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Kurdish fighters from the People's Protection Units (YPG) take part in a military parade as they celebrate victory over the Islamic state, in Qamishli, Syria March 28, 2019.
Will Turkey attack Syria’s Kurds?
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan threatened this week to launch attacks against Kurdish-led forces in northeastern Syria. During an interview broadcast late Tuesday, he said that if the US-backed paramilitary People’s Protection Units (usually known by their Kurdish initialism YPG) fail to lay down their arms and expel foreign fighters, Turkey “will do what’s necessary,” including “a military operation.”
Wait, aren’t the YPG and Turkey both US allies? Yes, but that hasn’t stopped Turkey from attacking the Kurds in the past, as Fidan pointed out. “This is what our national security requires,” he said.
Ankara has a longstanding internal conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party on its side of the border, which is also considered a terrorist group by the US and Turkey’s European allies.
Attacking the YPG is unlikely to trigger a significant US response, and Turkey would also like to bolster the newly friendly regime in Damascus led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
Washington is slowly warming to HTS as well. The Biden administration moved to lift some restrictions on humanitarian aid sent to Syria on Monday, though it stopped short of fully lifting sanctions. We’re watching for HTS to play nice in the short term as it seeks to get out from under the restrictions imposed on the regime of Bashar Assad.
Ukraine kills top Russian general: What it means for the war
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Ukraine assassinated a top Russian general on a Moscow sidewalk. Is this a significant or dangerous escalation?
I think it's a significant escalation in the sense that the highest-ranked Russian official who has been killed by Ukraine in the war has been assassinated in Russia. And it's the kind of thing that, frankly, we've seen from Israel in terms of top officials, Lebanon and Hezbollah, Hamas in Gaza, in Iran. So I mean, this kind of asymmetric warfare, in addition to the fighting on the front lines, is something that we're increasingly getting used to everywhere. But of course, not so much from the weaker power, in this case, Ukraine.
And what we're seeing is an escalation on both sides. More Russian missile attacks, larger numbers, more damaging, more efforts to take territory, more significant than early in the war by the Russians in Ukraine. And more Ukrainian efforts to do damage to Russia before negotiations start to get them both in a better position. Is it more dangerous? A little bit it is. But it also shows that negotiations are coming soon.
With the recent collapse of both France and Germany's governments what kind of turmoil does it create for the EU bloc?
It just means a less strong European Union because the replacements for these governments are not all aligned in the same direction. In France, it's going to be internal fighting between foreign policy run by Macron and domestic policy run by a series of prime ministers, and very challenging to get a strong coordinated support for the EU. In Germany, a very weak Scholz coalition is going to be replaced by probably reasonably weak center-right coalition.
We see a level of populism, nationalism getting stronger in outcomes for European elections across the board. And some of that is a very challenging economic environment that is not rebounding the way the United States is. Some of that is very strong opposition to all of the refugees. Migrants a bigger problem in Europe than it is in the United States. And part of it is upset that they don't have the sovereignty to respond because of the European Union, and that's an easy thing to make into a bogeyman. So for all of those reasons, I think the EU is going to get a little weaker while it's been getting stronger over the last 10 years.
Why does Trump say Turkey "holds the key" to Syria's future?
Well, one, because the Americans under Trump are likely to remove the small number of troops that the United States has had operating in the north. And that means that Turkey is the country that is most capable and also most aligned with the United States to respond, to take over that position to lead the fight against ISIS.
Also, if you're Turkey to lead the fight to contain the Kurds, which is not so aligned with what the Americans want. They'll also be key to reconstruction. The money will come largely from the EU, but the reconstruction on the ground will largely be done by the Turks. So for both of those reasons, if there's any international player that is going to be critical to what happens in Syria, it's not going to be the United States. It's not going to be the Russians that have been forced out. It's not going to be Iranians that aren't playing the state's different role anymore. It's going to be America's NATO ally, Turkey.
FILE PHOTO: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan attends the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November 19, 2024.
