Turkey this Tuesday (31) received a delegation from the European Union to deal with the Ankara government’s mediation in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. At the meeting, it is expected that a meeting will be held on the new military operation that President Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to launch at any time in northern Syria.
The Turkish side Deputy Ministers of Foreign Affairs Faruk Kaymakçi and Sedat Önal, the European Union High Representative for Foreign Policy Enrique Mora and the Interim Director General for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations will attend the meeting to be held in Ankara on Tuesday. Maciej Popowski of the European Commission.
The Ankara government will, of course, press for the last demands of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to end the military embargoes, and even restart the slow rise of the country, in addition to addressing its important role as a facilitator in the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. to the European bloc.
However, Turkey’s new discussion topic in international politics is its plan to attack northern Syria.
The main Turkish argument for the military operation in the neighboring country is the Kurds. President Tayyip Erdogan said that he will launch a military operation against the People’s Protection Units, the Kurdish group on the Syrian side, without any warning. They currently control 30% of Syria.
According to Erdogan, the aim of the new offensive is to protect areas that Turkey could not control in previous military operations in northern Syria. According to Turkish authorities, these are areas used by the Kurds as bases for attacks against the Turkish army.
Today, President Tayyip Erdogan does not want to restart the operation on the border. The first military operation took place in 2016 and has insisted on the need to expand a 30km buffer zone into Syrian territory since the last series of attacks in 2019.
For the Ankara government, the operation has two purposes: not only to remove terrorists from the border, referring to the Syrian Kurds, but also to house some of the Syrian refugees currently on Turkish soil. The fact that Sweden and Finland’s request to join NATO paved the way for Turkey to declare that it is against candidacy on behalf of its own agenda, which has given momentum to the plans of this new operation in recent weeks.
Expected US and Russian Consent
There have been negotiations and even disagreements with the USA and Russia in the three military operations Turkey has carried out in northern Syria in the last six years. Vladimir Putin has already been consulted by the president of Turkey.
Tayyip Erdogan spoke with the Russian President on Monday (30) and told Putin on the phone that the security strip on the Turkey-Syria border is part of an agreement signed in 2019, but has not been implemented to date.
Russia has troops in Syria and supports the Damascus regime. Despite support for Bashar al-Assad, Moscow’s position is strategic to support another ally in the region, Iran, as well as hindering US advances in the Middle East.
Speaking of the Washington government, everything indicates that the main focus of this latest maneuver by Erdogan is to invite a visit to the White House, because this Tuesday’s meeting with the European Union is already warranted.
However, the United States has so far shown no sign of direct dialogue with Turkey. Washington has even voiced its concerns about the new Turkish offensive in Syria, but knows that the Scandinavian countries need the support of Tayyip Erdogan to join NATO – precisely because it was set up in 1949 to halt the then Soviet regime’s advance in Moscow. The Turkish president has declared that if the Americans do not fulfill their counterterrorism duties, he will take care of himself.
Syrian refugees as an election theme
In addition to the rhetoric of unity threatened by the Kurds, Tayyip Erdoğan uses the refugee theme to lure voters. It’s not just the economic crisis, but resentment against immigrants has gained notoriety in the presidential race.
The newly formed Zafer Party, led by the well-known nationalist Ümit Özdağ, made foreigners its main political platform, describing their existence as a matter of occupation and national survival. At a time when inflation in Turkey has more than tripled in a few months, this discourse resonates with some segments of society who see foreigners as competitors in the job struggle.
Nearly 4 million Syrians live in Turkey. Both the government and opposition parties began to promise to send the refugees back. Erdogan’s project will be to remove the Kurds from the side of Syria to resettle Syrian Arabs in the same area – which is already being called for demographic cleansing by humanitarian agencies.
Expanding the areas of control in Syria also brings great benefits to Turkey: a new economic center. Besides residential buildings, the plan also includes industrial zones, schools and hospitals. Many analysts, however, see this project as an election card rather than a viable policy, not only because of its impact on displacement or the arrival of refugees who voluntarily refused to return, but also because of Turkey’s own security in the region. boundary.
Either way, Turkey’s leverage during the Ukraine crisis is being used as a bargaining chip against Syria, which has already been the focus of more than a decade of war.
source: Noticias
