Ankara’s Syria Policy A Source of Instability
Turkey’s Syria policy neglects the security of its citizens and borders.
The decision in August 2011 by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that Turkey would like to see Syrian President Bashar Assad brought down and replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood was not prompted by a vital exigency related to Turkey’s stability and security, but rather was a function of ideological preference.
There was no rational reason that forced the Turkish government to assume the task of toppling Assad for not heeding Turkey’s advice and oppressing his opposition with unwarranted violence. There is no international accord that has assigned Turkey as a guarantor of Syrian well being.
There is nothing in international relations that justifies the responsibility the Turkish rulers took on for what was happening in Syria and then trying to set it right. This interventionist approach could only be attributed to a misreading of history. Ankara’s Syria policy is one of choice. As such, when assessing the destabilizing effects of this policy on Turkey and on the region, you can’t come up with a single mitigating circumstance that would free the Turkish government from its responsibility.
One should examine the disastrous consequences of two car bombs in Reyhanli from this angle. There were 49 killed, 51 seriously wounded and 100 ambulatory injured. Among the damaged structures were 735 workplaces, 121 residences and 62 vehicles. This was a flash spillover of the Syrian civil war to Turkey.