Turkey offers to mediate in Sudanese civil war
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called Sudanese Armed Forces Gen. Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan on Friday offering to help resolve the country’s civil war by mediating negotiations with the rebels and their alleged backers, the United Arab Emirates. The offer comes just days after Erdoğan negotiated an agreement to avoid conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia over port access, as Turkey looms ever larger in the politics of the Horn of Africa.
An end to the fighting is desperately needed. Nearly 15 million Sudanese have fled their homes, according to the International Organization for Migration, one of the worst refugee crises in modern history. Aid organizations struggle to reach major population centers due to intense fighting, leading to widespread hunger and disease. And in the western region of Darfur, Rapid Support Forces are accused of carrying out genocidal violence and mass rape against Black ethnic groups like the Masalit and Fur.
US and Saudi-led negotiations produced a ceasefire in May of 2023, only for it to collapse within 24 hours. Since then, the violence has raged unchecked. SAF airstrikes have devastated the capital Khartoum, but they are unable to dislodge RSF infantry, allegedly supplied via UAE airlifts to neighboring Chad. Abu Dhabi denies any involvement.
Why is Turkey getting involved? For a shot at swaying the post-war order in its favor. Ankara and Abu Dhabi’s relations have been severely strained in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring, when they have found themselves backing opposing sides of crises in Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Qatar, as well as diplomatic normalization with Israel. Finding a mediated end to the war reduces the risk that the allegedly Emirati-backed RSF comes out on top.
Avoiding that outcome plays into Turkey’s broader strategy in northeast Africa, which it sees as a key source of future economic growth and political clout. Turkey spent the last decade actively encouraging investment and trade with Sudan and Ethiopia, and the military has provided major backing to Somalia in an effort to stabilize the strategically-placed country. A stable, Turkish-aligned Red Sea coast could present both a tempting market and a key check on regional rivals in the Middle East.People celebrate after fighters of the ruling Syrian body ousted Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Aleppo, Syria, December 13, 2024.
From Assad to Uncertainty
Syria’s new leadership claims it wants to prioritize stability and reconstruction over further conflict – but will that be possible? With Israel fortifying the Golan Heights, Turkey expanding its influence, and Russia retreating, we’re watching this week if Syria and its neighbours will manage to get along — and how allies and adversaries will react.
No new confrontation – for now. Inan interview given on Saturday to Syria TV, Ahmad al-Sharaa — formerly known by his nom de guerre “Abu Mohammed al-Golani” — the leader of the HTS, stated that despite Israel having “clearly crossed the lines of engagement in Syria”, the country’s war-weary condition “does not allow for new confrontations.” Instead, Al-Sharaa stated that HTS’ priorities are reconstruction and stability and called for diplomatic solutions to ensure Syria’s security.
Israel is still wary. Despite al-Sharaa’s moderate tone, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katzmaintained that security threats to Israel have not diminished. Israeli forces remain present in the buffer zone inside Syria and continue to conduct strikes on military targets. On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans todouble the Israeli population of the Golan Heights as a defensive measure against the “new front” that had opened up in the wake of Assad’s ouster, but says his country has "no interest in a conflict with Syria."
Iran steps out, Turkey steps in. Assad’s fall dealta severe blow to Tehran’s influence in Syria, a vacuum Ankara is only too happy to fill. Turkey has now offered toprovide military training to Syria's new administration if requested, and will maintain troops in several cities in northern Syria, where it has been conducting military operations since 2016. Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Güler said his country’s priority remains the elimination of Kurdish militias, which enjoy US backing but are considered terrorists by Turkey.
What about Russia? The other big loser in Syriais Moscow, which had heavily backed Assad’s regime for years, in exchange for strategic positions within the country including the Khmeimim Air Base and Tartus Naval Base. Recent satellite imagery has shown Russian forcespacking up military equipment and preparing for transport. The Kremlin has confirmed that Moscow isin discussions with HTS about retaining its two bases, but has withdrawn troops from frontline positions.
Will the United States fill the gap? US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday that Washington has beenactively engaging with Syria's new leadership but gave no details on when or at what level. Blinken met over the weekend with regional leaders in Jordan to discuss Syria’s future as well as seek the return of Austin Tice, an American journalist detained a decade ago in Syria.
