The future of Turkey's Syria policy
Election results have made Turkey’s current Syria policy hard to implement.
The future of Turkey’s controversial Syria policy has become even more uncertain with the Justice and Development Party's (AKP's) loss of a parliamentary majority. Any potential coalition partner with the AKP — still the leading party, although it cannot form a government — will approach Syria totally different than the AKP did.
The Republican People’s Party (CHP), the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) have accused the AKP of becoming a party to the Syrian crisis by arming groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, allowing foreign militants to cross our borders and helping organizations such as the Islamic State (IS) and Jabhat al-Nusra to become prominent forces.
Many believe that one reason for the AKP’s dismal showing in the 2015 elections is its policy on Syria. While the AKP’s militant base angrily asks in Internet messages, "Who lost the elections? Jerusalem, Syria, Egypt and Somalia did,” there are those among the AKP founding fathers who believe that votes were lost in provinces bordering Syria and among Kurds in general because of the AKP’s mishandling of Rojava and Kobani. These seniors now think that a new course of action is essential to solve the Syrian crisis.
The number of AKP deputies from Hatay, Kilis, Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Mardin and Sirnak provinces bordering Syria dropped from 30 to 20, and the AKP was totally wiped out in five heavily Kurdish-populated provinces.
