Shamil Islamov, head of the Center for Strategic Studies “Russia-Islamic World”, said that the Syrian conflict influences virtually all of the Middle Eastern nations.
"Domestic issues in Turkey are in no small part influenced by the situation in Syria. The long-term prospects of the relations between Iraq and Iran also depend on the Syrian situation. And the dynamics of the Syrian conflict also affect the situation in Egypt, Israel, Jordan – virtually in every corner of the world," he said during a roundtable held at Russia's "Rossiya Segodnya" International Information Agency’ press center.
According to Sultanov, what happens in Syria can only be described as an "extremely complex conflict" that cannot be simplified and narrowed down to the relations between Russia and the US or between Turkey and the Kurds.
"He who tries to simplify it will definitely lose," he remarked.
Sultanov further explained that the Syrian crisis is not a standalone phenomenon but rather an element of a larger Middle Eastern conflict.
"There’s a new model of the Middle Eastern conflict, with Syrian crisis being one of the key elements of said model," he said.
As part of the so-called Arab Spring, protests in Syria that took place in 2011 resulted in clashes between the government forces and opposition. Since then, the Middle Eastern country has been mired in a war, which involves Damascus forces, numerous opposition factions, as well as terrorist groups, including Daesh and Jabhat Fatah al Sham (formerly known as al-Nusra Front), which are prohibited in many countries, including Russia.