Blinken also emphasized the importance of destroying chemical weapons and rejecting terrorism, warning that “This is a moment of vulnerability in which ISIS will seek to regroup.”
Could US policy change under Trump? When Assad’s government fell, President-elect Donald Trumpposted “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!"
Mike Waltz, Trump's nominee for national security adviser, told Fox News last week that Trump was elected with an overwhelming mandate to keep the United States out of regional wars, and that America's"core interests" remain ISIS, Israel and "our Gulf Arab allies". There are no indications that Trump or his team have reached out to HTS, but the President-elect has reportedly spoken with Netanyahuabout Israel’s plans to expand settlements in the Golan Heights.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan poses with Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed following a press conference in Ankara, Turkey, December 11, 2024.
Turkey mediates key agreement to defuse Ethiopia-Somalia conflict
Ethiopian President Abiy Ahmed and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud announced a critical agreement to end a yearlong dispute over Ethiopia’s access to the Arabian Sea. The leaders announced the deal in Ankara after marathon talks mediated by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whois increasingly emerging as a key player in the Horn of Africa.
What’s the conflict all about? Ethiopia has been the most populous landlocked country in the world since Eritrea broke away in 1993, and the lack of a major seaport has held back development. In January, Ethiopia signed a deal to lease a port from a breakaway region in Somalia, Somaliland, in exchange for recognizing its independence. In response, Somalia threatened to expel Ethiopian troops that are in the country to fight al-Shabab terrorists, and some feared the conflict could escalate into an echo of the devastating 1977-78 Ogaden War.
Why is Turkey involved? Ankara has deep ties to both sides in the conflict and an abiding interest in keeping the peace between them. Turkey’s largest overseas military base is in Somalia, where Turkish troops have trained thousands of their Somali peers. Turkey also backed the Ethiopian government during the 2020-22 Tigray war by providing feared Bayraktar drones.
“The agreement will help make Turkey into an even more relevant power in the region, with Ankara pitching itself as a security partner for African countries,” says Eurasia Group expert Emre Peker.
Turkish businesses have invested over $2 billion in Ethiopia as well, a figure surpassed only by China.
“Aside from expanding its diplomatic and political clout in Africa, the deal will also help Turkey build more commercial inroads in the region,” says Peker. “Ethiopian access to Somali ports could facilitate more trade, and Turkish businesses will benefit from potential preferential treatment on marquee infrastructure projects.”
What now? Representatives will meet again in February for “technical talks” that are meant to hammer out the details of port access.Syrians living in Turkey, holding a picture of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, celebrate after Syrian rebels announced that they have ousted President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, in Istanbul, Turkey, December 8, 2024.
Four reasons why Turkey is excited about the fall of Assad.
No one is sure what the end of the Assad regime in Syria will bring, but few in the region are happier about it than Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. For years, Erdogan, whose Islamist AKP party has governed Turkey since 2003, had sought the ouster of Assad, a secular despot backed by Shia Iran, a regional rival.
In the end, the jihadist militants of Hayat Tahrir el-Sham, or HTS, a group supported in part by Turkey, led the campaign that ended the 54 year reign of the Assads.
But why was Erdogan in particular so interested in seeing that happen?
Here are four big reasons:
- The refugee problem. Nearly 4 million Syrian refugees have arrived in Turkey since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Ankara has gotten some 9 billion Euros from the EU to support them and keep them from traveling onward to Europe, but their presence in Turkey has generated a social backlash. With Assad out of power, Erdogan sees an opportunity to send them home.
- The regional power play. The Sunni Islamist government of Erdogan has always seen Shia revolutionary Iran as a regional rival. Assad, supported by Tehran, was the keystone of Iran’s arc of regional power, enabling Iran to project power via proxy groups into neighboring Lebanon, Iraq, and the Palestinian territories. With that keystone removed, the arc has fallen, and now a Turkey-friendly Sunni Islamist group is in a position to pick up the pieces in Syria. That, says Emre Peker, lead Turkey analyst at Eurasia Group, gives Ankara a chance to “engage in a massive way in the reconstruction of Syria and expand influence and clout throughout the region.”
