In order to return Syria to the Syrian people, an agreement needs to be reached immediately on a draft constitution and free elections in the country. Opposition leaders have indicated that "no agreements were reached" on the draft revision of constitutional articles during talks in Geneva for almost a year now. Every person who has a say on Syria wants those talks to restart and a draft readied as soon as possible. Since it is Türkiye pushing Russia to encourage the Bashar Assad regime to return to Geneva, then who were the people protesting against Türkiye last week in Azaz? Answering this question correctly necessitates a brief review of the events that have been unfolding in Syria over the last 10 years.

Türkiye’s interest in Syria intensified after the protests against the Assad regime began in 2011. Peaceful demonstrations against the dictator's repressive regime quickly escalated into a full-scale war between the Syrian government – backed by Russia and Iran – and anti-government groups – backed by Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and others in the region.

Assad did not hesitate to bomb cities and towns where opposition groups would organize demonstrations. Since the early days of the conflict, the regime has used barrel bombs filled with poison gas in 93 attacks. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), the Assad regime has dropped 81,916 barrel bombs, killing 11,087 civilians, including 1,821 children and 1,780 women. The provinces most targeted were Damascus, Aleppo, Daraa and Idlib.

Nobody knows exactly how it happened but during those tumultuous early days, three extraneous elements were added to the conflict. The United States, which naturally dragged in the United Kingdom; the al-Qaida terrorist organization from Afghanistan – now under the name Daesh; and PKK terrorists from Türkiye and Iraq, in that order.

Syria had its own radical Islamic groups as well as ethnic Kurds, but neither were militarily prepared. Despite their unhappiness under the Assad regime, when the PKK's top dog Abdullah Öcalan tried to infiltrate Syria, the Syrian Kurds would not allow the PKK to operate on Syrian territory. The radicalization of Sunni groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan under the name of al-Qaida (thanks to the U.S. and the U.K. deploying an Islamic mujahideen army against the occupying Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the late 1980s) had been exported to the entire Middle East region, however, the Assad regime never allowed them to take root let alone occupying one-third of the country in three short months. To this day nobody knows how all those Daesh terrorists, their artillery, oil-drilling equipment, tanker trucks and office furniture came to materialize in Syria. Russia would know since it is the only nation allied with Syria and the one who built Syrian air bases, provided defense systems and furnished the country with S-300 and S-400 air defense radars. But somehow, the Taliban-supplied arms and equipment were transferred to the Syrian provinces and the PR machine was up and running in no time. Remember the videos showing the beheading of pro-government Shiite fighters in Syria by al-Qaida forces?

Syria, like Iraq and Türkiye, was a country where Shiite and Sunni Islam coexisted peacefully for centuries; but now the al-Qaida terrorists were sharpening the sectarian fault lines in such a way that the U.S. and the U.K. had to "intervene to stop the people spilling their brother’s blood." At this point, the third extraneous element appeared on the stage: the PYD and the YPG. Both of these Syrian groups have been connected to the PKK terrorist organization and were renamed the SDF by U.S. Army Gen. Raymond Thomas, the head of Special Operations Command, in a "rebranding" effort amid plans to pose as an alliance with Syrian Arabs in 2015.

The U.S. and the U.K. had stolen the legitimate demands of the Syrian democratic opposition and created the perception that the Syrian government was fighting al-Qaida militants and that Western countries were helping the Syrian people with the SDF, presenting the group as the U.S.’s "boots on the ground" in their fight against terrorism!

Amid all the noise, one country and its leader was helping the Syrian people voice their legitimate and democratic demands. Türkiye and its President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan not only acted as a voice for the Syrian people, but also opened their arms to those fleeing Assad’s bombs, al-Qaida’s axes and the PKK’s killing sprees. Five million Syrians took refuge in Türkiye while 4 million took refuge in Jordan.

