The Bear in Byzantine – Is Russia Behind Turkey’s Reluctance to Intervene in Syria & Iraq?

Author: Jim Warren, International Political/Contingency/Evacuation Specialist, Freelance Researcher

How many times over the last year have we seen news reports on our television screens of the heavy fighting raging along the Turkish/Syrian border as Kurdish forces battled Islamic State (IS) fighters? These reports were usually accompanied by pictures of long lines of static Turkish tanks stretching out on their side of the border like silent brooding sentinels, threatening but inactive. What stopped them from intervening and eradicating the IS threat in the region once and for all?

When the IS sphere of combat operations spilled over spectacularly from Syria into Iraq spreading south and even threatening Baghdad in the summer of 2014, it took everyone by surprise. Caught on the back foot, the US then set about forming an international coalition to combat IS. Although Turkey initially joined the coalition they were reluctant to take prompt and immediate military action including air strikes. With a border adjoining the conflict areas of Syria and Iraq plus as a member of NATO having the second largest standing army in the alliance, this reluctance was puzzling.

But maybe not so puzzling when you take into account that Turkey, along with other countries in the region are reluctant to join any US led coalition given recent history and have stated on several occasions they would not put boots on the ground unless the West were also prepared to do so. As we know, apart from small numbers of military advisers and trainers embedded with the Kurds and the Iraqi army, there will be no sizeable western military intervention.

Historically, Turkey has always opposed the Assad father and son regimes in Syria and made no secret of its intention to bring about its downfall sometime in the future. So the question arises, if Turkey is so intent on bringing down the Assad regime, why apart from actively funding, training and arming rebel groups have they not used the current chaotic situation in the country to either overtly or still more covertly using false flag assets been more militarily engaged? There would have been no condemnation from the West if the Turks had gone in and taken Damascus thereby toppling Assad. But they didn’t, they held back.

A theory I have had for some time is something which I feel has been under-reported and is I hasten to add, a personal opinion and open to debate and that is, the influence of President Putin and Russia on Turkish thinking. This may seem a strange concept given that Russia is Assad’s closest ally while Turkey is an avowed opponent of the Syrian regime.

Russia is Assad’s main supplier of weapons with regular flights of giant Russian Antonov 124 transport planes flying into various Syrian air force bases like clockwork with sophisticated military hardware. In addition to an unknown number of Russian military advisers and intelligence experts attached to the Assad regime, the Russians also maintain a large naval facility in Tartous and additionally a number of joint spy bases, one of which on the Tel Al Hara mountain close to the Syrian/Israel border was captured by elements of the Free Syrian Army in October 2014.

Then there is Oil. According to the Jerusalem Post, Russian oil and gas company Soyuzneftgas some months ago signed a $90 million deal with Syria’s Oil Ministry for oil exploration and production in a 845 square mile bloc of Mediterranean waters off the Syrian coast between Tartous and Banias. This bloc is rumoured to contain vast reserves of oil and gas.

Therefore, to have the Assad regime toppled with the aid of Turkish military muscle would be a serious blow to President Putin’s middle eastern economic and military strategy and one wonders what back-channel deals or sotte voce nods and winks were agreed between the Russians and the Turks to get them to refrain from taking military action.

The major influence on Turkish non-interventionist decision making in my opinion was the surprise announcement at the beginning of December 2014 that Turkey and Russia had signed a huge trade deal with Aljazeera reporting that both countries aim to increase their two way trade from $33 billion to $100 billion by 2020. In addition to this, Russia would continue to provide the bulk of Turkey’s gas and had accordingly reduced the price by 6% and in addition to this, Russia is set to build Turkey’s first nuclear power plant.

Would this massive trade and energy deal have gone ahead if Turkey were actively planning military action against Assad? I think not.

To my mind, President Putin is playing a very clever but risky game. With the carrot of a massive multi-billion dollar trade and energy deal dangled in front of them he secures Turkey’s agreement not to directly confront the Assad regime whilst at the same time throwing NATO’s regional credibility into doubt. In addition to this and bypassing crippling western sanctions over Ukraine, he unveils another new major trading partner, Turkey.

Running in tandem with the above is his continuing support for Assad, which ensures a continuation of a Russian presence in the region in the form of bases and revenue streams from military sales and also future oil revenues. IS and other rebel groups may still yet prove a future, serious internal threat to the stability and survival of the Assad regime but while they still remain fragmented I cannot see any danger of an immediate regime change or President Putin letting it get to a situation where the regime would fall.

By this ongoing and continued support for Assad in Syria, President Putin is sending out a clear message of reassurance to other Russian client states around the globe that the Russians will not abandon them in times of crisis. At the same time, he is showing the West that despite their imposition of sanctions over Ukraine, Russia is more than capable of obtaining new major trading partners and securing lucrative, long-term trade pacts.