The Syrian opposition groups overthrew the 61-year-old Baath regime on Dec. 8, 2024. Thus, the Syrian revolution process that started in 2011 ended after 13 years of resistance against the despotic Bashar Assad's rule. The majority of the Syrian population welcomed the regime change and the leadership of Ahmed al-Sharaa. However, some regional and global powers have immediately begun to look for ways to intervene in Syrian domestic politics. These powers attempted to exploit the minorities living in the country.
There are four major ethnic and/or religious minorities in Syria, namely, Christians, Kurds, Druze and Alawite Arabs. While the Christians do not constitute the majority in any given region, the other three minorities are concentrated in different regions. The Druze live in the southeastern region, while the Kurds live in the northeastern part. The Alawite Arabs, the second largest religious minority group in the country, only after Sunni Muslims, are an offshoot of Shiite Islam and live in the northwestern part of Syria.
There is a long history and tradition of peaceful coexistence in the country. Although there is no historical enmity between these different groups, some states want to mobilize minorities against one another. The Druze, Kurds and Alawite Arabs are potential targets for external powers to intervene in Syrian domestic affairs.
However, Kurds, the largest non-Arab ethnic minority and a largely Sunni Muslim ethnic group, are willing to make a deal with the government. The Syrian government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, reached an agreement with the PKK’s Syrian offshoot YPG on Monday. The agreement includes a cease-fire and, more importantly, merging the YPG forces with the Syrian army. It seems that as these developments take place, outside actors, who lost hope of mobilizing the Kurdish people against the government and destabilizing Syria, have now turned their attention to the other ethnic minority groups, the Druze and Alawite Arabs.
Looking for pawns
The first target of regional and global powers is the Druze, the smallest of the aforementioned ethnic groups in Syria. The Druze people are politically divided into two fronts. While the larger and traditional groups under the leadership of Leit Baloush prefer to live with the Damascus government and defend the country’s territorial integrity, the smaller group led by Sheikh Hijri claims autonomy.
Israel and some Western countries have been trying to mobilize this religious group against the Damascus-based Syrian government. Israel declared that it would protect the security of the Druze in Syria and be their guarantor. Therefore, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that they will not allow the Syrian army to enter the Druze provinces of Daraa, Suwayda and Quneitra. Israel and the U.S. have been trying to establish coordination between the YPG and Druze groups.
The Alawites, on the other hand, are largely supported by Iran, which has been the main supporter of the Baath regime for decades. Iran has been trying to recover its losses in Syria, thus attempting to use the Alawites against the new government. When armed remnants of the Assad regime attacked some governmental strongholds, the governmental forces and the allied armed groups initiated an effective military operation against the groups that revolted. Unfortunately, it ended up with the killing of many innocent people together with the targeted groups.
These two attempts have shown us that it will be very risky and costly to organize any minority groups against the central government in Syria. Therefore, the sooner minorities understand this reality, the sooner political stability will be achieved. It seems that pro-stability powers have taken lessons from the previous regional developments.
The Turkish connection
Taking these developments into consideration, it is clear that the most recent developments in Syria are not independent of the recent developments in Türkiye. It seems that at a time when Türkiye has been trying to eliminate terrorism, a new political fault line was triggered by power circles. It is interesting to see that outside forces are attempting to provoke Alevis in Türkiye like the Alawites in Syria. In other words, it seems that if Türkiye succeeds in ending PKK/YPG terror in the regional countries, foreign actors will try to replace the Kurdish card with sectarianism.
With the new process to solve the Kurdish problem in Türkiye and to achieve the goal of terror-free Türkiye, the Turkish government has accelerated its efforts to establish a regional stability axis. Therefore, it has revived the regional integration platform established in March 2010, and last week, it led a security meeting with the participation of five states, namely Türkiye, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. This meeting was held at a time when some regional powers were trying to destabilize the Syrian state. Some Druze and Alawite groups were convinced, if not forced, to revolt against the Syrian central government to prevent the establishment of a regional stability axis initiated by Türkiye.
All actors are aware of the dominant role of Türkiye in Syria. Türkiye, which is determined to protect the territorial integrity of the Syrian state, will not let the country fall into chaos. Therefore, it seems that Türkiye follows a two-stage policy in Syria. First, it will help the new government stabilize the political system. For this, Ankara will encourage the new government to initiate a comprehensive and inclusive policy toward all ethnic and religious groups. In other words, no ethnic or religious group will be alienated by the Syrian government.
Second, Türkiye will work with some regional countries to prevent destructive interventions by some other regional and global powers into the domestic affairs of Syria. That is, Türkiye will take measures against the potential interventions of other states. Türkiye has been working hard to facilitate the international recognition of the new Syrian government. Within this context, Türkiye successfully paved the way for the Syrian government’s return to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) during the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers in Jeddah.
