U.S. officials can use an emerging rift in Syria to push Turkey and Russia toward a divorce and renew U.S.-Turkish relations, said an analysis in conservative U.S. outlet The National Interest.
Turkish observation posts in and around Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province have in recent months come under fire from Russian-backed Syrian government forces, and Ankara’s appeals to Moscow have made little impact, Nicholas Morgan, an independent security analyst specialising in Russia and Turkey, wrote in National Interest on Sunday.
He said Moscow saw Turkey as not upholding its end of the ceasefire deal struck a year ago by failing to force out Idlib’s extremists, whose presence Syrian President Bashar Assad used as a pretext to violate the deal. Launched in late April, the Syrian offensive has driven some 500,000 Syrians toward the Turkish border, threatening another wave of refugees.
“The U.S should recognise how squeezed for options Turkey is as Russia pushes Idlib towards implosion. Amidst a weakening economy and increased coolness towards Syrian migrants, Idlib’s fall and the accompanying challenges represent an existential threat to Turkish stability,” said Morgan.
Moscow has condemned the U.S-Turkey deal to create a safe-zone in northeast Syria to curb tensions between Turkish forces and the Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG), seeing it as an infringement of Syria’s territorial sovereignty, according to Morgan.
He believes Moscow is repeating the kind of behaviour that led Turkey to seek Russian partnership in the first place: Turkey viewed the United States’ alliance with Kurdish militants against Islamic State (ISIS) as a betrayal of Turkish concerns because of ties between the YPG and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
By keeping the YPG away from Turkish forces, the United States can use the safe zone to restore trust with Ankara at the expense of Moscow, according to Morgan.
“If the deal to separate the YPG and Turkey endures, the U.S can afford to focus more on Idlib where its envoy to Syria Jim Jeffrey has testified that Turkish and American interests are more aligned,” said Morgan.
“A credible U.S. pledge to assist and protect Turkey from attack in Idlib could do much to curtail actions that risk wider confrontation, as well as encourage Russia to restrain Assad from targeting Turkish positions,” he said, adding that the United States could also help Turkey target Idlib’s extremists, led by al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
A key concern is that the Syrian offensive could drive these fighters toward and even into Turkey, according to Morgan, and the United States could help Turkey fulfil its ceasefire commitment.
U.S officials have called Idlib rebel forces the world’s largest collection of al-Qaeda linked factions and conducted strikes to curb this threat, according to Morgan.
“Both can engage in sharing information related to these groups to better enable Turkey or its proxies to dismantle or remove the group’s most dangerous elements on the ground,” said Morgan.
“While it does not clear the way of all of the tension that exists between the two,” he said, “providing aid to Turkey in an hour of desperation can do much to win new influence in Syria’s aftermath and wrench Turkey further away from Russia.”
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