https://ahvalnews.com-Turkish backing for Ukraine in the crisis with Russia may cost it dearly in Syria, analyst Zvi Bar’el said in the Israeli Haaretz newspaper on Monday.
“If Turkey proudly treads on Russia’s toes in Ukraine and displays support for Western policy, then the time has come for Russia to brandish a threat that will hit Turkey where it hurts,” Bar’el said.
Appearing to up the pressure on NATO member Turkey in Syria, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said last week that Moscow supports the participation of Syria’s Kurds in the constitutional reform process in the country, North Press Agency Syria reported on Friday.
“We support that the Syrians, regardless of their sectarian or ethnic affiliations, find compromise solutions in their relations, based on the principles of preserving the unity and sovereignty of the Syrian territories,” the agency cited Bogdanov as saying in an interview with the RT TV channel.
Senior Russian officials have met with the leaders of the Syrian Kurds who maintain a de facto autonomy in northern Syria, but so far they have refrained from pressing for them to be included in the diplomatic process, Bar’el said.
“In Russia’s delicate relations with Turkey, any mention of the Syrian Kurds, who are labelled as a terrorist organisation by Ankara, in the same breath as a diplomatic solution causes Turkey to roil,” he said.
Russia is now using Syria to send hints to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that Turkey cannot step on Moscow’s toes in Ukraine, as Ankara sends military assistance to Ukraine and equips it with advanced drones, according to the analyst.
Turkey has sought closer defence and economic ties with Ukraine in recent years and has sold its domestically produced Bayraktar TB2 drones to the country’s military.
Ukraine operates six UAVs. It announced in November that is ready to purchase another batch of the armed drones.
In December, Russia criticised Turkey for selling the drones to Ukraine, saying they were being used by Kiev to further the conflict with Moscow in the Donbas region.
Kiev reportedly used a TB-2 drone in an armed strike on pro-Russian separatist positions in October, prompting Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov to say that the sales to Ukraine contributed to destabilisation in the region.
In 2014, Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine and aided a rebellion in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. Russian-backed rebels have been fighting there ever since, with growing tensions as Russia amasses troops on the border.
“Russian recognition of a Kurdish movement or organisation as a legitimate component in negotiations over a new Syrian constitution, and thus to changes in the structure of the regime, will be seen by Turkey as recognition of a terrorist organisation, and could undermine its ability to mount military operations against such a group,” Bar’el said.