(MENAFN- Jordan Times) Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Monday that his country cannot handle more than 100,000 Syrian refugees, and proposed that the UN carve out a buffer zone in northern Syria where the displaced can stay, be secure and receive aid.
"If the number of refugees increases to 100,000, we will not be able to shelter them in Turkey. We [will] have to welcome them in Syrian territory" in a UN protected zone, he told the daily newspaper Hurriyet.
His comments should amaze any observer of the Syrian scene. Jordan, a much smaller country with a population of six million, and tiny Lebanon, with 4.3 million people, are shouldering a far heavier burden than Turkey, a huge country blessed with abundant water, vast tracts of land and 73.6 million people.
The UN High Commission for Refugees reported on August 16 that there were 47,000 registered Syrian refugees in Jordan, about the same number in Lebanon and 61,450 in Turkey. A large percentage of the refugees staying in Turkey are rebel fighters and their families who are hosted in separate camps.
Davutoglu's statement was nothing new. For months, he and other senior Turkish officials have been pressing for a "safe zone" or a "buffer zone" in northern Syria, where refugees could remain within their own country and where rebels could train and arm in safety before launching operations against government forces and facilities south of such a buffer zone. At present, rebels are training and arming inside Turkey.
Davutoglu has also said that if security is not reimposed in and around Aleppo, the situation will threaten Turkey, which would take "all the necessary measures to respond to a security threat from [a] power vacuum in Aleppo".
Syrian observers argue that Turkey seeks to capture Aleppo and conquer the northern part of Syria, currently engulfed in fighting. Syrians have not forgotten Turkey's occupation of Iskenderun since 1937, thanks to the French. The chaos created by the collapse of order, sectarian conflict, rivalries among rebels and the presence of jihadists could provide Turkey with ample pretexts to make a grab for territory under the guise of peacekeeping.
Cyprus has been divided and 36 per cent of its territory occupied since 1974 due to Ankara's "Peace Operation" in the north after the Greek junta engineered a coup against the island republic's President Makarios.
Soon after unrest erupted in Syria in 2011, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan turned against President Bashar Assad. For more than a year Turkey has fostered and hosted the expatriate Syrian National Council (SNC) and the rebel Free Syrian Army, which seek to overthrow Assad.
They have blocked all attempts to initiate dialogue that could lead to a settlement involving a transition from Assad's rule to multiparty democracy.
Turkey has also provided training and arms to young Syrians ready to fight their country's army and gave refuge to army defectors, including officers. Turkey facilitated the entry into Syria of fundamentalist (jihadist) fighters and served as a conduit for Saudi and Qatari arms and funds.
Turkey, a NATO country, is also trying to convince other members of the alliance to intervene militarily in Syria. So far, the US, Britain, France and Germany have offered the rebels logistical and intelligence support, as well as medical kits, communication equipment and what they call "non-lethal" material.
Of course, intelligence can be mighty lethal if government convoys are caught in ambushes mounted by rebels notified of their movements by Western intelligence agencies. The distinction between "lethal" and "non-lethal" is blurred.
Erdogan, who set the scene by taking a hard line against Assad, and Davutoglu do not seem to comprehend what they are doing. Turkish analyst, Metin Munir, writing in AL Monitor on August 19, does.
"Davutoglu's Syria policy has a unique symmetry: Turkey will lose whether Assad goes or stays."
He argues that Turkey will face opposition from Russia and Iran and could suffer spillover if the fall of Assad precipitates years of civil war in Syria.
He focuses on the danger posed by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Turkey's Kurdish insurrectionist movement, which could receive help from Iran and Syria if Assad survives, in its efforts to secure autonomy within or independence from Turkey.
He also points out that the Kurdish PKK-allied movement in northern Syria could join with the Iraqi Kurds in an expanded autonomous or independent region.
Munir only touches on these aspects of the threat a destabilised Syria poses to Turkey. Additionally, the collapse of governance in Syria could precipitate sectarian warfare and the division of the country. A massive flood of refugees - far larger than 100,000 - could engulf southern Turkey.
Turkey could also face a backlash from its Alevi population, 20 million strong which has tenuous connections with the heterodox Shiite Alawites of Syria.
The common concern of both communities is the rise of Sunni fundamentalism in both Turkey and Syria. The Alevis and Alawites have adhered to secularism as a means to protect themselves from discrimination and marginalisation.
Christians and Ismailis could also be under threat from Sunni fundamentalists who might wish to punish them for supporting the secular Baathist regime.
Turkey could encounter a blowback from the jihadists now fighting in Syria. Ankara's "moderate" Muslim government does not go far enough for militants or ultra-conservatives. Radicals, like the Kurds, could wage a bloody campaign against Erdogan's "moderate" fundamentalism.
At regional level, the fall of Syria, far more than the US destruction of Iraq, is certain to have wide and long-lasting repercussions. Westerners who do not suffer from their evil policies call such repercussions "unintended consequences".
Finally, by aligning itself with the Western powers - and Israel - in the struggle for Syria, Turkey is certain to alienate the Arab people who will ultimately see the war on secular Arab nationalist Syria as a war against the cause of Arab unity, a cause pursued by the Arabs for nearly a century.
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