Category: Syria

With its Syria plan in tatters, Turkey needs a strategy reboot

For much of the late 2000s, Turkey hoped that a booming economy, the prestige of combative Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a burst of regional admiration for its successful mix of Muslim governance and democracy would reap it a harvest of Middle Eastern influence and profit.

At the heart of this strategy was an intimate relationship with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, the model for Turkey’s “zero problems” policy. The two countries signed model deals for visa-less travel, free trade and infrastructure integration. The leaders brought half their Cabinets to summit meetings. The Assads even lunched with the Erdogans on the eve of their 2008 holiday on the Turkish riviera.

Now the Syrian catastrophe has landed squarely on Turkey’s doorstep: 450,000 refugees, with the UN predicting double that by year’s end; costs of $1-billion and rising to look after the influx, only a tenth of which is covered by outside donors; and increasing tensions on the border. A recent Syrian air force raid close to one Turkish border crossing killed five Syrians, wounded 50 people, hit an aid warehouse and an opposition base. Just days later at another border crossing, Syrians wanting to cross rioted, fired weapons and killed a Turkish policeman, wounded 11 other people and burned buildings and cars.

As regional instability has spread since 2010, Turkey’s Middle Eastern position has suffered too. The Libya war badly disrupted Turkey’s big contracting interests there. The loss of Syrian trucking routes to regional markets has joined the previous loss of Iraqi ones. Ankara’s backing of armed Syrian opposition groups has encouraged negative perceptions of Turkey acting not just as a would-be Sunni Muslim hegemon, but also as taking sides within the Sunni Arab world. Arab and Iranian commentators are critical of what they see as Ankara’s hubristic tendency to seek what they see as Ottoman-style regional dominance.

These Middle Eastern entanglements are clearly not principally Turkey’s fault, but some of Ankara’s policies have made things worse. At the height of its Middle East hopes – which were indeed accompanied by a substantial rise in trade with a region that takes a quarter of Turkey’s exports – Turkey repeatedly snubbed its much bigger investor and principal trading partner, the EU. Mr. Erdogan made emotional attacks on Israel, seeking domestic and regional popularity but losing a valuable image of regional neutrality. And the intensity which Mr. Erdogan switched policy to calling for Mr. Assad’s ouster in August, 2011, painted Turkish policy into a corner.

Ankara is now adjusting course in some areas. When the Syrian war got under way, Turkey quickly sought to calm popular alarm by bringing in Patriot missiles from its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies. After years of stalling Turkey’s EU relationship, Mr. Erdogan is now visiting more EU states and nudging membership negotiations forward. Under intense U.S. pressure ahead of a May 16 trip to Washington, Mr. Erdogan also partly patched up his row with Israel by accepting an Israeli apology for Israel’s killing of eight Turkish citizens and Turkish-Americans trying to bring aid to the Palestinians in Gaza in 2010.

In fixing the overspill from the Syria crisis, however, much remains to be done. Certainly, the principal Western donors should be much more generous to Turkey, and engage effective Turkish humanitarian organizations, but Turkey also has to streamline its procedures to allow reputable, international NGOs to work. Turkey can hardly complain about a lack of Western aid when it has only registered three aid groups – thus allowing them bank accounts, to hire personnel, to get residence permits – since the crisis began two years ago.

Turkey is indeed a leading Sunni Muslim state, and a progressive one, but making Sunnism a key element of policy has become an element of polarizing tension both in the region and also for the 10 per cent of Turkey’s population who are heterodox Alevis. Turkey has long experience in its regional rivalry with Iran, but should work hard to avoid any gratuitous deepening of what could become proxy conflicts over Syria or Iraq. It should set up any new refugee camps well away from the border to avoid the impression that they are being used as rear bases.

Syria has already become a failed state, the Syrian conflict may still escalate further, and the crisis so far has shown that Turkey alone does not have the power to impose any solution, diplomatically or militarily. Even if the world does more to arm the Syrian opposition, this looks unlikely to topple the Assad regime. Ankara would therefore do well to abandon its wishful thinking about a quick resolution of the Syrian catastrophe, defend its vital interests with quieter rhetoric, continue rebuilding its frayed relations with traditional Western allies and adopt a realistic, medium-term strategy that balances its natural position between west and east.

