 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we are joined by Ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar and we will be talking about the situation in Syria. Thank you for joining us sir. Thank you. Sir, so some days ago we saw the meeting between President Erdogan and President Putin in Sochi and this is a very complicated negotiation. A lot of reports coming out after that. So would you say, what was your sense of the negotiation? Would you say that Erdogan in some senses has got what he set out to achieve on October 9 when he launched the invasion? You know, very succinctly put an entirely new face in the Syrian conflict is beginning. Just when Putin himself put it on record, I think about three weeks ago at a Valda Club forum in Sochi that the Syrian war is over and now you find that the parties who lost the war are trying to maneuver into a position to dictate terms of a settlement. This is struggle going on there. Motives are very obscure. Transparency is lacking, especially on the part of, I think the Russian position is quite clear, crystal clear, but transparency is lacking on the part of Erdogan, Turkey. There is a range of motivations are at work and the Americans have lost heavily and are trying to bounce back. It will be wrong to say like there is a sense of triumphalism among certain quarters that the Americans have lost heavily and they are out of Syria. It appeared so, but the kind of rapprochement that is building up between Trump and Erdogan, it shows that the Americans have other intentions. If you analyze, you must first analyze the Turkish position because Turkey being a neighboring country, immediate neighbor, inevitably it has a great influence on what molding what lies in the womb of time. Turkey's considerations are quite varied. One is, evidently we hear quite a lot about border security. Secondly, in terms of the Kurdish problem, the specter that is haunting them is that the kind of Kurdistan that shaped up in the twilight period of the Saddam Hussein era in Iraq in the northern region might take shape on the borders of Turkey. The Turks are quite right that the Syrian Kurdish group called YPG which is aligned with the US is in fact a brand of the PKK, which promotes separatism and has killed tens of thousands of Turks in the kind of war that has been going on there. So that is the Kurdish problem is quite serious. Then Turkey has specific interests. One is historical. Having lived there I can tell you this that it's an unsatiated power Turkey in the sense that it has a sense of, you say that about China again, that it has a sense of humiliation, a sense that greed injustice has been done to it, this loss of territory on account of the Anglo-French conspiracy, the early part of the last century and the settlement that took shape and at that time Turkey was very weak and Atathuk decided to be content with what was left as the residue and build a new modern Turkish state on that on entirely different principles of secularism, western oriented, turning its back on the Middle East and so on. But you know it's difficult to believe that underlying this even after one century, full century, there is this seething restlessness of the loss of imperial glory and particularly with regard to Syria there is also the additional problem that part of this so-called French mandate given by the League of Nations at the time of the settlement was that the one province of Turkey bordering Syria called Hatay actually should have been part of Syria and Syria never accepted it. Now, fudging this mandate Turkey took away that province so there's a territorial dispute also. So you see all these things are at work and then there's refugees also. Refugee question is very much there initially when the war began everyone looked at it as a kind of trump card that he can hold but as time passed it led to a drain of resources and you know on social sectors like schooling, medical care, housing and so on four million people additional influx means it puts pressures on the social sectors. So there is a growing discontent in the Turkish society that these are unwanted people and politicians have to take note of that. So there is no question about it it is a genuine problem that they would like to send these people back to Syria that is very much there. Then there is the other question what do you do when a war has been fought with the instrument of jihadi groups extremist violent groups you can call them only terrorist groups like Islamic State and so on. Islamic State and Al-Qaeda were supported actually by Turkey in the initial stages but like a Frankenstein it took a different form and they lost control but now these these fighters are there in camps detention camps and these camps are located in the Kurdish areas and Kurdish people are fighters are guarding them because they are virulently anti Islamic State so they could only be trusted to see that these chaps are kept under control. Now what happens if you know they come back to haunt Turkey then you know the finally the question is this that you know that Turkey has always had an identity problem that its preference everyone's preference you may find it a paradox you know that an Islamist leader like him is also western is Turkey has a split personality that way and his own preference in 2011 when the war began was that the Americans should co-opt him and put him in the driving seat in this regime change project. Now Assad was otherwise a close family friend of Erdogan and at that time you know the I don't want to get into too many details but this was Barack Obama's project. General Pretoy as the CIA chief was sent to Turkey to persuade them to spearhead this project and then Obama left and that created the first tension between the United States and Turkey. Turkey was left holding the can of worms you know so you see Turks preference is that and then the relationship deteriorated with the Americans once they began this alliance dallions with the Kurds and they started promoting a Kurdish homeland in Syria so lot of bad blood then the coup in 2016 where Erdogan suspected that it had CIA backing all these factors got into play but my assessment is that even today if a kind of a deal can be offered by the Americans Erdogan will look at it seriously you know he's the Turks are also not very comfortable with their on tongue with the Russians because the two empires had collided many times in history and they have a troubled relationship so for one of an alternative he is and then Russians are present there next door and the Turks have to deal with them they don't like it that the Russians have established bases on their borders it's a far more powerful military power but so they need to balance that they need also an American thing you see Turkey in the Cold War era was like an anchor sheet for NATO you know on the underbelly of Russia and without Turkey people do not realize NATO has no future you know it is the second biggest military power within NATO not only that it's geographical position it you know without Turkey the NATO would be very ineffective in the whole Mediterranean region Black Sea Black Sea they cannot even come in without Turkey's concurrence you know as per the Montreal Convention so all these factors taken into account Turkey is an indispensable ally for NATO that is clear there so Erdogan could bank on this that even if he crossed a red line the Americans will hesitate to act against him now I think the Trump is playing a very different way shrewdly he has got an alibi to withdraw the troops because the moment Turks came in he said that mean that American troops might get caught in the crossfire and how can we clash with all marks of a pre-decided NATO ally there is even a theory that you know that they were hand-in-glove with each other but in any case there is also the other part you can look at it it is also possible that the Russians and the Iranians encouraged Erdogan because left to themselves the Russians and the Iranians were not in a position to get the Americans out and the only way of getting the Americans out was to was to you was by Turkey threatening a military movement move into northeast Syria anyway what happened is a net result is the troops have withdrawn from there but now the point is Turkish troops are inside and Turkish turkeys controlling something like two-third of the border with Syria and go be going back to this imperial this was so called neo-automanism I think Russia has reason to be worried right so the other question would be regarding Russia's strategy yeah they have an alliance with Assad and the alliance was successful in say capturing certain parts of Idlib and the region itself they stopped after again discussions with Turkey and now we have a situation where Putin was willing to actually let Turkey establish dominion over what is the Syrian territory so how do you think the Assad-Putin relationship is actually looking at this situation where at one on the one hand they are very keen on re-establishing say the integrity of Syria in fact the same day Assad was in the Idlib region and talked about that had had very harsh things to say about it absolutely so how do you see them how do you see this relationship actually giving some land away to Turkey you know let me just make one point that you know when I used to work in Moscow and used to see this relationship in the Soviet era they're supposed to be allies half is Assad and the Soviet leadership but you know often you know we don't realize that the Syrians couldn't be pushed around at all the Syrians held their ground and it is an ideological regime this Baptist ideology is a very deeply rooted nationalism in a certain way leftist connotations are there in in a certain way but you know the it is there very much so they could they could hunger down you know recently Bashar is weak and the fact is that without the Russian intervention he would have gone under there's no doubt about it at the nick of the moment the Russians came in and then salvage the situation for him today he is broken the whole country is broken he needs resources he needs a protector so he's going not going to be I think it's unrealistic to expect that he can take that kind of position of a sturdy nationalist you rightly said about pointed finger at his statement in Idlib on Tuesday where he called Erdogan a thief and it was the same day that meeting was taking place so you see the Syrians are very subtle practitioners of diplomacy he has with that one remark one statement he has actually distanced himself from the Russian project now Russia's dilemma is basically this that Russia has it's not only the Syrian part of the relationship there is an overarching relationship with Turkey which is also on in Russian consideration which is actually far more important this is the only NATO power which has moved so close to Russia purchased military equipment equipment s 400 now you know it's it's not only weaponry it also is a statement of fact that that they are because you see Russians control the system basically you know so it's it's also a statement of fact that you know that they are building a strategic relationship with Russia then there are business interests nuclear business itself is if I'm not wrong it works out to something like some 30 billion dollar projects almost entirely Turkish gas supplies come from Russia now a new pipeline called the South South Stream pipeline is a Turk Stream pipeline is going to be commissioned in December and this pipeline comes and it will make Turkey a hub from where Russia will send the gas to Bulgaria Austria and places like that it's a very big Russian project just like the North Stream going and touching Germany so you see it's a very important relationship strategically politically then another important aspect we don't see is this that you know that this I briefly mentioned Montreal Convention under the Montreal Convention only Turkey and Russia have a say on the Black Sea Russian naval vessels they have a naval base in Sevastopol they can come through the Bosphorus straits you know it's a very narrow straits you know and they will have to inform the Turks and it can they can just go up and that's a that's a gateway to the Mediterranean for the Russian Black Sea fleet on the other hand no third country is allowed to have a military presence in the Black Sea for longer than two or three weeks at a stretch so after informing Turkey they take permission and send a NATO vessel into Black Sea after three weeks it has to come out and another ship has to go in so in other words Turkish cooperation is vital for NATO to establish a presence in the Caucasus or to the east of Black Sea which means you know a containment strategy against Russia is unsustainable without Turkey's genuine cooperation so you see Russia has all these considerations in mind and Russia also knows as a historical memory that it's a difficult relationship Turkey is a very