by James M Dorsey
US President Donald J. Trump had a stinging message for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu when he heaped praise on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week in the visiting Israeli leader’s presence.
Mr. Trump’s praise turned Mr. Netanyahu’s portrayal of the two men’s discussion of Turkey upside down.
With his praise, Mr. Trump rejected, by implication, the prime minister’s request for US support in countering Turkish influence in Syria, particularly Turkish plans to establish one or more military bases in the country as part of a defense pact that is under negotiation.
Potentially, the repercussions of Mr. Trump’s putting Mr. Netanyahu in his place could be felt far beyond Syria.
Israel bombed potential sites for the bases days before Mr. Netanyahu met Mr. Trump in the White House for the second time in as many months.
Days after the meeting between the two leaders, Israeli and Turkish officials discussed a deconfliction mechanism to avoid a military clash in Syria.
Even so, Israeli media reported that Israel warned Turkey not to deploy forces south of the Tiyas (T4) airbase, 140 kilometres north of Damascus.
In response to Mr. Netanyahu’s suggestion that Mr. Trump would support Israel in preventing “Syria being used by anyone, including Turkey, as a base for attacking Israel,” Mr. Trump turned to the prime minister to emphasise his good relations with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ability to resolve whatever problems Israel may have with Turkey “as long as you’re reasonable.”
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While a majority would have long concluded that Mr. Netanyahu’s policies, particularly towards Syria, Gaza, and the West Bank, are unreasonable, Mr. Trump’s admonishing was noteworthy.
It came on the back of the president’s generally sweeping support for the prime minister’s policies, including during the White House news conference.
Finally, Mr. Trump’s admonishing coincided with Gulf moves to alleviate Syria’s foreign currency shortage and kick-start reconstruction.
Saudi Arabia reportedly has offered to pay a US$15 million Syrian debt to the World Bank to open the door for assistance in financing the reconstruction of the country’s power grid and payment of public sector salaries.
Last month, the Trump administration authorised the piping of Qatari gas via Jordan to Syria to enhance the country’s meagre electricity supply.
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Syria suffers from severe power shortages, with state-supplied electricity available just two or three hours daily in most areas.
Mr. Trump’s praise of Mr. Erdogan coincided with Turkish lobbying for the lifting of sanctions imposed by Mr. Trump in his first term in office after NATO-member Turkey bought a Russian S-400 anti-missile defense system.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said days after Mr. Trump’s remarks that Turkey was ready to purchase US$20 billion worth of military spare parts, ammunition and electronics if the United States lifted the sanctions.
Mr. Fidan added that Turkey hoped to reclaim six F-35 fighter jets originally built for the Turkish Air Force. These jets were mothballed in 2019 when the country and its defence contractors were expelled from the F-35 program because of the S-400 purchase.
“This is a major (acquisition) package, and we believe it’s something Trump would support,” Mr. Fidan said.
Mr. Netanyahu used his visit to Washington to lobby Secretary of State Marco Rubio to block delivery of the F-35s to Turkey.
The F-35s and the spare parts for the Turkish air force and navy would substantially raise Turkey’s ability to project regional power.
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The F-35s would restrict Israel’s ability to roam Syrian skies at will. Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes since the overthrow in December of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to destroy the Syrian military’s arsenal and infrastructure.
Israel has dismissed assertions by Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and his rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, that they have shed their jihadist antecedents over the past decade, as well as the Syrian leader’s insistence that he wants to avoid a conflict with the Jewish state.
The US fighter planes and other military upgrades, as well as the possible positioning of Turkish anti-air defense systems in Syria, could reduce Israel’s ability to enforce its ban on Syrian military operations south of the capital, Damascus, if Turkey were to challenge Israel and its occupation of Syrian lands.
Finally, Turkish purchases of advanced US military items could thwart possible Israeli support for US-backed Syrian Kurds, who are at odds with Mr. Al-Sharaa, a long-standing Erdogan ally, and Turkey over the future structure of the Syrian state and the Kurds’ armed forces.
Syrian Kurdish media reported in January that Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar gave “positive guarantees to the rights of the Kurds.” Earlier, Mr. Saar described the Kurds as Israel’s “natural allies.”
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Restoration of the US-Turkish defense relationship could persuade Mr. Trump to withdraw some 2,000 US troops from Syria. The troops were sent to Syria to defeat the Islamic State with the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as their main ground force.
Turkey charges that the SDF is an extension of the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a four-decade-long insurgency to force Turkey to recognise Kurdish rights.
In February, imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan called on the party to lay down its arms and dissolve itself.
A restored US-Turkish defense relationship coupled with moves by the SDF and the PKK could set the scene for Turkey to take charge of the fight against the Islamic State in Syria.
Kurdish sources suggested the differences between SDF leader Mazloum Abdi and Mr. Al-Sharaa over key principles of Syria’s future spelled out in March in a US-backed “integration framework” may be less sharp than meets the eye.
The sources pointed to several Kurdish steps to garner Turkish and Syrian confidence.
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A Turkish drone strikes close to the Tishreen Dam
In recent days, the SDF withdrew forces from the Tishreen Dam to the eastern side of the Euphrates River to allow government forces to create a buffer between the Kurds and the Syrian National Army (SNA), a Turkish proxy that has already been absorbed into the Syrian military.
Earlier, the SDF handed control to Syrian security forces of disputed areas in urban and rural Aleppo and of SDF-controlled hydrocarbon resources.
The SDF suggested it would relinquish its positions in the majority Arab provinces of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa once the government dropped its Turkish-backed insistence on a unitary Syrian state, granted the Kurds autonomy, and agreed to integrate the Kurdish militia as a block into the Syrian military rather than as individual fighters.
Mr. Mazloum noted that Turkey had recently stopped bombing SDF forces and attacking Kurdish troops near the dam.
In addition, Turkey has stopped referring to the SDF as terrorists and is accepting “the idea of integrating the Syrian Democratic Forces and the institutions of the (autonomous Kurdish) administration into the Syrian state, which is a notable positive development,” Mr. Mazloum said.
“I am optimistic that the situation will improve further. I agree with leader Abdullah Ocalan that the time for armed struggle is over,” Mr. Mazloum said.
Mr. Trump may have thought of Mr. Mazloum’s prospect of a stabilised Syria that could further weaken Iranian influence in Lebanon and Iraq when he cautioned Mr. Netanyahu to be ‘reasonable.’
The United States insists it will only recognise the Al-Sharaa government if it removes foreign from its military, destroys its chemical weapons stockpile, fights terrorism, and protects minority rights.
“These conditions leave Erdogan and Trump enough room for manoeuvring so that Trump may shake al-Sharaa’s hand” during the president’s Middle East tour in May, said analyst Zvi Bar’el.
“In the zero-sum game that Israel is playing against Turkey, such a development would be a complete gain for Turkey and a complete loss for Israel,” Mr. Bar’el added.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.