How Turkey is planning for Assad-led transition in Syria
Ankara is still struggling to adjust its Syria policy, indexed to the slogan “Bashar al-Assad must leave now,” to a new course being shaped by the US-Russian dialogue. It was Ankara that had to explain President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s remark, “a transition with Assad is possible,” after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
Summary
Ankara, still blurry, now agrees to name Bashar al-Assad ‘honorary president’ for six months.
Author Fehim Taştekin Posted October 22, 2015
TranslatorTimur Göksel
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu immediately followed up by saying, "We think that having Assad in power will not allow the transition administration [to be] a transitory one. Our opinion has not changed.’’
On Oct. 19, a high-ranking official in Ankara gave an "off the record" briefing to a group of Turkish columnists. He said nine countries, including Turkey, the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, have agreed on a formula for a six-month transition under Assad’s leadership.
Since the disclosure was made by a top official, it has to be taken seriously — even though two days later, Davutoglu reiterated that Assad should have no role in Syria's future whatsoever. Commenting on Assad's trip to Russia this week, Davutoglu was widely quoted in the international media as saying he wished Assad had stayed in Russia to give the Syrian people some relief.
Those are some of the publicly noticed waverings of Ankara and the impasse it is confronted with.
According to what our "selected" colleagues who were invited to the "off-record" briefing were told, Turkey has approved an Assad-led transition under two conditions:
The process must end with Assad's absolute departure from his post.
None of the important state bodies, above all the army and intelligence services, must be under Assad’s control. That is, Assad must "lead" the transition only as a strictly symbolic president.
One of the journalists compared the “symbolic president for a specified period’ with the German president's limited role in that country's parliamentary government. Another defined it as “ineffective and unauthorized honorary president.”
This is how the condition for Assad’s destiny was worded: “The transition should prepare the country for a post-Assad period and must determine whether Assad will be tried for war crimes or not, or whether he will be exiled.”
Journalists at the briefing were told that the nine countries named had agreed on transition conditions before US President Barack Obama met Putin on Sept. 28 in New York. Obama informed Putin of the agreement. Russia at that time did not respond. These journalists were told that Russia was then asked, "Why don’t you take Assad?” to which Russia replied, “It could be problematic in our relations with the West. We might be asked to hand him over as a war criminal.”
According to another journalist who was at the Ankara briefing, Turkey has prepared its own plan of five to six elements. The plan was shared by Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioglu with his Russian counterpart Sept. 17 and by Erdogan with Putin on Sept. 23.
The briefing in Ankara offered potentially important information, some of which is highly questionable, about developments in Syria and how the actors perceive the situation:
Russia was persuaded to intervene after Iran’s warning that Assad was about to fall.
Maj. Gen. Qasem Suleimani, commander of Al Quds Brigade of Iran, relocated to Damascus from Baghdad. Suleimani commands not only Hezbollah but also other Shiite and pro-Assad militias.
The US-supported Kurdish nationalist Democratic Union Party (PYD) wants to open a corridor between Aleppo and Afrin with Iranian ground support.
Moscow’s recognition of the PYD as a legitimate force, just as the United States did, is a crucial question for Ankara. Turkey has warned Washington that it will hit the PYD if weapons the United States gave the PYD are used against Turkey. The United States was asked, “Do you prefer a force of a couple thousand to your major ally?”
The Islamic State (IS) has been hurt more by al-Qaeda’s Syrian extension Jabhat al-Nusra than by the PYD. Ankara told the United States, "We are not giving weapons to Nusra and you should not give guns to the PYD.”
IS made a deal with the PYD at Hasakah on May 28. In other words, the PYD is cooperating with the United States as well as with Assad and IS.
Russia is deploying forces at Qamishli and Hasakah with the assistance of the PYD.
Iran, too, has made agreements with the PYD and IS. The PYD met with Iran and Assad, and Assad met with IS and the PYD.
Ankara has been at war with IS since July 6 but doesn’t talk about it so as not to publicize IS.
It is not surprising to me, as a journalist who has attended such briefings, that all this very questionable information was given out as “state information.”
Turkey has been removed from reality in Syria for a long time. From the beginning, Turkey’s analysis of Syria lacked knowledge of the field. Our bitter experience tells us how much our field information needs verification, but when such high-level briefings are run in a way as to merely share tidbits, that also tells us our habits have not changed at all.
Turkey, not to contradict its own narrative, does not want to admit the Syrian army’s attacks on IS positions. Ankara believes that the Kurds cannot pursue their own agenda and can only serve as somebody else’s tools. Also, by thinking that the autonomy moves at Rojava were exclusively by the Kurds, Ankara ignored local dynamics.
For Ankara, the PYD and its armed branch, the People's Protection Units (YPG) — which has become the partner of the United States — was nothing more than Kurdish shabiha (local militias) working for Assad.
Somehow Turkey believed Russia was about to sell out Syria, Russia's most critical ally in the Middle East — hence Turkey's total surprise at Russia’s mind-boggling intervention.
Controversial information supplied by "Syrian opposition" and/or sources linked to Islamist organizations played parts in shaping Turkey’s Syrian policy. It is common to hear from Istanbul-based Syrian opposition figures about claims of collaboration between PYD-Assad, IS-PYD, IS-Assad and Iran-IS. But for Turkey's foreign minister to use these unverified claims in diplomatic contacts and public diplomacy makes it difficult for Turkey to chart its own distinct course. It is now time to correct our mistakes, but Ankara still cannot follow a straight course without bumping into others. That is why Turkey is arguing not only with its most important trade partner, Russia, and crucial neighbors Iran and Iraq, but also with its NATO ally, the United States.
Moreover, Turkey had already agreed to transition with Assad before Russia’s direct intervention in Syria.
The groups Turkey sees leading the transition are retreating every day under Russia’s air attacks and ground operations of the Syrian Army, Hezbollah, National Defense Force militias of the regime, Baath brigades and the Nceba movement made up of Iraqi militias. In other words, by breaking apart the elements lauded as alternatives, Russia is making the cards held by Turkey and its allies invalid.
Naturally, Russia, which has not responded to the formula developed by nine nations, will have a totally different proposal after it changes the field equations in favor of the Syrian army.
Ankara’s reading of regional developments allows it to hatch a multitude of plots. Turkey underestimates the resistance and organizing skills of local elements and assumes that Iran and Russia have absolute power over Damascus. It ignores how the Russian and Iranian presence in Syria depends mostly on the governance capacity of the Damascus regime.
Russia developed a major military plan for Syria because it counted on the Syrian regime’s capacity for resistance and governance despite its desperate situation. If that regime had lost its ability to manage the crisis, Russia would have not attempted such a major undertaking. One must not forget that the alliance between Russia and Syria has passed all tests for years. The Damascus government, both under father Hafez al-Assad and now under son Bashar, has overcome all efforts to disrupt this alliance.
Read more:
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/10/turkey-syria-russia-ankara-queasy-assad-honorary-president.html#ixzz3pPDscmBk
