"Falling apart while leaving..."

I am once again flipping through the 2015 book "Syria. When you fail, resist" by my esteemed friend Fehim Taştekin, one of the best journalists who knows the Middle East. Yes, nine years later, the Assad dictatorship, unable to resist, as Fehim also put it, "fell and left." In 2018, after settling in Idlib and later establishing its own administration in the region, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham organization began an attack on November 27, and while the dictator's army could not withstand it, Russia, Iran, and Iraq, who assessed the developments realistically, found it more reasonable not to help Bashar, the son of Hafiz al-Assad. After his father's 29-year bloody dictatorship, the son, who took the presidential seat in the summer of 2000, was able to stay in power for 24.5 years. I will never forget the words of our esteemed elder, Maruf Pəri, from Kirkuk, who invited me to his home in Baghdad in the summer of 1997: "Just like the Ba'ath in Syria, the Ba'ath in Iraq was also created by the Jew Michel Aflaq. Every year, when he came to Baghdad and spoke at the Ba'ath meeting, he would say, 'The Ottomans kept you in captivity for 400 years, and you must take revenge on today’s Turks.'” During the Cold War, Yevgeny Primakov, a correspondent for "Pravda" in the Middle East, was one of Moscow’s most trusted men; only the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Mahmoud Abbas, remains: first Saddam Hussein was overthrown, then Yasser Arafat, after living through several Israeli sieges, died, and now Bashar al-Assad has fled to Moscow with his family.

After this escape, just as every country had its own plan, what does this escape promise to Turkey, which is closely interested?

Currently, Syria’s governance is left in the hands of Assad's prime minister, Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali. Will Ankara make direct contact with him? Or will it wait for the announcement of a new state headed by HTS? If the new state declared is sharia-based, will Damascus have the authority to establish relations with it, or will Ankara, "regardless of the details," recognize that state and allow its embassy to begin operations? Yes, Assad knew that HTS, originating from Idlib, had close ideological ties with Ankara, and so did Moscow, Washington, and Jerusalem. Will ideological proximity be sufficient for the recognition of the new state? For example, when the Taliban took power again in Afghanistan, Ankara had shown "spiritual and moral closeness" in recognizing a strict sharia state. Later, despite the Taliban delegation’s visit to Ankara, how far could the secular Turkish state and the hardline sharia Taliban government develop their relations? Although we do not know this, we know that Russia’s Foreign Ministry is ready to make a decision to recognize the Taliban. After the news of Bashar Assad fleeing to Moscow on December 8, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a statement, “We are holding continuous discussions with the responsible parties to ensure the security of our military contingent and bases in Syria.”

How should we interpret Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan's statements on "Syria's territorial integrity," considering his 13 years in the intelligence services and his in-depth knowledge of Syria? Looking at Syria's current map and the forces dividing the regions, we can see that the forces Ankara sees as terrorist organizations control at least 30% of the country's territory. After President Erdoğan’s meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on August 9, 2016 (they met twice on the same day), Turkey launched a military operation in Syria’s northwest on August 26. Although it largely succeeded in pushing the terrorist groups away from the border, the terrorist groups that emerged in the northeast continued to concern Ankara. Despite reaching an agreement with the U.S. to push these groups 20 kilometers beyond Turkey’s border, Turkey’s concerns persist because there are undeniable facts about the close relations the U.S. has with these groups in the region.

Recent reports show that hours after the opposition forces took control of Damascus, Syrian soldiers aligned with the Free Syrian Army, with whom Turkey has close ties, launched attacks on Kurdish-majority areas, though it is known that Kurdish groups have no intention of engaging in a life-or-death struggle against Turkey. Therefore, in the current situation, Turkey is acting with a calm approach, leading the countries taking a measured stance: As Western media claims, if Russia, which has concentrated all its resources on the Ukrainian front, had any ability to support Syria in the emerging situation, it would have done so without hesitation. If Washington and Jerusalem have not decided to grant autonomy to the Kurds in Syria, it is certainly not difficult to predict that Turkey, which has taken control of the Tel Rifaat and Manbij regions since November 27, will not allow Kurdish groups to dominate the region extending from Syria's northeast to northwest.

The reasons are clear. That’s why, on one hand, Turkey’s military struggle against the terrorist Kurdish groups in Syria and its continued dialogue process with its “own Kurds” behind the scenes show Ankara’s serious intentions.

In 1994, when I spoke with Mehmet Ali Birand, one of the most important program hosts in Turkish television, I asked him this question: "Why does Hafiz Assad refuse to stop supporting the terrorist organization despite Turkey's warnings?"

Birand's answer was: “No country would easily give up a card it can use against another country. Hafiz Assad is doing just that."

Fifty-three years later, if I borrow the title of my dear friend Fehim's book once more, "Falling apart," it can be said that Turkey, which emerges stronger from these processes, continues its struggle against separatism in Syria as a democratic country...