“Turkey supports but does not really control the opposition to the fallen regime in Damascus”

LThe slow course of history sometimes accelerates in unexpected ways. Setting out to attack Aleppo and Hama, the country's second and fourth cities, on November 27, the hybrid Syrian rebellion of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTC) and the Syrian National Army has just captured Damascus. with disconcerting ease and without unleashing unnecessary violence. It owes this unprecedented success to everything it lacked at the start of the revolution: organization, discipline, determination. To this ideological maturity, coupled with a form of calmer relationship with the minorities, Kurds, Alawites and Christians, is added the geopolitical context, ultimately unfavorable to the regime of Bashar Al-Assad and from which it has just taken a tactical advantage.

Indeed, Al-Assad's two supporters, Russia and Iran, are in a bad position. Iran and its ally Hezbollah are weakened by the murderous wars waged by Israel in Lebanon and Palestine. Russia's attention is focused on the Ukrainian front and deprives Bashar Al-Assad of essential military aid. As for Turkey, the first neighbor, the first land of exile for 4 million refugees and the first regional power favorable to the opposition since 2011, it places many hopes for appeasement and normalization of the region in this new configuration. It is therefore important to look at how Ankara will receive and react to the fall of Damascus, to better understand the role, real or supposed, that Turkey plays in emboldening the Syrian “rebel” forces.

Let us first recall that Turkey and Syria maintained excellent relations until 2011 and the rise of the Syrian revolution, in the wake of the “Arab Spring”. Not without hesitation, cornered by the violence of Bashar Al-Assad's repression, whose fall was near, it was thought at the time, Ankara opted for a break and provided aid to the rebellion. However, the failure of the revolution, through the convergent effect of Russian-Iranian support for the regime and the rise of jihadism, plunged Syria into general chaos, and dragged Turkey into the bog of this complex conflict.

Vital national interests

Thus, its border with Syria has become porous and vulnerable to jihadist attacks by the Islamic State (IS) organization and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Furthermore, its humanitarian reception policy has enabled around 4 million Syrians to find asylum in the country. Today, this massive presence is increasing social tensions. Finally, Turkish support for the “rebel” forces prompted Bashar Al-Assad to punish Turkey by reactivating its support for the PKK and its subsidiaries in Syria. These two concerns, the future of refugees and the Kurdish question, are for Turkey vital national interests for its stability and security. Active and intense for more than ten years, Ankara's help in the reconquest should not be overestimated.

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