Fr Monge: Syrian refugees, Kurds, and Turkey dual game in post-Assad Syria
From Istanbul, the director of the Dominican Study Institute spoke to AsiaNews with a mixture of "exaltation" and "surprise” at the fall of the Assad regime. Turkey has denied rumours that it was directly involved in the regime’s overthrow, highlighting the "need for a transition". For Iran’s Khamenei, the fall is part of a "plan" by the US and Israel (and Turkey, without naming it).
Milan (AsiaNews) – The collapse of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria has been greeted in neighbouring Turkey with a mixture of "exaltation" that goes hand in hand with "general surprise" at the speed with which it took place.
"At least informally," for at least six months, "news about some action” to overthrow the Syrian regime in Damascus “had been circulating,” but “no one expected it to be so fast and sudden,” this according to Fr Claudio Monge, a 56-year-old Dominican friar and director of the Dominican Study Institute in Istanbul (DoSt-I), who has been in the Turkish city for over 20 years.
He spoke to AsiaNews about the atmosphere of the past few, chaotic weeks in the Middle East region. "Ankara denies rumours of direct involvement in Bashar’s overthrow” in the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) offensive, and has stressed the "need for a transition".
For Turkish "President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,” this is “necessary for the country to be able to choose its future, minorities included.”
Analysing the messy period that has followed the dictator’s ouster in the wake of the offensive led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani (whose real name is Ahmed al-Sharaa), Fr Monge highlights the "double standards" of the West.
On the one hand, there is concern over Turkey’s intervention in Syria, aimed at containing the Kurdish armed groups, which the West chose to fight the Islamic State. On the other hand, there is total silence on the action of the Israeli government, which is carrying out hundreds of attacks in Syria on the pretext of guaranteeing its territorial security with more than 300 airstrikes and troops a few tens of kilometres from the capital and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
There is "greater indulgence" towards Israel than Turkey amid “declared and undeclared” wars designed to remake the Middle East.
This morning Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that Assad’s overthrow is part of a "plan" by the United States and Israel, and one of Syria’s “neighbours", a reference to Turkey without naming it, which backed the rebels, who together with pro-Turkish forces have seized Deir Ezzor from the Kurds.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of informants on the ground, claims that Israel has struck Syrian military bases for a fourth day, actions that Russia has condemned because they would not help achieve peace.
For their part, the rebels have appointed 42-year-old Muhammad Bashir as interim prime minister to lead the transition after years spent in Idlib.
In Turkey, Assad's ouster touches two issues that are important for the country’s leaders, namely the presence of almost five million refugees, almost 3.8 million of whom are Syrian, and the Kurdish question.
The border crossing between Syria and Turkey at Yayladağı, closed since 2013, has been reopened, and hundreds of refugees have reached Cilvegözü, also on the Turkish side of the border, seeking to return home "with the few goods they possess.”
“We should realise that these migratory flows are a consequence of desperate situations, war and deprivation of rights, in addition to the climate issue,” Fr Monge explained.
“Syrian refugees are now trying to return, dreaming of finding their land liberated from the dictator, but the reality that will welcome them will be very different from the one they left over 10 years ago, with destruction and buildings razed to the ground. Only Bashar’s fall is certain, but there is also deep uncertainty about the future.”
On the mid-run, the repatriation of some Syrian refugees will certainly not displease a country like Turkey, both the government and public opinion, as it reels from a deep economic crisis.
A large part of the Turkish population is struggling to live - or survive - in a dignified way; in many cases, migrants, mostly Syrians, have been the ideal scapegoat to vent their anger, something exploited during the last presidential campaign.
“Until a few years ago," the clergyman noted, "it was unthinkable to see people begging on the streets of Istanbul, while now some women are begging with their small children in their arms,” he lamented.
The Turkish government, which spent a lot on Syrian refugees in the past in the name of Islamic solidarity, today hopes that “many will decide to go home. After all, returning to one's own homeland and living in peace in one's own country is a fundamental human right,” Fr Mogne noted, and connected to the desire to " rebuild a country that must start from scratch, including infrastructure.”
Another major issue that involves Turkey in the region together with Iran, Iraq and Syria itself, is the Kurdish question, which overlaps with the refugee problem. In the past, Kurdish-led People's Protection Units (YPG) were supported (and exploited) by the West in the fight against the Islamic State.
“For some time the [Turkish] government sought to create a buffer zone in northern Syria to 'contain' the Kurdish advance and counter the dream of a 'Greater Kurdistan', which today seems unlikely.”
“The Kurds were used in the first years as a battering ram in the anti-jihadi fight, then they tried to cash in, but it is equally clear that Turkey cannot accept the erosion of its territorial integrity". In addition, "millions of Kurds born and raised in Turkey certainly have no intention of leaving".
"The question remains open because here too there is a right to live in one's own land, with the recognition of one’s language and culture, but it is a process that must be dealt with politically, not with cannons. We need politics and diplomacy to find a solution to world crises! But the politicians are missing.”
Finally, for the Dominican, there is the place of Christians, who "wish to be actors in the future of their countries and do not need to be reduced to the status of victim, an exception, which makes them suspect to local authorities,"
"We need to overcome the logic of ethnic Churches, but fight instead for full and recognised citizenship, respectful of religious particularisms,” he added.
In Aleppo, parish priest Fr Bahjat Elia Karakach, also noted that these are days "of great importance". In a message to AsiaNews, the friar of the Custody of the Holy Land highlights the "change that most of us had never experienced, given that the Assad regime had ruled for 54 years.” People appear "disoriented" with "mixed feelings of joy and relieved, but also anxious about the future".
In a meeting with bishops and clergy at St Francis of Assisi parish church, opposition leaders now in power reiterated their intention to "guarantee security and meet basic needs. After this, we will provide the necessary services so that the activities can resume.”
Church properties “will be returned and private Christian schools will continue their educational mission,” the new leaders promise, noting that, "they do not have a predetermined project, everything depends on the will of the Syrian people", including Christians who are not "foreigners" but "an essential part as we are.”
Finally, Fr Bahjat expressed shock at the images "of underground prisons opened to free political prisoners, places of death" that evoke “Nazi concentration camps”.
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28/11/2018 10:13
09/08/2021 14:38
