Türkiye is trying to play down its role in the spectacular overthrow of Bashar al-Assad. But you’d have to be blind not to see it. In 2016, after the battle of Aleppo won by Assad loyalist forces backed by Russia and the Lebanese Hezbollah, the HTS Islamists took refuge in Syria’s northwest corner, in Idlib. The only supply route was through Türkiye.
Anxious to stem the flow of Syrian refugees, Türkiye facilitated the delivery of humanitarian aid from its territory. It also deployed a number of military units. Western experts were on hand to transform Mohammed al-Joulani, decreed by Washington to be a dangerous terrorist, into a cigarless Che Guevara-style freedom fighter.
Meanwhile, the Islamist militia, said to number 30,000 soldiers, was trained and equipped. You can guess by whom. On December 12, just four days after the fall of Assad, Ibrahim Kalin, the powerful head of the Turkish secret service, prayed at the Umayyad mosque. Quite a symbol. Built in the early eighth century, this architectural gem houses the relics of St. John the Baptist. Next door is the tomb of Saladin, the man who drove the Crusaders from Jerusalem in 1187.
The capture of Damascus by their HTS allies was a major success for the Turks. The next step in this part of the world will be to oust the Kurdish militias associated with the Turkish PKK from northeastern Syria, where they benefit from American protection and Syrian oil resources, captured in 2016.
Despite its economic difficulties — chronic inflation of 50-75%, a budget deficit in excess of 5% of GDP, dependence on Russian hydrocarbons — Türkiye does not hesitate to invest in what it considers to be the best interests of the nation. It has massively developed its defense industry over the last ten years. Its arms exports are set to rise by 25% by 2023. But Ankara also invests in its diplomacy.
The combination of pen and cannon in the projection of Turkish influence in the world could not have been better illustrated than at the start of the war in Ukraine. In 2022, while Erdoğan was mediating between Putin and Zelensky, he was delivering drones to Ukraine. And this President of a NATO member country was collecting twenty billion from Moscow for a concession to build and operate a nuclear power plant on the Mediterranean coast. Uncle Sam frowned, of course. But the ally’s geostrategic position excuses its talent for turbulence.
While his HTS allies were celebrating their victory in Damascus, the head of Turkish diplomacy, Hakan Fidan, was already in Qatar meeting the two defeated powers, Russia and Iran. In the Turkish mindset, there is no contradiction: There are only interests. Ankara has defeated its two powerful neighbors on Syrian soil, but that doesn’t prevent it from seeking to maintain good relations with them. Military and diplomatic power are two vectors of Turkish influence in the world. Where does one begin and the other end? We need to ask the question: What drives Erdoğan and his troops?
In 2021, the Turkish President published a book entitled “The World is Bigger than Five”, a plea for reform of the United Nations Security Council to reflect the cultural, religious and geographical diversity of a multipolar world. Even if he doesn’t make the specific claim, it’s clear that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan believes Türkiye should have a privileged place in the new world governance he is calling for. Straddling two continents, heir to a multicultural empire stretching from the heart of Europe to the Indian Ocean, capital of the Muslim world for centuries, Türkiye wants to rid itself of the American tutelage imposed after the 20th century’s two world wars. It wants to play its own part and believes it has a vocation to play a global role. Didn’t Napoleon say that if the world were a state, Istanbul would be its capital?
If you want to realize your dreams of greatness, you have to start on your own doorstep. Türkiye’s top priority is the Kurdish question. Ankara denies the existence of a “Kurdish problem.” The problem is the PKK, a terrorist organization of Bolshevik inspiration, according to Türkiye. It pursues a separatist struggle from Syria, where it calls itself the YPG and enjoys American support.
The offensive launched by HTS on November 27 was accompanied by another offensive, this time directed eastwards along the Turkish Syrian border. It aimed at creating a 30 km buffer zone inside Syria, free of Kurdish forces. The Americans intervened diplomatically to halt the advance of Ankara-affiliated forces, known as the Syrian National Army, even though they had already crossed the Euphrates.
Erdoğan may be expecting to negotiate from a position of strength after his victory in Damascus and in anticipation of Trump’s arrival at the White House, who has announced his intention to withdraw the 900 or 1,000 American troops remaining in Syria. But he may be tempted to finish the job before the unpredictable macho man with the blond locks takes office.
Türkiye’s foreign policy is not just geographically oriented. It operates in all directions, at 360 degrees. We’ve talked about Syria. We didn’t mention that normalization in this part of the Middle East could lead to the construction of a pipeline from Qatar to Europe. Through Türkiye, of course. And peace in Ukraine, promised by Trump, could also make the west of the country a hub for Russian hydrocarbons. Covering everything from the battleground of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — “Gaza is Adana”, Erdoğan hammered home, recalling the common Ottoman destiny of the two cities — to the borders of China (the Uighurs are considered cousins by the Turks), via the Eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and even — as we have just seen with the Ethiopia-Somalia agreement signed in Ankara on December 11 — Africa, Turkish diplomacy makes the head spin.
A symbolic example: China. Far from the ineffectual Western incantations lamenting the Uyghur genocide, Hakan Fidan took the trouble to visit the Uyghur autonomous region of Xinjiang in June 2024, a first for a minister from a NATO member country. Beijing wants to cajole Ankara, a choice stopover for the new Silk Road, just as Istanbul was for the old one. The Chinese understand the Turkish influence on these distant cousins occupying what was once called “Chinese Turkestan.”
In its quest for the rebirth of an empire, Erdoğan’s Türkiye can rely on a triumvirate of strongmen driven by the same impulses: a deep-rooted spirituality rooted in the Sufi movement and the irrepressible desire to reconnect with the country’s Ottoman past.
Who are these three personalities? Hakan Fidan, Minister of Foreign Affairs after ten years as head of the secret service; Ibrahim Kalin, Fidan’s successor in the service after advising Erdoğan, and Erdoğan himself. Collectively they have more experience than any of their Western colleagues. Their religious values are at least as powerful a fuel as the woke values now prevalent among their European counterparts.
Above all, they have a crucial advantage over their European counterparts: They have the luxury of strategic patience.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
