PNN – These days, when Turkey is trying to normalize relations with Syria, Turkish analysts are bringing forward the cases of the last few years and counting Erdoğan’s big mistakes in Syria.
According to the report of Pakistan News Network, in the past week, Erdogan has spoken twice about inviting Bashar al-Assad to Ankara.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the leader of the Justice and Development Party, as a politician who played a serious role in the formation of the Syrian crisis and its complication, now in a clear reversal, wants to boil the relationship with Damascus but this is not so easy. Especially in a situation where he has not personally admitted to big mistakes, but left and right in all media and press in Ankara and Istanbul, it is pointed out that the mistakes of Erdoğan and his team in Syria are undeniable.
For this reason, Turkish analysts bring forward the cases of the last few years and count Erdoğan’s big mistakes in Syria.
Three famous political analysts in Turkey discussed Erdoğan’s foreign policy mistakes in Syria and pointed out issues that each of them is a sign and symbol of a calculation error and political blunder in the 22-year history of the Justice and Development Party.
Together, we review a part of the statements of three Turkish analysts about Syria:
Jumert: Our calculations turned out to be wrong
Yusuf Zia, a Turkish analyst, writes: “First of all, we should think about this question: Do our wrong and incorrect political decisions have an effect on the destruction of Syria?” One of our mistakes was that during the Arab Spring, we assumed the overthrow of the Sur Yeh government. Erdoğan’s team summed up as follows: We fought late in Libya, the rebels protested with the French flag in Benghazi. So it is necessary to start working in Syria.”
Jommert continued to write: “If events were to go in the direction we wanted, the future would be in our favor. Because the Baath regime was overthrown and the new regime was fully supported by us. But this did not happen. No matter how much we continued to invest in overthrowing Assad and supporting his opposition groups, we still didn’t get results and even now, some of those opposition groups are stuck in Idlib.
Assad asked Iran and Russia for help and protected his power. Currently, there are about 3.5 million Syrians in Türkiye. We created a safe zone near our border so that some Syrians could return. But it was only a small area of 10,000 square kilometers. We have to accept that our policy in Syria failed in every way.
Ak Yul: It’s a blind knot
Taha Ak Yul, one of Türkiye’s conservative political analysts, wrote about Erdoğan’s mistakes in Syria: When the Syrian civil war began in late 2011, the conservative government in Ankara thought that Assad must be overthrown as soon as possible to prevent the formation of a corridor of terror, while at the same time taking a glimpse of the power of the Muslim Brotherhood’s discourses in Cairo and Damascus. But in supporting the Brotherhood, we were so extreme that our actions terrified even the Arabs and led Turkey to isolation and loneliness.
Taha Ak Yul further wrote: “Everyone knew that the Syrian government is permanent. Even General Joseph Votel, the commander of the US Central Staff in 2018 in the Senate Armed Services Committee, declared without compliment that the Syrian army had won the civil war. But Erdogan continued and when on February 27, 2020, the official Syrian army supported by Russia launched an air attack on a battalion of the Turkish armed forces and martyred 34 of our soldiers, Ankara could not do anything except verbal protest.
This major incident was a sign of how Russia would act if necessary. Following the same path in 2023, Bashar al-Assad was re-admitted to the Arab League. We all know that the Arab League has always opposed Türkiye’s policy in Syria. Even now, in order to be able to establish a normal relationship with Syria, Turkey must use a smart diplomacy. Because the political interests of America and Russia and Turkey’s previous mistakes have practically created a blind knot.
Ajaktan: Akparty gives up slogan of Muhajirin and Ansar
Mehmet Ajaktan, another Turkish political analyst, investigated the consequences of the country’s ruling party’s misuse of religious concepts and slogans.
He wrote: “The Justice and Development Party started working in 2002 with a political approach based on basic human values such as law, democracy and freedom. Although some claimed that it was a false slogan, it really made a lot of progress in all areas. But we all know what happened next. The Justice and Development Party practically ignored all these values and went into a different space with the strong winds of populism, narrowing the ranks of the religious-conservative sectors and focusing only on winning the elections.
“Now the same party, with its Islamic slogans and the discourse of the Muhajirin and Ansar, has reached a point where it is breathing the symbol of the gray wolf and the Turkish race in order to partner with far-right nationalists and put religious slogans aside,” Ajaktan wrote. has put. The party once spoke of democracy, the rule of law and freedom. Then he went to the Ummah and the immigrants and the oppressed and now he is chanting slogans about the connection of the Turkish race with the myth of the gray wolf! The tragedy that befell Syrian refugees in the city of Kayseri is a clear sign that the ruling party is washing its hands of religious slogans and ideals about Syria and the region.
It should be mentioned that against Turkey’s insistence and eagerness to normalize relations with Syria, the Damascus authorities have announced that the primary condition for communication is that the occupying presence of Turkish troops in Syria ends.