Looking to Lead Syria Rebuild, Turkey Turns to the Trump Administration to Restrain Israel - Israel News - Haaretz.com
"We don't want to see any confrontation with Israel in Syria because Syria belongs to Syrians. Syria doesn't belong to Turkey; Syria doesn't belong to Israel," said Hakan Fidan, Turkey's foreign minister, at a press conference on Friday.
This was the first official comment after a series of bombings Israel carried out over the last two weeks against airfields and other facilities in Syria, and which caused almost total destruction of the large T4 airbase in the Homs province, an airfield near the city of Hama and the Barzah scientific research center near Damascus.
Israel has carried out over 500 strikes inside Syria since the Assad regime fell in December, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. In some cases, the same target was hit a number of times.
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Israel's official goal is to destroy the remaining arms and other military equipment left in Syria, and most of all to damage the future capabilities of the new Syrian military, capabilities that could be directed against Israel – such as missiles, planes and production centers for chemical weapons such as the Barzah Center, which had already been destroyed once before by American missiles in 2018.
Fidan spoke on the matter because it looks as if these tactical military operations, whose goal is to destroy military capabilities, could possibly develop into a battle between Israel and Turkey over control of Syria – and which could deteriorate into the first military confrontation of its kind between the two countries.
Turkey provided military and diplomatic support for the new Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and his Hayat al-Tahrir al-Sham militia to overthrow the Assad regime. Turkey was also the first country to recognize the new government, and senior Turkish officials, including Fidan and Ibrahim Kalin, the director of Turkey's National Intelligence Organization, arrived in Damascus only a short time after al-Sharaa took power and placed themselves at the service of Syria's new leader.
Two Syrian army officers inspect the site of an Israeli strike at a military airbase near Hama, Syria, on Thursday.Credit: Omar Albam/AP
Turkey may not be the only country that supports al-Sharaa. Saudi Arabia also rushed to offer generous aid to rebuild the countr. So did Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the European Union and even the American government.
Toward the end of the Biden administration, the U.S. agreed to freeze some of the sanctions imposed on Syria for a period of half a year. But a special and close relationship has been forged between the new Syrian regime and Turkey, and not just because of the large amounts of aid and the personal closeness between the two governments.
The immediate Turkish goal is to remove the threat of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the military arm of the autonomous Kurdish administration that controls some of the regions of northern Syria along the long border with Turkey, and which Turkey has designated a terrorist organization that cooperates with the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, against which Turkey has been conducting a bloody war for over 40 years.
If until the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Turkey "made do" with occupying territory inside Syria and creating Turkish enclaves controlled by militias it financed, after the fall of the Assad regime an opportunity was created for Turkey to turn Syria into a sort of protectorate that could serve Turkey's regional interests well beyond just protecting the border between the two nations.
Whoever influences the decision-making process in Syria will also influence the relations between Syria and Iraq, and between Syria and Lebanon, and could direct the involvement of the various foreign powers in Syria – and in doing so could empower its status against them, and this is now Turkey's powerful status in Syria.
During the days of the Assad regime, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan offered his services to then-U.S. President Joe Biden to operate against the Islamic State in Syria, on condition that the United States stop its support for the Kurds and withdraw its forces from Syrian territory.
Former U.S. President Joe Biden walks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during the G20 leaders' summit in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, in 2022.Credit: POOL/ REUTERS
Biden, who loathed Erdoğan and didn't trust him, turned down the proposal. The same offer could now entice President Donald Trump, who wants to reduce the areas where American forces are deployed in the region. All the more so because the agreement signed between the Kurdish forces and the Syrian regime, with Turkish and American support, states these forces will be merged into the new Syrian army, and this provides Turkey with new leverage it never had during Assad's time.
Turkey intends on realizing its influence in Syria through building the new Syrian army as well as generous economic aid that will lay the foundation for rebuilding projects the main parts of which will be conducted by Turkish companies. Turkey presents this plan as inseparable part of the war against terror, and especially the Islamic State, a claim that plays quite well into the hands of policy makers in Washington.
