TURKEY WOULD MAKE A SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION TO THE
RESOLUTION OF THE SYRIAN CRISIS IF IT COULD BRING ITSELF TO RISE ABOVE THE
SECTARIAN CONSIDERATIONS THAT HAVE DICTATED ITS REGIME CHANGE POLICY IN SYRIA.
By Halil
M. Karaveli, via Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and
Silk Road Studies
So far, however, TURKEY’S
intervention in the SYRIAN civil war has demonstrated how TURKEY’S lack of
“democratic depth” disables a constructive foreign policy in the service of
stability and democratic reform in a region that was supposed to be TURKEY’S
“strategic depth”.
On August 11, U.S. Secretary of
State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on
visit in Istanbul, and her TURKISH colleague Ahmet Davutoğlu stated that the two countries are intensifying
their cooperation in handling the crisis in SYRIA. The UNITED STATES and TURKEY
are to set up a working group tasked with responding to the crisis, notably
preparing for a worst-case scenario, the use
of chemical weapons by the SYRIAN regime. Clinton and Davutoğlu also
stressed the importance of preparing for a political transition in which vital
state institutions in SYRIA are not compromised (which was the case in IRAQ
after the fall of Saddam Hussein).
US ENVISIONS: NEW SYRIAN GOVERNMENT TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF
ALL SYRIANS, REGARDLESS OF GENDER, RELIGION OR ETHNICITY. NOBEL WISH BUT
UNREALISTIC
But although the U.S. and TURKEY
both want to remove President Bashar
al-Assad from power, there are nonetheless differences between the AMERICAN
and TURKISH approaches. A new SYRIA, said Clinton,
will need to protect the rights of all SYRIANS regardless of religion, gender
or ethnicity. The TURKISH government is yet to issue a similar statement.
TURKEY SIDES EXCLUSIVELY WITH SUNNI REBELS
While there is growing concern in
Washington that Islamists are
gaining influence among the Sunni rebels
in SYRIA – and increasingly also over the fact that ethnic and sectarian
divisions are being exacerbated as the civil war grinds on – Ankara has so far
desisted from speaking up in defense of ethnic and sectarian pluralism in SYRIA;
siding exclusively with the Sunni rebels
to whom it lends crucial support, political, logistical and military, TURKEY
has positioned itself not only against the Baath
regime, but also against the Alawites,
from which the SYRIAN state elite is mostly drawn, and against the KURDS.
Representatives of TURKEY’S ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)
routinely denounce the SYRIAN regime as the “Alawite minority regime”, while the aspirations of the KURDS, who
are manifesting a determination to take charge of their own destiny in
northeastern SYRIA – in the region that borders TURKEY and the KURDISH-governed
NORTHERN IRAQ – is condemned in the strongest terms by Ankara.
TURKISH POLICIES REGARDING SYRIA COULD BACKFIRE
Seeking to bring about regime change
in Damascus, Ankara has unleashed forces that it is having increasing
difficulty coping with; in fact, the implosion of SYRIA puts TURKEY at an
impasse: if nothing is done to prevent ethnic and sectarian divisions in SYRIA
from getting further out of hand, these threaten to engulf neighboring
countries, including TURKEY. Yet the remedy – a democratic SYRIA, where Sunnis, Alawites, Christians, Druze; Arabs
and KURDS, are all equally accommodated – would also be a challenge to TURKEY,
as it would encourage its own ethnic and religious minorities in their quest
for constitutional reform and equality.
Deniz Baykal,
the former leader of the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), and a member of parliament,
recently called for a constitutional overhaul in order to prevent a SYRIAN
contamination in TURKEY. Baykal argued
that the Alevis, the country’s
heterodox Muslim minority – who are
estimated to make up a fifth of the population – must be constitutionally
recognized and treated with due respect by the state. The former CHP leader
pointed out that the State Directorate
of Religious Affairs, which tends solely to the needs of the Sunni majority, needs to be reorganized
in order to accommodate the Alevis.
However, the ruling AKP remains unresponsive to the Alevis’ requests, notably rejecting their demand that their temples
(“cem houses”) are recognized officially (Alevis
don’t pray in mosques). Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan recently remarked that “if we are Muslims, our temple ought
to be one and the same”, and the speaker of parliament turned down the request
of an Alevi member of parliament
that a prayer room for Alevis be
provided in parliament as a sign of official recognition.
Background
Information: TURKEY'S GAMBLE ON KURDISTAN OIL
TURKEYS SECTARIAN PREJUDICE
While the ruling Sunni conservatives of TURKEY reject
the demands of the Alevis,
ostensibly on the grounds that there are no differences between Sunnis and Alevis, they nonetheless do not refrain from singling them out as
“the other”, even as non-Muslims, playing on the prejudices of the Sunni majority; that the Alevis are not really Muslims was
indeed the implication of Erdoğan’s
not so innocent remark that the mosque is the only temple for true Muslims. In
the same interview, Erdoğan also
referred to an Alevi temple that he had had bulldozed during his tenure as
mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s as a “monstrosity”.
As evidenced by the fact that
representatives of the TURKISH government and the AKP routinely refer to the
enemy in SYRIA as “Alawite minority
regime”, there is a clear tendency to frame TURKEY’S intervention in SYRIA in
sectarian terms; conjuring the image of a battle for the emancipation of the
faithful Muslims from the oppression of the heretics cannot but fan sectarian
prejudice and even hatred against those that are portrayed as related heretics.
Hüseyin Çelik,
a deputy chairman of the AKP, suggested that the critical stance taken by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the
CHP, had to do with his Alevi creed:
“Why are you defending the Baath regime?
