Türkiye’s Overlooked Gift to Israel
President Bashar al-Assad met with Alexander Lavrentiev, President Putin’s special envoy in late June. During their discussion, President al-Assad reportedly expressed Syria’s openness to all initiatives aimed at improving Syrian-Turkish relations, provided Ankara respects Syria’s sovereignty and commits to combating all forms of terrorism and terrorist organizations. In the following days, President Erdoğan said that Türkiye has no interest in interfering in Syria’s domestic affairs and that the two countries could act in unity as in the past. Yesterday, he also said an invitation could soon be extended to President Assad to visit Türkiye. These statements and the acts of violence between Syrian refugees and the locals in some Turkish cities once again moved the question of “reconciliation with Syria” up Türkiye’s foreign policy agenda. Whether this is simply another distraction from our depressing economic problems or represents a genuine change of heart remains to be seen.
First, a brief look at the last two decades of our relations with Israel, Syria, and Russia.
Türkiye and Israel enjoyed good relations for decades. For a long time, this was a negative element in the myriad of complexities that historically characterized Arab countries’ ambivalent attitude towards Türkiye. Gradually, however, they saw that Turkish-Israeli cooperation was not directed against their interests. Nevertheless, it gave them an excuse to criticize Türkiye whenever they felt like it.
With the Justice and Development Party (AKP) coming to power in 2002, an element of uncertainty was introduced into this relationship. Israel was concerned about AKP’s Islamic roots and the importance it attached to the Palestinian question. Ankara was not pleased with reports of Israel’s engagement with the Iraqi Kurds following the US invasion. However, the relationship continued without a major disturbance until the “One minute” incident at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 30, 2009, where Prime Minister Erdogan, in the presence of President Shimon Peres, denounced Israel for its attitude towards the Palestinians. This marked the beginning of the downturn.
The Davos incident was followed by the “Mavi Marmara” tragedy in May 2010. A Turkish NGO organized a flotilla to take humanitarian assistance to Gaza in defiance of the Israeli maritime blockade. Israel warned them it would not allow this, but the organizers were determined. The Turkish Government chose to let the initiative run its course. Finally, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) boarded the flagship of the flotilla, “Mavi Marmara” and killed nine Turks. There was uproar in Türkiye. Relations came down to the lowest level.
Following the Hamas onslaught of October 7, Ankara became the world’s most outspoken critic of Israel. No Arab country could or would match Türkiye’s anti-Israel rhetoric. Thus, any improvement in relations is a chimera.
But I must remind my readers who made that great gift to Israel. Surprisingly, it was the same, anti-Israeli, pro-Hamas AKP government who made the gift soon after the “One minute” and “Mavi Marmara” incidents. The gift was AKP’s substantive contribution to the destruction of Syria through the ill-fated regime-change project and thus helped pave the way toward the Abraham Accords.
Now a few words about AKP’s role in the “regime change project” in Syria.
Hafez al-Assad was the 18th president of Syria from 1971 until he died in 2000. He was the number one regional enemy of Türkiye, despite his false denials, strongly supporting the PKK. On July 17, 2000, Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father as president. Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer’s unexpected presence at Hafez al-Assad’s funeral marked a turning point between the two countries which share a 910-kilometer land border. Political and economic relations flourished. Assads and Erdoğans became family friends.
In December 2009, the communique issued at the end of the Damascus meeting of the “Turkish-Syrian High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council” referred to a “strategic partnership”, at the time a fashionable label for Türkiye’s close external relationships. It mentioned common threats and challenges confronting the two countries.
A year later, Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu, in remarks to the press with his Syrian counterpart in Latakia, underlined that the exemplary relationship between Syria and Türkiye was serving as a model for regional partnerships and that the two countries were aiming at total economic integration with neighbors.
Two years later, in the “heyday” of the Arab Spring, it dawned upon Türkiye’s ruling AKP government that Assad was a dictator. Thus, aspiring to bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Damascus the government grabbed a leading role in the regime change project in Syria. Ankara joined hands with the US, other Western countries, and Gulf states to oust President Assad from power. Forgotten were the common threats and total economic integration. Mr. Assad was castigated as “the enemy of his own people”. He called this reversal of policy a betrayal.
In the early days of the Syrian conflict, Russia and Türkiye were on diametrically opposite sides. Russia supported the regime, and the Turkish government the opposition. Nonetheless, Turkish-Russian relations remained on track.
On November 24, 2015, a stunning development changed the picture. Türkiye shot down a Russian Su-24 military plane for having violated Turkish airspace for 17 seconds.
