Valdai Club

Turkey in the fight against international terrorism in any case supports certain anti-Assad formations and will continue to support them now more openly than ever before. Conflicts will continue to grow.

It turns out, that the Russian Su-24 aircraft was shot down not in Turkey, but on the Syrian territory. It is clear now, that Turkey has another agenda in Syria, and in the Middle East as a whole, particularly referring to the so called fight against international terrorism.

Turkey considers Syria as its zone of influence. Ankara also wants to see it as part of the former Ottoman Empire and is sure that has more rights to decide the fate of the region than Russia, which came from the outside.

However, Turkey does not have enough military power and logistics in order to influence directly on the situation and restructuring in Syria. But in any case Turkey will do it by indirect means. Erdogan made an important statement that he considered the ethnic Turks who live in the north of Syria in the border areas with Turkey, where the Russian aircraft was shot down, to be his brothers and sisters.

That means that Turkey in the fight against international terrorism in any case supports certain anti-Assad formations and will continue to support them now more openly than ever before. Turkey needs to remove Assad and build a completely different regime, which will focus not on Iran and Russia, but on other powers, including Saudi Arabia. So conflicts will continue to grow.

There is a chance that reasonable heads of NATO will be able to start some process of reconciliation between Turkey and Russia, but for today it seems impossible. Anyway, NATO can act as a mediator. I expected harsher tones against Russia at the NATO meeting in Brussels. They did not follow. Technically, symbolically, NATO was on Turkish side, but at the same time it sent a clear signal to Turkey not to repeat such an incident.

NATO, at least majority of the NATO members, especially Germany and France, understand, that at first common enemy must be defeated – ISIS, which occupies a large parts of Syria and Iraq. ISIS must be cut out from trade with other countries, including oil, first of all with Turkey and Iraq. This should be done by military means, because ISIS with its attacks against France and Russia declared war against the West and Europe. And what will happen in Syria, who will be there in power, distribution of influences are side issues. They will become very important after the defeat of ISIS. I hope, that reasonable minds in NATO will act in order to form, at least temporarily, a common alliance against ISIS and will act together. ISIS is the real winner from the incident with Russian aircraft on the Turkish-Syrian border.