Turkey paying the price of its mistakes in Syria

Ahmed Sami Abdel Fattah

The dreams of Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Syria are running into the Russian brick wall.

Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has not budged from his position on the northern Syrian province of Idlib and insisted to back the Syrian army in defending it.

Putin also insisted on controlling road M4 between Idlib and Latakia.

Turkey knows that its defeat in northern Syria will serve the interests of the Kurds in the same region. This was why Erdogan sent reinforcements to the region. He just wanted to avoid this defeat.

Diplomacy was also present in the showdown between Moscow and Ankara. A Russian delegation visited Turkey and proposed de-escalation in the region by limiting the de-escalation zone to less than 40% of the space agreed to in Sochi. However, Turkey had refused this proposal. It said the people density along the border with Syria would put pressure on it, especially if the Syrian regime decides to recapture other territories.

On February 23, the Russian army attacked a Turkish checkpoint, leaving two Turkish soldiers dead and two others injured. The attack just meant to deliver the message to Turkey that it is not safe in Idlib anymore. It also meant to convince Turkey that it has to accept the Russian de-escalation proposal.

Turkey had previously submitted an official request for the U.S. to provide it with the Patriot Defense System. Nonetheless, the U.S. said it could not provide Turkey with the system at present. This forced Ankara to search for other sources for the system. It addressed Italy and Spain which deploy the same system in Turkey, within NATO’s common defense plan. However, the two states have not replied yet.

Turkey bought the S-400 air defense system from Russian in order to distance itself from the western camp.

Nevertheless, the fledgling alliance with Moscow is turning out to be weak.