This transcript is from a CSIS podcast published on January 28, 2025. Listen to the podcast here.
Jon Alterman: What are Turkey’s goals in Syria, as far as you can tell?
Sinem Adar: If you take the words of Turkish ruling elites at their face value, Turkey, first and foremost, in the mid and long term, is interested in the stabilization of Syria. It doesn’t want a failed state at its border. It defines the future of Syria in three dimensions. It wants a Syria that does not cause a terror problem to its neighbors. It does not want a Syria that causes a threat to its neighbors. It wants a Syria that reflects its diverse demography.
Jon Alterman: That sounds mostly defensive, that Turkey and the leadership feels that there are any number of threats, jihadi threats, sectarian threats, all those kinds of things that could come out of Syria. It sounds like they’re playing defense. Are there opportunities that you think the government sees in Syria that might not be well understood elsewhere?
Sinem Adar: Ankara certainly sees this moment as a moment of opportunity. That can be seen in the last couple of weeks—there has been an interesting shift in the language of some officials, but also mainly in the experts that are close to the AKP. They use the words “paradigm shift” to refer to Syria. By that, they mean the shift from a need to engage with a fragmented country. The need to negotiate with multiple foreign actors—Russia, Iran, and the United States—in order to make sure that Turkey holds on to the influence that it has gained over the years in Syria.
But now, the shift is from this to contributing to the formation of a new state. At the heart of all these things for Turkey, in the short term, lies the question of the YPG-led SDF and its status.
Jon Alterman: That is the Kurdish-led government in the east of Syria, which has some ties to the PKK, which both the Turkish government and the U.S. government regard as a terrorist organization.
Sinem Adar: That’s correct. On the one hand, this is a question of political system for Turkey. Turkish officials repeatedly emphasized that Turkey wants a centrally administered state in Syria, so no decentralized state, no federal state, et cetera. Second, is a question of political representation and recognition. Basically, the message is that Turkey is okay with having the newly emerging state in Syria include Syrian Kurds in governance, but it has no tolerance to include the YPG.
The third pillar of this shift in Turkey’s perception of Syria lies in the question of monopoly over violence, or security sector reform. Here, the demands of Turkey are very clear: disarmament of the SDF. Turkey wants the foreign fighters within the ranks of the SDF to leave Syria—the guerrilla from Turkey, from Iraq, and from Iran to leave Syria, as well as the senior cadres of the SDF. The integration of the SDF, whatever remains of it, into a basically centrally administered national army is the core demand of Ankara.
Jon Alterman: What does this look like? Because as you said, there’s a Kurdish issue in Turkey, and how the Kurdish issues in Syria are resolved or addressed has an impact on Kurdish issues in Turkey. You said they want Kurdish inclusion, but not autonomy. How does that play out in practice if there’s inclusion but not autonomy?
Sinem Adar: A new initiative in Turkey was undertaken at the beginning of October by Erdogan’s partner in his alliance, the leader of the ultranationalist party, Devlet Bahçeli. It mainly asked Abdullah Öcalan, the founder of the PKK, to call for the PKK’s disarmament.
Since the beginning, the Turkish officials have been very careful not to use or define this chain of events as a new peace process. Here too, you see this clear distinction between Turkey’s Kurdish problem as a social problem and Turkey’s Kurdish problem as a terror problem. Basically, the bottom line is that Turkey doesn’t have any problems with integrating its Kurdish citizens into its political system, into its social structures.
The evidence given for that is that is what President Erdogan has been doing since he came to power in 2002. For instance, now the option of having voluntary Kurdish lessons at schools is available. There are TV stations broadcasting in Kurdish. These are the very vague points that are put on the table to support that claim. There is not much of a discussion about what Turkey really means when officials say that they are okay with having an inclusive Syria that also gives space to Kurds, but that they don’t want autonomy—a Kurdish autonomous region led by YPG.
Jon Alterman: What are some of the other ways that Syrian issues are related to Turkey’s domestic situation in terms of refugees, economics, and economic opportunity in Syria? What is Erdogan likely to do in Syria to boost his prospects at home, and where does Syria fit into Turkey’s domestic politics?
