The three-hour meeting between interim Syrian President Ahmed Shara and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the Presidential Complex in Ankara marked a historic moment in regional politics. (Photo: Turkish Presidency)
The three-hour meeting between interim Syrian President Ahmed Shara and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the Presidential Complex in Ankara marked a historic moment in regional politics. Shara, arriving in a Turkish presidential aircraft from Damascus, was welcomed with full state honors, and the leaders discussed a wide range of issues from security cooperation to economic reconstruction.
On the same day Shara is visiting Ankara, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be in Washington as the first leader to be hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House on February 4. Netanyahu, displaying unprecedented audacity, claimed they would reshape the Middle East with Trump: supposedly redrawing maps. We’ll see what comes of these intentions.
When asked about Israel’s intention to annex the West Bank, where the Palestinian administration is located, Trump made a poor analogy. If the Middle East were his desk, Israel would only take up as much space as a pen; “This isn’t good,” he said. Trump is also known to have spoken about expelling all Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt.
Everything is now out in the open. Power holders, confident that they have nothing to fear from anyone, are displaying their intentions in their most unvarnished, genuine form. Recently, AK Party Parliamentary Group Deputy Chair Özlem Zengin’s public introduction of her nephew, Konya judge Arif Dağhan, to President Erdoğan at a judge and prosecutor appointment ceremony can be seen as an example of this trend at the national level.
In the Trump-Netanyahu case, we’re talking about new wars, occupation, and annexation.
Maps doesn’t change without bloodshed
Meanwhile, on February 4, while Shara is in Ankara and Netanyahu in Washington, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will be in Amman, having completed his contacts in Riyadh on February 3. His next stop is Ankara on February 5. Discussions will primarily focus on Syria and migration issues. (The Eurofighter purchase wasn’t on the officially announced agenda by Germany; we’ll see if it comes up during the talks.) Syria and Türkiye issues are significant factors in Germany’s crucial February 23 elections due to the refugee situation.
While the U.S. and Israel threaten that maps might change, Türkiye stands with Germany in the “maps shouldn’t change” camp.
Today, we’re witnessing Israel’s map gradually changing in a way that will leave Palestine isolated. It’s as if the U.S. and Britain want to finish what they started in 1948. Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist coalition has already set its sights on expansion toward Jordan after Lebanon and Syria.
However, once maps and UN-recognized borders start changing in the Middle East, there’s no telling where it will stop; those who expect to benefit might end up losing instead.
Because while maps in the Middle East don’t change without bloodshed, alliances and alignments can shift instantly.
Shara and new Syria
For example, terrorist lists can change.
Two months ago, Ahmed al-Shara, who was still known as Muhammad al-Golani and had a $10 million bounty placed on his head by the US, was considered a terrorist. Today, he was welcomed in Ankara as President. He was welcomed the same way in Riyadh two days ago.
Tomorrow, he might be welcomed the same way by Steinmeier or Trump. The day after he was declared interim president on January 29, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim al-Thani became the first head of state to visit him.
We are watching another example of how war and victory create their own laws, live on broadcast. Lamenting about how things were in the past is not politics; “realpolitik” requires looking forward by analyzing changing conditions. Especially when it comes to maps.
At present, both Türkiye’s and all other countries’ interests – perhaps except Israel and Iran – lie in Shara’s administration getting Syria back on its feet as quickly as possible. For instance, Germany, like Türkiye, has a stake in Syria’s reconstruction with housing, infrastructure, and factory construction, along with the employment opportunities these will bring; this would mean more Syrians returning to their country.
Ankara does not start from scratch
Relations with the new Syria will start from scratch for many countries.
When writing my latest book “Meraklısı İçin Ortadoğu Kitabı,” I asked Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan if Türkiye could have pursued a policy without getting involved in the Syrian civil war. He responded, “Refugees would have come anyway, but we wouldn’t have had a seat at the Syria table.”
Türkiye and a few other countries will start their relationship from a point above zero. The fact that Turkish and Qatari intelligence chiefs were among the first to visit Damascus by land after Bashar Assad’s departure and Shara’s entry tells its own story.
In terms of security, Erdoğan and Shara’s priorities align: they don’t want maps to change. PKK and ISIS-linked groups must cease being threats for Syria’s territorial unity and political sovereignty to be rebuilt. In such situations, one must be prepared that no one will get exactly what they want. But from Shara’s statements, it’s clear he favors neither a PKK and U.S.-guided Kurdish federation nor an SDG-style Kurdish army nominally tied to Damascus – reminiscent of Abdulhamid’s Hamidiye Regiments.
This is positive for Ankara.
