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The Geneva Talks and Syria in its Aftermath
- Kemal İnat
- 14 Mar 2016
- 3 dakikada okunur
The Geneva Talks held in order to find a diplomatic solution to the Syria problem failed as expected and attention is now turned again towards the front where the violence had never stopped during the talks. The principle reason behind this failure was the unwillingness of the Russian-Iranian-Damascene axis to stop its offensive against the opposition and the disinclination these governments showed to diplomatic efforts to find a lasting solution to the crisis.
The military advancements that they lately achieved by their irresponsible aggression apparently convinced them of the possibility of a military victory on the front. Thus the Moscow-Tehran-Damascus axis chose to buy time in Geneva by coming with unacceptable conditions from the opposition’s viewpoint. The ambivalent attitudes shown by the international community and the resultant lack of a solid and homogeneous block to check their moves is the fundamental factor which encouraged them.
As the Syrian branch of PKK, PYD is openly conducting an armed struggle against Turkey and uses every means to create a civil war in the country.
While Moscow and Tehran are determined to keep the Assad regime intact and to restore Syria’s territorial integrity around the Baath regime at every humanitarian cost there is no similar determination in the opposition. Those parties which are assumably discontent with the policies pursued by Moscow and Tehran make anything but a uniform entity for they have different and conflicting visions regarding Syria’s future and ending the humanitarian crisis in the country. The fact that Turkey and its Western allies failed to agree on PYD’s position and on whether or not it would be invited to Geneva created a serious, if for a short while, and exemplified the complicated the situation on the “opposing front”.
As the Syrian branch of PKK, PYD is openly conducting an armed struggle against Turkey and uses every means to create a civil war in the country. Thus, the insistence of the US and other Western powers to see this terrorist organization as a viable “ally” is a major source of discontent in Ankara, the Turkish capital. Having been a long-standing ally of the West for 60 under the NATO framework Turkey finds it hard to understand why these countries, which explicitly recognized PKK as a terrorist organization, regard the PYD as their ally in Syria. Then, how should we understand the current situation?
First of all, we must answer why, at the cost of angering Turkey, these states particularly the US supports the PYD? Two explanations can be suggested for this. Firstly, lacking a holistic strategy about what to do in Syria, the US and others chose to fight against Daesh as the prime enemy and regarded the “secular” PYD as a reliable partner in this fight. This capacity of PYD was supposedly proven by its victories against Daesh. Finding the opposition fighting against the Assad regime too “Islamic”, the US is engaged in efforts to create an artificial armed group that is in line with its own interests as done previously in Afghanistan and Iraq. The problem is that by definition such a group lacks the societal basis necessary to direct the future of Syria and it is not in fact against the Assad regime. Yet Washington and others do not really seem to pay much attention to this. In the first instance PYD is expected to fulfil its responsibility in the fight against Daesh; and at a later stage, the intention is to use the presence of this armed group as a trump card to shape the future of Syria. For this reason, the US intends to keep control over PYD against the Damascene administration supported the Russia-Iran axis. However, having been aware of Washington’s plan, Moscow and Tehran have already started moves to grasp this force out of the US hands. This situation points to a soon-to-come US-Russia struggle over PYD. Time will show how the PYD gets affected by this struggle.
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