Kemal Kirişci | Senior fellow and director of the Center on the United States and Europe’s Turkey Project at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
I strongly doubt it. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, before his death, is reputed to have instructed his chief diplomat Numan Menemencioğlu not to get involved in the internal affairs of neighboring countries and to stay away from irredentist military adventures. These instructions kept Turkey away from the calamity of World War II and also constituted the reason why, in 1990, the then-military chief of staff, General Necip Torumtay, resigned in protest against prime minister Turgut Özal’s ambition to join the U.S. intervention against Saddam Hussein’s forces, which had invaded Kuwait. In Turkey, it is generally recognized that similar instincts are what pushed the Turkish military to resist their political masters’ pressures to intervene in Syria, until their traditional influence was decimated by the failed July 2016 coup attempt.
Since then, Turkey’s Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations have been driven primarily by domestic political considerations, ahead of a set of critical national elections. The determination to win these elections is leading Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to adopt a nationalist agenda and court a coalition of nationalist actors in Turkey who resent Kurdish aspirations and the U.S. presence in Syria (and not so much Russia’s and Iran’s). The policy aims to achieve three goals: prevent the Syrian Kurds led by the Democratic Union Party from constituting an independent state or autonomous region along the length of the Turkish border; shape the new Syria, or at least a corner of it, to suit his political preferences; and create circumstances for the return of some of 3.5 million Syrian refugees, reducing growing public resentment against them ahead of elections.
Gönül Tol | Director of the Center for Turkish Studies at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., adjunct professor at the George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies
Critics accuse Ankara of neocolonial ambitions in northern Syria. On the surface, they may have a point. In the territories Turkey captured from the Islamic State, students learn Turkish and Turkish administrators run hospitals. Turkish signposts, Turkish-trained police forces, and Turkish-built post offices all point to Turkey’s deepening role. The Turkish military has a reputation of remaining in the territories in which it intervenes outside its borders, but it might find it tougher this time. The Turkish military incursion into northern Syria was made possible thanks to a Russian green light. However, in the long term, not Russia, the Assad regime, or Iran are likely to tolerate Turkey’s military presence there.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is certainly seeking to enhance Turkey’s sphere of influence in northern Syria, but calling it “neo-Ottoman” is misleading. The original use of the term “neo-Ottomanism” implies a post-nationalist vision at peace with Turkey’s multiethnic identity. It seeks to coopt rather than confront the Kurds. Turkey’s military operation in Syria, however, was driven chiefly by Ankara’s fear of Kurdish separatism. Turkey launched the operation to block the advances of Syrian Kurdish groups that Ankara deemed to be a national security threat. What Erdoğan is pursuing in Syria is an anti-Kurdish, Turkish nationalist agenda rather than a neo-Ottoman project.
Henri J. Barkey | Professor of international relations at Lehigh University, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
Turkey’s occupation of northern Syria will not be permanent. It will, however, continue until such time as there is real progress toward a solution to the Syrian civil war and the costs associated with it become prohibitive.
The Turkish occupation in northern Syria has come in two phases. The first, under the auspices of the Euphrates Shield operation, has resulted in Turkish control of an area delineated by the towns of Azaz, Al-Bab, and Jarablus. The Turkish government has assumed direct administrative control of the region and has appointed officials who are seconded from Gaziantep Province. Similarly, it will assume control of Afrin and appoint a sub-governor and other officials, representing a significant investment, both political and economic.
The mobilization of jihadi fighters under the rubric of the “Free Syrian Army” to dislodge the Kurds will create problems for Turkey, as they are very radical and undisciplined. Managing these unruly elements, in addition to potential resistance from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units militia and eventually Syrian regime- and Iranian-backed proxies will make the Turkish occupation a costly endeavor.
The temptation to change boundaries is an irresistible one for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. These efforts at implanting officials may indeed represent a test case. In the end, however, the burden, both political and military, will eventually prevent the Turks from staying the course.
Marc Pierini | Visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, Brussels
It is hard to conceive that Turkey would end up annexing the Afrin and Jarablus districts it now controls, despite the occasional reference to Ottoman times. Rather, Ankara seems intent on continuing to occupy these territories, first to exert military control and replace the previous dominance of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, and second to engineer political change in order to make sure local structures are in line with its policies. As long as such actions suit Moscow, they will unfold relatively smoothly.
The real issue is what will happen in Manbij and east of the Euphrates River, where U.S. forces are present alongside the Syrian Kurds. Nobody can be sure. Ankara’s fierce statements are geared at domestic politics. Washington is fluctuating between a reinforced military presence and a complete withdrawal. Moscow has given political guarantees to Syria’s Kurds since September 2015. And some European Union countries (France is one) are keen to preserve the Syrian Kurdish identity. There is no easy way forward.
Comments(13)
Thank you for this article but please excuse me because I don't agree with these experts, and the article seems to lack a certain historical perspective. Turkey may very well annex territory in Syria. After all, Turkey has, in effect, annexed Northern Cyprus. Have we forgotten that? And please don't forget that a Sultan's tomb in Syria was designated as sovereign Turkish territory and still is. Unusual arrangement, is it not? We also know that Turkey and Erdogan have long claimed certain Greek islands. Should we not take those claims seriously? Let us also recall that France turned over Iskenderun/Hatay to Turkey around WW 2. Turkey more or less forced that issue, and France was left with little choice. That was an annexation. We can also go back to the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 which was agreed to by Turkey but never implemented. It provided (President Wilson specified the boundaries) for an Armenia and a Kurdistan in what is now eastern Turkey. Turkey took the entire thing, of course. I am sure others can come up with their own examples. Again, I am quite surprised and disappointed by this article and wonder what others think.
