The argument that diplomacy has failed in Syria and that the best thing to bring the suffering to an end in Aleppo would be a quick victory for Syrian President Bashar Al Assad is too pessimistic. We need to recognise that diplomacy has never faced up to the need for an initial partition or zones of influence, involving neighbouring states on the path to an eventual unified settlement in Syria.
Between 2012 and 2014, Turkey was ready to create a protected area in Syria for refugees, but for various reasons this was never supported by Nato. Turkey was understandably very reluctant to move militarily across the border into Syria on its own. When Russia extended an airfield close to Latakia, not far from the naval port it has had in Syria since 1971, and put sophisticated aeroplanes in to protect Al Assad’s forces, everything changed. Turkey shot down a Russian plane and felt threatened by Kurdish forces pushing along its border with Syria.
Turkish relations also became very strained within Nato, particularly with the United States over strategies for dealing with Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) and the European Union (EU) over refugee policies and human rights. Turkey responded perfectly reasonably by defusing tensions with Russia.
During this period, the Russians militarily achieved their objective, reinforced by Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon and Iranian forces, of winning back control of the key roads linking Damascus to the Mediterranean Sea, for Al Assad. These forces, as a consequence, are back in control of this area, including Hama, which has become a Russian zone of influence. Only Turkey is in a political and military position to intervene on the ground over Aleppo and it is demonstrating this at present by attacking Daesh. Turkey can now, because of changed circumstances, create a crucial balancing factor in Syria by taking urgent humanitarian action with its troops and air power in relieving the siege of Aleppo.
Under the United Nations charter, even if the UN Security Council is blocked by a Russian veto, Turkey has a regional locus and a measure of legitimacy, having taken large numbers of Syrian refugees. There is potentially the necessary support within Nato for such an intervention by Turkey.
Already special forces from a number of countries, particularly the US and United Kingdom, are operating in Syria on the ground and they have the skills in helping to target artillery, missiles and in the last analysis aircraft. Intelligence is already fully shared with Turkey, but a greater effort would have to be put in by other Nato countries. Naturally there are some in Turkey who would prefer to have Nato ground troops, but there are others who wisely see the dangers of this. It would be far preferable for Turkey to act as a regional power supported by Nato, and by keeping ground troops out it avoids the whole initiative being seen as an American-Russian confrontation. What provides a new basis for Turkish intervention is that on September 23, Bekir Bozda, Turkey’s Justice Minister, announced in Istanbul that the US Vice-President, Joe Biden, had accepted that there was “concrete evidence” that Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish exile living in the US, was behind July’s failed coup .
Assuming there is substantive evidence in relation to Gulen, the political path is therefore open for early and decisive action over Syria. Gulen left Turkey for Pennsylvania in 1999. The Gulen movement, or Cemaat, which he inspires, is a community in Turkey and overseas. It operates both openly and underground in Turkey and while once the movement favoured Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it is now deeply opposed to him. Erdogan has alleged that Gulen was the mastermind behind the July coup and Turkey asked for his extradition from the US.
It now looks almost certain that the US justice system will return him for trial to Turkey. This means that a very damaging source of strain between Washington and Ankara is closer to being resolved.
Turkish military action should and could be mounted within hours of a decision by Erdogan. It would have the power to implement a no-fly zone (NFZ), with protected land corridors for humanitarian aid and the flow of people both ways into and out of Aleppo. This should be accompanied by a demand for the withdrawal of Al Assad’s forces to a line between Hama and Aleppo. Of course, so recently after a failed military coup there is little appetite from some military leaders to undertake such a high-profile operation.
But there is a counter-argument to this also, for it could successfully restore the reputation of the armed forces in Turkey and demonstrate their loyalty. Nato forces would guard Turkey from the air as it conducted this humanitarian operation. Air activity outside the NFZ would continue against Daesh in Syria and Iraq by Russia, Nato and Al Assad’s forces. A Kurdish area of influence in Syria in relation to Daesh will continue de facto, but there will be no de jure implications, for that would be both unacceptable to Turkey and pre-empt a much more difficult medium-term settlement of issues that involve Iraq and Iran.
Areas of influence would apply in other parts of Syria as well, if its neighbours Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are prepared to underpin them predominantly for dealing effectively with Daesh. This whole initiative should be discussed at the highest military level, first in the Nato-Russian Council, before going to the UN Security Council. It is probable that Russia will veto it in the UN Security Council, but we should not assume that, and on a military-to-military basis it may be possible to set the initiative in a context where Russia will see that its own sphere of influence is not being challenged. The humanitarian imperative is for the region to act and the world to help.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
David Owen was Labour foreign secretary from 1977 to 1979 and is now a crossbencher in the House of Lords. He is the author of Europe Restructured: The Eurozone Crisis and Its Aftermath. His latest book is The Health of the Nation: NHS in Peril.
