According to the Russian Foreign Ministry's statement on its website, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to Türkiye last week was “a synchronizing of watches on the situation” in several regional issues. Among them are Ukraine, the South Caucasus, the Middle East and North Africa, and Central Asia in the Black Sea region.
Lavrov and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu later said they expressed their views on the current state of affairs on those issues last week, and they reached agreements on extending the implementation of the Black Sea grain deal for another 60 days. Türkiye is helping the United Nations with the comprehensive implementation of the agreement to “unblock access to Russian agricultural products and fertilizers for international economic operators.” The 60-day extension of the deal is an excellent “gesture of goodwill” on the Russians’ part; the world should reciprocate accordingly.
Moreover, Lavrov said Moscow is diligently working on enhancing cooperation in the South Caucasus and the resumption of relations between Armenia and Türkiye, the unblocking of transport ties and communications and the region’s post-conflict rehabilitation. This appreciated effort would have gratifying effects on Türkiye-Armenia relations, and the mullahs in Tehran will be denied one more point of leverage to manipulate Armenians against Türkiye and Azerbaijan.
These are promising developments, and Turkish people appreciate all of them. Türkiye and Russia are adding more good things to the series: the bilateral trade and economic ties and interaction in the energy sector are escalating. The Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant construction is about to be loaded with nuclear fuel soon, and there will be a ceremony later this month. The operation of the TurkStream gas pipeline is also something both countries are keen about. All these are fine and dandy, all right and excellent. We cannot praise them enough.
But... This is a “but” with a capital B.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry statement and Lavrov’s words in the news conference after the bilateral meetings, the two ministers discussed “the normalization of Turkish-Syrian relations.” Russia thinks Türkiye and Syria should be assisted to have “normal relations.”
Wrong. And this is a “wrong” with capital W.
Türkiye has the most typical relationship with Syria because 5 million people from the country live in Türkiye. I have masters and Ph.D. candidates in the school I teach. Thousands of undergraduates are studying in several universities, and tens of thousands of high schoolers are graduating yearly since they fled to Türkiye after their leader, Bashar Assad, bombed their homes, hospitals and markets since they demanded what others did during the Arab Spring. They thought about what happened in Tunisia (a series of anti-government protests in response to corruption and economic stagnation; some police brutality with excessive force, perhaps). But no, their London-educated medical doctor leader, the son of the former president, would take advantage of public demand and get rid of the neo-Baathist power structure he inherited from his father. He had expressed his desire to stop nepotism and ethnic favoritism – the Alawitization of the civilian government and the military.
Judging from the images and media portrayal, Bashar (“the geeky I.T. guy”) and his London-born wife Asma (as promoted by the United States and the United Kingdom-based PR firms and consultants) shocked everyone in Türkiye, including then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, opposition leaders and people who had relatives in Syria, when the government expectedly conducted the Aleppo bombings (April-July 2016) on both opposition and government-held areas, as well as the Kurdish-held part of the city. His devastating response to peaceful demonstrators caused almost 5 million Syrians to flee to Türkiye and more than 3 million people to Jordan and Lebanon.
Meanwhile, what is called the “establishment,” or “U.S. deep state” for that matter, points to an alleged network of members of the federal government, encouraged by former President George W. Bush’s creation of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, that first introduced the Daesh threat in Syria under the disguise of fighting it. It then went on to replicate the same scenario in Syria. The only problem was that the Syrian Kurds were loyal to their country and would not play into the hands of the neoconservatives in their efforts to dismember their motherland – even though their homeland had never treated them affectionally; but this is another story. So, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) hastily put together another international coalition to save Syria from the so-called “caliphate.”
However, that “caliphate” "disappeared” as fast as it appeared, but the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava, remained a de facto partition of Syria. It consists of self-governing subregions in Syria’s Afrin, Jazira, Euphrates, Raqqa, Tabqa, Manbij and eastern Deir el-Zour provinces. It holds one-third of Syria with its oil wells, mining and agricultural fields and is run by an extension of the PKK terrorist organization. Its leader is a wanted criminal in Türkiye. Since its creation after the “civil war” in Syria, “the area” is continually becoming more extensive, and has enormously fortified its administration.
So, the Russian Foreign Ministry, and the Presidency, should understand that Türkiye is a friend of Syria; whatever they have in mind when they say the normalization of relations between Türkiye and Syria is the solution to the Syrian problem is not what both nations need. On the one hand, the Syrian people need urgent political reconciliation in the country, which can solve the most pressing problem: maintaining the territorial integrity of Syria. We have been saying this all along.
On the other hand, Türkiye needs assurances from the new government in Syria (the old dictatorial Baath party, one of the newly established democratic parties, or a coalition of them) that Syrian refugees can safely return to their homes and no PKK extension will play house along the long border between the two countries.
Suppose Assad is holding out hope that the Turkish opposition alliance of seven partners – envisioned, organized and empowered by U.S. President Joe Biden – could replace the Erdoğan administration in the forthcoming elections next month. It is his hope that the opposition would remain true to its word to withdraw the Turkish military contingent that participates in joint patrols around the U.S.-guarded Rojava; however, he will likely be facing a very disappointing summer.
We’ll tell him why after the Turkish elections.
