Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan could end up as one of the biggest winners of the fall of the Assad regime after battling years of instability and isolation as a result of the Syrian civil war that has been raging on his doorstep for 13 years.
Speaking on Saturday in Gaziantep, one of a number of border towns transformed by the conflict and the millions of refugees it has created, the Turkish leader declared a “new diplomatic and political reality in Syria” after more than a decade of supporting the Syrian armed opposition.
It remains unclear to what extent Ankara supported the blitzkrieg offensive over the past two weeks that toppled the government of Bashar al-Assad on Sunday. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist group that led the attack, has a complicated relationship with Turkey.
But many analysts are convinced that Erdoğan, who once called the Syrian president a “butcher”, will profit politically and economically from his newfound position as the country’s most influential foreign actor after the fall of Assad, who was backed by Russia and Iran.
“After the Syrians, Turkey is the biggest winner here,” said Ömer Özkizilcik, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank. “When everyone else abandoned the Syrians, when no other country supported the opposition, Turkey did not abandon them,” he added.
Erdoğan lent his support to the wave of Arab uprisings that swept the Middle East in 2011, fueled by hopes of empowering allies of his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP). He stuck by them even when the US and other Western powers that had initially supported the rebellion backed out.
He welcomed more than 3 million Syrian refugees as “brothers and sisters” and provided weapons and training to rebel groups fighting the Syrian president.
As hopes of regime change faded as Assad was rescued by Moscow and Tehran, and Turkey faced a widening conflict, Erdoğan shifted his focus to fighting Kurdish forces, whom Ankara considers terrorists, while making gains in north-eastern Syria.
Recently, Erdoğan moved with Assad but was rebuffed. “The regime in Damascus could never understand the value of the hand Turkey extended,” the Turkish president complained on Saturday.
Yet even as it reached out to Assad, Turkey continued to support the rebels and also provided a lifeline to the HTS stronghold of Idlib, for years the last province held by the opposition. It also controlled a swath of territory elsewhere in northern Syria and continued to support a rebel group operating under the name Syrian National Army.
These ties to opposition groups that on Sunday realized their long-held dream of capturing Damascus leave Erdoğan better placed than any other foreign leader to take advantage of their expected rise to power – even if the situation also remains highly volatile and uncertain.
One big hope for Erdoğan is that the fall of Assad will allow many of Turkey’s roughly 3 million Syrian refugees to return. Their continued presence is deeply unpopular even among his supporters. Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said last week, after the rebel capture of Aleppo, that 1.3 million Syrians in Turkey had come from the city and many “couldn’t contain their excitement” about returning.
The fall of the Assad regime could also change the balance of power in the complex relationship between Erdoğan and Vladimir Putin, who have supported opposing sides not only in Syria but also in other conflicts, including Libya. “Turkey is likely to take a more assertive stance in the region,” Wolfango Piccoli, of consultancy Teneo, said in a note to clients, adding that it would also strengthen Ankara’s position vis-à-vis Iran.
Turkey, which is already struggling with high inflation and recession, would benefit from the restoration of full business and trade ties along the 900 km long Syrian-Turkish border. Its construction sector, which has close ties to Erdoğan, could cash in on a reconstruction bill expected to run into the hundreds of billions of dollars. “If peace is achieved, it’s a big opportunity,” said the CEO of one of Turkey’s biggest construction companies.
Yet despite the potential for Turkey, there is also huge uncertainty about what kind of government will fill the vacuum created by the stunning collapse of the Assad regime and what kind of relationship it will have with its northern neighbor.
Although Ankara never controlled HTS — which it classifies as a terrorist group — it had influence when the organization was holed up in Idlib with Turkey as its main route to the outside world. It remains unclear what influence he will hold on the group’s leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani now that he and his allies had taken over the whole country.
Basic peace and stability are far from guaranteed, with the risk that further conflict could force other refugees to flee towards Turkey. İlhan Üzgel, a senior figure in Turkey’s staunchly secular CHP opposition party, expressed fear that Erdoğan had “created the conditions for the emergence of a new Afghanistan” on its border.
Since Turkey is still associated in the minds of many Syrians with the Ottoman Empire – which hanged nationalist dissidents in central Damascus – it will have to be careful not to overstep the mark in the coming weeks and months. Jolani called for a national dialogue without foreign interference.
Ankara could cause discontent if it tries to impose its will on the new authorities, said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkey Research Program at the Washington Institute. “The Ottoman legacy is shaping the way Arabs will see Turkey coming in and becoming a new patron,” he said.
Another big question is what role the Syrian Kurds will play in the future government and whether they will retain some of the hard-won autonomy they have gained in the northeast.
Ankara would be wary of any talks between the new government in Damascus and Kurdish armed groups. It considers the latter terrorists with close ties to its decades-old enemy, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, insisted on Sunday that any groups that are “an extension of the PKK” cannot be part of talks on the future of Syria.
The future role of the US, which has backed Kurdish forces as part of the fight against Islamic State and has kept around 900 troops in Syria, also remains unclear. President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that the Syrian conflict is “not our fight.”
Sinem Adar, a fellow at the German Institute for International Affairs and Security in Berlin, said that with events moving so quickly and many aspects of Syria’s future still unclear, it was too early to say whether Erdoğan would ultimately emerge as triumphant from the events of the past two weeks. “Everything is still up in the air,” she said. “I am not convinced that Turkey has full control over the situation.”
Cartography by Steven Bernard
