Towards a simultaneous solution to Ukraine, Syria and the Kurdish issues

Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in İstanbul on May 16 for possible peace talks. These are the third round of negotiations between the two countries, since the Russian war on Ukraine started in 2022; the previous two were also held in Türkiye with the mediation of the Turkish government. This time, a high-ranking US delegation is in İstanbul to contribute to the talks. Turkish and American diplomats have been heavily involved in the negotiations about the future of Syria in the past few days.
From another point of view, we are observing a unique prospect in modern history. The developments can be interpreted as a simultaneous diplomatic effort to solve the Russia-Ukraine, Syria, and Kurdish problems. Of course, the solution will not be easy, but it can be seen that significant progress has been made in these three areas over a period of several months, which has accelerated in recent days.
US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan are the leading actors in this process.
If this simultaneous diplomatic move works, Türkiye will simultaneously alleviate the Russian-Ukrainian problem in the north and the Syrian and PKK problems in the south. Russia will gain territory, industrial infrastructure, and manpower, as well as being freed from the war economy, while the US will be relieved of its burdens in Europe and the Middle East by having to pay for them. Ukraine, unfortunately, is the biggest loser, and its only gain will be to stop losing.

Trump front

In his second presidential term, Trump is trying to solve the problems of Ukraine and Syria, which had become intractable under the Democratic administrations of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, using his own methods that are shaking up traditional diplomacy.
He wants to reduce the burden of the “old world”, the European-Middle Eastern geography, on the US and concentrate on the domestic arena and the trade battle with China. And it is passing on the costs of all its operations in Europe and the Middle East to the Arab countries, which are trembling in fear of Iran: The net contribution of the 13-16 May tour of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar to the US economy was $4 trillion, while the total volume of agreements reached $10 trillion.
Through Erdoğan, Trump also wants to ‘win back’ Türkiye, whose ‘loss’, from the US point of view (in addition to Obama and Biden terms), he contributed to during his first term as president. He does not want his Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean policy to depend solely on protecting Israeli interests, and in particular on listening to Binyamin Netanyahu, who tries to tell him what to do. As Tom Barrack, the new ambassador to Ankara, told the Senate, there is also Iran, the Caucasus, China, and Africa.

Putin front

Putin got what he wanted: Crimea and the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation with Crimea. It is difficult to get out of there, which Trump seems to have accepted, despite the European Union’s support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, not because the EU likes Ukraine very much, but out of self-interest. But the economics of war in Russia are beginning to take their toll.
While Erdoğan was waiting to see whether Putin would come to the Russia-Ukraine peace talks, which were due to resume in Istanbul on 15 May, Putin made a major domestic political move: he sacked the commander of the powerful Land Forces, General Oleg Salyukov. Salyukov, a Kremlin hawk and one of the security cabal, ‘Sloviki’, had been in office since the invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014; he had also led the Syrian operation and the invasion of Ukraine. Salyukov was also the officer in charge of the Victory Day celebrations on 9 May last week, which Chinese President Xi Jinping attended as a warning to the US and EU over Ukraine.
The fact that Putin made this decision on the same day as his decision to attend the Istanbul meetings with a large delegation of diplomats, military, and intelligence officers suggests that there may be a connection.

Erdoğan front

President Erdoğan’s participation in the quadrilateral meeting on the future of Syria in Saudi Arabia, on the first stop of Trump’s Middle East tour, demonstrated Türkiye’s position in regional politics to its enemies. The next day, 14 May, it was confirmed that the Russia-Ukraine meeting would take place in Istanbul on 15 May. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio – who had travelled from Riyadh, attended the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in the Turkish resort of Antalya. Trump said: ‘If Putin comes, I will come to Istanbul’.
Zelensky had come to Ankara, but it was not certain that Ukraine would come to the meeting if Putin did not. Erdoğan and Zelensky had a long meeting that lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes. In the end, Zelensky announced that the Ukrainian delegation would also attend the meeting, which was postponed to 16 May, i.e., today, at the insistence of Erdoğan and Trump.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who was due to meet the head of the Russian delegation, Putin’s aide Vladimir Medinski, in Istanbul later that day, was in Antalya for a trilateral meeting with Rubio and Syrian Foreign Minister Assad Hassan Shibani.

Links with “Terrorism-free Türkiye”

During the quadrilateral meeting two days ago, it was revealed that Trump had asked Syrian interim President Ahmed Shara to remove all ‘foreign fighters’ from the country in exchange for the lifting of sanctions and for Damascus to take over the management of the DAESH detention camps, whose protection by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK-affiliated YPG-Syrian Democratic Forces, SDF has been used to justify US support. In response, Erdoğan said that Türkiye could take over the administration and security of these camps if Shara so wished. (The PKK announced a few days ago the decision to dissolve itself and stop its half-century-long armed campaign against Türkiye.)
On the same day, Fidan announced that despite the PKK’s decisions, no steps had been taken to ‘dissolve’ the PKK-affiliated organizations in Syria and its military structure of the YPG. It was understood that the issue had been discussed with Rubio and Shibani.
The PKK leadership in Iraq’s Qandil Mountains announced on 12 May, one day after Putin initiated this process by saying that they could meet with Ukraine in Istanbul on 11 May, that they would ‘cease armed struggle’ and ‘disband’, making this diplomatic storm easier for Ankara to manage.

A new generation of diplomacy

This diplomatic storm links Russia-Ukraine, Syria, and a political solution to the Kurdish problem in Türkiye through the disarmament of the PKK.
The idea of US involvement in Palestinian politics through the disarmament of Hamas (floated by Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff) also somehow involves Türkiye. This idea not only disturbs Netanyahu, who intends to expel the Palestinians from Gaza militarily, but also relegates him to the background.
Progress in the Russia-Ukraine talks will also be a test of the new generation of diplomacy, which has taken on a new dimension since Trump took over the US presidency, emphasizing diplomacy based on common interests without emphasizing military threats, and which Erdoğan began to pursue during the last Fidan era in the Foreign Ministry.
Türkiye’s biggest gain from this process will be a political solution to the Kurdish problem through the disarmament of the PKK. It is also necessary for Türkiye’s internal peace that Erdoğan balances the repulsive outbursts from within the AK Party against secular democrats who would unhesitatingly support the goal of a ‘Türkiye without terrorism’, such as the first four articles of the constitution and the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 which is considered as the founding document of the Republic of Türkiye and stops political competition and violations of the rule of law.