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00:00After Saudi Arabia, the new master of Damascus, now in Ankara, Syria's new interim president
00:09Ahmad al-Shara, meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, al-Shara, who has to
00:17contend with both Ankara-backed militias in his country and the Syrian Kurds they're fighting
00:23in his bid to reunite Syria for more.
00:27Let's cross now to the Turkish capital and correspondent Jasper Mortimer.
00:31Jasper, what's the latest?
00:33Well, they haven't finished talking.
00:37The talks are still going on, which might be a good thing because they're going on longer
00:41than scheduled.
00:42However, I can tell you basically what they're talking about, because Turkey has three interests
00:50in Syria, and they're well known.
00:52I'll give them to you, and they're all of about equal weight.
00:56I won't say that one is more important than the other.
01:00The first thing is that Turkey wants to play a major economic role in the reconstruction
01:06of Syria, and to some extent it's already doing that.
01:11Turkey has sent an electrical delegation to Syria to see what the country needs to restore
01:18its power network.
01:21Secondly, Turkey wants to promote a new government in Syria that will offer its people economic
01:28growth, political tolerance, the rule of law, so that the bulk of the three million Syrian
01:37refugees in Turkey will want to go home.
01:41Turkey accepted more refugees from Syria than any other country in the world, but the refugees
01:47have now become a political liability to the government.
01:51The opposition parties are saying, if the government doesn't send them home, we will
01:54send them home.
01:57You can ask, how much will President Recep Tayyip Erdogan push Ahmed al-Sharar to be
02:05democratic, when Erdogan certainly doesn't talk about human rights, when he speaks to
02:12his good friend Vladimir Putin of Russia, or his good friend Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan.
02:19However, against that thinking, there is the fact that unless the new Syria offers people
02:25political tolerance and the rule of law, and a certain amount of economic growth, the Syrians
02:31in Turkey won't want to go home.
02:34The third thing Turkey wants is that it doesn't want the Syrian Kurds who dominate northeastern
02:41Syria, the northeastern third of the country, to form an autonomous zone, similar to that
02:48of the Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq.
02:52During the civil war, the two main Kurdish parties in Syria got together, and they effectively
02:59formed a semi-autonomous zone in the northeast.
03:03Their military forces were supported by the US, because most of the oil wells and the
03:09natural gas deposits of Syria are in the northeast.
03:14Before the Kurdish forces took control of those deposits, the Islamic State group was
03:20profiting from them.
03:21The Kurds played a valuable role in keeping order, and a secular order, in northeastern
03:29Syria.
03:31Turkey knows that if the Iraqi Kurds have autonomy, and the Syrian Kurds have autonomy,
03:38then the Turkish Kurds are going to demand autonomy as well, and it doesn't want that.
03:44It's a bit of a balancing act for Ahmed al-Shara.
03:48How does he handle those Syrian Kurds at this point in time?
03:55Yes.
03:55Look, in mid-January, about three weeks ago, the new Syrian foreign minister, al-Shabani,
04:07came to Turkey and met the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan.
04:12Afterwards, they gave a press conference, which al-Shabani conveyed that his government
04:19did not want the Kurds to have an autonomous zone.
04:23He said something like, we want all Syrians to be under the same roof, implying all under
04:31the central government in Damascus.
04:37Many thanks for that, Jasper Mortimer reporting live there from Ankara.
04:41For more, we can cross to Washington, D.C.
04:43Gunul Tol is director of the Middle East Institute's Turkey program, the author of Erdogan's War,
04:49a Strongman Struggle at Home and in Syria.
04:54Thank you for speaking with us here on France 24.
04:57Thanks for having me.
04:58First of all, your thoughts on the optics of this sit-down between Syria's new leader
05:06and the Turkish president.
05:08Well, I would slightly reframe what your correspondent in Turkey just said.
05:14I think the toppling of the Assad regime came at a perfect moment for Turkish President
05:20Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who faces mounting challenges at home, and he hopes the post-Assad Syria
05:26will help him solve those problems.
05:29So I think his number one priority is to dismantle the Kurdish autonomous region in northern
05:37Syria and also disband the group which is called the YPG that currently governs it.
05:44So that is his number one priority, because this will have implications for his domestic
05:49plans to stay in power beyond 2028.
05:53According to the current Turkish constitution, he's unable to run in 2028.
05:58And to fix that problem, he recently reached out to the Kurdish militant PKK's imprisoned
06:06leader in an effort to secure his backing and the pro-Kurdish party's backing in the
06:12parliament so he can either draft a new constitution or call for early election.
06:18That will pave the way for his rerun in 2028.
06:22So whatever happens in Syria with regards to the Syrian Kurdish autonomy will have a
06:28huge impact on his domestic plans.
06:31And I think his second priority is to repatriate the Syrian refugees.
06:36Their presence has cost Erdogan a lot of votes.
06:40But for this to happen, Syria needs to be rebuilt, which brings me to his third priority.
06:47Erdogan wants his allies in the construction sector to take part in efforts to rebuild
06:55Syria.
