Transcripts For CSPAN3 Policy Toward Russia China Iran Turk

Russia, china, iran and turkey. And first of all at the outset we will say that we are very proud with the cooperation of the Italian Ministry of the Foreign Affairs and the Atlantic Council that is our partner into the med dialogue. I am happy to be here for the second time, the second year with all of the distinguished guests, and these distinguished speakers. As the italian ambassador already said, this meeting is a part of a series of meetings, and regional, and we called regional meeting around the world. We have already hosted two regional immediatings in dohdoh brussels, rome, moscow, and abu dhabi and in new york tomorrow at the end of the month in riyadh. So coming to the panel, why old actor, because these International Players have always been present and active in the region, but new policies, because the International Context has changed and these actors have achieved a new rein on the rule in the region, so the order has come to question in recent years. Such a phenomenon has been ongoing for several years and has recently accelerated. These wars are particularly evidenced after the uprising in the north african region in 2011. When the United States signaled a choice to rebalance the resources and commitments abroad and away from the region, this choice shifted the eurasianal balance of power, and created the challenging of the United States effectiveness as the external provider of security in the area, leading to a sort of power vacuum that other players have attempted to fill. On the one hand, the United States has allow in order the choice of the essence of the regional actors, the saudi arabia, and the gulf hierarchies and israel have each gained an increasingly and prominent position and role in the middle eastern stage and became determinant in the face of the International Crisis from libya to syria. As a result, the extent of the influence in the region is broader than used to be. The region between saudi arabia and iran for instance is having an impact on the main theaters where the two are fighting their proxy wars, especially in yemen, and similar in turkey for their inability to close the partnerships with the players in the regions to expand the network mobilized in arab, and nonarab world in increasing the reach and influence and allowing anch ankara to scale down the involvement in the resurgence whether it is true or not, and we listen to professor katz, but it is going to produce new space for china, and with the help of the dwisistinguished guests, we will try to highlight the role of china and the other other actors in the middle east. So my pleasure to introduce the director for the center of turkish studies for the institute. We know a couple of days ago on october 6th the call between trump, and erdogan resulted in the announced of the partial withdrawal of the u. S. Troops from the Northern Syria and trump endorsement of the turkish plans to send their own military force in the region, but you have a floor for the broader view of the Regional Policy of the turks and for this news. Thank you so much. Thank you to the Atlantic Council and kareem for inviting me. Et is a pleasure to be here. I originally wanted to talk about turkeys broader regional role, but given the recent developments, i would like to talk about the turkey syria policy and give you an overview of the transformation of the turkey syria policy. The first thing they want to say is that turkeys reaction or the policies that turkey has pursued in syria must be seen against the backdrop of president Tayyip Erdogans mandate to have one rule at home. So it is all about the domestic politics. So between 2000 and 2002 when the pk came to rule to 2011 of the beginning of the uprising, turkey pursued a pragmatic policy in the region, and engaging with the regimes, employing selfpower instruments, pursuing closer ties with the west and playing a very constructive role. Turkey mediated in regional conflicts with the syrian government. And erdogan had close ties with president assad, and turkey invested heavily in syria, and lifted the visa requirements, and the two countries even held joint cabinet meetings. So the relationship was quite close. So between 2002 until late 2010, 2011, president erdogans islamist ideology did not play a prominent role in the way that turkey saw itself or the region. So it didnt play a role in turkeys Regional Policy and turkeys syrian policy. And the reason for that was because president erdogan at the time was still quite vulnerable, and although he was taking steps to consolidate the power at home, he was vulnerable, and the secular opponents, and particularly the military and the judiciary which were seen as the bastion of secularism, and they still called the shots. So unable to consolidate the power at home, he had to be cautious. He could not be leaning forward to pursue any islamist policy. And instead, throughout the years, turkey stuck with the traditional Turkish Foreign policy, and western oriented Foreign Policy, but of course, starting from 2011, that changed. The arab uprising started and by the time particularly the conflict in syria started in 2011, erdogan had already consolidated his power. He had already neutralized and silenced his secularist opponents and the media and the judiciary and the military had come under his control. And so he had a lot of room to maneuver. And the arab uprisings, and particularly the conflict in syria played a catalyst role in his project of islamization at home. So the uprisings provided an opening for erdogan, and the relationship between turkeys islamization at home and turkeys regional policies and role that it played in the arab uprisings, the relationship was one affected the other and transformed the other. So, in a way, erdogans islamization was a result of the conflict in syria, but the developments in syria are also transformed erdogans struggle and islamization, and i hope that is clear enough. If you could okay. Sure. So at home, starting from 2011, he took steps to islamize the countrys Education Sector for instance, and he made sure that the institutions for example directed for religious affairs. It became a huge bureaucracy and had a large budget and took on different social roles. So he took steps to raise generation, and the narratives also changed domestically, and starting from 2011, he paid more attention to turkeys islamic character when he is talking to foreign audiences and 2012 is a turning point in that regard. He delivered a talk at the ruling partys congress where he talked about turkeys historic role as a lead over the muslim world. While he was pursuing those islamist policies at home, he did the same in his Regional Policy, and in syria, too. From to getgo, he took a few months, but early on, even in april of 2011, and that is i guess a month after the uprising in syria started, turkey hosted a meeting of Syrian Opposition in istanbul. And so turkey all of the sudden became, and so syria became from being turkeys Foreign Policy Success Story to all of the sudden president assad became enemy number one. So turkey was the organizational hub for the Syrian Opposition, and later on it became a jihadi highway. Turkey started sending weapons and Financial Aid to the opposition groups and in particular the Muslim Brotherhood of turkey who had been in turkey after the 1980s and that is when father assad the brotherhood fled syria and settled in turkey, so there is a number of large Muslim Brotherhood members in turkey. So that group behind the scenes played a very prominent role in turkeys efforts to topple the regime in syria. So when the conflict in syria started, turkeys number one priority was to topple the regime. Turkey had an open border policy, and so there were tens of thousands of people fleeing the conflict in syria, and came to turkey, and started to live in turkey. So from 2011 to 2014 or 2015, turkey heavily supported the islamist groups, and turkey would turn a blind eye to the Islamic State within its borders and so turkey played a key role in the islamization, and jihadization in turkey and syria, and this is an indication of what erdogan was doing at home, and in his mind it made perfect sense, because the dpr uprisings, the islamist ideals were coming to fruition. He saw the arab uprisings as a opportunity for turkey to become the leader of the muslim world. But his islamization project hit a roadblock in 2015 and that is when he turned to nationalism. So in 2015, in june of 2015, elections for the first time in many years, through the akp lost the parliamentary majority, and that is thanks for the proturkish party which captured a historic 13 in national elections. And that denied the ruling party the parliamentary majority. That is when president erdogan switched to nationalism. He decided to ally with the turkish nationalists, and the ceasefire that was in place for years broke down and turkey decided to pursue a heavyhanded military approach to the countrys kurdish problem. And that shift in the calculations had a direct impact on the way that erdogan saw the conflict in syria. So from then on, and i also must mention that starting from 2014, you will see the rise of the kurds in syria as well. The United States started working very closely with the Syrian Kurdish militia which is the ypg in the fight against the islamist states. The military aid provided by the americans to the syrian kurds boosted the kurds image diplomatic and political image, and so that also peaked the turkey threat perceptions. So given that change in the domestic scene, and other calculations, erdogans decisions started to change. So toppling the regime and kurdish nationalism became erdogans National Priority and toppling the regime came after that. So, starting from 2015, you will see for instance turkey working closely with the regimes allies and despite a brief period of tension between turkey and russia, turkey started to work with iran and russia in an effort to curve nationalism. Turkey then launched First Military incursion into syria to prevent an autonomous region in Northern Syria, and that happened after a green light from russia. Again in 2019, they launched a second turkish enclave and that again happened after another green light from russia. So turkey agreed to establish the deescalation zones for instance. And those deescalation zones ended up empowering the regime. So in a way, turkey through its actions in syria and cooperation with the assad regime in iran, turkey empowered the regime. Ed and they played a key role in aleppo, because if they wanted to stop the opposition in the fight against the kurds so that we can have the rebellion in aleppo, and aleppo eventually fell in late 2016. That is telling you the transformation and the shift of turkeys priorities in syria. And the final shift came recently. In 2019, turkey held local elections. President erdogan and his party lost almost all major cities in turkey including istanbul which is the Financial Capital of the country, and capital of ankara, and that is a huge blow to the 17year rule. Particularly, those two cities are very important. And this is going to make up 70 of the countrys gdp. This is one of the biggest electoral losses to erdogan since he came to power. And the key reasons for his loss in the elections is that the economic downturn and also the presence of 3. 6 million Syrian Refugees. So he his priorities shifted again, and there is a growing domestic nationalist backlash against the Syrian Refugees bac against Syrian Refugees and now his number one priorities are creating a safe zone along turkeys southern border inside syria to send back millions of Syrian Refugees. He laid out that plan at the United Nations General Assembly meetings in new york in september. So he talked about a 30kilometer deep, 480 kilometerwide safe zone that is now controlled by the allies, and he wants to make sure hes going to build around 200,000 homes, schools, hospitals, football fields. Thats his plan, and this is, in his mind, this is the perfect solution to his problems because he will want trade off millions of Syrian Refugees and that will generate revenue for the countrys troubled economy. It will cost 27 billion, and hes seeking for European International funding for that. So thats his plan now, and hes number one, his number two priority is still containing turkish nationalism, so by creating that zone which will be off limits to the Kurdish Militia and he will present an autonomous region, and toppling the regime seems to have been pushed off the list altogether. In that meeting between between iran, russia and turkey recently which was held in ankara, president rouhani was telling the world that International Efforts to topple the assad regime had failed and president erdogan just sat back and he ate the treats. So i think that was that picture was a very clear reminder of transformation of turkeys priorities in syria. So now the final question, the final thing that i want to mention, is that syria the conflict in syria played the most Important Role in the countrys domestic and Foreign Policy section of the republic. Turkey changed and transformed the conflict in syria, but it was also transformed by the conflict in syria, and i think moving forward, if you want to understand what his next step is going to be, you have to look at his domestic power struggle, and he is at his most vulnerable electorally. That will mean that hell do anything, no matter how risky, were reading the news that turkish troops are on the border, turkish officials are talking about the military incursion, and analysts, american, partners and allies are all warning about the risks and it is a very risky operation. Yes, President Trump might have given the green light, but still you have a congress thats quite p pissed and ready to punish erdogan for various other reasons and President Trump has been working very hard to convince the congressional leaders to hold off on the sanctions saying that turkey is an important nato ally, but if turkey does that and if turkey intervenes militarily, its really going to be very difficult for President Trump to continue to stand by erdogan. So we might see a round of new sanctions, and also its risky for, obviously, it will hurt american strategy in syria. Turkey is not militarily capable of waging an effective fight against isis. It cannot hold thousands of, i believe around 60,000 detainees that are being held at isis camps that are now controlled by the ypg, so its a risky move, but i think because of the tough situation that president erdogan has found himself domestically, hes willing to take that risk, and i think in the coming days i will see how it plays out. I just saw today that President Trump tweeted again about turkey, praising turkey and turkish efforts, we dont know. Turkey has put all of its eggs in trumps basket and i think its a risky move, but again, looking at the domestic situation, i think he can take the risk because hes desperate and needs to send back those refugee, and ill stop there. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Very interesting your overview of the turkey Foreign Policy, but also for your analysis of the relation between domestic pol s politics and the domestic crisis and the next speaker is anizai is a Research Fellow at the United Services institute in london and the visiting fellow at Kings College in london again. So jan is also at the center of the discussion of the first panel, particularly as the subject of the u. S. Policy politics, but you are an expert on iran also as active player in the region, so you have the floor. Thank you, arturo and thank you to the Atlantic Council for organizationize this conference and also for having me here. I wanted to dispute the title of the panel in the case of iran. I would say that in the case of iran, we are talking about an old country with an old policy. I dont think we can really talk about the change in iranian Foreign Policy, and there are a number of reasons for sake of time, im not going to go over all of them, but i think its important to understand, and i think it came out also briefly in the Previous Panel that irans Foreign Policy is characterized by a specific message from the structure, but also by very specific principles that characterize its definition since basically the revolution and even more since the 1989 one that we had the empowerment of the current Supreme Leader ayatollah khamanei and we have seen contin