- The Kurdish complication. For decades, Ankara has faced separatist militancy from Kurdish groups based in southeastern Turkey and is hostile to Syrian Kurdish groups that have carved out autonomous zones of their own during the Syrian civil war. The post-Assad uncertainty has already given Erdogan an opportunity to move more forcefully against the Syrian Kurds. Still, he will have to maneuver carefully in order to avoid a spat with the US, which has backed Syrian Kurds as proxies in the fight against the Islamic State. Incoming US president Donald Trump has called for “staying out of” Syria, which Erdogan would welcome, but it remains to be seen whether that plays out.
- And lastly, the domestic angle. Turkey is in the grip of a huge cost of living crisis, with inflation near 50%. “At a time when everyone is upset about inflation,” says Peker, “the Syria situation is a godsend because now Erdogan can strut his stuff and be the global leader he always wants to be, and people will love him for it in Turkey.”
What could go wrong? Lots. Much of the upside for Erdogan depends on HTS being able to establish order, bring rivals and competing factions to heel, and above all, shape a society that most Syrians will want to live in – or go back to.
But if minority groups feel threatened by HTS rule, there could be a fresh exodus of refugees. Even worse, if HTS’s attempt to hold power collapses altogether, the country could plunge back into chaos and open civil war altogether.
Syrian refugees in Ankara, Turkey, celebrate the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8, 2024.
With Assad out, will migrants move as well?
In Turkey, which hosts approximately 3.2 million Syrian refugees, celebrations erupted following Assad’s ouster, with many people talking aboutreturning home. Syrian refugees in Britain and Germany also held jubilant public celebrations, expressingexcitement about going back.
Regime change in Damascus could also pave the way for the repatriation of Syrian refugees from some parts of Europe. The Netherlands was already considering policiesto send asylum-seekers back, while other EU countrieswere discussing voluntary repatriation before Assad’s fall. Countries could close the door to new arrivals on the basis that Syrian migrants no longer face persecution at home. Closer to home,Jordan is also discussing the possible return of Syrian refugees.
But the feasibility of large-scale repatriation hinges on Syria’s economic stability, the shape of its future government, and reconstruction efforts. A Jihadist regime might not be appealing to refugees seeking to return. And on X, the UNHCR posted “Any refugee return must be voluntary, dignified and safe. UNHCR has been working with all stakeholders to address what refugees identify as obstacles to their return to end their displacement.”
Could the return of refugees dampen support for populist anti-immigration parties in the West? Without a crisis on their doorsteps, politicians like Giorgia Meloni and Geert Wilders would have one less drum to beat – at least when it comes to refugees from Syria.
Ian Bremmer on Assad's fall
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
A Quick Take over the weekend. Yet again, because there is entirely too much blowing up around the world. Here, I want to focus on Syria where just a few hours ago Bashar Assad, the dictator, forced out, overthrown by a large number of militarily strong opposition forces led by the radical Islamist group HTS.
A lot to talk about here. This whole thing lasted less than two weeks, and initially the Russians and the Iranians provided military support for Assad, but his complete inability of his army to fight and offer resistance, and the distraction that the Russians have, they're stretched-thin from their fighting in Ukraine, from the Iranians providing support to resistance forces that are doing very badly against Israel, particularly Hezbollah and Lebanon, meant there wasn't all that much capacity, or even that much political will, to provide support. And so, Assad has been overthrown.
By itself that's good news, in the sense that this has been an incredibly repressive regime fighting initially a war against their own people. The pro-democracy movement that came out of the Arab Spring and has led to over 500,000 Syrians dead over the last decade, over 200,000 of them civilians, and some 6 million refugees, both fleeing into neighboring Arab states but also into Europe, into Turkey, and of course in Germany, which is part of the reason that Merkel ended up leaving her terms in ignominy. That is the initial background.
