The leaders of Iran, Russia and Turkey met on Wednesday for high-level talks to end the Syrian war, cementing their influence on the outcome of the conflict and isolating the United States from the region’s most crucial diplomacy initiative. The three Presidents — Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Iran’s Hassan Rouhani and Russia’s Vladimir Putin — gathered in the Turkish capital, Ankara, where they pledged to cooperate on reconstruction and aid. They also vowed to protect Syria’s “territorial integrity,” even as all three nations maintain a military presence inside the country.
The leaders called for more support from the international community and emphasised their opposition to “separatist agendas” in Syria. What is ironic and sad at the same time is that the future of the war-torn country is being decided by seemingly everyone except the Syrian people!
But how did we get here? What started in 2011 as an organic Syrian movement, calling for greater democratic rights and the end of decades-long brutal dictatorship of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, was soon muddled as regional and international players stepped in for their own mutual benefit.
While the Syrians were the ones being bombed, starved, displaced and unemployed, these countries have stood by seemingly amused as they discuss hypothetical political solutions and reach mutual agreements and understandings on how to divide the country into spheres of influence that would make them happy.
The Iranians are interested in areas near the Lebanese and Iraqi border where it wants to leave open a clear ground bridge to deliver weapons to its proxy, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Russia is interested in a warm water port on the Mediterranean where it already has a naval port in Tartus and is building other military bases elsewhere. Turkey, of course, wants to be in control of the Kurdish-majority northern areas, where it sees an existential threat in nationalist aspirations of Syria’s Kurds, which could incite Turkey’s own sizeable Kurdish population creating a threat to the government in Ankara.
What is worse is that the US under President Donald Trump has threatened to exit Syria, essentially leaving no powerful counterweight to Iran, Russia and Turkey. The Arabs have seemingly washed their hands of involvement in the conflict having more pressing concerns to deal with. With the way things are heading now, and if no action is taken, it seems all the more likely that Syria will be divided and that would be a huge loss for the Arab world.
