Erdoğan is now isolated on all sides, sharply at odds with other major players in the Syrian crisis. Having sent an extra 7,000 troops and armour into into Idlib last month to reinforce existing military outposts, Turkey has plunged in open warfare with Bashar al-Assad’s regime. It has attacked airports and radar sites well behind the de facto “frontline”. It has declared all regime “elements” to be legitimate targets.
In mid-2011, when the Arab spring uprisings were just getting going, Ahmet Davutoğlu, then Turkey’s foreign minister, met Assad in Damascus and urged him to discuss the demonstrators’ demands. Assad refused. Davutoğlu later told me the Syrian leader just wouldn’t listen. The chance was lost. As Assad’s crackdown intensified, Erdoğan threw Turkey’s weight behind the rebels, including Islamist groups.
But what is happening now in north-west Syria is no longer a proxy war. It is a direct confrontation between the two heavily armed neighbouring states. And it threatens to draw Turkey deeper into military conflict with Russia, Assad’s principal ally. Erdoğan’s spokespeople and the pro-government media continue to suggest that last Thursday’s debacle, when 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in an attack on their convoy in Idlib, was the fault of the Syrian regime. -Full Report
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