The U.S. and its so-called coalition did not participate in any ground operations against al-Qaida; they contracted the fight against terror to another terrorist group! The PYD and YPG extensions of the PKK received hundreds of truckloads of arms, ammunition and military equipment to fight Daesh. (The U.S. military failed to account for $715 million in weapons and equipment allocated to the PYD/YPG. A Pentagon inspector general report released two years ago said Special Operations Joint Task Force and Operation Inherent Resolve personnel did not maintain comprehensive lists of the equipment purchased and received to back its partners in the fight against Daesh in 2017 and 2018. However, Turkish security forces discovered some of those weapons in PKK hideouts in the Iraqi mountains and in Türkiye!) In short, Türkiye was the only NATO country with its own boots on the ground and it cleared al-Qaida in its efforts to secure the border area.

Meanwhile, Assad’s Shiite regime, with the effective support of Iran and its Shiite militia, had been busy driving the Sunni people out of the country. The Syrian opposition had come together with the Syrian National Coalition and formed an interim government. On the last day of 2017, at least 30 factions operating under the banner of the Syrian Interim Government merged into a unified armed group after four months of preparations. Jawad Abu Hatab, the defense minister in the interim government, announced the formation of the Syrian National Army (SNA) after meeting with rebel commanders in the town of Azaz. Türkiye, creating a safe zone in Syria, helped the SNA establish a national army. The SNA now has its own police force and the area under its control keeps expanding.

The democratic opposition is now recognized by the United Nations while its Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced in October 2018 the appointment of Geir Pedersen of Norway as his special envoy for Syria. The special envoy has organized rounds of meetings involving the Syrian Constitutional Committee seeking a solution to the ongoing war in the country. Members of the "Small Group" responsible for creating the constitution, consisting of 15 representatives from the Assad regime, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the Syrian opposition have met several times. There was even a breakthrough during the sixth-round meetings in Geneva when the co-chair of the Assad regime's delegation, Ahmed Kuzbari, sat down for the first time with the co-chair of the opposition, Hadi al-Bahra. However, in October last year, Pedersen expressed "great disappointment" after the failure of the sixth round and criticized the Assad regime by name for the first time.

Erdoğan brought up the issue of Assad dragging his feet in the Syrian Constitutional Committee in his talks with his Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Later, Erdoğan said his talks with Putin relating to Syria would ease tensions in the region.

Furthermore, in their joint statement, the two leaders announced that they focused on the latest developments in Syria and stressed the importance they attach to furthering the political process to achieve a lasting solution in the country. In other words, Putin agreed with Erdoğan that Assad was sabotaging the peace talks and that the Geneva process should continue.

Further, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu emphasized the need to restart these talks, saying that EU countries were hesitant to provide help in rebuilding the war-torn country without a cease-fire and peace. Çavuşoğlu, addressing reporters on the last day of the Foreign Ministry’s annual Ambassadors Conference in Ankara, said Türkiye was doing its best to achieve a cease-fire in Syria. Declaring a cease-fire and drafting a new constitution were brought up in Erdoğan’s talks with all leaders. Erdoğan, six years ago this week, delivering a speech on the occasion of the Eid al-Adha, declared that "Syria belongs to Syrians," not PKK-extension terrorists and the countries supporting them. In that speech, Erdoğan said the regime and terrorist organizations had slaughtered nearly 600,000 people and declared that the Assad regime is a partner in the bloodshed.

Let’s get back to the question posed at the beginning: Türkiye is pushing Russia to encourage the Assad regime to return to Geneva and start discussions with opposition representatives, but some people were protesting against Türkiye last week in Azaz. Who were they?

In short, the ringleaders and agitators were definitely not Syrians! SNA commander of the al-Hamzah Division, Seif Abu-Bakr, said the protest was a provocative action instigated by those who oppose Türkiye’s forthcoming military operations designed to enlarge the safe zone for Syrian democratic opposition forces. (Those arrested after the demonstration turned out to be PYD-affiliated individuals.) The larger the safe zone, the better the position of the Syrian opposition will be. The better rooted the opposition is in the country, the sooner the Assad regime will return to Geneva.

This is the surest way to give Syria back to the Syrian people.