FO° Talks: Josef Olmert on Syria, Part 3: Turkey and the Kurdish Issue

Around two million Kurds live in northeastern Syria, where they established the autonomous region of Rojava. Turkey’s historical tensions with Syria stem from Cold War rivalries, border disputes and Kurdish movements. Today, Turkey maintains influence in Syria, balancing regional ambitions with caution toward rivals like Israel and Iran.

Check out our comment feature!

[This is the third part of a nine-part series. To read more, see Parts 1 and 2 here.]

Approximately two million Kurds live in Syria, predominantly in the northeastern region near Iraq and Turkey. During the country’s ongoing civil war, which began in 2011, Kurdish groups established an autonomous polity in the area, dubbed the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, Rojava.

Turkey is also home to a sizable Kurdish minority. In the past, it has combated the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish nationalist organization that Turkey and the rest of NATO consider a terrorist group. The Turkish capital of Ankara worries that Rojava maintains ties with the PKK. This concern has shaped Turkey’s approach to Syria throughout its modern history.

Turkish–Syrian relations

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has sought leadership in the Sunni Muslim world. He is nostalgic for the era of the Ottoman Empire, which saw Turkey rule Syria and much of the Middle East until World War I (1914–1918). After the war, Turkey became a democratic republic and later allied with the United States during the Cold War of the 1950s. Turkey joined NATO in 1952.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Turkey viewed Syria as a stronghold of pro-Soviet influence in the Middle East. Turkey served as a founding member of the Baghdad Pact in 1955, which aimed to create a pro-Western alliance in the Middle East that excluded Israel. Syria instead formed an Arab socialist union with Egypt — the United Arab Republic — which lasted from 1958 to 1961.

In 1998, Turkey and Syria engaged in a military standoff at the border over Kurdish movements in Syria and water rights in the Euphrates River. At the same time, Israeli troops reportedly concentrated near the Golan Heights on the Israel–Syria border. This compelled Syria to sign the Adana Agreement, in which Syria turned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan over to Turkish authorities.

Turkey continues to maintain influence in Syria in order to manage the perceived Kurdish threat. Turkey supported, among others, Abu Muhammad al-Julani’s (now Ahmed al-Sharaa’s) Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Sunni Arab militant group. HTS successfully deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in November 2024 and now controls the Syrian capital of Damascus.

Erdoğan aspires to predominance in the Levant and, therefore, finds himself at odds with the other major regional power, Israel. As a Sunni Muslim power, Turkey is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. However, Ankara has avoided direct confrontation with Jerusalem, and the two powers share a common rival in Iran. For the moment, Turkish–Syrian relations appear stable.

[Liam Roman and Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Comment

0 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

FO° Live: Make Sense of the Houthis and Civil War in Yemen

FO° Exclusive: Hunger Now Strikes Gaza and Big Crisis Brews in Israel

June 04, 2025

FO° Exclusive: US Budget and US–China Tariff Deal Unleash New Economic Uncertainty

June 02, 2025

FO° Talks: US–Israeli Relations Explained, Part 3: Shifting Coalitions

May 31, 2025

FO° Talks: US–Israeli Relations Explained, Part 2: Consequences of the Six-Day War

May 29, 2025

FO° Talks: US–Israeli Relations Explained, Part 1: Post-World War II

May 27, 2025

FO° Talks: Islamist Terrorist Attack Triggers New India–Pakistan Tensions on Restream

May 21, 2025

FO° Talks: An Indian Ringside View of the Russia–Ukraine Conflict

May 20, 2025

FO° Talks: A Ukrainian Refugee Reflects on the Russia–Ukraine War

May 17, 2025

FO° Talks: Why US Soft Power Is Now Declining Dramatically

May 12, 2025

FO° Talks: The Story of the Indian IT Industry

May 11, 2025

FO° Exclusive: Mark Carney Leads Liberals to a Fourth Consecutive Victory

May 10, 2025

FO° Exclusive: Pakistan’s Deadly Islamist Terror Attack, India’s New Water War

May 09, 2025

FO° Exclusive: Tariffs and the New Donald Trump Economic Revolution

May 08, 2025

FO° Talks: RDC, Rwanda and M23 Rebels

FO° Talks: The Culture of Culture, Part 2: Memory, Melody and a Forgotten Opera

April 27, 2025

FO° Talks: How India’s NASSCOM Was Born

April 26, 2025

FO° Talks: Why the Media Buried the Truth, the JFK Files

April 21, 2025

FO° Talks: The Culture of Culture, Part 1: The Classical Music Concert

April 20, 2025

FO° Talks: International Law in the New Donald Trump 2.0 World

April 19, 2025

 

Fair Observer, 461 Harbor Blvd, Belmont, CA 94002, USA