Strange times call for stranger bedfellows

The recent "deal" reached between Turkish President Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, to end Turkish operation in northeast Syria, on October 22, has been causing quite a stir. 

The end of US' precarious friendship with the Syrian Kurds was long time coming, given the discomfort of Turkey, since it considered the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG)—a main component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), long designated by the US and Turkey as a terrorist organisation. Indeed, the PKK had been fighting hard for the last few decades for their own land—a place they could call their own.  

However, in trying to appease Turkey, the US abruptly pulled out its troops from northeast Syria, and the void left by the US' withdrawal enabled Russia to strengthen its position in the region. Case in point—the presence of Russians in an abruptly vacated US facility in Manbij, as showed in videos circulated by Russian media and even the Russia's military news website, ANNA News. The description that came with the ANNA News video was even more interesting: "Manbij is ours!"

A lot of Russia's success in its new-found friendship with Turkey is due to Putin's foresight. At a time when the US was trying to find ways to wash its hands of the situation in Syria, Russia was engaging Turkey in dialogue through the "Astana talks". These talks, going on since 2017, have not only turned sour regional enemies into friends, but they have also helped Russia consolidate its position and acceptability in the region, and gain the confidence of Turkey.

And while Trump had sent his vice president to Turkey to arrange a temporary ceasefire, in the backdrop of the failure of US economic sanctions on Turkey to contain the country's aggression in northeast Syria, Putin managed to convince Turkey for a lasting peace in the region by inking a deal with the country to stop attacks in Syria, after more than six hours of intense negotiations. The major terms: Turkey will have its desired "safe zone" devoid of the Kurds and control a 32km-wide area between Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ain, which covers 120km of the Turkish-Syrian border (although shorter, but a safe zone nonetheless); Russia and Turkey will jointly patrol the area—a task that was once under US jurisdiction. Photos of a sombre Erdogan and a smug Putin shaking hands were all over the media. An unlikely alliance in a troubled region, which made Putin—overnight—the security guarantor of both the Turks and the Kurds!  

The US troop withdrawal has resulted in another unlikely friendship—one between Syria's Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian Kurds, once intransigent enemies. In the face of aggressive Turkish operation in the Kurdish stronghold of northeast Syrian region, including cities of Ras al-Ain and Tal Abyad, and stabbed in the back by their ally, the US, the Syrian Kurds were left with no other choice but to seek the help of Assad in fighting back the Turkish soldiers. This resulted in the Syrian government forces entering into Kurdish controlled towns and cities in the northeast of the country, including the flashpoint cities of Manbij and Kobani, after many years, to "liberate areas entered by the Turkish army and its hired mercenaries." Even a few weeks ago, this would have been difficult to imagine, given the historic bad blood between Syria's Ba'athist regime of Hafez al-Assad and now his son Bashar al-Assad, and the Syrian Kurds.  

This unlikely friendship between the Kurds and Damascus has created uncertainties on multiple fronts. First of all, the Kurds seeking Assad's help have not only consolidated the latter's position as the autocratic ruler of Syria, it has also put into jeopardy the return of the Syrian refugees, especially the ones who had fled not only IS atrocities but also the brutal regime of Assad. With Assad's forces back in the apparent "safe zone" that Turkey is planning to create for the return of nearly 3.6 million refugees, many would be unwilling to return, especially in fear of retaliation by the Assad regime.

According to an article by Borzou Daragahi, an international correspondent for The Independent, published on October 20, life in Syria for the returnees is not a secure one. A report prepared by the Syrian Association for Citizens' Dignity, based on interviews of 165 returnees in Homs, the Damascus countryside, Daraa and Aleppo, suggests that the people who have returned to the said cities in Syria live in fear of reprisal by the forces of Assad. According to the 44-page report, this fear has been triggered by "widespread and systematic human rights violations" by the Assad regime and its allies, along with "arbitrary arrests, forced recruitment, extortion and the absence of basic services". The report further suggests that "63 percent of returnees interviewed are actively seeking to flee Syria again."

Another fear factor is that, with access to the heartlands of the already weakened Kurds, Assad can now choose to settle the scores with the Kurds who had defied him in the past, and especially for their role against Assad in the Syrian Civil War. If that comes to pass, one can only assume the upheaval and uncertainty it will plunge the region into. And if Assad's intentions are not noble, how would SDF manage to maintain the various prisons it is currently supervising, full of captured IS fighters—nearly 12,000 (according to estimates before the Turkish operations began earlier this month), with a quarter of them being foreign fighters?

And while it is understandable what forced the Kurds to seek Assad's help, what motivated Assad to join hands with the Kurds is still unclear: is it to appease its long-time ally Russia—who wanted to secure a "win-win" deal with Turkey and emerge as the leader who brought peace in the war-torn Syria—or, does Assad have more layered motives? Only time will tell.

Although fragile, a ceasefire has been reached and perhaps soon a semblance of normalcy will return in Syria—or perhaps not! But for now, the US is lifting its ineffective and cosmetic economic sanctions on Turkey, and Russia has emerged as the greater of all the players involved in this game of power. What the Kurds or the Syrians will gain from this deal remains to be seen: after all, in the words of Sergey Markov, a political science professor and former member of the Russian parliament, it is a "win-win" situation for Turkey and Russia—two strange bedfellows in control of the fate of millions in the region.

Tasneem Tayeb is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star. Her Twitter handle is @TayebTasneem