06:55And this comes at a time when his cronies in the construction sector have been suffering
07:01from an ailing economy.
07:04Yeah.
07:04And what is Ahmad al-Shara going to be saying to Recep Tayyip Erdogan regarding those Turkey
07:11backed militias that are in northern Syria?
07:16Well, he already has announced that the Syrian militias, and I think they are numbered somewhere
07:24around 80,000, 85,000 militias that have been supported by Turkey, al-Shara already
07:32announced that they have agreed to disband and they will be soon integrated into the
07:37Syrian national military.
07:39Now, there is a huge question mark and vagueness there, although he has assured people that
07:45there will be a new military and all these militias will be integrated into that.
07:52People, especially militias in the southern part of the country, they are a bit reluctant
07:58and there is a lot of infighting going on.
08:00So we don't know where those plans are.
08:02But the bigger question for both Erdogan and Syria's new leaders is what will happen to
08:09the Syrian Democratic Forces, who are backed by the United States.
08:13They are the second largest military force after the militias backed by Turkey.
08:20And their future, their fate will really impact what will happen in Syria.
08:26Now, Damascus has been holding talks with the Syrian Democratic Forces, but in his last
08:31interview, Ahmet al-Shara did not sound too optimistic about what will happen, what goes
08:37on in those interviews, in those negotiations.
08:40Because we heard the head of the, the military commander of the SDF telling the Associated
08:48Press on Monday that they're emphatic, they want a decentralized Syria.
08:54That's right.
08:55And that's not something that Damascus wants.
08:57They were very clear about that.
08:58They're not interested in a federalist structure for the future of Syria.
09:04And yet, al-Shara and the people around him, they want to integrate these Kurdish forces
09:12into the Syrian military.
09:13And the Kurds are not completely against that.
09:17They are willing to be part of the Syrian military, but they want to be part of it as
09:22a group.
09:23And that suggests to me that they want some kind of decentralization.
09:27And I'm not sure whether Damascus or Ankara will agree to that.
09:31So the Turkish and Syrian leaders together in the room, from what you're saying, it sounds
09:35like there's one person missing since it is the United States backing the SDF.
09:41If Donald Trump was there, though, what would be his position?
09:45On the one hand, he says he doesn't want any more wars.
09:49He doesn't want to be involved in the protracted conflicts.
09:52On the other hand, he likes strategic assets such as oil.
09:58That is the big question.
10:00And I think that's why the Syrian Kurdish militia is dragging its feet before they commit
10:07any concessions that Ankara or Damascus are asking for, because they want to know what
10:12President Trump will do in Syria.
10:15So whether the United States withdraw troops from Syria, that will significantly weaken
10:22the hand of the Syrian Kurdish militia, which will force them to grant those concessions.
10:27But if the United States decides to stay, that will strengthen their hand and they will
10:32be less willing to negotiate.
10:34But I think we don't know.
10:36President Trump has said conflicting things.
10:39And lately, he said that he hasn't yet made a decision on that.
10:44But I think given what he has said on the campaign trail and what his foreign policy
10:49agenda is, I think his reflex is going to be withdraw American troops from Syria.
10:56And he will basically turn the fight against ISIS over to Turkey and keeping those jails
11:06that are now in the hands of the Syrian Kurdish militia to Damascus to take care of.
11:10And then he will declare himself as the leader who brings American troops home.
11:17OK, so that's definitely a possibility.
11:19Let me ask you just a question about those Syrian refugees inside of Turkey.
11:24Are they a monolith?
11:25Are they all from one uniform block?
11:29Are there different?
11:30We know how much of a patchwork Syria is.
11:32Are they from all the different various factions, religions inside the country?
11:39The overwhelming majority of Syrian refugees living in Turkey are of Sunni origin.
11:45They are the ones who fled Syria after the uprising, shortly after the uprising started.
11:51But this doesn't mean that Turkey does not have
11:54alibis, especially in the southern border towns, there are alibis.
11:59And in fact, today, after Al-Shara's meeting with President Erdogan, those alibi organizations,
12:06they have released a press statement criticizing Al-Shara and telling Erdogan that Al-Shara
12:15has blood on his hands because he killed alibis.
12:19So there is still a large community, alibi community in Turkey, which is very critical
12:24of Erdogan's Syria policy and the new government in Damascus.
12:28But the refugees living in Turkey are mostly Sunni Muslims.
12:33Daniel Tau, what's the prospect for Erdogan then?
12:39What are the signals he's giving in terms of what he wants to do next?
12:44I think, again, the number one priority is to make sure that Syrian autonomous region is gone.
12:51And again, what Trump will do will have a huge impact on that.
12:55If the U.S. withdraws, I think it will be very difficult for the Syrian Kurds
13:00to keep the autonomous region that they have established after the Syrian uprising.
13:05And that will, in turn, help Erdogan with his domestic plans to stay in power beyond 2028.
13:15Gunal Tool, I want to thank you so much for joining us from Washington.
13:19Thanks for having me.