Page 13 - TURKRptNov21

2.3 Foreign policy chaos
In the end, Erdogan got his photoshoot with Joe Biden at the G20 gathering in Rome on October 31.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s leader is hankering for some limited military attraction in Syria. This will be just for domestic market consumption (when the army crosses the border into the ocean of uncertainties, the Turk shuts their mouth or will be lynched as a traitor).
As usual, the desired military attraction will be with the tacit permission of Erdogan’s patrons, the White House and the Kremlin (the Russians are well aware of what goes on between dictators Erdogan and Putin, while the Western media audience is fooled with comic references to Turkey falling off a road to “democracy” that it was never on).
If the military action goes ahead, more downward pressure will be applied to already sinking Turkish paper until things settle down. The operation will have no impact in real politics.
If we must meditate on the details, we can see that Erdogan is supposed to pull his troops and jihadists to above the M4 highway in Syria’s Idlib region (across the border from Turkey’s Hatay province). Next, the Russians will bomb the remaining Hayat Tahrir el-Sham (HTS) jihadists in the region. They will push HTS out and take control of the highway, which connects Aleppo to Latakia.
Red: Russians and Assad, Dark Green: HTS, Light Green: Erdogan’s jihadists, Yellow: Kurds under Russia’s patronage.
Erdogan is asking permission to attack the Kurds in exchange. The Ukrainians, meanwhile, in late October used a combat drone made by Erdogan’s younger son-in-law to strike Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass. It is not helpful when it comes to getting permissions from the Kremlin. The Kremlin has full control on Syria’s air space, excluding the Kurdish-held region in the eastern Euphrates region, where the air space is under the control of the US.
Terrorism financing: On October 22, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF)—set up by the G7 group of advanced economies to defend the global financial system against money laundering and terrorist financing—placed Turkey on its “grey list”.
13 TURKEY Country Report November 2021 www.intellinews.com