From Al-Monitor July 11, 2020:
Turkish president throws his lot in again with Russia and Iran in Syria, expands plans for influence in North Africa and moves to convert the Hagia Sophia back into a mosque.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has never been one for introspection or restraint in his declarations, but his recent statements display an outsized confidence, even by his standards.
In the next three years, Erdogan said, Turkey will be an unstoppable power in the region. Despite an exodus of foreign investment, as Mustafa Sonmez reports, the Turkish president sees opportunity in crisis: in COVID-19, Syria, Iraq and even in Libya and North Africa, where so far he seems to have gained an edge, for now, on rivals such as France, Egypt and the UAE.
COVID-19 reshaping Turkey as global power For Erdogan, Turkey will not be set back by COVID-19, but will instead “be one of the outstanding countries in the world that will be reshaped after the pandemic.”
Turkey, like the UAE and Qatar, has its own COVID-19 foreign aid program, sending medical supplies and assistance to Iraq and sub-Saharan African countries, as we reported here.
While cases worldwide have been known to fluctuate and spike, and while Turkey is second only to Iran in the region with 210,965 documented coronavirus cases (Iran has 252,720; both countries have an estimated population of just over 80 million, topped only by Egypt’s nearly 100 million in the Middle East), the fatality rate in Turkey is a relatively low 2.5% (5,323 have died), compared with a death rate of 4.9% in Iran (12,447 deaths), 4.6% in Egypt (3702 deaths out of 80,235 cases), 4.46% worldwide and 4.1% in the United States.
Syria: Turkey throws weight with Astana Trio (for now)
Last week the so-called "Astana Trio" — the presidents of Turkey, Russia, and Iran — met again to discuss the future of Syria.
Erdogan said the grouping “will be decisive for Syria’s future.” No matter that the three differ on the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — Russia and Iran back him, while Erdogan has in the past call for Assad’s ouster — and that Turkish and Syrian forces exchanged fire and casualties in Idlib in February.
But Turkey may be inching toward, or at least entertaining, for now, a live and let live approach with the Syrian government, at least to give Russian President Vladimir Putin’s diplomacy a chance.
The final Astana communique was a restatement of the group’s commitment to eliminating terrorists (which Turkey takes to mean armed Kurdish groups as well as the Islamic State and al-Qaeda linked forces), and jabs at US policies of violating Syrian "sovereignty" by backing "separatist agendas" and the "illegal seizure and transfer of oil revenues.”
This was a disappointment to those in the Trump administration who in May had spoken hopefully that Turkey could be a "counterweight" to Russia and Iran in Syria. That perspective was based on the false hope that Erdogan was willing to chuck his Russian and Iranian partners because of the Russian-backed Syrian assault on Turkish outposts in Idlib in February, which killed 33 Turkish soldiers. Turkey retaliated with fury, taking out many more Syrian and Iranian-backed forces, before Erdogan and Putin ironed out a new cease-fire in March, which has mostly held.
The bottom line for Erdogan in Syria is twofold, as he deals with a two-front campaign in Idlib, in the northwest, and in combating US-backed Kurdish groups in the areas it occupies in the northeast.
Idlib is not the hill Erdogan wants Turkey to die on. To the contrary, he wants out, a face-saving exit. It is a mess and a quagmire, as the al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group faces its Alamo there. As part of its agreements with Russia, Turkey has been trying, for several years, to enlist moderate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham members to join other opposition groups in order to stave or hold off a final Syrian assault. This has been a miserable and thankless task, but it may be making progress, as Fehim Tastekin explains. Putin may be content, for now, that the Russian-backed Syrian offensive has secured the vital M4 highway linking the country's east and west, allowing a pause to give Turkey more time to engage Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.....MUCH MORE
With regard to Turkey’s "security corridor" in northeast Syria, to mitigate what Erdogan describes as the terrorist threat from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units — which make up the core of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and which he links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) — Erdogan perceives he has gotten what he needs, if not all he wants. The armed Kurdish groups are on defense following the Turkish invasion and occupation in October 2019. The Turkish occupation is costly and perhaps not sustainable in the long run, as are the 3.6 million refugees presently in Turkey, but it gives him leverage. The United States is also trying to broker Kurdish unity talks between rival Syrian Kurdish groups, with the help of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, as Amberin Zaman explains. Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of US Central Command, met with SDF Commander Mazlum Kobane in northeast Syria, Jared Szuba reports....
Meanwhile this weekend the Financial Times reported:
