Turkey’s expectations frustrated by US-Russian deal on Syria: analysts

The deal struck by Russian and US leaders last week on settling the crisis in Syria is a blow to Turkey, forcing Ankara to overhaul its position about how to navigate the Arab country out of a war that has raged on for years, analysts told Xinhua.

The US-Russian joint statement created the impression that Turkey has been left out of the game in Syria, observed Cahit Armagan Dilek, director of the Ankara-based 21st Century Turkey Institute.

The joint statement goes counter to Ankara’s plan to move militarily against Kurdish militia in Syria’s Afrin, exclude them from the peace process and eliminate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as illegitimate.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday expressed his dissatisfaction with the joint statement which excludes military options, except against the Islamic State (IS), in the resolution of the Syrian conflict.

“If a military solution is out of the question, then they should pull their troops out,” he told the press in Istanbul before leaving for Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin.

“The [US and Russian] presidents agreed that there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria,” said the joint statement posted on Saturday on the Kremlin’s website, which promotes a political solution to the Syrian conflict through negotiations to be held in Geneva.

Such a development makes it difficult for Ankara to carry out a big military operation against Afrin, which has been broached time and again by top Turkish officials and seen probable by many analysts.

“Neither the US nor Russia should be expected to allow such a military operation,” said Dilek, a former staff officer in the Turkish military.

Turkish troops, backed by the Free Syrian Army rebel group, seized several towns, including al-Bab in northern Syria in their last operation launched in August last year in a bid to clear the IS militants and stop the Kurdish cantons from uniting along the Turkish border.

Afrin is one of the three cantons in Syria along the Turkish border now controlled by the Kurdish militia, known as People’s Protection Units (YPG), which are seen by Ankara as the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party outlawed for its armed struggle against the Turkish government for over 30 years.

If Ankara launches a military operation against Afrin without a green light from Moscow and Washington, it is likely to draw a negative response from them, remarked Faruk Logoglu, a former senior Turkish diplomat.

Russia has a military presence in Afrin and had signaled earlier in the year that it would support the YPG against a potential Turkish intervention by releasing video clips of Russian flags and troops accompanying the Kurdish militia.

For its part, the US has relied on the YPG as a ground force against the IS and provided it with military equipment despite repeated Turkish outcries.

Noting the joint statement puts Russia and the US squarely in the driver’s seat in the Syrian theater, Logoglu said “Turkey should review all aspects of its Syrian policy in the light of the elements in the joint declaration, consolidate its military gains over there and refrain from further operations until the situation on the ground becomes clearer.”

Under a deal reached with Russia and Iran in Kazakhstan’s Astana, some Turkish troops have been in Idlib province since last month to monitor a truce between the Syrian government and rebel groups.

Referring to the big US and Russian military presence in Syria as proof of the joint statement twisting the facts on the ground, Erdogan said in Istanbul that “the world is no fool.” Following talks with Putin in Sochi on Monday evening, Erdogan said, however, that Ankara and Moscow agreed that it is now time to focus on a political solution in Syria.