Turkey’s Syria conundrum

In his article titled “Syrian policy: Criticize, but be consistent,” Radikal’s Cengiz Çandar analyzes the criticism directed at Turkey’s stance on Syria. First, on the criticism claiming that Turkey is acting like a subcontractor of the US, Çandar says the main problem with this criticism is that it is not true. As a matter of fact, rather than being a subcontractor, Turkey has complained that neither the US nor the UN is doing their best to find a solution and have been acting rather passively. Another criticism that is worth thinking about is that Turkey did not do a good job of calculating the strength of the Assad regime and thought it would be overthrown quickly. And because of this miscalculation, Turkey made some mistakes in both the steps it took and those that it did not take. “However, Turkey had already foreseen that the defeat of the Assad regime would not be like that of the leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya because Syria is located on fragile regional and international fault lines,” said Çandar. And so Turkey supported the opposition not because of its miscalculation but in order not to repeat the same mistake it made in Iraq, and according to the columnist it had good reason to take this step. In sum, Turkey’s Syrian policy can and moreover should be criticized, but while criticizing one should be consistent, Çandar warns. Otherwise, what is said will not have any legitimacy.

Zaman’s Ali Ünal, on the other hand, writes about the recent claims linking the “wrong policy regarding the Syrian crisis” to the escalating acts of terror. “Turkey has never understood that the use of terror is designed to split the country as well as other countries in the region,” Ünal says. Therefore, our Syria policy or granting Kurds more rights does not affect our terror problem. Quoting from Yeni Şafak’s columnist, İbrahim Karagül, Ünal says that explosives from Iraq have been stockpiled in various provinces in Turkey for years by terrorists and their outside supporters. And it is known for sure that some military officers, diplomats, businesspeople and politicians are cooperating with the US and Israeli intelligence agencies, but it seems we forget about these facts when there is an opportunity to attack the government by blaming its foreign policy for the growing violence, Ünal notes.