Published: 12 December 2024
Last updated: 12 December 2024
Winner: Turkey
Turkey’s support for rebel groups including HTS was critical to the recent offensive. Ankara gave the rebel organisations the green light after the Assad regime rebuffed its efforts to normalise relations with Turkey. Given the success of the offensive, Turkey will probably emerge as the most influential foreign actor in the country.
Having taken in more Syrian refugees than any other country, Turkey will be eager to allow Syrians to return home. But its main interest there is to topple the Kurdish forces in the north where the Democratic Union party (PYD), an offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), operates. Ankara will also want to ensure that any government that emerges in Syria is friendly to Turkey and not Iran.
Read more: What Syria’s rebel takeover means for the region’s major players (The Conversation)
Comments1
Ian Light14 December at 08:26 pm
The most optimistic is that the HTS will be a Democratic as Turkey and Indonesia and accept the the Two States Israeli and Palestinian as a Realism that cannot be changed .
The Golan Heights will be the barrier as Israel has very low trust for Islamic and Arab intentions and will not give the Golan Heights away for security reasons including water security.
The Golan Heights though could become an international humanitarian area with excellent health centres and humane research such as in food and water security and energy conservation and applications shared Internationally.