The Ottoman Empire Strikes Back
Turkey becomes a regional power again
Turkish armed forces reportedly built up along the Syrian border last week in preparation for an offensive against Kurdish fighters. President Erdoğan wants to eliminate his enemies in Syria. He threatens to further displace the Kurdish population of northeastern Syria unless the PKK and YPG leave voluntarily. HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham), the victorious faction that Erdoğan supports, demands that the remaining US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) integrate into the new Syrian Army, giving the new government a monopoly of force. Erdoğan wants a pacified country that can flourish under his benevolent care and protection.
Erdoğan enjoys more influence in, and power over, Syria than any Turkish leader since the end of the Ottoman empire. Revanchist, bullying, a bit genocidal: the Erdoğan regime is only distinguishable from the Ottomans by the absence of fez hats and a caliphate.
Speaking to reporters last Monday, National Defense Minister Yaşar Güler explained that Ankara is bent on crushing Kurdish power. “Our primary agenda is the dissolution of the PKK/YPG,” he said. American policy in the region must change because “the setting has changed,” Güler said. “From now on, everyone has to accept the new reality whether they want it or not.” History has turned the page from the war on the Islamic State. “In the new chapter, the PKK/YPG in Syria will be dissolved sooner or later,” he underlined. “This is the aim of the Syrian administration,” he added, speaking for the new Syrian government. “Terrorist members coming from outside Syria will leave the country. Those that are Syrian will leave arms.”
The PKK, or Kurdistan Workers’ Party, is a legacy of Soviet influence that Ankara considers a terrorist organization and wants to destroy. While YPG fighters have always been the core cadres of the SDF, the majority of SDF fighters are Arabs — a policy decision by the United States, which wanted everyone in Syria to focus on defeating the Islamic State, and also to complicate Ankara’s aggression against the Kurds. Now Turkey is reportedly pressuring Washington to let them replace the SDF in the anti-ISIS mission and take over the prisons in northwest Syria that currently hold ISIS prisoners. “Has anyone heard of [ISIS] terrorists attacking in Syria in the last three years,” Güler sneered. “We do not hear or see anything about [ISIS] right now.” This is gaslighting: ISIS attacks have increased in 2024, leading the Pentagon to warn of a possible resurgence. Syrian Kurds fear they will be disarmed and helpless against renewed slaughter.
Syrian Kurds also have no illusions about what Recep Tayyip Erdoğan intends to do to them in the name of pacification. “We are facing significant threats and dangers, and we call on the Global Coalition and the entire world to unite with us to protect Kobani,” the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) warned on Sunday last week. “The statement condemned Turkey’s actions, asserting that the goal is to exterminate the people of the region and occupy [the] north and east region” of Syria. The Syrian National Army (SNA), Turkey’s proxy in northern Syria — not to be confused with HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Organization for Liberating Syria), which stands victorious as the new government in Damascus — has attacked the Karakozak Bridge south of Kobani. Civilians in Manbij, Ain Issa, and the rural area north of Aleppo have also been killed and injured by Turkish airstrikes.
When that happened in 2018, Turkish forces surrounded the city of Afrin, which they pounded with bombs and artillery, displacing thousands of people in what Ankara dared to call Operation Olive Branch. According to the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), the SNA has committed systematic atrocities in the conquered areas, “including arbitrary arrests of civilians, sexual violence, torture, as well as systematic looting and killings.” Hundreds were killed over two months. Since then, Sunni Arabs have been resettled in the conquered city to permanently displace Kurdish people and culture.
In addition to the introduction of the Turkish currency, postal services and payment transactions were also linked to Türkiye, while local administration sectors – including health, education and aspects of the judiciary – were brought under the control of the Hatay governorate in Türkiye.
Residents who wanted to return to their homes and villages often found them occupied and looted by fighters. Arbitrary arrests, torture, sexualized violence and conditions of inhumane detention became part of everyday life for the remaining civilian population. The new administration also established settlements to resettle Syrians into Afrin who had once fled to Türkiye from other regions of Syria, even while the local population continues to be displaced. Kurdish street names and school curricula were changed to Arabic or Turkish, and the Kurdish New Year celebration Newroz was banned. While Afrin was historically the most densely Kurdish populated part of Syria, Kurds have become an ever-shrinking minority after the systematic expulsions.
No secularist, Erdoğan is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and its pan-Islamist dreams. In power, he has shown increasingly revisionist tendencies, with his foreign entanglements — Tunisia, Libya, Ukraine, Greece, Somaliland — suggestive of the old Ottoman hegemony. “Turkey is greater than Turkey itself,” Erdoğan said on Wednesday. “As a nation, we cannot limit our vision to 782,000 square kilometers. Those who ask, what is Turkey doing in Libya, Syria or Somalia? Many fail to comprehend this vision and mission.” He is not reviving the Ottoman empire, Erdoğan said, he just wants to continue the “sacred journey” of Turkey’s destiny as a nation by increasing his influence over former Ottoman dominions. See how that works?