Hugh Pope is director of International Crisis Group’s Turkey/Cyprus Project, and author of Turkey Unveiled: A History of Modern Turkey, Sons of the Conquerors: the Rise of the Turkic World, and Dining with al-Qaeda: Three Decades Exploring the Many Worlds of the Middle East.

via With its Syria plan in tatters, Turkey needs a strategy reboot – The Globe and Mail.

May 10, 2013
M of A – Syria: Al-Nusra With “Chemical Weapons” Sourced From Turkey

Syria: Al-Nusra With “Chemical Weapons” Sourced From Turkey

One of the three alleged “chemical weapon” attacks in Syria was done by chlorine on a checkpoint of the Syrian army. Fifteen soldiers died.

Two other attacks which Israel Britain and France alleged were done by the Syrian army and were somewhat mysterious. With collaboration of two bloggers and a photographer the incidents are now likely to be interpreted very different than Israel, Britain and France alleged.

Eliot Higgins, who blogs as Brown Moses, analyzed pictures of ammunition debris found at the two alleged attack sides.

The photographer Jeffry Ruigendijk photographed a salafist Al-Nusra fighter carrying a riot control gas canister that looks very similar to the ammunition debris found at the attacked places.

Small arms expert N.R. Jenzen-Jones identified the producer of these canisters and the likely way they found their way into Al-Nusra hands:

[T]he munitions do appear quite similar to those produced by the Indian Border Security Force’s Tear Smoke Unit (TSU), at their plant in Tekanpur, Madhya Pradesh. Several of their production items appear to share physical similarities with the unidentified grenade, but the closest visual match is their ‘Tear Smoke Chilli Grenade’, seen below. This grenade contains a combination of CS gas ( 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile) and ‘synthetic chilli’ (likely a synthetic capsaicin, such as nonivamide) – both common riot control agents.

Riot control agents like tear gas or pepper spray can be deadly when, for example, used in closed rooms. They symptoms vary (pdf) but there are usually respiratory problems just as those described by those people who were under the alleged “chemical weapons attack.

So how did the Al-Nusra fighters get their hands on a Indian Border Security Force’s Tear Smoke Unit grenade?

This Indian news article notes that Turkey purchased 10,025 munitions from TSU in 2007, which may indicate a possible avenue of supply, particularly if the grenades were in the hands of rebel forces, as the image at top appears to indicate.

The “chemical weapon” attacks were not done by the Syrian army. They were done by so called “rebels” with chlorine and with riot control agents by jihadist insurgencies who sourced the gas by stealing it from a Syrian factory and somehow obtained riot control agents from official Turkish state stocks.

The Israeli, the British and the French government tried to instigate a wider war on Syria by making false allegations about “chemical weapon” attacks by the Syrian army. The U.S. nearly joined them in their allegations. Will all those op-ed writers and tried to use the “fact” of chemical weapon usage now call for all out war on Al-Nusra?

Don’t bet on it.

via M of A – Syria: Al-Nusra With “Chemical Weapons” Sourced From Turkey.

May 9, 2013
Turkey Launches Military Drills Along Syria Border

Suriye sınırında yapılan NATO tatbikatı soru işaretleri doğurdu

Exercise at NATO Base to Test ‘Readiness for Battle’

by Jason Ditz

With tensions soaring in the wake of the weekend Israeli attacks on Syria, the Turkish military has launched a round of military drills at a NATO air base along the Syrian border.

The 10-day drills will involve military and government ministry coordination in mobilization for a war with Syria. NATO says the mission was planned ahead of time, but was never reported until it began.

The drill adds to speculation about the possibility of a NATO attack on Syria, though officials downplayed that possibility. The Assad government has not commented on the exercise.

Indeed, military drills in NATO nations are so common that it is entirely possible that they did just plan a small drill they didn’t figure was worth mentioning and it became a bigger deal because of the tensions with Syria.

via Turkey Launches Military Drills Along Syria Border — News from Antiwar.com.

