If you look at the warm relations between Türkiye and Russia in the Black Sea region, you might think that the two countries see everything eye to eye. Thanks to those warm relations, what U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described as “the beacon on the Black Sea” has allowed Ukraine to export over 12 million tons of grain and other foodstuffs (mainly to the European nations but that is not the point here), and soon Russia will also start exporting its grain and fertilizers.
Türkiye is the only European country that has good relations and open communication channels with Russia, despite its unwavering support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Türkiye’s steady and resolute rejection of Russia annexing Ukrainian provinces, among them the Crimean Peninsula, must upset some people in Moscow and cause Russian President Vladimir Putin to raise an eyebrow. Yet, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s equally persistent opposition to – in his words – “the irrational policies toward Russia” allowed Türkiye to pioneer its “peace diplomacy” that set an example for the world. Consequently, Erdoğan spoke with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy yesterday to strengthen and enlarge the scope of the grain corridor.
But talk to any person on the street in the border provinces of southern Türkiye and you will get an earful about Russia, and those words would be as critical of Russia as they would be about the U.S. That is because the local people along those borders are bearing the brunt of what Sansom Milton, a research fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, calls Russian whims alongside millions of Syrians.
Mr. Milton accuses Russia of holding the Syrian people hostage. Since 2014, Syrians, especially those opposing the Bashar Assad regime, have been dependent on the help of the freedom-loving people of the world organized through a U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolution since the start of the conflict more than a decade ago. The cross-border mechanism has been in place since 2014 and the most recent extension from July 2021 to allow lifesaving aid deliveries into northwest Syria from Türkiye is about the expire by the new year. The last extension of the basic humanitarian aid channel to Syria was a difficult compromise that the U.S., the U.K. and France had not supported. Assad opposes the U.N. providing food to the opposition, claiming it prolongs the revolt against his dictatorship. Russia, whose military presence in Syria has been key to the survival of Assad’s regime, has been thwarting Türkiye’s effort to provide help in situ to the Syrian people. Providing humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people in their homeland is important for many reasons. Assad condemned the people who only demand free and fair elections to starvation by bombing their fields, agroindustry, houses and markets in an attempt to expel them from their own country.
Those who do not belong to Assad’s sectarian creed simply wanted to be represented in the legislature and other institutions; and they raised their voices during the Arab Spring, hoping that like other despotic Arab regimes in Africa that the Syrian government would accede to the popular request. (Two peoples, the Syrians and Egyptians, paid dearly for their democratic fantasies but that is not the point here either).
Starvation meant immigration for the Syrian people: Five million of them migrated to Türkiye and 4 million to Jordan and Lebanon (Let’s not forget the 420,000 asylum applicants in Europe!). Meanwhile, the Assad regime has been implementing a strategic plan to repopulate those areas with people considered “acceptable to the regime.”
The repopulation makes returning home impossible for the migrants and increases the likelihood of ethnic strife in the country. This is the view from Syria; but there is another view from Türkiye, Lebanon and Jordan. The critical balance of employment in these countries has already been endangered by registered and unregistered migrants. The cheap workforce introduced to their already critical economies created problems for the local people. The burden on the local municipalities has been monumental in all three countries. The democratic nature of the movement within Türkiye overburdened local and national authorities that have to monitor social unrest.
There is already a political party that is using the Hitlerian narrative against the “Syrians.” Almost all crime stories are being attributed to “Syrians” by the irresponsible media in Türkiye. Neither Türkiye nor other regional countries where helpless people from Syria have migrated to are rich nations that can provide endless help to their guests, and its ill effects can be seen on their national budgets.
The solution is to keep Syrians in Syria; and until the regime agrees to the democratic requests of the people and the country returns to national reconciliation, the UNSC resolution to allow food deliveries to the millions of people living in opposition-held areas in the country’s north should be extended.
Last time, Ireland and Norway put forward the resolution that renewed humanitarian deliveries through the Bab al-Hawa border crossing; Twelve countries voted in favor, while France, the U.K. and the U.S. abstained. In three weeks the UNSC will reevaluate the issue of extending humanitarian aid to Syria. It will be harder this time because many people think the political conflict in Syria has been resolved and that the opposition does not need humanitarian relief. Nothing could be farther from the truth; Russia and Assad's regime have been continuing to block humanitarian assistance to Syria.
The economic difficulties experienced by donor countries because of the global economic downturn can be seen in the dwindling assistance, while the food and medicine, especially coronavirus-related vaccines and drugs, that could reach the Syrian border have been diverted to regime-held areas. Inflation in Türkiye also adversely affected the Syrian people in the border areas.
Russia should cooperate with Türkiye and the UNSC in earnest this time, leaving aside Assad’s sovereignty-related delusions. Now is not the time to play diplomatic games.
There will be no country named Syria if Russia continues this game for yet another reason: It is not the humanitarian aid flowing into Syria that jeopardizes the country's territorial integrity but rather the arsenal and logistical material being flown in by the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) to help the PKK/YPG terrorists under the pretense of the "war against Daesh." The U.S. put together what it called “The Global Coalition Against Daesh” in September 2014 “to degrade and ultimately defeat Daesh in Iraq, Syria, and globally.”
Russia is not part of this coalition, but Russia is at the forefront in terms of support by allowing the country that is supposedly leading the coalition to dismember Syria. The U.S. military unit known as CENTCOM selected the PKK and its Syrian wing, the YPG, as its “boots on the ground” and with cleverly introduced “mission creep,” CENTCOM entered the business of nation-building in Syria.
Yes, there is a Syrian nation in Syria, but not one deemed good enough to fulfill the age-old Wilsonian plan to redress the mistakes Great Britain and France made when reallocating Ottoman lands to the people the Ottomans ruled for 600 years. I tried to look into that issue in an earlier piece.
The U.S. defends its support of these terrorists by claiming that they are fighting against Daesh. But that support goes beyond military assistance: Washington's partners in this nation-building effort have been receiving tons of military logistical help, including rockets and their launchers, armored personnel carriers and more, as well as training from U.S. personnel. Media accounts of Russia and Assad’s tolerance of the PKK/YPG developing an autonomous region in northern Syria, its stealthy enlargement of the territory it holds and its operation of oil wells that once belonged to Syria are particularly enraging for people in Türkiye because the terrorist group is now continuously attacking people on Türkiye’s side of the border. Russia signed an agreement with Türkiye a year ago stipulating that it and its ally the Syrian regime would keep the PKK/YPG away from the border. But they did not.
Now is the time for Russia to keep its promise. It is good for Türkiye and Syria. It is also good for Russia.