Syria is a remnant of the 20th century demolition of the Ottoman state, and historians frequently blame the geopolitics of the Levant today on the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 which dismembered the southern parts of ‘the sick man of Europe,’ making them into French and British spheres of influence. Of course, at that same time, the Ottomans were simultaneously exterminating minority populations, often employing Kurdish fighters to do the dirty work, an historical crime that Kurds themselves now acknowledge, but Turkey still officially denies.
As the shadow of Ottoman rule looms over the region once more, the West retreats. No 21st century European state has any power to stop Ankara. Neither European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, nor French President Emmanuel Macron, nor Prime Minister Keir Starmer could do anything even if they wanted to, and none of them have any appetite for intervention. No one in the feckless Biden administration is about to draw any lines for Erdoğan.
Russia seems to be leaving their Syrian bases as fast as they can, redeploying some forces to Libya for Putin’s power competition with Erdoğan. Turkey holds sway over the regime in Tripolitania while Russia supports the Lybian National Army (LNA) under Field Marshal Khalifa Belqasim Omar Haftar in Tobruk. The chances of Putin’s diplomats securing a new basing agreement from the new regime in Damascus seem slim at this hour.
There are a few voices in Washington on the issue. Rep.-elect Abraham Hamadeh (R-AZ), a son of Syrian immigrants, reminded Fox News Digital that Turkey has been “hosting groups like Hamas without clear steps toward dismantling their operations,” a situation that “undermines” American-Turkish relations. “Turkey must seize this opportunity to demonstrate it is committed to fighting terror, not enabling it.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has threatened to draft sanctions against Turkey “if they engage in military operations against the Kurdish forces who helped President Trump destroy ISIS,” namely the Kurds. Trump has expressed respect for Erdoğan, calling him “very smart” and saying it is “okay” that HTS are “controlled by Turkey.” However, he was noncommittal last week when asked whether he still plans to withdraw American troops from Syria after Inauguration Day.
In the meantime, “the Turkish government intends to appoint senior officials under the guise of advisors to assist Syrian authorities with managing various government portfolios,” Nordic Monitor reports. “These officials will be instructed to remain behind the scenes to avoid the appearance of interference in the internal affairs of either the interim government or its successor following the anticipated elections.” Turkey has already recruited Syrians from the refugee population in Turkey “to return to provinces, cities and towns to help consolidate the gains of rebel forces” and “enhance the country’s governance capacity, sharing expertise and aiding in rebuilding its weakened institutions.”
In his remarks last week, Güler pointed towards “a swift agreement with the interim government to legalize the presence of its troops in Syrian territory. This would be followed by a comprehensive military training and defense cooperation agreement, enabling Turkey to help shape the newly formed Syrian army,” thus extending Turkish military power and influence all the way to the borders of Israel. No wonder the IDF has filled out its “buffer zone” so aggressively since the fall of Damascus: the Israeli goverment considers Erdoğan their biggest strategic threat now that Iran has been vanquished from Syria.
“The large areas occupied by the Turkish army and Turkey-backed rebel groups in northern and northeastern Syria for the past five years offer clues about Turkey’s vision for a future Syria,” the Nordic Monitor suggests. “In cities such as Tell Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, where Turkish military control has been established, Turkish deputy governors from border provinces have been appointed as the effective rulers, despite official Syrian figures being presented as governors. The Turkish deputy governors have been the ones calling the shots behind the scenes.”
In areas already under Turkish army control, the Erdogan government has pursued what some have called a “Turkification” project, changing the names of roads and public squares to Turkish and Ottoman names. For example, Afrin Square was renamed Recep Tayyip Erdogan Square and the public park in I‘zaz was renamed Ottoman Nation Park.
The school curriculum in these areas have been heavily influenced by Turkey’s Ministry of National Education, with a revised history of Syria under Ottoman rule. Turkish public universities have established local campuses, and higher education in these regions is now connected to the Higher Education Council in Ankara. Moreover, Turkish cultural centers have been set up to teach the Turkish language, culture and history to the local population.
Parts of Syria along the Turkish border already have Turkish state banks, use the Turkish lira, and get their mail delivered by the Turkish postal service. “Even identity documents were issued by the Turkish government,” while “display of Turkish President Erdogan’s picture in the offices of official buildings has become a common occurrence.” His political party even has offices in the parts of Syria under his control. “Turkey cannot be confined to its borders,” Erdoğan says. His Turkey will overlap borders, like Kurdistan, but with international recognition, hard power, and swagger. Turkoman Syria will be Turkey in all but name, and he will reshape the rest of Syria to his liking. He may just get what he wants.