Is it perhaps because of sectarian solidarity that Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu is endorsing the SYRIAN regime?” inquired the deputy
chairman of the AKP.
In fact, the TURKISH and KURDISH Alevis (Kılıçdaroğlu is an Alevi Kurd) should not be confused with
the Arab Alawites, or the Nusayris as they are also known; the
latter are estimated to make up a third of the population in TURKEY’S Hatay province
that borders SYRIA and around fifteen percent of the populations in the
neighboring provinces Adana and Mersin.
Background
Information: Alevis from TURKEY are commonly confused with Alewites
from SYRIA and vice versa. For more background information regarding above
mentioned subject see:
ALAWITES IN SYRIA AND
ALEVIS IN TURKEY: CRUCIAL DIFFERENCES
It is among those, Arab Alawite populations that the TURKISH
intervention is SYRIA is provoking anger. The much more numerous TURKISH and KURDISH
Alevis meanwhile, are not so much in
solidarity with the Arab Alawites in
SYRIA as they are vulnerable to the foment of Sunni resentment against presumed heretics. It is above all in that sense that TURKEY’S entanglement in SYRIA, on
the side of Sunnis, courts danger at the home-front; as Sunni conservatism is
kindled in order to buttress the legitimacy of the TURKISH policy, tension is
produced along the Sunni-Alevi fault line. On July 29, the house of an Alevi family in the eastern province of
Malatya was attacked by a Sunni mob,
a reminder that sectarian tensions simmer dangerously.
THREE STATE DISINTEGRATION OF SYRIA – SUNNI,
ALAWITE-CHRISTIAN AND KURDS
The not so improbable disintegration
of SYRIA – possibly into three states, Sunni,
Alawite-Christian and Kurdish – would conceivably present TURKEY with a new
challenge in the future, if alienated Arab Alawites
in Hatay were to be inspired by the emergence of an adjacent Alawite state. However, much more
portentous for Ankara is the emergence of a self governing KURDISH region in northeastern SYRIA.
ASSAD HAS PLAYED THE KURDISH CARD AGAINST A TURKEY THAT IS
TRYING TO BRING HIM DOWN.
Since mid-July, SYRIAN government
forces have vacated the KURDISH-populated districts in the northeastern part of
the country, effectively abandoning control to a coalition of KURDISH parties,
among which the KURDISH nationalist Democratic
Union Party (PYD) is the best organized. According to some accounts, a
quite agreement had been reached between the al-Assad regime and the PYD. In any case, the SYRIAN regime and the KURDS
are effectively allies, as the Sunni
rebels are opposed to the KURDISH demands for equality; and by letting the KURDS
set up a self governing region al-Assad
has played the KURDISH card against a TURKEY that is trying to bring him down.
Ankara has reacted sharply to the
developments among the SYRIAN KURDS. Erdoğan
warned that TURKEY would intervene were the KURDS to make any attempt to create
an autonomous region; the TURKISH military would in that case cross the border
and establish a buffer zone, Erdoğan
vowed. TURKEY regards the PYD as the SYRIAN arm of KURDISTAN Workers’ Party
(PKK), and fears that the area will become a safe haven for militants staging
attacks in TURKEY. The leader of the PYD, Salih
Muhammed Müslim, denies that the party has any organizational ties to the
PKK, or that TURKEY is its enemy, and assures that no attacks will be staged across
the TURKISH border. The SYRIAN KURDISH leader invites TURKEY to get over its “KURDISH PHOBIA” and institute a close
relationship with the KURDS in SYRIA.
KURDISH MARCH TOWARD AUTONOMY GAINS MOMENTUM
The relationship that TURKEY has
come to enjoy with the KURDISH regional government in NORTHERN IRAQ – an entity
that was long viewed by Ankara as a threat to its vital security interests –
could indeed serve as an example to emulate, but such an evolution of the
relations with the SYRIAN KURDS is less likely as the KURDISH march toward
autonomy gains momentum. That is bound to have significant cross-border
repercussions in TURKEY, boosting the morale of the TURKISH KURDS and further
raising their expectations; indeed, the emergence of a KURDISH region in SYRIA
could prove to be an even more important game-changer than the establishment of
KURDISH autonomy in northern IRAQ has been, since the ties of kinship and
family are stronger between the KURDS of SYRIA and TURKEY.
TURKEY WOULD MAKE A SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTION TO THE
RESOLUTION OF THE SYRIAN CRISIS IF IT COULD BRING ITSELF TO RISE ABOVE THE
SECTARIAN CONSIDERATIONS THAT HAVE DICTATED ITS REGIME CHANGE POLICY IN SYRIA.
The establishment of a Sunni conservative, Muslim Brotherhood regime in Damascus –
which can be expected to be opposed to the KURDS’ demands for equality, as that
is the position of the Sunni Arab
rebels – may be an exciting prospect for TURKEY’S ruling Sunni conservatives.
But Ankara’s calculus could nonetheless change with the growing realization
that al-Assad’s fall may not be as
imminent as has been assumed, and that TURKEY stands to suffer from the ever
more destructive effects of a prolonged civil war that ultimately brings about
the disintegration of SYRIA.
To play a
constructive role in SYRIA, TURKEY needs to transcend sectarian and ethnic
divides, reaching out to the Alawites
and to the KURDS, endorsing a pluralistic post-Assad nation. So far, however, TURKEY’S intervention in the SYRIAN
civil war has demonstrated how TURKEY’S lack of “democratic depth” disables a
constructive foreign policy in the service of stability and democratic reform
in a region that was supposed to be TURKEY’S “strategic depth”.
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