In the wake of the shoot-down, President Putin vented his anger. He directed far-reaching accusations against the Turkish government for having links to the Islamic State (IS).
Soon after the incident, Prime Minister Davutoğlu rushed to Brussels. After their talks, he and NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg held a joint news conference. Mr. Stoltenberg stated that they had discussed the incident and all allies fully supported Türkiye’s right to defend its territorial integrity and airspace. He added that he welcomed Ankara’s efforts to de-escalate the situation.
Thus, the downing of Su-24 helped NATO and Türkiye remember one another. The reality, however, was that NATO countries preferred to avoid a confrontation with Russia over an incident that had occurred without their having an opportunity to say a word.
Misfortunes, however, were not over. On 19 December 2016, Andrei Karlov, the Russian Ambassador to Türkiye, was assassinated by an off-duty Turkish police officer with dubious links, at an art exhibition in Ankara.
In 2017, Türkiye signed the S-400s deal with Russia in its first major weapons purchase from Moscow. Türkiye’s NATO allies were critical of the deal, but Ankara said this was its sovereign decision. As allied criticism became more vocal Ankara simply said this was a “done deal”.
When looked at in the broad context of Türkiye’s relationship with Russia, one cannot but conclude that the S-400 contract was the price the AKP government had to pay to put behind the downing of the Su-24, the murder of the Ambassador and thus restore its cooperation with Moscow. Because Türkiye’s well-advanced multidimensional economic cooperation with Russia was not something Ankara could easily give up. Moreover, Ankara had no other option than to cooperate with Russia in Syria. However, the cost of the S-400s went well beyond the 2.5 billion dollars paid to Russia. Relations with Washington suffered, and Türkiye was ousted from the F-35 fifth-generation fighter jet program.
In brief, Türkiye’s involvement in the Syrian conflict has been the greatest foreign and security policy blunder in the history of the Republic and the AKP government needs to admit this. Turks across the political spectrum need to understand this. Before we became a party to the conflict we had good relations with Damascus. Our relations with Russia were stable. The only problem with the West was our democratic decline. Today, unfortunately, we find ourselves in a very narrow alley between the two with long lists of challenges.
Why was the AKP government’s contribution to the destruction of Syria such a great gift to Israel?
The prevalent view of the Middle East is that Egypt is the center of the Arab world. Yes, Egypt has been the home to great civilizations and today it enjoys considerable regional and global outreach. But, having dealt with the Middle East for many years at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and having served in Baghdad and Riyadh, I believe that the core of the Arab nation was always Syria and Iraq, the home of Abbasid and Umayyad Empires, and the birthplace of the Baathist ideology based on Arab nationalism, pan-Arabism, and Arab socialism with elements of secularism, despite ups and downs between Damascus and Baghdad.
Under the long-time “Redesigning of the Middle East” project, the essence of which is “divide and rule”, Iraq was invaded under false premises and still has not recovered from the devastation of the years that followed. Under the same project, Syria was also devastated. But the project is still far from over as Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s recent complaints about the support given to the YPG by the US, UK, and to some extent by France have revealed. What gives them this opportunity? The devastation of Syria to which Ankara made a substantial contribution.
The removal of these two core Arab nations from the Middle East equilibrium has enabled Israel, with much US support, to move forward in relations with four Arab countries under the Abraham Accords, with Saudi Arabia waiting in the wings to follow the others. Had Syria and Iraq had been on their feet, these four countries, particularly the Gulf dynasties would have thought twice before establishing relations with Israel.
In brief, when looking at the future of their relations with Türkiye and putting AKP’s pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas rhetoric in perspective, Israelis also need to appreciate the priceless gift the AKP government has given them through its participation in the destruction of Syria. Whether that gift was given knowingly or by mistake matters little, it was given, period.
As for Ankara’s reconciliation with Syria, I am all for it, sooner the better. We are neighboring countries, and the current state of affairs serves the interests of neither side. I am also for restoring relations between Israel and Türkiye at some point in the future. After all, in a turbulent world characterized by endless competition between major powers, this is the dictate of reason. That is exactly where we were two decades ago and far better off than today. But if we believe that the restoration of relations and the return of the Syrian refugees to their homeland are quickly achievable tasks, we will be profoundly disappointed. Because the refugees would not wish to go back to a devastated country, and the Assad regime which considers most of them as anti-regime Islamist opposition gangs, would not be ready to welcome them even in the medium term. President Assad might say, “You made a great gift to Israel and the refugees are my gift to you.”