Turkey has recently been raising hell over the Russian-backed Syrian government army’s advance on Aleppo, desperately calling on the world to prevent a Syrian victory. The full liberation of this major Syrian city from the jihadists would mark a major blow to the Turkish policy of fuelling the ongoing civil war in the country.
Now Erdogan is feeling the full force of Moscow’s wrath for shooting down a Russian jet back in 2015. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin called the Turkish action a “stab in the back”, and the relations between the two countries hit rock bottom.
Why Turkey would down a plane of a friendly nation on a bombing mission against terrorists is beyond comprehension. If there was a plan behind the attack, it could have only been to escalate tensions with Russia and drag Nato into the conflict. Yet it’s more likely that Erdogan simply snapped under the tension, mad as he was at the Russian intervention in Syria that was upsetting his carefully laid plans for dominance in that country. Unfortunately for him, the Turkish president apparently forgot the old Turkish saw: “He who gets up in anger sits down with a loss”.
After downing the plane Erdogan ran to Nato for protection, half-hoping for a shooting war with Russia. Yet Moscow kept its cool and proceeded to exact a different kind of revenge. It doubled down on its strikes against of the jihadists answerable to Ankara who held the piece of Syrian territory along the Turkish border. Soon enough the area was mostly liberated by the Syrian army, and the supply lines from Turkey to the jihadists holed up in parts of Aleppo were cut off. Now it looks like the entire city may soon be completely purged of the rebels.
So the jubilation over poking Russia in the eye proved short-lived, as the Turks soon realized that they bit off more than they could possibly chew. Now Erdogan is being reduced to blackmailing his hapless Nato allies into fighting his Russian battles. With his Syrian strategies lying in ruins, one of the few options still open to him is to play the refugee card.
In recent times Erdogan has acquired an unusual hold over the Europeans, as witnessed by his bragging about being able to drown Europe in refugees that Turkey has accumulated from the Syrian conflict. With Europe essentially at Ankara’s mercy, its politicians have little choice but to do Turkey’s bidding. Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel, in trouble at home for her misguided refugee acceptance policies, recently went to Turkey to plead with Erdogan for relief. Faced with the threat of more refugees being unleashed upon the beleaguered Europeans, she agreed to play Erdogan’s game and lashed out at Russia for alleged civilian deaths in Aleppo and causing a humanitarian crisis.
Yet Merkel’s indignation lacks conviction. She knows full well that the people fleeing Aleppo are mostly jihadists and their cohorts. Merkel must also be aware that Turkey has been tightening its border controls in an effort to cause entry bottlenecks, thus creating the impression of a human tsunami coming at it. But her fear of jihadists soon turning up on Germany’s doorstep under the guise of refugees is probably real.
Turkey has also been scheming on the diplomatic front in an attempt to ward off the defeat in Syria. Together with the Saudis and Syrian rebel groups it has been trying to torpedo the Geneva talks between Damascus and the opposition. Demands were made for the talks to be delayed until after the government’s advance on Aleppo halts. Yet Russia is unlikely to fall for such trickery. The Russian-Syrian-Iranian coalition can be expected to press on until such time when the time is right for them to stop. In any event, the demands seem to be empty bluster since the Turks are not in a position to materially affect developments on the ground.
By unnecessarily antagonizing the Russians Erdogan has dug himself into a hole. Had he chosen to work with Russia instead of fighting it, his country would have had a chance to get a honorable seat at the table of the Syrian settlement. Now all that is in doubt, to say the least, and Turkey’s position looks increasingly irrelevant and untenable.