Sinem Adar: The civil war in Syria has been, since its early days, both a foreign policy issue for Turkey, and a domestic politics matter. The whole turmoil that has come out of the civil war in Syria has been coupled with significant changes to Turkey’s political system: the regime change, to a basically authoritarian presidential system, occurred during the period between 2014-2016, when new alliances in Syria emerged due to the dynamics among external actors—more specifically, between Turkey and the United States—and following that, after 2016, Turkey formed the Astana group with Russia and Iran.
The developments in Syria have always been closely related to developments within Turkey. When it comes to the migration question, when it comes to the Kurdish question, as well as the economic domain, the developments in Syria will have an impact on Turkish domestic policy. President Erdogan and Turkish officials for a long time have been eyeing reconstruction opportunities in Syria.
But this was mainly in northwestern Syria, and the power configuration in Syria was different. Their interest was tied to the repatriation of refugees to areas controlled by Turkey, that Turkey invaded basically through three military operations that happened between 2016 and 2019. The desire to take an active part in the reconstruction of Syria is also closely related to the ways in which President Erdogan and Turkey’s ruling elites use economic opportunities to gain support from economic elites.
Turkey, in the last two decades, has become an exporter in its construction sector and defense industry. The economic question is significantly tied with the regime question—the regime consolidation question. That’s why I said at the beginning, we could approach this question in two ways. Eventually, if things in Syria go in the way Turkey’s ruling elites desire them to go, they might have, significant implications on regime consolidation and stabilization in Turkey as well. It could also go the other way, of course. It’s a moment open to a couple of possibilities.
Jon Alterman: Are there partisan differences over repatriation of refugees and how that should happen, how quickly it should happen? Under what circumstances has that become a political issue?
Sinem Adar: The refugee question has definitely become a political issue, especially in the last couple of years. For the first time, Turkey had a single-issue political party founded—if I’m not mistaken, back in 2020 or 2021—on the single issue of the repatriation of refugees and the migration issue. Turkey has been receiving refugees from Syria since as early as 2013 and 2014. It took the population literally eight or nine years to come to a boiling point. That has a lot to do with the economic difficulties in the country over the last couple of years, as well as the significant governance problems.
There is an overarching consensus within the country and within the population for repatriation of refugees. President Erdogan and pro-government circles also approach Syrian refugees in Turkey as an asset in their ambitions and aspirations to play an active role in the formation of a new state in Syria. That’s because the people-to-people contact is one of the areas that Turkey sees a future role for itself in Syria.
Jon Alterman: What tools does Turkey have to influence the shape of governance in Syria? I’m particularly interested both in the tools that it’s using, but also the tools that it has that it’s not yet using.
Sinem Adar: As far as Turkey’s short-term policy objectives—the elimination of the YPG-led SDF—there are three specific tools. One is military pressure. As we speak, the front lines northeast of the Euphrates have not been settled, and the fighting has been going on between the Turkey-led Syrian National Army, with air support from Turkey, and the SDF for the last couple of years, especially around Tishreen Dam and Karakozak Bridge.
That’s done for the strategic aim of cutting the logistical and the supply lines surrounding Kobani. It’s not only symbolic, but also politically and logistically important to the SDF and the Kurdish administration in northeast Syria. At the same time—and this is another military tool Turkey uses—in negotiations with different parties it leverages the fact that HTS can take over the management of the detention camps in which ISIS fighters are kept.
Deterring and combating ISIS, the minute that question is resolved, you become one step closer to resolving the SDF issue as well. That’s why Turkey has been trying to use the fact that HTS can take over the detainment responsibility in negotiations and stating that Turkey is ready to provide support if necessary. In a way, it’s positioning itself as a security provider in Syria.
In addition to that, it also uses diplomatic tools. It has been in contact with various actors, including the KRG, the United States, and European actors. I see it as part of a strategy to put maximum pressure on the SDF to force it into a negotiated settlement with HTS.
There are also political tools Turkey is using. Experts and pro-government journalists are kind of playing with the demographic diversity in Syria, especially in areas controlled by the SDF. The argument is that now the SDF is an illegitimate actor to rule in areas which are majority Arab, such as Raqqa and Hasakah.
