Turkey has warned that the Syrian regime’s assault on the province could create serious humanitarian and security risks for the region and beyond
Turkey is urging a diplomatic solution to limit the flow of refugees from an immanent offensive by Syrian forces under Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against rebel strongholds in Idlib province. Ankara’s actions, however, will be largely limited by what Moscow will do, analysts told The Media Line.
In an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote that the world must “throw its weight behind a political solution.
“If the international community, including Europe and the U.S., fail to take action now, not only innocent Syrians but the entire world stands to pay the price,” he wrote.
After last week’s summit between Turkey, Iran and Russia did not produce a ceasefire, Turkey sent troops and tanks along its border with Syria.
“The move could simply be a show of force,” Kristian Brakel, a foreign policy analyst with the Heinrich Boll Foundation in Turkey, told The Media Line.
Brakel explained that Turkey’s potential military involvement in the Syrian conflict would depend on the level of support Russia gives to the Syrian military.
“If Russia doesn’t intervene with its own troops, just having an altercation with the Syrian army would not come at such a high price for the Turkish military as it would have if there are direct confrontations with Russia,” Brakel said.
He added that a Turkish military intervention could force Turkey, a supporter of the Syrian opposition, to move closer to the U.S. and Europe, while struggling to maintain good relations with Moscow, which has supported Assad.
“But I think it would be really hard for Turkey,” Brakel added. “A Turkish offensive would have serious consequences for the relationship [with Russia].”
Idlib province, home to about 3 million Syrians, could be witness to the last major battle in Syria’s seven-year-long civil war, which has left over half a million dead and many more injured.
Russia, whose support of Assad has been critical in maintaining the dictator’s grip on power, and Iran, both insist that “terrorists,” including 10,000 Al-Qa’ida-linked fighters, according to U.N. estimates, must be eradicated from the country.
Turkey has repeatedly urged a diplomatic solution that could ultimately benefit Russia and Syria, explained Nicholas Danforth, a senior policy analyst focusing on Turkey and the Middle East at the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center.
Danforth explained that Ankara has offered assistance in eliminating radical groups from Idlib. This, he contended, would help Assad take over the rebel-held province more easily while adding a sense of legitimacy to the effort.
“Turkey’s predicament highlights the limits of its much touted friendship with Russia, as well as the source of its frustration with its traditional Western allies. Acting alone, Ankara has little hope of staving off an eventual regime takeover of Idlib and the humanitarian catastrophe that would follow,” Danforth wrote in an email to The Media Line.
Turkey has a vital interest in limiting the humanitarian fall out of the offensive, which has only just begun with Syrian airstrikes, a prelude to what many analysists believe will be a major offensive. The U.N. said on Monday that over 30,000 Syrians have been displaced from Idlib since last week and estimates that around 800,000 could be forced to flee their homes if the violence escalates.
Omar Kadkoy, a research associate specializing in Syrian refugees at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) told The Media Line that the more violent the offensive becomes, the more residents will be forced to flee, and the direction would likely be towards the Turkish border. Aside from putting more pressure on Turkey, where 3.5 million Syrians have already sought refuge, more people entering the country could also pose a greater security risk.
“It’s really difficult to distinguish between someone who is vulnerable and in need of safety and a radical jihadist who might be posing as a Syrian refugee. This is extremely risky,” Kadkoy told The Media Line.
But Turkey’s concerns in Syria go far beyond Idlib province. Relations with the U.S. have suffered due to latter’s alliance with a Kurdish militia in Syria called the YPG, which Ankara claims is linked to the Kurdish militant group, the PKK, which Turkey sees as a threat given its supposed operations inside of Turkey. Both Ankara and Washington have classified the PKK as a terrorist organization.
The ongoing Syrian offensive in Idlib province has highlighted another concern for Turkey: namely, that it cannot rely on an alliance with Russia, according to Aykan Erdemir, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former opposition member in the Turkish parliament.
He told The Media Line that Turkey’s failure to come to a solution during last week’s summit in Tehran showed that Erdogan’s government does not have much leverage in the face of Moscow’s vested interests in Syria.
“Erdogan has belatedly come to the realization that the more he pivots away from the transatlantic alliance, the less weight he has against the Assad regime and its patrons,” Erdemir concluded.