By Ilya U. Topper and Dogan Tilic
The rapid advance of rebel militias in Syria towards Aleppo and Hama has raised questions about the involvement of Turkey, which for years was a protective power of armed opposition groups but is now in favour of a process of reconciliation with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Officially, Ankara denies any involvement in the recent offensive and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Islamist, limited himself on Monday to hoping that the war would end “in accordance with the legitimate demands of the Syrian people.”
“Turkey is not involved in the fighting in Aleppo,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said at the weekend, although he added on Monday that the main responsibility lay with the Assad regime for “failing to resolve internal problems.”
Since 2016, Turkey has controlled several areas in northern Syria with the help of local militias grouped under the name of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which are barely related to the armed front of the same name that was established at the beginning of the Syrian civil war.
Several of these groups are participating in the rebel offensive, led by the Islamist Levant Liberation Organisation, Haiat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), heir to the Nusra Front, which was linked to the terrorist Islamic State.
Failed disarmament
HTS dominates Idlib province, which borders Turkey, in coexistence with a certain Turkish military presence, although it is unclear how much control Ankara has over this area.
According to the 2017 agreement with Russia and Iran in the Astana process, which established a ceasefire in the Idlib area, Turkey should have disarmed this group, so that Damascus would stop its attacks on Idlib.
“However, Ankara has not been able to disarm these militias and HTS has even formed a local government. If HTS now attacks Aleppo, can Ankara absolve itself of responsibility?” asks Turkish journalist Mehmet Ali Güller in a column in the opposition daily Cumhuriyet.
Joy for Aleppo
For the pro-Erdogan press, the offensive is a cause for little-disguised joy, and numerous media outlets are publishing a photo of a Turkish flag raised on the citadel of Aleppo, interpreting it as a historic affinity of the population for Turkey and its Ottoman past.
The Islamist daily Yeni Safak even claimed to “celebrate” the “conquest of Aleppo” and called Turkey’s secular and leftist opposition bad patriots for not celebrating this “success.”
Retired Turkish diplomat Engin Solakoglu told the leftist daily Sol that the FSA groups taking part in the offensive are “financed by the Turkish taxpayer”, are “Ankara’s most powerful card” in Syria and that their presence contradicts the official position that it is not involved.
“Turkey keeps making mistakes in its Syrian policy. Saying it is not involved is just hiding the government’s responsibility,” said Ilhan Uzgel, vice-president of the social-democratic CHP party.
“We have always said that Turkey should refrain from actions that harm Syria’s territorial integrity. Trying to control Syria through pawns and supporting HTS is a grave mistake,” the opposition politician added.
In these fighting there is “a very obvious outside intervention to minimize the influence of Iran and Russia in Syria,” he said.
Uzgel recalled that Ankara has two objectives in the country: to remove Kurdish militias, which it considers terrorists, from its borders and to prevent a new wave of refugees.
The HTS offensive against Tel Rifat, northeast of Aleppo, forcing the withdrawal of the Kurdish YPG, which had dominated it for eight years, is thus a victory for Ankara.
But if the Assad regime is able to launch a counteroffensive in the near future that forces HTS to retreat or even give up ground in Idlib, it is not clear that Turkey will be able to avoid the wave of refugees it fears. EFE