The President of Turkey, Reccip Tayyip Erdogan, continues to lead different diplomatic efforts in the region with the aim of establishing himself as one of the most influential countries when it comes to establishing diplomatic relations in the Middle East area in their attempts to present themselves as a “trustworthy” partner.
Although Turkey has shown itself to be an opponent of the Al-Asad regime, coming to link it on multiple occasions as a country that finances jihadism in SyriaAnkara would be trying to get closer to Damascus, following in the footsteps of other countries, in normalizing relations with Syria after the civil war.
Although the government of al-Asad has not ruled on a possible rapprochement – a situation that is still far from being staged – Turkey continues to cooperate and strengthen ties with Russia, another of Syria’s main partners. The key to this rapprochement could be seen in the meeting held on August 5, which managed to seat the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, together with his Turkish counterpart, being the second time that both leaders have seen each other in just one month. In this meeting, both leaders discussed the current situation of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, after Russia decided to start its invasion six months ago, in addition to talking about the economic crisis that Syria is currently going through.
In this sense, Russia would be trying to play an important role as a mediator in bringing Syria and Turkey closer as possible partners, something that would also mean a diplomatic victory for Moscow since it would have an alliance of marked geostrategic importance, which would also serve to expand and strengthen its influence.
Besides Russia, For Turkey, approaching Syria contains in itself a very important strategy to fulfill its objectives of ending the PKK after having launched different military operations that aim to eliminate the members of the political party.. In this sense, the government of al-Asad would now be a transcendental piece to end “the Kurdish threat” in the Turkish territories and in the north of Syria, where they currently live in different cantons. Even more so after Ankara has also launched an operation against the Kurds in Iraq, causing significant casualties among the Kurdish side.
After this meeting, which in itself harbors important symbolism, the general secretary of the left-wing nationalist Vatan party, Özgür Bursal, stated that the meeting is for Turkey “a historic opportunity” to end the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which they themselves brand as “a terrorist threat”.
As he has commented, the success of the “anti-terrorist” operation that Turkey began with the aim of ending the Kurdistan regions in northern Syria lies in “regional cooperation”, where “the rapprochement between Turkey and Syria should play a key role. Recently, a delegation from our party, headed by Ethem Sandzhak, held high-level meetings with officials of the Russian Government. In the event that Turkish-Syrian cooperation is established, Russia is ready to declare its full support for the operation planned by Turkey,” she stated.
He also added that, if there is finally cooperation between Syria and Turkey, the situation could lead to a change “in the global balance of power and end the US presence in the region”in a context in which, according to what it affirms, Syria would cooperate in the elimination of the PKK since, “the recent declarations and actions of the Syrian Government point to the formation of appropriate conditions for the elimination of the threat of terrorism from the Workers’ Party of the Kurdistan”.
On the other hand, the deputy of the Turkish Parliament from the ruling Islamist party for Justice and Development (AKP), emphasized that, despite the fact that Turkey is a NATO member country, it would have managed to maintain good relations with the Eastern bloc. especially with Russia. According to him, Turkey has been able to maintain a dialogue “both with the West and with the East” and is doing “efforts to ensure that regional wealth is available to all countries”.
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