difficult power to handle and you cannot confront like that and you cannot bully like that it's a country with a lot of grit you know so the Russians are very cautious about the relationship they are quite as far as I can see that you mentioned you know that this negotiations were difficult truly so I can imagine that they're truly and I watched the press conference there very grim both of them there are no body language was speaking loudly about it they refused to they didn't take any questions also because it would have brought out differences now you see the Russian worry is this the Americans all they have to do is to verbally encourage this turkeys imperial instincts and then Turks come inside and Turks stay put there the Russians cannot easily dislod some except you know confronting but for all these reasons they don't want a confrontation and they don't want to break the alliance with the Turks so this is going to be a problem and Assad on the other hand you again mentioned that you know is fundamentally Assad we can never reconcile with the fact that you know that is not controlling that region of his country and some of these areas also contain the water resources and the main oil fields of Syria so the last key player the United States so you mentioned how it's too early to write them off from the picture on the other hand except for the verbal encouragement you mentioned in the region we are generally seeing a bit of a retreat as far as they're concerned you mentioned that Israel of course is going through a tough time their allies Saudi Arabia is almost on the verge of negotiating with the Houthis the strategy against Iran has not really worked out because the the continuous pressure tactic has not got too many people the other countries European countries are NATO allies are not joined and you also have a situation like in Syria where Russia and Iran are very much in the picture in fact the discussions invoke the Astana talks as one of the key elements of the discussion so where exactly do you see the US having proper entry point or stakes in this current situation you know this last statement by Trump I think debut for yesterday immediately after the Sochi statement he claimed credit for the ceasefire but that is you know Trump and also it is grandstanding in front of the domestic audience because lot of criticism that he threw the two curts under the bus and all that kind of thing you know so he's countering all that and saying that I'm I've done well you know this is a message and I claim credit for things where he didn't perform at all you know that's right but he made a very important point that he will have a relationship with the Kurds and this general who you mentioned is a very interesting character actually I wrote about it yesterday you know the this general Muslim he spoke very glowingly about him you know but he was actually in the ranks of the PKK for 29 years is a hardcore PKK man and now an interesting fact is he is also the foster son adopted son of Abdullah Ocalan who was the Kurdish leader in detention in Turkey now Ocalan is Ocalan was captured when I was there in Turkey as ambassador Ocalan and they've kept him under detention but they've been using him and you know he's a Marxist he's a very colorful personality in fact you know and he was quite an alliance with the Syrians at one time now he is now acting he has given up the idea of separatism he's content with a autonomous homeland for the within Turkey and he's acting as a bridge between the Turks between Erdogan and the Kurds and he still has a he's a charismatic figure he still has a lot of appeal even though he's been present since 1998 undergoing life imprisonment on a desolate island in the Marmara Sea even then he casts a shadow on the Kurdish problem larger than life image is there now this man is his foster son now he can also be a bridge between this foster son and Erdogan now this general Muslim Trump is going to get over to America Erdogan is also going to America so I have a feeling that turkeys pinning on this a kind of a modest vivendi between the Kurds and Erdogan and Erdogan was actually receptive to the idea of a political settlement of the Kurdish problem initially to his credit it must be said that he tried and then you know he had to mount the nationalist platform when he got into trouble with the military and all that and then it became you know a contradiction and he gave up at a certain point but basically you know he's open to that idea so Trump's thing is this statement is a very interesting statement what he is doing is he doesn't want the military to do what diplomats can do what diplomacy can achieve it is cost-effective and he is going to use this courts to block the Iranian land route from Tehran to Damascus and he has also said that he is going to keep a few hundred American troops in the southern region called Al-Than yeah now that is closer to the Israeli side so the considerations are Americans will try to exercise influence over Israel's security Iran's presence and a say in the overall Syrian settlement even though they lost the war and their troops are no longer going to be staying there etc but it remains to be seen whether this ploy will work because some kind of a force projection is required because the others are also toughies you know Iranians have got militia and Russians are not pushover and the relations between Russians and the US is very poor now and so you know there isn't enough space for them you know and nobody is wanting a confrontation but they are all jockeying for position so force power projection is possible only through military means they unilaterally decided that they will Americans decided that their troops will come over to Iraq but Iraq has said nothing doing exactly and they said that no they threatened that you know that they will take measures to see that the Americans do not stay there because they don't want to get like in the Vietnam War you know they've brought in Laos and Cambodia into the struggle so this is kind of thing and they don't want the Americans to put the shoulders on the Iraqi shoulder you know and fire at the Iranians I'm very sure Iran has pulled strings to see that the American troops cannot stay there no if not there then Americans cannot have a force projection so all these plans that Trump may have may still come back to this what you said that you know the overall picture is one of retrenchment that's all we have time for today keep watching