May 8, 2013
Turkey Fears Russia Too Much to Intervene in Syria

Turkey Fears Russia Too Much to Intervene in Syria

Ankara won’t step into the conflict because it’s terrified Moscow will retaliate — again.

SONER CAGAPTAYMAY 6 2013, 10:16 AM ET

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu (R) reach out to shake hands following a joint news conference at Ciragan Palace in Istanbul on April 17, 2013. (Murad Sezer/Reuters)

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov visited Ankara on April 17th, but the event went almost unnoticed. Despite deep differences between Ankara and Moscow over Syria, Turkey has refrained from rebuking Moscow. That’s because Turkey fears no country more than it fears Russia.

Ankara has nearly a dozen neighbors if you include its maritime neighbors across the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Emboldened by its phenomenal economic growth in the past decade and rising political power, Turkey appears willing to square-off against any of them; Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has publicly chided the leaders of Syria, Iran, and Iraq. In fact, none of the country’s neighbors can feel safe from Ankara’s wrath — with the exception of Russia, that is.

“The Russians can make life miserable for us, they are good at this.”

The Turks suffer from a deep-rooted, historic reluctance to confront the Russians. The humming Turkish economy is woefully dependent on Russian energy exports: More than half of Turkey’s natural gas consumption comes from Russia. Consequently, Turkey is unlikely to confront Moscow even when Russia undermines Turkey’s interests, such as in Syria where Russia is supporting the Assad regime, even as Ankara tries to depose it.

Historically, the Turks have always feared the Russians. Between 1568, when the Ottomans and Russians first clashed, to the end of the Russian Empire in 1917, the Turks and Russians fought 17 wars. In each encounter, Russia was the instigator and the victor. In these defeats, the Ottomans lost vast, and often solidly Turkish and Muslim, territories spanning from the Crimea to Circassia to the Russians. The Russians killed many inhabitants of these Ottoman lands and expelled the rest to Turkey. So many Turks descend from refugees from Russia that the adage in Turkey is: “If you scratch a Turk, you find a Circassian persecuted by Russians underneath.”

Having suffered at the hands of the Russians for centuries, the Turks now have a deeply engrained fear of the Russians. This explains why Turkey dived for the safety of NATO and the United States when Stalin demanded territory from Turkey and a base on the Bosporus in 1945. Fear of the Russians made Turkey one of the most committed Cold-War allies to the United States.

Recently, Turkish-Russian ties have improved measurably. Russia is Turkey’s number-one trading partner, and nearly four million Russians vacation in Turkey annually. At the same time, Turkey’s construction, retail, and manufacturing businesses are thriving in Russia. Turkish Airlines, the country’s flag carrier, offers daily flights from Istanbul to eight Russian cities.

Still, none of this has erased the Turks’ subconscious Russophobia. In 2012, I asked a policymaker in Ankara whether Turkey would take unilateral military action to depose the Assad regime in Damascus. “Not against the wishes of Moscow” my interlocutor said. Adding: “The Russians can make life miserable for us, they are good at this.”

At least some of the Turkish fear of Russia appears grounded in reality. Turkey is dependent on Russia more than any other country for its energy needs. Despite being a large economy, Turkey has neither significant natural gas and oil deposits, nor nuclear power stations of its own. Ankara is therefore bound to Moscow, which has often used natural gas supplies as a means to punish countries, such as Ukraine, that cross its foreign policy goals.

There is also a security component: Russia helped set up the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group that led a terror campaign against Turkey for decades, causing over 30,000 casualties. The PKK emerged under Russian tutelage in Lebanon’s then-Syrian occupied Bekaa Valley during the 1980s, and it has enjoyed intermittent Russian support even after the collapse of Communism.

Turkey recently entered peace talks with the PKK, and many in the group are likely to heed the advice of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and lay down their weapons. Yet, a pervasive fear in Ankara is that some rogue elements and hardliners could emerge from the PKK, denouncing the talks and continuing to fight Turkey.

Meanwhile, Ankara has been confronting the Assad regime in Damascus since late 2011 by supporting the Syrian opposition. This had led to a spike in PKK attacks against Turkey, most coming from Iran, which apparently has allowed the PKK freedom of movement in its territory to punish Ankara for its stance against Assad.