And there has been a lot of support for various opposition groups in Syria, from Turkey, most notably from the UAE, from Saudi Arabia, and from the United States, while the Assad government was being supported principally by the Russians in terms of air support, some intelligence, some cyber capabilities, and from the Iranians on the ground, particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. And that was largely enough through the majority of this war. The rebel groups by 2018 had retreated into the northwest, this Idlib region. And by that point, the rebels that were left were mostly led by ISIS, and that meant a common enemy on the part of the United States.
And Turkey had turned from Assad to the proximate Syrian part of the war on terror. And if that had failed, it had the potential to turn Syria and neighboring Iraq into a terrorist state. ISIS lost that battle. Assad consolidated most of Syria under his regime. And then about four years ago, Turkey and Russia brokered a ceasefire in Idlib, which was at that point under opposition control.
That brings us to today, and to HTS, which stands for Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham. It's a former Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria that has since formally cut their ties with the terrorists, but they're still called a terrorist organization, labeled one by the United States and its allies in NATO. And they are the de facto leader of the armed opposition and led the now ouster of Assad. Now, they've become kind of Hezbollah-like in the sense that they're providing a lot of Syrian citizens with government services. They've managed to coordinate rebels and eliminate infighting underneath that, and they've also promised to protect Syrian Christians and Muslim Alawites and have gotten the tacit support of the Turkish Erdoğan government, who basically gave them at least a blinking yellow if not a green light to go ahead and launch this war against Assad two weeks ago.
Now, having said all of that, the likelihood that they're going to run as a secular government, Syria, seems unlikely to me. This is, we're going from Assad to what is probably going to be a radical Islamist government that'll be repressive and that'll be deeply challenging. And so I don't think that is in any way, at least at this point, something that we can call a transition that's good news or that we shouldn't feel anxiety about. But what is clear is that the Iranians and Russians have lost. So the axis of resistance is not looking like much of an axis and it's not putting up very much resistance. The Russians, Putin has said nothing about this. He's not made a public statement, and that's not surprising. Frequently when he is surprised and he faces sudden embarrassing losses, he doesn't say anything about it to his people. And if you look at Russian state media, they've been talking about France, and South Korea, and Trump, and all those things, but almost no coverage of Syria, where the Russians have lost an ally and they've lost a military base that's important to them in Tartus and they've not been able to put up much of a fight.
Now, the good news there is that if you're Putin, you should be more cognizant of the fact that there are major costs of continuing to fight an incredibly bloody war in Ukraine where you're making some gains, territorially, but you're losing huge numbers of Russian citizens. And so if Trump is coming in and says he wants to cut a deal, Putin should be more incented to do that. There's also good news on the Iranian front in the sense that Syria falling means that they no longer have a corridor to provide military support for Hezbollah. And that means that the two-month ceasefire, which has been announced by the Israelis and by the Lebanese government, is more likely to hold.
Now, if you put those two things together, kind of interesting. Looks more likely that Trump gets inaugurated, and he is indeed able to announce that the temporary ceasefire becomes a permanent end of the war between Israel and Hezbollah, and that he's able to negotiate a ceasefire between the Russians and Ukrainians that does not give up the store to Putin. The former is an easier bet than the latter, but both of them certainly look more likely on the back of Assad being ousted.
The bad news? More challenges, more humanitarian degradation for the Syrian people on the ground. Could easily see another million refugees on the back of the fighting that we've had, depending on what happens with governance going forward. There are very few hospitals that are presently functioning. There is very limited humanitarian aid on the ground, that's necessary in very short order. And it's hard to say that fighting isn't going to break out amongst the various factions that have held together in fighting a common enemy, if that's going to lead to coherent governance going forward, it depends so much on what happens when HTS becomes not the leader of a rebel group but suddenly is responsible for governance on the ground in Syria. And your guess is as good as anyone as to what is going to happen there.
So, that is the best I can tell where we are right now. It's a fascinating issue and a temporary expansion of the war in the Middle East, but hopefully one that we can see bringing a little bit of stability to some other conflicts that are happening in the region and more broadly. That's it for me, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
- Podcast: Syria, The Rise and Fallout of the House of Assad with Sam Dagher ›
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- The Graphic Truth: How a decade of war has crushed Syria ›
- Tragedy upon tragedy in war-torn Syria ›