I would also add to this the initiative that we talked about earlier, the initiative taken by Erdogan’s ultranationalist partner, Devlet Bahçeli, in early October, as again, another pressure point on the SDF to force it to the negotiating table. These are the short-term tools that I see Ankara deploying again to force the SDF into a negotiated settlement with HTS.
Jon Alterman: How do you see the threat of an ISIS resurgence over the next six months or year playing out both in eastern Syria, and the impact of that threat on the broader negotiations over the future of Syria? As you said at the outset, that is one of the things that the government of Turkey is most focused on preventing in Syria, but it may be that it’s in fact also simultaneously encouraging it by its attitude toward the SDF. Is that accurate?
Sinem Adar: Given the ongoing clashes at the moment that we talked about earlier between the SDF and SNA, that could be an unintended outcome. Yes. That’s also the paradox at the moment in Turkish policy. On the one hand, there is a strong advocacy for the stabilization of Syria by providing logistical support, humanitarian support, diplomatic support to the caretaker government in Damascus with the ultimate aim of stabilizing Syria as a whole. At the same time, Turkey is an actor that, in a way, contributes to the ongoing instability in northeast Syria.
Jon Alterman: You talked about Ankara’s contribution of military support, of diplomatic support. How much of what Turkey is doing is simply money and helping ensure that parties in Syria that it has had longstanding relationships with possess enough money—walking around money, as they say in American politics—to get done what needs to get done as they try to settle down a very unsettled situation in Syria.
Sinem Adar: As important as money is, international recognition for Syria’s new government comes first. The ultimate expression of international recognition would be the removal of sanctions entirely. Now, there are some waivers that have been signed. Money is one part of the equation, but not the only part of it.
Jon Alterman: As you think about Turkey’s broader foreign policy, as Ankara thinks about the world, how important is what’s happening in Syria to that broader concept of Turkey’s interests in the world? How much has that changed in the last two months since Assad fell?
Sinem Adar: Ankara is sticking to the policy recalibration that happened around 2020 and 2021, with its normalization of relations with various regional actors, first and foremost, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia—Israel didn’t end up very well for different reasons. There is a continuation of that policy. The fall of Bashar al-Assad fits into this policy of normalizing relations with regional actors.
That’s also one reason why—in contrast to the early days where we heard excited statements coming from Ankara about the future of Syria, which died down fast—there is a significant level of caution so not to antagonize the Gulf states and Egypt, and to basically work together toward the stabilization of Syria. The foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, has said in multiple ways on different occasions that Turkey is keen to work in multilateral settings together with regional actors, in addition to Turkey’s Western allies.
Again, based on what I see, the words match the deeds. When you read pro-government experts, they don’t necessarily emphasize ideology-driven foreign policy. The emphasis is that Turkey is in a phase of pragmatic foreign policy. That’s also what you see in an article penned by Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan immediately after the 2023 parliamentary and presidential elections, after the new cabinet was formed.
Turkey is very cautious. Here, one could say that there are some lessons learned from the aftermath of the Arab uprisings and the Turkish policy pursued then, which led to the significant regional isolation of Ankara. The main goal at the moment is to break this regional isolation, and there were significant steps taken in that direction, particularly with Arab countries. At the same time, given the economic situation of the country, there is an emphasis on fixing the economy. That’s why the emphasis is on economy-driven foreign policy.
Jon Alterman:
It seems to me, though, that Ankara is in a stronger position diplomatically than it’s been at any time since Erdogan has been in power. It is the most present foreign power with connection to the transitional government in Damascus. It has relations with the Europeans, with the United States, through NATO. It has relations with the Gulf states, which, as you note, have been improving in recent years. It has its traditional relationships through the Astana process with Russia and Iran.
Ankara doesn’t exactly hold the key, but it’s certainly at the door for almost all of the important decisions that need to be made. How do you think that the leadership in Ankara is thinking about that moment? And how long do you think the post-Syria phase will last as one of the central organizing principles in how Turkey relates to the world?
Sinem Adar:
I would agree with you, although I would also add to that, that yes, it has relations with a very diverse set of actors that probably many other actors do not have. At the same time, with a lot of those actors, trust has eroded significantly in the last 10 years. I could imagine that part of the reason why Ankara appears so cautious is because of the caution of many of these countries.