The fear in Ankara is that Russia might just do the same if Turkey were to invade Syria, propping up rogue PKK elements inside that country to lead an insurgency against Turkish troops. Together with other concerns, such as the risk of the conflict in Syria spilling over into Turkey, the Turkish fear of Russia has led Ankara to avoid direct intervention in Syria.

Such fears have also led Turkey to pivot further toward the United States, once again seeking protection under the NATO umbrella against the looming Russian giant. Taking into consideration Turkey’s fear of Russia, any Turkish military action against the Assad regime will have to be predicated on full NATO support and involvement.

For the Turks, history repeats itself every day when it comes to Moscow: don’t stand in Russia’s way lest it torment you, again.

via Turkey Fears Russia Too Much to Intervene in Syria – Soner Cagaptay – The Atlantic.

May 7, 2013
If Turkey Does Not Change Its Syria Policy …

US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) meets with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at Ankara Palace in Ankara, March 1, 2013. (photo by REUTERS/Jacquelyn Martin)

By: Kadri Gursel for Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse Posted on May 6.

Let’s begin by reading some paragraphs from a speech that captures Turkey’s new profile in the Middle East, complete with its policy, ideology and, of course, rhetoric. International readers who follow Turkey closely will guess who the speaker was. These quotes are long, but not boring:

About This Article

Summary :

If Turkey doesn’t change its partisan, sectarian approach to Syria, it will provoke further sectarian tensions among armed groups in Turkey and the region, writes Kadri Gursel.

Original Title:

If Turkey Does Not Change Its Syria Policy…

Author: Kadri Gursel

Translated by: Timur Goksel

Categories : Originals Syria Turkey

“Today they are saying prayers for us. They are praying for us in Gaza, Beirut and Mecca. This is the massive responsibility we are shouldering. You are not only responsible for Edirne, Hakkari and Van. You are bearing the responsibility for Nicosia, Sarajevo, Baghdad, Gaza, Jerusalem, Erbil and Damascus. There is the responsibility for 250 innocent Syrians who were viciously massacred yesterday [May 4] by having their throats slit at Banias. I am appealing to my organization. Every life lost in Syria is one of ours. … We don’t care who says what. What we care about is the conviction that ‘Believers are brothers.’ …

“We are not like other states. We are not a state that will keep quiet to protect its interests. We want to be able to account for ourselves when the book is placed in front of us. When screams of slaughtered children are resonating, we can’t be mute devils. You, Bashar Assad, you will pay for this. You will pay heavily, very heavily for showing courage you can’t show to others to babies with pacifiers in their mouths. A blessed revenge will smother you. With God’s permission we will see this criminal asked to account and bless his almighty. What is going on has long reached the point of forcing the limits of tolerance. The international community has not yet taken the steps expected from it about Syria. … To the Syrians who ask when is God’s help coming, I say there is no doubt God’s help is near.”

I took these lines from a May 6 news report in the daily Milliyet. When you read it, you’ll see that the speech was on May 5, and that from the references to cities, the speaker was from Turkey.

In its content and style, this text is a perfect specimen of the Islamist, pro-Ottoman political culture that has spread and gained strength in Turkey over recent years. Those who apply the norms of traditional diplomacy and statesmanship that prevail in international institutions to this text might surmise that that the speech was given by a fiery Islamist orator. But these remarks belong to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the Turkish Republic — generally assumed to be a secular state.

He was addressing members of the parliament and officials of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The venue was the town of Kizilcahamam, near Ankara. The meeting’s purpose was a discussion of party policies.

The prime minister often gives these kinds of talks. Whenever he does, Turkey’s political culture becomes more closely attuned to the Middle East.

The debate in Turkey drags on: What is the reality of Ankara’s Syria policy? What have we reached with this policy, what results did we obtain and how would it affect Turkey if we persist without making changes?

To answer these questions, a reality check is needed that goes beyond Turkey’s feverish, epic-heavy rhetoric. Objective and cool-headed observations from outside become important at times like this.

