Escalation in the Turkey-Syria conflict

The Turkey-Syria military confrontation is still heating up. (Turkey downs Syrian jets after three of its drones were targeted in Idlib Middle East Eye 03/02/2020; Juan Cole, Russia backs Damascus as it closes Syrian Airspace, Threatens to down Turkish Jets Informed Comment 03/02/2020)

Turkey launches self-defence military operation in Syria Aljazeera 03/01/2020:

One important factor here is that the conflict is currently taking place inside Syria. Turkey's involvement inside Syria was agreed with Russia at two separate meetings in the Russian city of Sochi.

The 2018 Sochi agreement had Syria's ally Russia agreeing that Turkey would be allowed to operate inside the Syrian province of Idlib (Maria Tsvetkova, Russia and Turkey agree to create buffer zone in Syria's Idlib Reuters 09/17/2018):

Russia, the biggest outside backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his fight against rebels, has been preparing for an offensive on the city of Idlib, which is controlled by rebels and now home to about 3 million people.

But after Putin’s talks with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who has opposed a military operation against the rebels in Idlib, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told reporters there would not now be an offensive.

The rebels to be targeted in that 2018 agreement were Sunni Islamist groups, which opposed the Alawite-dominated government of Syria. The Alawites are sometimes described as a variation of Shi'a Islam. In any case, the Shi'a government of Iran is supporting the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. Sunnis are a majority in Syria.

The 2019 agreement also concluded in Sochi was one in which Vladimir Putin gave Erdoğan permission to attack the Kurdish areas controlled by the leftwing Kurdish YPG in the Rojava area of northwestern Turkey: Full text of Turkey, Russia agreement on northeast Syria Aljazeera 10/22/2019

As Patrick Cockburn describes in, Erdogan’s ethnic cleansing of the Kurds is still happening now – and we have Trump to thank Independent 11/15/2019 Erdoğan had ethnic cleansing in mind:

In the case of the Turkish invasion of Syria last month, the motive is not a matter of speculation: William V Roebuck, a US diplomat stationed in northeast Syria at the time, wrote an internal memo about what he was seeing for the State Department. The memo later leaked. It is one of the best-informed analyses of what happened and is titled: “Present at the Catastrophe: Standing By as Turks Cleanse Kurds in Northern Syria and De-Stabilise our D-Isis [sic] Platform in the Northeast.”

Roebuck, with access to US intelligence about Turkish intentions, has no doubt that Ankara would like to expel the 1.8 million Kurds living in their semi-independent state of Rojava. He says: “Turkey’s military operation in northern Syria, spearheaded by armed Islamist groups on its payroll, represents an ... effort at ethnic cleansing, relying on widespread military conflict targeting part of the Kurdish heartland along the border and benefiting from several widely publicised, fear-inducing atrocities these forces committed.” [my emphasis]

Kurdish forces are currently hoping to make gains in the area of the city of Afrin, in northeast Syria, in cooperation with Syxrian forces. (Fehim Tastekin, Syrian Kurds ponder Afrin’s recapture in shadow of Idlib crisis Al-Monitor 03/02/2020)

We're currently seeing the serious failure of Erdoğan's foreign policy of the last few years. This report from the International Crisis Group by Nigar Göksel et al (Deadly Clashes in Syria’s Idlib Show Limits of Turkey’s Options 02/29/2020)looks at Turkey's current situation, including this on Turkey-Russia relations:

Turkey’s military options are limited by Russia’s current control over Syrian airspace. Nor does it have any reason to expect robust support from its traditional post-World War II allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), including the U.S., in the event of a confrontation with Russia in Syria. As for Moscow, it presumably has no interest in sabotaging its overall relations with Ankara, which, from the Kremlin’s viewpoint, have helped distance Turkey from the U.S. and NATO.

Still, tensions between the two seem bound to increase. In recent years, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strategy has leaned toward “Eurasianists” in Turkey who strongly favour close ties with Moscow. The death toll of the 27 February airstrike was shockingly high for Turkey, however, and Turkish media played up reports (denied by Moscow) that Russia did not even allow Turkish helicopters into Idlib’s airspace to evacuate the dead and wounded. All this will strengthen the hand of those who seek a rebalancing of Ankara’s strategic orientation toward Turkey’s NATO allies.

And, of course, the war is still creating large numbers of refugees. "One million people have been displaced in Syria's Idlib region since December near Turkey's southern border, causing what the United Nations says may be the worst humanitarian crisis in nine years of war." (Erdogan says he hopes for Idlib ceasefire deal in Putin talks Aljazeera 03/02/2020)