Recent cross-border violence marks another stage in Turkey's gradual transition from frustrated spectator to active participant in Syria's 19-month-old civil war. Turkish officials insist that they have no desire to go to war, and there currently appears little prospect of Turkish troops staging a ground operation against President Bashar al-Assad's forces inside Syria. But there is a danger that further clashes could develop a momentum of their own and see Turkey becoming more deeply involved in the armed struggle to oust Assad.
On 10 October 2012, General Necdet Ozel, chief of the Turkish General Staff, vowed that Turkey would escalate its military response if shells from Syria continued to land on the Turkish side of the two countries' 900km-long common border. His warning came a week after a shell from Syria struck the Turkish border town of Akcakale, killing five civilians. Turkey immediately responded with artillery strikes against forces loyal to Assad deployed inside Syria. Over the following week, at least one shell a day landed in Turkey from the Syrian side of the border. On each occasion, Turkey retaliated with artillery strikes against Assad's forces.
Thwarted ambitions
Before the Arab world was swept by popular uprisings from late 2010 onwards, Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had regarded Syria as its closest ally in the region. The two countries abolished visa requirements for their citizens and held joint cabinet meetings. Assad and his family vacationed in the Turkish Mediterranean resort of Bodrum as guests of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But Ankara never considered the relationship to be a partnership of equals. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu made it clear that he saw Syria as a central part of his ambition to make the Middle East into a Turkish sphere of influence.
When Syrian protesters first took to the streets in March 2011, Erdogan was initially supportive of Assad, declaring that he frequently travelled to Syria and had seen how much the local people loved their president. However, Turkish officials privately urged Assad to try to defuse popular discontent by introducing reforms. Not only did Assad ignore their advice, but he started to align himself more closely with Iran. The move coincided with a sharp deterioration in Ankara's own ties with Tehran and the re-emergence of centuries-old sectarian suspicions and prejudices. The blow to Turkish pride - and the Sunni AKP's dreams of regional pre-eminence - was compounded by alarm at the prospect of a belt of Shia-dominated territory to Turkey's south, which intensified as the central government in Iraq began to pursue increasingly pro-Shia policies.
The Turkish government began to distance itself from Assad. On 31 May 2011, it allowed a loose coalition of Syrian opposition groups to hold a conference in the Turkish Mediterranean resort of Antalya. Over the months that followed, Turkish support for Syrian opposition groups increased and became more explicit. Elements of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) began to operate openly in the refugee camps that had been established inside Turkey to accommodate those fleeing the growing violence inside Syria. Turkey also became a conduit for weapons destined for the FSA, many of them purchased on the international market with funds from Saudi Arabia and Qatar and then channelled through Turkey to the rebels. In November 2011, Erdogan publicly called for Assad to step down.
The Turkish government's disenchantment with Assad did little to curb its regional ambitions. Ignoring the deep divisions between the groups fighting against Assad, it appears to have seen the cultivation of contacts within the Syrian opposition as an investment in the future, calculating that the incumbent regime would be rapidly overthrown and that a new government would express its gratitude for Turkish support by aligning itself with Ankara. When the first Syrian refugees began to cross into Turkey in the summer of 2011, Turkey declined international offers of aid, anxious to demonstrate its ability to meet their needs by itself.
But Ankara's initial optimism soon gave way to frustration and impatience. Not only was it dismayed by the civilian casualties inflicted by forces loyal to the regime, but Assad's retention of power was also a rebuff to the AKP's dreams of regional pre-eminence. In February 2011, Davutoglu had proudly told journalists that Turkey was the key to anything that happened in the Middle East. The longer Assad stayed in power, the emptier such boasts appeared.
Frustration with allies
Turkey's frustration continued to grow. On 22 June 2012, a Turkish F-4E Phantom reconnaissance aircraft crashed into the sea off the Syrian coast, killing its two-man crew. The Syrian authorities claimed that the plane had violated their country's airspace and been shot down by an anti-aircraft battery. The Turkish government said it had been hit by a Syrian missile outside Syrian airspace, but had then crashed inside Syrian territorial waters. Davutoglu insisted that the plane had been on a routine training mission, although maps that he provided charting its course were more consistent with reconnaissance of Syria's air defences.
Davutoglu invited other countries - several of which, including the United States and Russia, were known to have been monitoring air traffic in the region at the time - to provide any information they possessed relating to the incident. Turkey called a meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels and secured a robust statement from other Alliance members condemning the downing of the plane. On 9 July, General Ozel said the government was formulating its response and when the time was right, Turkey would 'do what great states do'.