According to the Turkish explanation, establishing a new Syrian army that could operate independently against the "hostile forces" and terrorist organizations is a process that will take a long time, and until then there will be a Turkish presence in Syrian territory to help the Syrian regime meet these challenges. Turkey has already begun examining sites and bases that could be appropriate for establishing this presence, and it has examined the air force base Israel attacked. A Turkish military delegation even planned a visit to the T4 airbase on March 25, but the Israeli attack and the destruction on the base postponed the visit.
The establishment of a new, well-equipped, and well-trained Syrian army is a complex, lengthy, and costly project. If managed by Turkey, it would position Turkey similarly to the U.S. in relation to Israel. Al-Sharaa's goal of building an army of about 350,000 recruits will require decisions on the weapons to be used, whether Western or Chinese, its combat doctrine, how to define the state's enemies, and Syria's strategic positioning—whether it will be "neutral" or pro-Western.
In these critical decisions, Turkey is expected to play a central role, and it is already presenting Washington with its advantages, the most notable of which is its NATO membership. After a period in which Iran and Russia controlled Syria, it is preferable for the West that a NATO member country be the host and ensure the West's interests.
However, this argument requires Turkey to convince the alliance that its involvement in Syria will not drag NATO into conflicts in dangerous regions where it has no interest, solely because of the organization's commitment to defend any member if attacked. This is especially critical as the organization is being required to assess its resilience to the Russian threat and in light of President Trump's alienation.
Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan (L) meeting with Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus last month.Credit: AFP/-
In this context, the Turkish foreign minister's calming statement, in which he clarified that he does not want to see conflict with Israel, is primarily aimed at Trump and NATO, and also at the leaders of Arab countries, particularly the Gulf states, who see themselves as potential partners in Syria's reconstruction. Despite the strengthening of relations between them and Turkey in the past two years, a Turkish takeover of an Arab country is not exactly their desire. Turkey also has a concrete, immediate interest in softening the atmosphere of conflict that has flared between it and Israel.
To begin the reconstruction process and build the Syrian army, it is essential to fully lift U.S. sanctions on Syria. As long as they remain in place, it will be nearly impossible to conduct a legal financial transfer system, beyond humanitarian aid, and Syria will not be able to obtain loans or purchase off-the-shelf military equipment. This will be one of the main topics that Turkish President Erdoğan intends to discuss with Trump in a meeting expected to take place this month.
Washington is generally inclined to lift the sanctions but has presented six conditions for its agreement, including a full fight against terrorism; the removal of foreign militia members from key positions in the Syrian government; the expulsion of Iran from any involvement in Syria; the proven destruction of chemical weapons; the return of American hostages and prisoners, and the guarantee of security and rights for religious and ethnic minorities.
Some of these conditions are worded precisely, allowing for monitoring and verification, such as the destruction of chemical weapons or the removal of foreign elements, including Chechen, Turkish, Egyptian jihadists, and others, who were appointed to senior positions in exchange for their help in overthrowing Assad's regime. However, the vague formulation of other conditions, like the war on terror or the guarantee of minority rights, provides significant room for interpretation, which will assist Turkey in convincing the U.S. administration that only its involvement in Syria can ensure their implementation.
Turkey may also set its own conditions, as hinted by Hakan Fidan in a press conference, which relate to Israel's presence in Syria. "During the transition period of the Syrian regime, Turkey does not want to see ISIS or PKK exploiting the absence of regular Syrian forces and Syrian military capabilities. Unfortunately, Israel is neutralizing, one by one, these capabilities that the new Syrian state could use against ISIS and other terror threats."
Turkey is not just referring to Israeli strikes and Israel's physical presence in Syrian territory; it is presenting Israel's ties with the Druze community in southern Syria and its support for the Kurds as a threat to the Syrian regime's ability to assert its sovereignty over all of its territory and fight terrorism