Syrian regime and reconciliation

After more than a decade of the Turkish involvement in the Syrian war, Russia is trying hard to bring the Syrian and Turkish regimes closer together, and at the same time to sponsor the negotiations between the Syrian regime and the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC). However, the regime and the countries supporting it, despite its weakness, are trying to exploit these negotiations to pass their agenda, which is primarily related to preserving its political, military and security structure.

The Syrian crisis erupted in 2011 for internal and external reasons. The internal one can be linked to the one-party policy, the security grip, the suppression of freedoms and inequality, as well as the poor economic conditions, despite the fact that there was some improvement in the years before the crisis. As for the external reasons, they are linked to Syria’s geopolitical location and its importance to the conflicting countries. Turkey, with its colonial project and its national pact, played a major role in destroying Syria politically, economically and socially through its direct intervention and continuous support for terrorist organizations (the armed factions under the umbrella of the so-called opposition Syrian National Coalition – SNC), on top of which is ISIS.  Russia, which intervened militarily in Syria in 2015 under the pretext of protecting the regime, was able not to bring Syria to this status quo and complicate the crisis for political, economic and military reasons through which Moscow was able to acquire vital sectors in the country including oil, phosphate, fertilizers plants, and oil exploration contracts in the Mediterranean, the port of Tartus, the establishment of military bases (Khmeimim Air Base and Tartus Naval Base), the privileges and immunity enjoyed by Russian soldiers. Iran’s motives are no less important than those of Russia, as it followed the same Russian path and signed agreements with the regime that allowed it a foothold in the phosphate sector and other sectors such as electricity and communications, and the port of Latakia, in addition to cultural privileges and naturalization processes that fall within the Shiite expansion.

Now, Turkey is trying to get close to the Syrian regime for one single reason, which is the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) and the project of the Democratic Nation. The AANES, with its democratic project, has preserved the unity of the Syrian territories and considers itself part of a unified Syria. However, the Syrian regime and its dogmatic policy towards it, in addition to the bargaining with the Turkish occupation state and entering into negotiations with it under Russian auspices, rejects any internal solution that brings the Syrian crisis to an end. It realizes the role of the AANES against the new Ottoman project and the end of ISIS, which occupied large areas of Syria and Iraq. Despite the ability of the AANES to place its hand in the hands of the Turkish regime and fight the Syrian one – Turkey asked the AANES at the beginning of its inception to fight the Syrian regime –, the AANES did not accept. If it accepted, the regime in Damascus would have collapsed and Syria would have fragmented. Rather, the AANES chose a special approach based on the principle of the Democratic Nation as a solution to end the Syrian crisis and to preserve the territorial integrity of Syria.

Today, the Syrian regime is placing its hand in the hands of the Turkish occupation state and is hindering negotiations with the AANES, taking advantage of the Turkish threats against its areas to put pressure on it to hand over the areas and return to the situation before 2011 as if nothing had happened. This intransigence on the part of the regime may be due to the unwillingness of the countries that support it – Russia and Iran – to make the negotiations successful and recognize the AANES, in addition to the regime’s dogmatism towards the AANES and its rejection of the idea of democracy.

Turkey, which fought the Syrian regime and occupied northern Syria, is desperate today to conduct reconciliation with the regime. Given the political, military and economic benefits that the two parties may reap in the event that reconciliation succeeds and a summit is held between the two parties, Turkey will be the biggest winner from this reconciliation. What the Turkish regime could not obtain from threats and military invasions, it will obtain through reconciliation, including easing the refugee crisis in Turkey after losing the importance of this file in pressuring the West to achieve its ambitions in Syria and serve it in the presidential elections, and not allowing Syria to reach a democratic system through which the AANES in particular and the Syrian communities in general are recognized. Economically, Turkey has turned Syria into a market for selling its products, as Syria is currently unable to compete with Turkish goods, and therefore Syria will be economically subject to Turkey. As for the Syrian regime, the fruits that it may reap are few compared to Turkey’s. On the one hand, Turkey may hand over the files of some factions to the regime, especially those opposing reconciliation with the regime, i.e. preserving the terrorist factions loyal to it. Turkey may also control north of the M4 Highway on Saraqib-Ariha-Jisr-al-Shughur road after The Turkish withdrawal and revitalization of the move between Aleppo and the coast, which will serve Russia in the first place. Since the Syrian regime has collapsed economically, and Russia and Iran control all of the Syrian wealth, the economic benefit will be few if not temporary for the regime. As for the withdrawal of the Turkish occupation army from the occupied Syrian north, it may be difficult if not impossible even if a timetable for the withdrawal was agreed upon. Turkey involved in the Syrian crisis only to occupy the Syrian lands and implement its colonial project because it sees in those lands as Ottoman’s that have been flayed by the West after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. However, the main goal of the Syrian regime to conduct reconciliation with the Turkish regime seems to be normalization, and it sees Turkey as the gateway to its regional and international recognition.

The dogmatism of the regime towards the AANES and the conduct of reconciliation with the Turkish regime is like the one who puts his hand over his eye in order not to see the truth, and that Turkey will not give up the occupied areas and its fate will be similar to that of the Sanjak of Alexandretta. So the main solution to resolving the Syrian crisis is normalization with the interior, i.e. conducting reconciliation with the Syrian communities not similar to what is happening in Daraa and the rest of the regions that did not result in anything, but it must include the recognition of the rights of the Syrian communities and the establishment of a democratic regime. This will be the only way to liberate the lands from Turkish colonialism, the return of the Syrian territorial integrity, the advancement of the economy, and the return to the situation before 2011, but in a democratic form.