I agree.Erdogan will try to annex.Whether, he will succeed or not is a different matter.
Thank Sir Vic for bringing in history ignored deliberately or not by some contemporary scholars.
Perhaps Turkish influence (not necessarily annexation) in the Arab areas of Northwestern Syria can replace the need to curb Kurdish aspirations in the north-east?
@Sir Vic, we should look first what was happining in Cyprus, and why Makarios III, archbishop and the first president of Cyprus escaped from Cyprus to save his life on July 15th, have denounced to UN Security Council on July 19th that Cyprus was invaded by Greek Army!, it was 5 days before the invasion of Cyprus by Turks started! Annextion of Northern Cyprus was to stop the massacre against and guarantee the security of Turkish Cypriots on Cyprus! Treaty of Sevres in 1920 is annihilated by Treaty of Lausanne from 1923. Please let us read the history with all results and accept it.
The Turkish-Cypriots were not affected by the coup against Makarios; one of the reasons was that they did not want to provoke a Turkish reaction.
Please do not alter History in order to fit to your favorite country's narrative. Turkey annexed the Alexandreta (renaming it Iskenderun) back in 1920s violating the Lausanne Treaty. In 1974, invaded the Republic of Cyprus and occupied 38% of its territory, killing and turning refugees more than 120,000 people. In 1996, it invaded and occupied for a couple of hours a Greek islet (W. Ymia) starting a narrative of grey zones in the Agean Sea, in direct violation of the Ancara Protocol between Turkey and Italy (1932) which clearly designated the Dodecanese islands and the naval borders between the two countries. Greece, as successor state of Italy, has clear dominant rights that Turkey tries to overturn by using threats and military action since 1996. Please, keep a level of scientific dialogue at this forum!
The Turks did it already long ago at the Mediterranean coast. ALEXANDRETTA
No country is allowed to annex land from another country, only Israel is allowed to that.
@ George Yiannitsiotis, PhD For someone who values scientific thinking so much, your post has too many unscientific claims. Turkey annexed Antakya in 1939, after the death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, not in 1920s as you claimed. It had nothing to do with violating the Treaty of Lausanne. The city was conquered by the Turks in the 11th century and remained under Turkish control for centuries until the Treaty of Sevres, which was imposed on a completely disarmed, neutralized Ottoman government. It was the French who took it from the Turks, and it was the same French who returned it to the Turkish rule. Why this fact bothers the Greeks is anyone's guess. As to the Cyprus issue, it was the Greeks who tried to annex the island, and failed (just like they tried to annex Western Anatolia between 1919-1922 and failed). I guess this failure absolves the Greeks of all the responsibility of the massacres they committed against the Turkish Cypriot civilians for a decade and this same failure entitles the Greeks to victimhood, something they just can't get enough of. The pattern never changes: if the Greeks annex some place like Crete, it is 'liberation'. If the Turks annex a lost province, it is an act of monstrosity and occupation that should be condemned by all Greeks at every platform even if that province is a thousand kilometers away from the Greek border.
Greeks are more ancient , and precede the Turks in all those areas. Turks came after thousands of years, and in Cyprus and in Crete were the population minority. I will even go further to claim that the “Turkish” population of Crete and Cyprus are actually muslified Greeks, as there are well documented records of thousands of Greeks turning to Islam in those islands during Ottoman occupation. You are foreign to those lands and that is why we talk about liberarion
@ Elohim... Thanks for the history lecture. You are right about the Greeks being “more ancient”, but that’s where it ends. The Greeks are not the most ancient, though, which means they came from somewhere else, conquered the land and the people. The fact that they did this at an earlier time than the Turks does not give them a better claim. It is just an issue of where you draw the line. A thousand years at a certain place is not enough for you to consider a people owners of that land, apparently. How much is enough? The Greeks had colonies everywhere (not just in Asia Minor): in Sicily, Naples, Egypt, Crimea. I dare any Greek to go to Mr. Putin and ask for Crimea because they “are more ancient and precede the Russians.” The “we are more ancient” argument worked just once and it was when the state of Israel was established. I think that special (and extraordinary) case is clouding your judgment. It does not work that way. I wonder if you are that passionate about liberating the lands occupied by Western Europeans (in the Americas) and Russians (in the south and the lands to the east of the Urals). Turkish Cypriots are not religious converts, they are descendants of Yoruk people who were relocated from the provinces of Mersin and Antalya. As to the religious conversion issue, the Ottomans applied forced conversion as a program only in the Balkans, and that was in the case of Janissaries. Other than that, there was no forceful religious conversion imposed on the general public. That’s why thousands of Jews escaped Spain at the end of the 15th century and took refuge in the Ottoman lands (I am sure you know about this). If Greeks in Crete chose to change their religion for whatever reason (as long as it was not forced), who are we to judge them for that and why would that have a bearing on who has a better claim to the island? The Greeks annexed Crete because they could, not because they had the better moral (or ancient) claim.
Turkey would not mind annexing the Syrian territory it now controls.
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