Several threads are unraveling in northern Syria, northern Iraq, and the broader region, which might bring the Turkish leadership to revise its Syria policy.
It has become almost customary on the eve of an election for the government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to scale up its rhetoric on security threats emanating from the Turkish-Syrian border. On March 31, Turkey will go to the polls to renew its municipal administrations.
As ever, northern Syria is where Turkey’s regional ambitions meet the reality on the ground. With four incursions into Syrian territory in the period 2016–2020, Turkey has occupied large swathes of land with the objective of neutralizing the threat emanating from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Kurdish armed rebel group that is present just south of the Turkish border, in both Syria and Iraq.
Despite all of Ankara’s military efforts, the region remains extremely dangerous for Turkish troops. In the last month, 21 Turkish soldiers have died in repeated PKK-led attacks in northern Iraq, where Turkey has established several military bases to pursue the fight against the Kurdish group well inside Iraqi territory.
In response to these attacks, Turkey has launched air strikes against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq and against Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) positions in northern Syria. The SDF is dominated by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian Kurdish militia that Turkey considers to be an extension of the PKK.
None of this is new. Turkey has been bombing northern Syria for years. But in the past Ankara had targeted military objectives within a 10-kilometer radius from the Turkish-Syrian border. This strategy is now changing, with bombings much deeper into Syrian territory hitting targets in Hasakeh, Aleppo, and Raqqa. Turkish attacks are now directed not only against military targets but also civilian infrastructure, such as oil refineries and power plants, that is seen as generating revenue for the PKK. The objective is to dry up the PKK’s sources of funding in Syria, and show that the presence of the armed group is detrimental to the security of the SDF-run Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.
Such a change of strategy is something that might put Turkey on a collision course with the other powers playing a role in Syria—Russia, Iran, and the United States. Notably, vetoes from Moscow and Washington have so far prevented a fifth Turkish ground incursion into northern Syria. That might soon change: “God willing, in the upcoming months we will take new steps in this direction regardless of who says what,” Erdoğan stated last month.
This type of defiant rhetoric is not unusual from the Turkish president. At the heart of the problem is Ankara’s accusations against Russia and the United States that they have not kept their promises in Syria. In 2019, the two powers pledged to clear a 30-kilometer strip of land along the Turkish-Syrian border from the YPG presence. With the YPG still active along the border, Turkey feels it is entitled to intervene in Syria to protect its own security. And while Russia and the United States have vetoed a Turkish military operation in the past, this time international tensions in and around the region might play into Ankara’s hands.
For Russia, the rekindling of relations between the Turkish government and the Syrian regime remains a priority. But as the war in Ukraine drags on, the relationship between Moscow and Ankara is evolving. Deeper economic and energy ties are being forged, with the Kremlin relying on Turkey for a certain level of support to ease the impact of international sanctions. Under these circumstances, concessions to Ankara in Syria are not unthinkable.
The presence of Iranian forces in Syria supporting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has been another obstacle to a stronger Turkish presence in the country. While differences between Ankara and Tehran persist, at a recent Turkish-Iranian summit the leaders of the two countries signaled the progressive convergence of their regional interests—united by their support for the Palestinians in Gaza.
Finally, the possible withdrawal of U.S. troops from northeastern Syria might be another game changer for Turkey. It would not only remove Washington’s veto on another Turkish operation in the region; but also weaken the position of the YPG, which would lose its main supporter and would be left to face a triple threat from the Islamic State group, the Assad regime, and Turkey. The rumor about a withdrawal has been corroborated by unofficial sources, but was officially denied by U.S. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland on a recent visit to Turkey. Nuland pointed instead to the U.S.-Turkish common interest in fighting the Islamic State in Syria, suggesting the two could work together in the region.
On the Turkish domestic front, mobilizing efforts against the PKK will reap electoral benefits for the Turkish leadership. In the past, military operations in northern Syrian have been used as a tool to rally the country around the flag. The rhetoric on anti-terrorism, but also on the need to create safe zones inside Syrian territory to repatriate the millions of Syrians currently displaced in Turkey, will resonate with the ruling coalition’s base.
With local elections coming up, it is therefore only natural to expect that the Turkish government will blast out its anti-Kurdish narrative. Yet this is another instance in which we might be witnessing the first signs of a change of strategy. Depending on its electoral calculations, the Turkish leadership might begin courting a part of the Kurdish electorate. Recent events, such as concessions made to jailed Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtaş and the calls of senior Kurdish leaders to restart the peace process seem to point in this direction.
Most recently, the decision of the main Kurdish opposition party DEM (the Peoples’ Democratic Party, whose previous acronym was HDP) to field its own candidate for the mayoral election in Istanbul is a game changer. A divided opposition front undercuts the chances of victory of incumbent mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu. To increase DEM’s electoral chances, Erdoğan could adopt a more pragmatic Kurdish policy—in Turkey and beyond.
Borrowing from an old Italian classic, Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s novel The Leopard, what we have witnessed in northern Syria in recent years is that “everything must change so that everything can stay the same.” Turkey’s long-term objectives vis-à-vis Damascus remain the same—creating a PKK-free buffer along the Turkish-Syrian border and finding a way to repatriate part of the Syrian displaced who have relocated in Turkey. It remains to be seen whether Ankara is about to refresh its tactics and strategies to get there.
