Claudio Gallo: Syria's President Bashar al-Assad gave a free hand to northern Syria Kurds. May this become a real casus belli with Turkey?
Jeremy Salt: It may be going too far - to conclude that Assad gave a free hand to the Kurds in Syria. It is more likely that in the complete turmoil spreading across the country, he could not stop them from taking control of Kurdish areas close to the Turkish border. He certainly would not want to open up a front against the Kurds while trying to suppress the armed groups.
Whether this becomes a casus belli depends on how the Turkish government chooses to read the situation. But it is alarmed at the possibility of a Kurdish enclave being established in Northern Syria, strengthening the prospect of a "Greater Kurdistan" being created in the future. These complications should have been foreseen but apparently were not when Turkey decided to confront the Syrian government more than a year ago.
CG: Ankara is keeping a direct connection with the Iraqi Kurd administration, bypassing Baghdad. What in your opinion is the goal of Turkish diplomacy?
JS: It is very difficult to read Turkish diplomacy at the moment or to understand what the present regional policy is intended to achieve. If we look at Turkish policy until the beginning of 2012, we can see that "soft power" and "zero problems" [as pushed for by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu] had worked. Turkey had a strong working relationship with all of its eastern neighbors. As a result of the decision to work for "regime change" in Syria all this has been turned upside down.
The US and the Gulf states may be grateful for the central role Turkey is playing in the campaign to dislodge the Syrian government but the costs for Turkey have been great. Apart from the complete rupture with Damascus, the relationship with Iran and Iraq has been undermined. Turkey has also put itself at odds with Russia.
Again, all of this should have been foreseen a year ago as the inevitable outcome of confronting the government in Damascus, which has a strong strategic relationship with Iran and which gives port facilities to the Russian fleet and has had a strong relationship with Russia/the USSR for the past half century.
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