The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

A Saudi-Turkey intervention in Syria?

By Alex Rowell

Reports of coming Saudi air strikes in Syria combined with Turkish troops leave some skeptical, though a leading Saudi analyst says they have substance

Three weeks after a coalition of Arab nations led by Saudi Arabia launched a sudden air strike campaign against Iran-backed militants in Yemen, reports have emerged of plans for yet another, much larger direct Saudi intervention in a regional war zone that would be sure to have profound implications for the key conflicts the region is currently facing.

 

Citing anonymous “sources familiar with the discussions,” the Huffington Post reported on Sunday that Saudi Arabia was in “high-level talks” with Turkey, brokered by Qatar, to bolster the non-jihadist opposition in Syria by the deployment of Saudi air strikes combined with Turkish ground troops on northern Syrian soil. The report added that the White House had been informed of the talks since February, though one of the sources interviewed asserted the intervention would go ahead with or without American blessing.

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the magnitude of the report’s claims, not all analysts with whom NOW spoke were convinced any such plans would come to fruition. Significantly, however, the veteran Saudi journalist and former advisor to then-ambassador Prince Turki al-Faisal, Jamal Khashoggi, wrote on Twitter of the report that “in principle, the information is correct.”

 

In conversation with NOW, Khashoggi elaborated on this: “Talks about supporting the Syrian rebels are underway, it is true. Cooperation between Saudi, Turkish, and Qatari intelligence has never been as good as it is now. And that includes both operating rooms; the one in Jordan and the one in Turkey.”

 

Any such action, however, would not take place for months, according to Khashoggi, for various reasons including the ongoing Yemeni conflict. A Bloomberg report Monday said Riyadh was contemplating building a Yemeni ground force to work in tandem with its air strikes, suggesting its intervention was growing more complex.

 

“What the Huffington Post detailed was a little bit too early,” Khashoggi told NOW. “There is Yemen that is a priority for Saudi Arabia. And elections, which are a priority for the AKP government in Turkey. So I do not anticipate anything of that magnitude before the end of June.”

 

Moreover, Khashoggi said the exact details mentioned in the Huffington Post—i.e., Saudi air strikes with Turkish ground troops—might be merely one of several “things that are being discussed,” rather than “the [final] plan.”

 

“But what I heard from various sources; what matters is [that it will be] a game changer,” he added. “It is something that will change the rules of the game in Syria.”

 

Analysts NOW spoke with in Turkey and the US were less persuaded that anything so significant was on the table.

 

“I just don’t see that kind of an operation by those two countries as being very likely,” said Jeffrey White, defense fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Maybe they’re talking about it, maybe they’re working on it, and so on, but that’s still some distance from making the decision to do it. The Turkish military is pretty conservative and very cautious. For them to launch some kind of major, significant ground operation into Syria would be, I think, out of character for them.”

 

Oytun Orhan, researcher at the Ankara-based Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies (ORSAM), put it more bluntly.

 

“In Turkey, nobody believed that [report],” he told NOW. “I think it is nearly impossible.” Turkey would be willing to intervene if given a UN mandate, said Orhan, or else as part of a broad international coalition that included “its Western allies,” but a move in partnership with Saudi alone was, “as I said […] impossible.”

 

In spite of that, Orhan said Turkey had improved its ties substantially with Riyadh since their falling-out over the Saudi-backed removal of Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi, whose Muslim Brotherhood ideology aligned closely with that of Turkey’s ruling AKP party but was unpopular in Riyadh. In early March, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğanmet Saudi’s King Salman in the Saudi capital, where the two declared their agreement on “the necessity of enhancing support to the Syrian opposition in a way that aims at yielding results,” according to Turkish state media. King Salman, crowned in January, is said to be less hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood than his late predecessor, Abdallah.

 

“After [the coronation of] King Salman, there are signs that these tensions will be overcome and [Saudi and Turkey] will cooperate and coordinate more in the region,” said Orhan. “In Syria, specifically, they might harmonize their policies, but again, this will never lead to a unified military intervention with Turkish ground forces.”

 

Khashoggi, however, said he took confidence not from a change of heart in Riyadh, but rather one in Washington that, he told NOW, may be far more consequential.

 

“The Americans have begun to change,” he said. “And I think this is the effect of [the Yemen intervention]. We should take note of Obama’sstatement he made in the New York Times, when he said, ‘Why don’t we see Arabs fighting in Syria?’ Even though it looked very much contradictory to how his administration behaved even just a week before that statement, it should be welcomed as a positive change.”

 

“And I interpret it as a reaction to the mood that was created after [the Yemen intervention]. So I presume the Americans will agree [to a Syria intervention] as long as Saudi Arabia and Turkey will be responsible for what goes on.”

 

 

NOW.