The Syrians’ interest in the Turkish presidential elections — more so than others in the region — is understandable.
Turkey is a neighbouring country separated from Syria by an approximately 1,000-kilometre border. It hosts about four million Syrian refugees, and its army is stationed in northern Syria and spread across pockets where approximately four million Syrians live, half of whom are displaced.
Syrians, however, do not share uniform feelings over the election results.
The Turkish presidential elections have become yet another subject of disagreement and cause for division. This fragmentation is natural given Syria's deepening divisions over the last decade.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the 13th Turkish president. He handed himself the key to the palace, ensuring a smooth transition from the first to the second centenary of the republic. This is the reality that Syrians — with their diverse backgrounds — must deal with in the next five years.
Within this context, there are three Syrian trends that beg many questions and few answers.
Russia and Damascus-Ankara tensions
First, is the situation in Damascus.
It is well known that Russian President Vladimir Putin exerted significant pressure on President Bashar al-Assad to hold a trilateral Syrian-Turkish-Russian summit (with Iranian participation as well). The Tsar’s goal was to collect cards for his friend, the Sultan, in order to extend his stay in the palace.
Al-Assad refused to hold this meeting before the Turkish military withdrew from northern Syria, agreed to withdraw or set a timetable for the withdrawal.
However, the real reason for al-Assad's refusal was that he did not want to help his opponent, Erdogan, to win a new term. In fact, he was betting on his rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who had ties and alliances with Damascus.
Under pressure from Putin and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, al-Assad agreed to send his foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, to meet his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Moscow.
A four-party meeting between the foreign ministers of Russia, Syria, Turkey and Iran, Sergey Lavrov, Faisal Mekdad, Mevlut Cavusoglu and Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, kicked off in Moscow, a TASS correspondent reports:https://t.co/qJ26jSgib6 pic.twitter.com/9ijOvyKGEC
— TASS (@tassagency_en) May 10, 2023
This essentially meant that Syrian-Turkish normalisation shifted from the security track to the political track without/before withdrawal or commitment to withdrawal.
This was al-Assad’s gift to Putin.
And now that Erdogan secured the presidency once again, it is very likely that Russia and Iran will push to maximise Syrian-Turkish rapprochement. But the difference now is that Erdogan is no longer under the pressure of time and the ballot box.
Didn't Cavusoglu say a few days ago that the Turkish military presence would remain until the elimination of the terrorist threat? There is a new reality now, Erdogan will be around for years, and so will al-Assad. And they both need Putin.
But the question here is how will they deal with this new reality.