Yes, it is in a strong position, but it also has its vulnerabilities. As far as the larger objectives and aspirations of Turkish foreign policy—what a lot of people call Turkish activism, that stretches from Southern Caucasus to the Middle East, from the Middle East to Africa, with Turkey becoming extremely active in different parts of Africa in the last couple of years—it’s not about a necessarily well-defined strategy, but the aim of positioning itself as an important regional actor that holds the key to a lot of doors.
That’s basically what Turkey is trying to do, and it will continue as such. It will continue in a pragmatic way, it will continue in a cautious way, but it will continue. It has also developed in the last 20 years relations in a lot of different places, basically in its neighborhood, which also come with vested interests. In a way, these interests gain a life of their own, so to speak, which becomes very difficult to break as well.
Jon Alterman:
I’m sure you’ve heard commentators assessing that Erdogan is trying to resurrect a sort of neo-Ottomanism, a Turkish domination of the region, similar to that of the Ottoman Empire for centuries, until the early 20th century. It also sounds to me like you’re talking about a much more cautious Turkish foreign policy, certainly even more cautious than Erdogan was following during and after the Arab Spring, when there was a sense that Turkish allies were going to be empowered throughout the region.
How should we read this, both in terms of neo-Ottomanism and the lessons learned from the Arab Spring? Are we seeing a sort of “neo-Ottomanism 2.0” that is more modest and more cautious, or is that really not the frame we should see it in?
Sinem Adar:
It’s hard to tell, because it is not only about foreign policy, it is also about domestic politics, because you see among the Turkish ruling elites attitudes that clearly see Iraq and Syria, especially the northern parts of both countries, as natural extensions of Turkey, and attitudes that aspire to resurrect, the Misak-ı Milli boundaries, the boundaries after the end of World War I.
There are actors who see the current moment as an opportunity to undo the mistakes that were made at the turn of the 20th century. Ultimately, however, the answer to your question will be shaped by how power dynamics unfold among these actors within the regime, because now we see, under the current foreign minister, a very rational, very cautious, very pragmatic foreign policy. Whether it continues like that, or again, if the power dynamics within the regime change in a different direction, we will see how events unfold.
Many in Ankara see this is as a moment to enact the concept of regional ownership, because Turkey has been quite strong about the United States getting out of the region. Especially with regards to Syria, many actors within Ankara might see this as finally the moment that the United States leaves the region. Then Turkey, together with Arab countries, can enact this concept of regional ownership.
For a lot of actors within Ankara, especially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they conceptualize this as a win-win concept. However, I’m not sure whether that will be viewed by every actor in the region as such, exactly because of that erosion of trust in the past and the ideological underpinnings that exist still within Ankara. To me, it’s really an open question at the moment—the aspirations and the desires are there within certain actors, but whether they become the leading force that shapes policy, that we will see.
Jon Alterman: Are you optimistic that the differences over political Islam between Ankara and the GCC governments can be overcome? It feels to me with Saudi Arabia turning much more harshly toward political Islam, and the Emirates having long been that way, the difference between Ankara’s not only embrace of political Islam, but encouragement of it throughout the region and the Gulf states hostility to it is a potentially serious rift. Do you think that rift can be smoothed over? Can they find a modus vivendi, or is that likely to be a continued sore point?
Sinem Adar: Ankara is trying to smooth it over against the backdrop of its own vulnerabilities. In the context of its recalibration of policy since 2020, it has also taken a step back in terms of its support to political Islamists, and Sunni Islamists across the region are concerned. We see this, for example, putting pressure on Muslim Brotherhood media channels operating from Istanbul. We also see it now in Libya—the ease at which that Turkey has been building ties with Haftar in eastern Libya. We also see it in Turkey returning the Khashoggi file to Saudi Arabia.
There have been various examples of Turkey trying to keep its distance from Sunni Islamists with the intention to send certain messages to the Gulf states, but also Egypt, in order to normalize relations with them. That doesn’t mean that the aspirations and desires surrounding political Islam are off the table. They are there, especially among certain circles. At this point, it is a matter of reconciling aspirations with necessities, and the imperatives driven by economic difficulties. Turkey needs to reassert itself as a trusted partner in the region.
Jon Alterman: Sinem Adar, thank you very much for joining us on Babel.
Sinem Adar: Thank you, Jon, for having me.
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