The Deadly Peace Washington as a bump in the way of the Turkish-Syrian reconciliation

Daryous Darwish


Albeit the Turkish-Syrian re-engagement initiative is being firmly favored by Russia, and Ankara has been claimed this process is just in need of the final touches to share of the reconciliation pie. Nonetheless, the situation on the ground reflects the contrary and shows a serious issue can hamper the achievement of Russian desired goals and terminate re-engagement and doomed to failure before it begins, and the question about the purposes of Turkey and Russian endorsement.
Erdogan’s statement on the meeting with al-Assad similarly with al-Sisi , 27/11/2022, under the slogan ” THERE IS NO PERMENENT HOSTILITY IN POLITICS”, on top of that, the Turkish foreign minister statement Cavusoglu on handing over the Turkish-occupied territories to Damascus was just a process of dangling the carrot for Russia to withdraw its troops alongside the borders with SDF ( Kobane, Manbij, Tal Rifat) paving the way for the Turkish-backed forces to invade them by aerial and ground shelling and subsequent forced demographic change as was the case with Efren and Ras al-Ayn.

Stationing U.S forces in northeast Syria has foundered the Turkish dreams in seduction Russia, because the latter will be satisfied if Turkey marches towards to SDF, but Russia still has that nightmare of redeploying the U.S troops, nevertheless, the withdraw in Trump’s tenure 2019 paved the way to Russia to gain a foothold after SDF permeation. So that, SDF and Biden’s administration don’t mind troops return, and what really exacerbating and elevating the Russian concerns is the U.S opposition to the so-called Turkish-Syrian re-engagement, on the other hand, the receiving of US anti-tank weapons giving privilege and the sufficient time to return the US troops and secure the region from the Turkish onslaught.

The latter scenario means a powerful blow to the Russian strategy in Syria, knowing that Moscow has been using the long-standing conflict between Turkey and Kurds to confront U.S boots and western influence and for that purpose Russia had been making many concessions, particularly, when Putin bit the bullet as Turkey shot down a Russian jetfighter in 2015, furthermore, excluding Turkey in Political-Solution talks and legitimizing the Turkish presence in Syria through the de-escalation agreements, bidding constitutional and laws albeit they were not as interesting as they should be for SDF to strike a deal with Syrian regime and push U.S out Syria.

On top of that, the Turkish attempts to induce Russia for reaching an agreement cannot in any case compensate the return of U.S boots to Kobani and Manbij. Normalization ties with Damascus does not have benefits in comparison with the sanctions could be imposed by U.S, promises to restore the regime's control over the Turkish occupation areas after returning millions of refugees to them will only serve to increase its bloodshed, while exacerbating its economic problems many times what they are now.
In that regard, it seems evident the Russian emphasis on raising the profile of the Syrian-Turkish re-engagement in spite of the potential strategic hazards, but this agreement has a hidden goals; on the first hand, its propaganda can be used to consolidate Erdogan’s position in the upcoming election by robbing the soul of his opposition as they call for the return of the refugees and that obviously debunks the reality of being Erdogan as the best candidate for Russia’s Putin, On the other hand, Russia is betting that the SDF's conviction that the agreement is imminent and implemented, and thus envisioning its expected catastrophic results, may lead it, through Kurdish popular pressure, to search for quick solutions with the regime that guarantee them the minimum protection against the promised annihilation by Turkey. Russia is also betting that the same conviction in the Islamist opposition forces in Syria will lead to a line of reconciliation with Russian guarantees that protect them from the massacres of the regime and its intelligence prisons.

The pro-Syrian Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar once wrote that the U.S was standing in the way of achieving peace in Syria. Although this statement is not far from reality, it overlooks that reconciliation between Turkey and Syria is the peace of the dead, a peace based on the extermination of the communities that opposed them in northeastern and western Syria, including Kurds, Syriacs and Sunni Arabs, a peace that, if America kills him well, deserves praise for his killer.