An April 30 report by the International Crisis Group, “Blurring the Borders: Syrian Spillover Risks for Turkey,” represents a significant contribution that objectively narrates the results of Turkey’s response to the Syrian crisis — and the risks it poses for the country.

The follow assessments made in the report’s executive summary illustrate the gap between Erdogan’s rhetoric and realities: “Turkey is seen increasingly as a partisan actor. While Turkish leaders claim it has sufficient resources to be the region’s main power, leverage over Syrian events is clearly limited. … Turkey has no capacity to solve intractable problems inside Syria alone, and is not considering significant military intervention. Stepped-up arming of opposition fighters seems unlikely to enable them to topple the regime quickly. And Turkey’s wishful thinking about the Ottoman past and a leading historical and economic role in its Sunni Muslim neighbourhood is at odds with the present reality that it now has an uncontrollable, fractured, radicalised no-man’s-land on its doorstep.”

In the same section of the report, Turkey is asked to accept that the Syrian crisis may continue for a long time and to make long-term political modifications accordingly. The Syrian crisis served as a litmus test that exposed the neo-Ottoman tendencies of those running Turkey’s foreign policy. By definition, the pro-Ottoman inclination of the neo-Islamist ruling political class is also pro-Sunni. Turkey’s Syria policy has put Turkey on the Sunni side of the Sunni-Shiite fault line in the Middle East. This gives rise to a perceived geopolitical threat among Shiite actors.

The report warns on this tendency: “Whereas Turkey in 2008 was praised for its ability to speak to all regional players from Israel to Iran, it has now aligned predominantly with conservative Sunni Muslim partners such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia… In order to talk to all parties from a position of greater moral authority, it should avoid projecting the image of being a Sunni Muslim hegemon. It should also re-secure its border and ask Syrian opposition fighters to move to Syria. Publicly adopting a profile of a balanced regional power, rather than a Sunni Muslim one, would likewise do much to reduce any possibility that the sectarian polarization that is crippling Syria will jump the border to Turkey, in particular to Hatay province.”

The International Crisis Group suggests that Turkey not follow a tacitly Islamist foreign policy, but rather a secular one. This is an appropriate recommendation. Of course, to follow a foreign policy not imbued with Islamism, the Islamists have to make extraordinary efforts. But if this Islamist, pro-Sunni and pro-Ottoman Syria policy is maintained in its current form, Turkey will find itself in opposition to alienated Muslim actors who are not conservatively Sunni. This will substantially weaken Turkey’s soft power in the Middle East and the world and will limit its ability to launch initiatives.

A pro-Sunni foreign policy and narrative could also upset the already sensitive sectarian harmony in Turkey.

Turkey decided in August 2011 to topple the Baath regime and open its borders to the armed Syrian opposition, thus making Turkey the rear base of rebel forces. Border security was intentionally neglected to ease the movements of rebel forces. To change this policy now, and to act again as a state of law and order, may lead to a loss of prestige and influence by Ankara over the armed opposition, especially the Free Syrian Army. But if this risk isn’t taken, the consequence will be that Turkey will substantially fall short of having a state of law. The Turkish-Syrian border may pose threats to Turkey’s security, as seen in the Feb. 11 bombing at Cilvegozu border crossing [Bab al-Hawa] that resulted in the deaths of 14 people.

In addition to internal clashes in Syria mutating into a sectarian civil war, the danger for Turkey involves its image as a party to this war — and the possibility that it may be held responsible for its share of the war crimes committed by Sunni groups it has been militarily supporting.

To be sure, there is a political price to be paid by Turkey for changing its Syria policy — but the cost of not changing it will be higher.

Kadri Gürsel is a contributing writer for Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse and has written a column for the Turkish daily Milliyet since 2007. He focuses primarily on Turkish foreign policy, international affairs and Turkey’s Kurdish question, as well as Turkey’s evolving political Islam.

Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2013/05/turkey-syria-policy-backfire-sectarian.html#ixzz2Sa5FdwMl

May 7, 2013
‘Chemical weapons for Syrian opposition may have come from Turkey’

Syria’s chemical weapons compound is heavily guarded, with the state fully aware of the consequences of a security lapse, German journalist Manuel Ochsenreiter told RT, noting the opposition could have acquired the weapons through Turkey.

