On October 7, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that the Syrian opposition, backed by Ankara, had launched a new operation in the province of Idlib, northwest of Syria, controlled by the Sham Liberation Organization in which al-Nusrat front is the most important of its components previously , Erdogan said in a speech during the consultative and evaluation meeting of the Justice and Development Party held in the Turkish state of “Opium” : “Today is a serious operation in Idlib and will continue during the next stage. We are taking a new step towards security in Idlib as part of our efforts to expand the range of Euphrates Shield.
The Turkish intervention raised questions about the dangers of invading northern Syria if Turkey had not received a green light from Russia and Iran, amid leaks that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan succeeded in his recent visit to Iran in an agreement with Iranian officials on a secret road map to manage the conflict in Syria and Iraq, Especially regarding the reduction of the Kurdish role. Ankara, which says the attack comes in line with the Astana agreement to establish a de-escalation zone in Idlib, seeks to resume what it failed to achieve during its months-long offensive to establish a safe zone on its border with Syrian aimed at preventing the control of Syrian Kurds on border land .
Turkey failed to achieve significant results in that intervention because the United States sided with Syria’s democratic forces(QSD) which were formed with American support to expel ISIS from al-Riqa , especially as a strong field paper in the hands of Washington to negotiate to determine the shape of the future political solution in Syria before the change of equation on the ground for the benefit of Russia and behind it Iran and the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The situation has now changed completely, and Turkey, which disagreed with the American ally despite having laid its eggs in the basket of Washington, is not completely isolated, and its relationship became strong with Russia and Iran after it accepted to be moved in Syria under the umbrella of Russia, which paved the way with Tehran and Damascus, despite the pro-Assad media’s attack on the sabotage role of Turkey in the north of the country. The question arises in this context: Will the new Turkish intervention succeed in Syria?
The Turkish military operation preceded by, as it is clear, another intelligence operation of no less importance. Its aim is to avoid a bloody battle between the advanced Turkish forces and the Fath al-Sham Front (and other allied factions). This battle will cost the Turkish army a lot of losses in spirits and equipments as it will put Turkey in a difficult situation by making it in a confrontation with parties on the opposite side of the Syrian regime that will put it, in the eyes of many Syrians and Turks, in a narrow trench that combines it not only with Russia and Iran, but with the regime as well which had been hostile to it for many years.
The confrontation can also lead to a number of troubling possibilities. The agreement that allowed Turkey to move on the ground only meant that Russia would be the party in charge of providing air protection to the Turkish forces and that Russia could exploit any clashes with forces against its ally the Syrian regime on the ground leading to a Russian-Turkish partnership to eliminate these forces. The worst is that air strikes, as usual in Russia, will turn into a collective punishment of civilians in Idlib, which will hurt Ankara’s reputation and inspire many against it, not only in Syria but also within its Turkish masses.
News indicate that Turkey’s political and security apparatuses have succeeded in ensuring a safe approach to its forces from Idlib, but other news provide of limited clashes between them and “jihadists” which shows that the road is not quite easy and that the entry of the Turkish army to Idlib will not be a safe and easy journey in all its variants.
The issues are not related to the ability of the Turkish security services to “convince” the Fath al-Sham frontier of the enormous danger of confrontation with its army. The Front also knows that it is unable to wage a major battle with Turkey, and that the costs will be disastrous for it. Also to Idlib’s residents, who will be just like the destructive experience of the city of Raqqa and Mosul and its towns and villages, a suicide option that does not fit with some of the features of political realism shown by the Front in the past, as it did when it announced its abandonment of the relationship with Al Qaeda, and when sought more than once to declare its distinction from the “Islamic state” and acquitted from any alliance with it.
The official Turkish media focused on another strategic role of the operation aimed at creating a “security belt” around the Kurdish Afrin, which prevents contact with Al-Hasakah and Qamishli, a scheme that the PKK has been working on for years through the Democratic Union faction in Syria which seeks to link the three cities and areas mentioned within the framework of the so-called «Rojava», or the Kurdistan State of Syria.
Therefore, the Turkish intervention in northern Syria was aimed at protecting its national security. This is confirmed by the statement of the Turkish Defense Minister Noureddine Ganikli, who said that Turkey should remain in the province of Idlib northern Syria until the disappearance of the threat to Ankara. Analysts believe that Ankara’s main goal of sending troops and armed loyalists from some of the Syrian opposition factions to Idlib is to prevent the possibility of the Kurdish region in northern Syria. Ganikli stressed that the presence of his forces in Idlib is necessary at present, and until the end of the threat that threatens Turkey. Ankara considers the Kurdish People’s Protection Units deployed in the Syrian north near the border with Turkey to support the PKK, which has been fighting Turkey for decades. Ankara is working to isolate the city of Afrin in the northern countryside of Aleppo, which is controlled by Kurdish units.
The military experts believe that in order to achieve Turkey’s national goals in Syria, it plays on various fronts to achieve its strategy of creating a border belt loyal to it and be a tool to serve its agenda, whether to pressure on Assad, and to participate in determining the future of Syria, or what is concerned about cutting the road on the Kurdish dream in Syria before extending to its Kurds. They pointed out that Turkey coordinated to pass its strategy with groups of conflicting interests such as the hardline Islamist groups classified as terrorist, and with factions and leaders of the free army, most of which broke away from the regime and carried liberal ideas, as well as Ankara’s coordination with Tehran, which was supported during Erdogan’s recent visit to Iran, In which a roadmap as done for the joint Iranian-Turkish work in Syria and Iraq, and that Baghdad and Damascus are just spectators in the game of nations going on now.
The process is still in its start, and the political and military parties involved in its success or failure are many. Therefore, we are expected to witness the emergence of conflicting political and military calculations in the form of reactions, not only from the Fatah al-Sham front, but also from the Kurds, the Syrian regime, Iran …. And Russia itself.
Turkish Studies Unit
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies