and others.
The Russian proposal, which Turkey will not reject, is to hand over the entire border to the Syrian regime forces instead of being occupied by Turkey to remove the SDF from it. In return, the Syrian Baath regime asks Turkey not to occupy new territories and to dismantle what it calls terrorist groups “Turkish-backed factions”.
This is in order to coordinate with Turkey and revive a key resolution in the 1998 Adana Agreement, which is the mutual right to prosecute groups classified by the two countries as terrorist groups. Thus, working together to strike the experience of the Autonomous Administration in NES.
As aforementioned, the role of the Syrian opposition, which is part of the Syrian Coalition, is clear. In blessing the agenda dictated by Turkey, including the occupation of Syrian territory and its official Turkification in the Turkish language and Turkish currency, and administratively by annexing the occupied Syrian cities to the Turkish border states.
The Syrian Coalition has provided Turkey with a lot of cards to play in the Syrian altar. When soldiers are killed in wars run by Turkey, it loses nothing, therefore the loss of human combat elements in the ranks of its forces does not constitute internal pressure on the masses of the ruling party, as long as those killed on the external war fronts are mercenary groups that Turkey has deceived even in the money it has promised them. Not to mention that these wars are financed primarily from the Qatari treasury.
Nowadays, since Turkish-Russian interests call for withdrawing the territories controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces through cooperation with the international coalition forces, and broadening the influence of the Syrian authority, and the Russian-Iranian on ground, on the remaining Syrian territories, including those occupied by Turkey and the terrorist organization Jabhat al-Nusra in Idlib. The Syrian opposition coalition's paper is losing its relevance to Turkey. It is easy for Turkey to drop the offices of the Syrian coalition on the European border. And even burn it if this contributes to the destruction of the Autonomous Administration. As it did two days after Erdogan's meeting with the Egyptian president, removing all the statues of the four-finger signal, linked to his support for the Egyptian “Muslim Brotherhood movement” and Rabaa Square. As well as closing media offices and stopping the broadcast of channels affiliated with this movement.
Syrian Opposition Flashback
Popular protests against Assad regime in 2011 caught opponents of the regime mainly. There were no political entities ready to organize the demonstrations ideologically. Thus, they spontaneously formed popular solidarity among the various Syrian civil groups, which essentially lack any form of joint political action, due to the regular processes of assassination of all forms to eliminate all forms of the opposition.
The onset of the demonstrations was predominantly craving for liberating from the dictatorial regime. Most of the slogans were representing the general hopes of all Syrian components for a decent and free life. For half a century, however, Syrian components have lived in internal isolation, without knowing each other. At the time, technology was not ready to provide people with sources of information different from state-controlled media. Therefore, this internal political isolation was reflected in the divergent political positions on the form of government in the Syrian state after the overthrow of the Baath regime.
Like these took an intensive. The Syrian National Council was established in 2011 alongside the Kurdish National Council, which restructured itself into an entity that included most Kurdish parties. Soon, there was a need for a larger entity than the National Council, to be the legitimate representative of the Syrian people and including all ethnic and sectarian segments. The Syrian Coalition of Opposition Forces was established in Doha, Qatar, in 2012. The coalition was soon recognized by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, which in turn influenced the position of the Arab League, recognizing the coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people and suspended the membership of the Syrian state represented by the Baath regime. At the end of 2012, at their conference in Marrakech, the Friends of Syria countries recognized the coalition. The United States, European countries and NATO have also done so. In other words, international recognition of the coalition was on the verge of being treated as an auxiliary Syrian state. In addition, Money and weapons heavily reinforced the opposition.
Turkey's role became more prominent when the establishment of a transitional interim government was announced in Istanbul in 2013. It was initially led by Abdurrahman Mustafa of the pro-Ankara Turkmen Council.
ISIS appeared in the region in 2014 through mechanisms that have so far remained obscure. ISIS expanded and entered the city of Kobani in 2015. The Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet published a video documenting that the Turkish intelligence service supplying ISIS with heavy weapons in order to strike Kurdish forces. And the editor was put on trial who sought refuge in Germany after his release.
Then the American-British-Jordanian-Turkish project also obtained nothing in reorganizing the Syrian fighting groups into an army of moderates. But a few months later, as Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy, said, the groups they trained had left their work and have engaged into al-Qaeda and ISIS. But after the elimination of ISIS, Baghdadi's successor emerged in Turkish-controlled areas and Syrian factions affiliated with the Interim Government's General Staff. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights published the documents of the leaders who were active in ISIS, and their transfer to the mercenaries prepared by Turkey for their organization. This has always happened in the name of supporting the Syrian opposition.
Turkey has been hosting millions of Syrian refugees. Billions of dollars were received in return, from the European Union and the Gulf states under the pretext of reception costs. In Turkey, the EU pays for medical care for Syrian refugees. The Syrian worker is characterized by high professionalism in various professions and industries. Consequently, huge numbers of cheap labor, not covered by labor guarantees, moved to Turkish companies and factories that doubled their production on the back of these workers. Turkey has also required Syrian jihadist groups to fight on proxy on the fronts it identifies, whether inside Syria against the #SDF# , or outside Syria in both Libya and Armenia.
The safe zone project claimed by Turkey is doomed to failure if Russia manages to impose its hegemony over the rest of Syria, with some infantry battalions and Hagana using the Syrian border in a bid to cover its guardianship of Syria with some flags that are not strong. After Russia expanded the Hmeimim base in Latakia, the work of Russian wills over Syria, and its rival is Iran, which Russia shows no clear position on Israeli raids on Iranian positions.[1]