Abstract:
After five years of collision over Syria, Turkey and Iran are collaborating, albeit with differing priorities and goals, aiming at a political settlement in Syria. A main reason for this change has been Turkey’s shifting Syria policy. But why has Turkey’s Syria policy shifted and how does it affect the dynamics of Iranian – Turkish relations. My argument is that Russia’s military role in Syria and its stance against Turkey after the fighter jet incident of November 2015, along with the insecurity spilling over of the Syrian crisis started into Turkey, made Ankara to go beyond its anti-Assad zero-sum-game. This triggered the shifts in Turkey’s Syria policy, which in turn brought about new dynamics into Syria and to the Iranian – Turkish relations as well. The article is focused on the years following Russia’s military involvement in Syria with some references to the beginning of the Syrian crisis.
Machine summary:
My argument is that Russia’s military role in Syria and its stance against Turkey after the fighter jet incident of November 2015, along with the insecurity spilling over of the Syrian crisis started into Turkey, made Ankara to go beyond its anti-Assad zero-sum-game.
The hypothetical answer is that Russia’s military role in Syria and its stance against Turkey after the fighter jet incident on November 2015, along with the insecurity caused by the Syrian crisis and its spilled over into Turkey, brought Ankara to go beyond its anti-Assad zero-sum-game.
After years of Turkish adherence to a "zero problems" policy toward its neighborhood (See Davutoglu, 2010), Ankara found Iran, Iraq, and Syria a block with which it shares lots of common interests in terms of economic cooperation as well as regional stability.
Therefore, Iran gradually came to view the situation in Syria as a zero-sum game, fearing that the ouster of President Assad could pave the way for the emergence of a new regime and regional order intrinsically hostile towards Tehran (Goodarzi, 2013: 27).
There have been different arguments reasoning the logic of Turkey’s shift, on top of which come Russia’s role in Syria and its effect on the Syrian regional equation and the Kurdish rise in Syria.
Drawing a new set of rules in its dealings with Syria, Turkey abandoned its Arab blokes, partnering with Russia to dismantle what Ankara saw as a terrorist threat – which include Syrian Kurds according to Turkey’s classification (Ensor, 2016).
(
, 
, 
)
