Turkish President Erdogan cut a deal last month with Russia to stop a massacre in northern Syria, but the story doesn’t end there. Indeed, it’s just beginning.
Ahmet Yayla,
To forestall what promised to be a truly terrible massacre by the Syrian regime and Russian airpower last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cut a deal.
The “Memorandum of Stabilization of the Situation in the Idlib De-escalation Area,” as it is called, was signed with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sept. 17, and had several provisions, including a wide buffer zone around the city of Idlib. But the heart of it was a promise by Erdogan to withdraw “all radical terrorist groups” holed up there, including some 10,000 in a group formerly associated with al Qaeda that now uses the name Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS.
The deadline set was Oct. 15, which is to say less than a week from now.
For three million people trapped in the city of Idlib and its environs, anything that could forestall a full-scale bombing assault was a great relief. For Erdogan, would-be sultan that he is, it may be a political masterstroke.
But when he promises to disarm 10,000 al Qaeda-linked fighters and give them free passage out of the area, where’s he thinking they’ll go?
Indications are that Erdogan plans to use them for his own ends, eventually pitting them against Kurdish fighters that have been backed by the United States. Those forces, known as the People’s Protection Units or YPG, are closely linked to Kurdish PKK rebels inside Turkey. But the Americans chose to downplay, ignore or deny those Kurdish terrorist ties as they came to rely on the YPG in the ground war against the so-called Islamic State, which is now largely defeated.
“When Erdogan promises to disarm 10,000 al Qaeda-linked fighters and give them free passage out of the area, where’s he thinking they’ll go?”
For the moment—and the clock is ticking—HTS, which controls 60 percent of Idlib, has yet to accept the plan, and one might wonder why Erdogan thinks they will.
But Erdogan is not so naïve that he’d take on a burden like this without careful calculation, and in truth, he—or his intelligence services—have a long record working with Syrian jihadists, including some of the most radical.
On the coercive side, Turkey has both its own troops and armor in the area and clients in the form of a new rebel coalition force calling itself the National Front for Liberation (yes, the NFL). It lines up with the long established Free Syrian Army (FSA). HTS says it’s not signing up, but 12 groups, including Ahrar al-Sham, Nour al-Din al-Zenki, and some reportedly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, have joined forces under Turkey’s umbrella. They claim a total strength close to 100,000.
Turkey also controls two large cities on the Syrian-Turkish border, Afrin and al-Bab, maintaining a military presence and supporting loyal local FSA fighters paid by the Turkish government.
It would seem Turkey has ample military power, compared to 10,000 HTS fighters in and around Idlib, if it has to enforce the memorandum.
But there are carrots as well as sticks. Turkey has invested heavily in a Turkish sphere of influence in Northern Syria since the beginning of the conflict in 2011. Both local people and the armed factions received generous humanitarian aid, supplies, food and hot meals from the Turkish government agencies and Turkish NGOs such as the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH). Turkey opened schools and sent teachers of Turkish along with a curriculum favorable to Turkey. Turkish imams also were dispatched to build a long term presence. And at this point most of the locals living in Idlib have family members already living in Turkey, which contributes to positive feelings toward Erdogan.
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