In this image made available by the Syrian News Agency (SANA) on March 19, 2013, a man is brought to a hospital in the Khan al-Assal region in the northern Aleppo province, as Syria’s government accused rebel forces of using chemical weapons for the first time (AFP Photo / Sana)

The Western-backed theory that chemical weapons were taken from the Syrian government’s military compound is very doubtful, according to Ochsenreiter, because “the military compound where gas is stored is heavily guarded. The Syrian government knows exactly what might happen if this gas comes out.”

He said that the weapons might have been from Turkey as it is one of the “most important players in the conflict, which supports the so-called armed opposition” and “Turkey already used chemical weapons in battles against the Kurdish population and militia.”

There have been false statements before, for example the blame of the Syrian government for the June 2012 Houla massacre, which was later refuted “but it didn’t have any affect or result in diplomatic means” noted the German journalist.

Peace activist and journalist Ryan Dawson told RT that it would be difficult to determine where the weapons originated from as the so-called opposition has many outside sources financing it and aiding with weapons.

“We have the Gulf monarchs and Israel. Probably not directly from the US and Israel, because they like to have plausible deniability – they probably went through Qatar or Turkey.”

RT: There’s been widespread opinion, promoted by some major world powers that any chemical weapons use in Syria would only ever be down to the Assad regime. So are you surprised to hear it may have been the rebels using them?

Ryan Dawson: I’m not surprised, because we’ve heard that before, back in December there was a scare about chemical weapons and red lines being crossed. That turned out to be the terrorist mercenaries in Syria. And there was an Israeli airstrike following that in January. So this is the exact same scenario.

RT: If it turns out to be true, where would the rebels have got them from?

RD: It will be difficult to pen down because the so-called opposition has so many outside sources financing them and aiding with weapons. We have the Gulf monarchs and Israel. Probably not directly from the US and Israel, because they like to have plausible deniability – they probably went through Qatar or Turkey.

RT: This investigation is separate from the one launched by the UN’s own chief – so why are there two different probes being carried out by the same body?

RD: The first party to call for the UN investigation was the Syrian government themselves, that’s how confident they were that the mercenaries used the chemical weapons. When you look at it, the US and Israel don’t have a leg to stand on to be lecturing anybody about having or using chemical weapons

RT: Syria was hit this weekend by a series of Israeli airstrikes – do you have any ideas why the attacks took place? Was it really self-defense?

RD: Of course not. But its hard to explain Israel’s actions. You are not talking about a rational player. It’s not the first time Israel has struck inside of Syria. Israel from time to time invades Gaza, attacks Syria, they are trying to bolster their image in the Middle East and get the fear factor and deterrent for themselves. Yet again Israel will claim that Syria was shipping weapons to Hezbollah, which they consider a terrorist group. Though the Israelis are aiding the mercenaries in Syria, which have killed up to 70, 000 people. So concerning the chemical weapons killing a dozen or so people – that is just a red line, they are just looking for a pretext. The wanted to strike anyway.

RT: There are so many blank spaces in the story, mostly because Israel’s avoiding all questions about the strikes – Why is that? Do you think international bodies will move in to shatter this silent strategy?

RD: Israel is fishing for escalation; the mercenaries are starting to lose. You’ll see the Western powers backing the mercenary groups just enough to keep the perpetual conflict going. But there are no decisive battles. That’s the whole point, the profit from it, to destroy Syria from within.

RT: Could Israel face justice here?

RD: They ought to, but they won’t. Israel has absolute immunity from international bodies, because the US and Canada back them up no matter what they do. We are talking about a state that has open apartheid, open ethnic cleansing, they are colonizing Palestine, they shoot children at will – they are breaking UN resolutions and nothing ever happens. Israel felt confident that they could go on a clumsy pretext of chemical weapons and bomb whatever they want and get away with it.

via ‘Chemical weapons for Syrian opposition may have come from Turkey’ — RT Op-Edge.

May 7, 2013