Turkey's U-turn in policy paves way for ceasefire in Syria

Turkey, once a staunch opponent of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is partnering now with Russia and Iran, both steadfast supporters of the Syrian government, in search of a solution to the Syrian conflict that has entered its sixth year.

The declaration Turkey jointly adopted with Russia and Iran in Moscow last week to settle the civil war in Syria marks a fundamental departure from the policy pursued by the Turkish government over the years, under which Ankara had backed the rebels in efforts to topple the al-Assad government, analysts said.

"The tripartite Moscow agreement is indeed a complete U-turn for Turkey, because toppling of the Syrian regime is ruled out and the agreement implicitly recognizes the regime as a party to the settlement of the crisis," said Haldun Solmazturk, director of 21st Century Turkey Institute, an Ankara-based think-tank.

Article 1 of the joint statement, dubbed the Moscow Declaration, underlines the three countries' respect for Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity, while article 8 indicates the Islamic State (IS) and the al-Nusra Front, now known as

Fatah al-Sham Front, as terrorist organizations to be fought in Syria and excluded from future peace negotiations.

There is no reference in the declaration to President al-Assad's position.

Turkey had lent support to the rebel groups since Syria was plunged into chaos in March 2011, arguing al-Assad had lost his legitimacy to rule.

Many analysts argued that Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had pushed, with Islamist motives, for a regime change in Syria to pave the way for sympathizers of the Muslim Brotherhood movement to come to power, as was the case in Egypt in the early stage of the so-called Arab Spring.

The AKP government's fixation on replacing the Syrian regime has led to nowhere but a complete destruction and dismemberment of Syria and a de-facto Syrian Kurdish state, remarked Solmazturk.

Despite the Moscow declaration, Ankara has insisted on no change in its position regarding the Syrian president.

Days after the declaration was adopted, Foreign Minister Cavusoglu said the restart in negotiations for a ceasefire in Syria did not mean Turkey's agreement to al-Assad remaining in power.

The minister also stated that the opposition groups would not accept al-Assad as president either.

What Turkey agreed to in the talks in Moscow is exactly the opposite of what Ankara had hoped for in Syria, said Ilhan Uzgel, head of the Department of International Relations with Ankara University.

"Al-Assad was to go (under the Turkish plan), but Turkey has emerged now as a sort of guarantor for al-Assad based on the Moscow declaration," he told Xinhua.

Nearly 44,000 people, civilians and rebels in Aleppo who were besieged by the Syrian forces, were recently allowed to be evacuated to Idlib, a rebel-held town in northwestern Syria, under a deal brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran.

The move allowed the government forces to take over an entire Aleppo, Syria's second largest city, in a significant victory for Damascus.

Russia, Turkey and Iran are scheduled to meet again in January in Astana, Kazakhstan, to set the stage for representatives of both the Syrian government and the moderate rebel groups to start negotiations over a peace deal.

Ozturk Yilmaz, deputy chairman of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party, called the government's change in position a U-turn that serves Turkey's best interests.

As the IS and al-Nusra Front are internationally recognized as terror groups, Turkey has been pushing without success so far for blacklisting the People's Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian Kurdish militia allied to the United States but seen by Ankara as a terrorist organization linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The PKK has been waging a bloody war against Turkey since 1984 to carve out an autonomous, if not independent, Kurdistan in the country's mainly Kurds-populated southeast.

Turkey sees the emergence of an autonomous or independent Kurdish entity under PKK rule along its border as an existential threat.

The threat has become real as the Syrian government is now weakened following years of fighting against rebels.

The fact that the Turkish government is seeking to settle the Syrian issue in accord with Russia and Iran implies it recognizes al-Assad, "but they (members of the AKP government) don't confess that," Yilmaz, a former diplomat, was quoted as saying by Turkish media.

"The Turkish government has made many and fateful mistakes (in Syria) based on miscalculations and misreading of the regional and global developments," said Solmazturk, a former general in the Turkish Armed Forces. "It ignored or overlooked Turkish national interests and now the whole country pays for such mistakes."

Since the civil war broke out in Syria, suicide bomb attacks in Turkey by the PKK and IS have radically increased, with the country hit over the past one and a half years by around 30 deadly attacks and losing more than 400 lives.

"The Syrian policy of this government was wrong from top to bottom and we are paying the price for that," Yilmaz said at a press conference last week. "The price is the Turkish soldiers martyred, the disintegration of Syria, the demolition of Syrian cities and the humanitarian tragedy."

In the view of Yasar Yakis, the AKP's first foreign minister, the Moscow declaration is a step taken in the right direction by the Turkish government.

He told Xinhua that Ankara's original policy of overthrowing the al-Assad regime is now "detached from the realities in the field."

The Syrian government has irreversibly gained the upper hand in the civil war after Russia plunged into it militarily in September last year.

Three autonomous Kurdish cantons have emerged in Syria in recent years along the border with Turkey, while the U.S. is continuing its support to the YPG despite Turkish protests.

Washington sees the Kurdish militias in Syria as its ground force in the battle against IS and hopes, as revealed by U.S. officials earlier, for the emergence of an independent Kurdish state in the region.

In addition, Ankara is in need of Moscow's consent to conduct and continue its military offensive inside Syria, launched in August to push the IS away from the Turkish border and prevent the Kurds from uniting their three cantons.

Turkey is concerned that the emergence of an independent Kurdish region in northern Syria may set a precedent for its own 20 million Kurds.

The Turkish forces and the Free Syrian Army militants are currently fighting to capture al-Bab, an IS-held town about 30 kilometers from the Turkish border.

Early last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan bluntly expressed his disappointment about the U.S.-led coalition battling against the IS, accusing them of leaving Turkey alone in the battle for al-Bab.

He accused the coalition forces of offering support to the IS and YPG, underlying that Turkey has "confirmed" evidence in the forms of pictures and video footage.

Speaking of the upcoming Astana meeting, the Turkish leader voiced his opposition to inviting terrorist organizations to the summit.

Erdogan's remarks suggest that Turkey could start cooperating with Syria in the coming days, Ismail Hakki Pekin, a former general who headed the intelligence unit of the Turkish General Staff, said on Ulusal TV on Wednesday.

It is widely argued in Turkey that the best way to block the emergence of an independent Kurdish state in Syria is to cooperate with the Syrian government.

Both Syrian and Russian officials announced in the past months that they were against a federal system in Syria. Al-Assad himself also talked recently about liberating all of Syria, indicating his intention to keep his country a unitary state.

source: Xinhua