Why Is Turkey’s Erdoğan Not Ecstatic?

The speed of events in Syria, bogged down in a frozen conflict since 2020, caught almost everyone by surprise. There is no doubt that the fall of the Assad regime will have enormous implications not only at the regional but also at the international level, which will take time to be understood more clearly.

However, that Russia and Iran have emerged as the biggest losers seems beyond doubt.

The unfolding Syrian crisis has made it abundantly clear how much the war in Ukraine has strained and drained Russia’s capabilities. Its self-declared status as a counter-balance to the US and as a great power wielding influence on a global scale has been dealt a huge blow. Iran, meanwhile, has seen the crumbling of its regional system of proxies.

The pundits now declare President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey as one of the biggest winners. Erdoğan’s supporters in Turkey have been deliriously chanting songs of victory since the start of the offensive, led by the Islamist Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militia.

Erdoğan himself must be content with “the magnificent revolution by the Syrian people”, as he put it. After all, since the advent of the civil war Turkey has played a key role in backing the rebel groups that ultimately deposed Bashar al-Assad.

Nevertheless, Erdoğan does not appear to be as ecstatic as his constituency. In fact, he is more poised than perhaps expected of him. That is probably because he is aware of, or at least doubtful about, the extent of his own power to influence events in a country that only cast off Turkish rule a century ago.

In recent years, weakened by a massive domestic economic crisis and growing public discontent at the presence of more than 3 million Syrian refugees, Erdoğan had sought, albeit grudgingly, normalization with Assad in order to ensure refugee returns.

Yet, Assad dismissed the Turkish overtures with rather visible disdain, which put any rapprochement with Syria beyond reach for policymakers in Ankara. Against this background, many reckon that Turkey must, at the very least, have greenlit the HTS’ lightning offensive out of Idlib province. But the Turks, like everyone else, probably anticipated only a limited operation with modest gains, just enough to make Assad more flexible. Instead, the HTS offensive proved a spectacular success.

It is doubtful that Turkey was ever the HTS puppet-master in the first place. Buoyed up by its victory, HTS might drift even further away from Turkey, particularly if it secures long-sought after Western support.

In fact, Abdulkadir Selvi, a journalist very close to Erdoğan’s party, the AKP, recently gave voice to the government’s growing concerns regarding the Assad regime collapse: “Syria is too important a country to be left to the HTS and [Abu Mohammad] al-Julani”.

It’s not unreasonable for Turkey to seek a payoff in Syria. It has, in Erdoğan’s own words, “made great sacrifices and put in significant effort to bring Syria to its current state.”

Erdoğan’s best-case scenario would be the installation of an AKP-modelled government in Damascus, as was the case in Egypt or Tunisia during the initial stages of Arab Spring, which would include Kurds but exclude the People’s Protection Units (YPG) (which Turkey sees as a mere extension of the PKK, a US and Turkish designated terrorist organization ) and protect the territorial integrity and unitary character of Syria.  

Thus, Erdoğan could hope to solve two critical problems facing his government: Syria’s Kurdish question, which would ultimately affect Turkey’s own Kurdish problem, and Syrian refugees in Turkey.

With the US backing the Syrian Kurds, the YPG, there are clear problems ahead. They constitute the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which is a significant player among the country’s armed factions.

Turkey is terrified that anti-Turkish Syrian Kurds will establish an autonomous region in Northern Syria contiguously extending alongside some six hundred miles of the Turkish-Syrian border.

With a new US administration waiting in the wings, future policy is unclear, but for now, it can be expected that Washington will seek to restrain any Turkish military action (there have already been Turkish attacks on YPG positions.) There is no doubt, however, that Ankara is resolved to fix the Kurdish issue to its own advantage.

In the wake of the Arab Spring, Erdoğan’s AKP has worked hard to fulfill its dream of becoming a regional leader through influence over the ruling Islamist (preferably Muslim Brotherhood) parties.

However, not all Islamists are alike. There is no guarantee that HTS will embrace Erdoğan as its big brother, if it manages to establish a government in Syria. The group, an offshoot of al-Qaeda-turned-ISIS-turned-Al-Nusra-turned “moderate” Islamist, may end up opting for a jihadist state. This would not only be a setback for Turkey but would also be seen as a threat by conservative regimes in Saudia Arabia and the Gulf. It would also generate chills in Washington and might spark a whole new round of violence and chaos.

The great risk now is that the opposition movements that had united as an umbrella group turn against each other now that the common enemy has been eliminated.

The heterogeneous character of the rebel groups and the likelihood of competition over the country’s resources make this prospect highly probable. This would be a most unwelcome news for Turkey and almost everyone with an interest in Syrian peace and stability.

Diplomats will have their work cut out.

Dr. Tuba Unlu Bilgic is Associate Professor, Department of International Studies and Modern Languages, University of St Thomas. She served as a career diplomat at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She has published books and articles on various aspects of American foreign policy, Turkish politics, the Middle East, and the European Union.

Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.