Given the warm welcome Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad
received at the Arab League just three months ago, one might have expected
rather warmer words from Syria’s president about the state of Arab relations in
a rare interview last week. But no: “Maybe it's the way we think,” he said,
“But we don’t come up with practical solutions … we prefer to give speeches,
press releases and meetings.” It was unrealistic, he said, to expect that there
would be economic results from the return to the Arab fold in mere months.
اضافة اعلان
If that was his view of the members of the Arab League, it’s
unsurprising that his view of the man whose troops occupy parts of his country
would be much worse. “Erdogan’s goal is to fabricate an excuse for a Turkish
invasion in Syria,” he said, pouring cold water on the suggestion that the two
leaders might meet.
Along the pathway of a return to some semblance of normal
diplomatic relations – to say nothing of “normality” within Syria, which is
still many years away – the next logical step after rejoining the Arab League
would be for Syria to resume relations with Turkey.
Yet that step is much harder than the previous one. As much
as Turkish President Recep Erdogan may want a rapprochement, Syria is in no
rush, as demonstrated by Assad’s dismissive words. Yet while the wait-and-see
game worked so well in pushing the Arab League to normalize, an extensive
period without repairing the Syrian-Turkey relationship will end up damaging
Damascus – and perhaps even permanently altering the geography of Syria.
For now, time is firmly on Assad’s side. Prior to the
Turkish election in May, Erdogan was keen on some progress, because it could
then be presented to the Turkish electorate as potential steps toward resolving
the crisis of Syrian migrants, millions of whom are refugees in Turkish cities
and towns.
Yet for Assad, Erdogan, despite his desire to improve ties,
is actually the lesser of the possible interlocutors. Erdogan’s main
opposition, the Republican People's Party (CHP), ran on a firmly anti-Syrian
platform, pledging to normalize relations with Damascus quickly and send
Syrians home.
When even the ostensibly more liberal Turkish opposition is
openly campaigning to send Syrians home, there is little necessity for Assad to
negotiate. He can simply wait for a change of politician in Ankara, or for the
pressure to build on Erdogan, and his negotiating hand grows stronger. The
pressure of millions of Syrians on Turkish soil is his strongest card.
Erdogan knows this, which is why he has been more vocal in
wanting to meet Assad than the other way around. Yet his red line is the same
one that Assad raised in the interview, and which Erdogan reiterated last
month: no withdrawal of Turkish troops.
For now, the major issue is that Ankara does not yet have an
end game that Assad can accept. Erdogan’s big idea of resettling Syrian
refugees along the Syrian side of the border, protected by Turkish troops, had
the twin benefits of easing the pressure on Turkish cities caused by millions
of migrants, as well as pushing Syrian Kurdish militants away from the border.
But it had one major flaw: it was dependent on the Assad
regime’s tacit acceptance. And while the Syrians saw no benefit in attacking
those enclaves for many years, when it comes to diplomatic recognition,
accepting these enclaves is proving a sticking point. Partly, of course, that
has to do with a refusal to accept foreign troops – but partly it is also about
accepting a precedent of allowing Turkish troops, which will then make it
harder to get rid of the American troops still protecting the Kurdish areas.
Turkey is now locked into that outcome, or something very
similar to it.
However, it is precisely for that reason why the Assad
regime should find an accommodation with Ankara now. Because the Turkish
occupation, as hard as it is to dislodge now, will only become harder over
time.
The Syrian refugee crisis is a major political issue in
Turkey, to the extent that it was a major topic in the presidential election.
With Erdogan in power for perhaps five more years, it is unthinkable that he
would allow the issue to fester for so long that it becomes a wedge issue
again. That means that a solution might be found in the next few years, one
that Ankara might seek to impose on Damascus. And with relations with Russia
changing so much over the Ukraine war, it’s possible circumstances may mean
that Moscow, Assad’s main international supporter, goes along with it.
This may be hypothetical for the moment, but the main
leverage the Assad regime has over Turkey are Syrian bodies and time. Damascus
can always halt the return of refugees, or make life so hard they don't wish to
return, leaving Ankara with the problem. If, however, Turkey finds a solution
to the refugee issue, that would flip the time leverage: then every year that
passes would entrench the Turkish solution.
With the Arab League, Assad merely had to wait, and the
consequences of the Syrian Captagon drug trade would eventually create the
conditions for a rapprochement. But with Turkey, those conditions already
exist. A delay of a year or two might be possible, but the longer Damascus
waits, the more likely it will be that Ankara imposes a solution. And then the
Turkish occupation will prove much harder for Damascus to end.
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