The Syrian civil war erupted in 2011. While the volatility and instability were increasing, people started strongly resist. Therefore, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) has been emerged in order to provide peaceful environment in the country. In other words, it has been formed when the people faced the violence stemming from Syrian regime forces and terror groups. Moreover, particular people working as officials and soldiers started to be part of the FSA which is getting more powerful to prevent violence. Since its formation, the number of FSA participants has been still increasing as a result of intensifying strictness of Assad regime and teroror organizations. Those have been focused on defend their country and combat for their own principles which are the same adopted by the people on Syrian streets. Their principles mainly include equality, prosperity, stability, justice and dignity in their hometown. Throughout the civil war, their position and their requests from the regime forces have been the same. However, this conjuncture has been ignored by the Syrian government. Under these circumstances, the FSA can be explained as an armed group of people who are oppose to the regime forces and DAESH/ISIS as well as YPG/PYD.
Turkey also condemns implications of the Syrian regime forces and terrorist attacks. In that regard, the country firstly preferred to use diplomatic ways and conducted certain negotiations. However, the regime and terrorist forces were not convinced to leave its cruel policies by Turkish officials. Also, there are other international factors in these disagreements: the YPG, which is an offshoot of PKK conducting bloody terrorist attacks in Turkey since 1980s, has been backed by the US. In this sense, Turkey’s concerns are able to getting increase while the US officials reject to cut their help and support. In other words, that this US-backed terrorist organization is gaining control over the particular places is Turkey’s primary concern. This concern is not shared with Turkey’s NATO ally, the US. Therefore, Turkey has constructed its own solution mechanism and implications to provide stability and protect the region from terror attacks. Throughout the Syrian civil war, FSA has fought against violations. In this fight, Turkey supported FSA through “hosting the FSA’s initial military headquarters, facilitating collaboration among FSA field commanders, welcoming supportive Western/Gulf representatives in the early stages of the war, and launching a ‘train and equip programme’ in 2014 for vetted fighters”[1].
Turkey’s main aim is to prevent radicalism and eradicate terror threat in the region; also, Turkey’s policy on Syria mainly focuses on ending Assad regime’s brutality. As described by Muhittin Ataman, Turkey’s approach is to prevent the use of hard power and prioritize domination of humanitarian values; moreover, Turkey’s power-based military assertiveness to support the suffered people in Syria has been adopted on six main objectives which are “managing the humanitarian crisis, materializing the fall of the Assad regime, aiding the opposition forces, waging a proxy war with Iran, eliminating the threat of Daesh, and preventing the PYD/ YPG from creating an area of dominance”. [2] In that regard, Turkey and FSA supported each other because of having the same purposes and priorities. For example, military operation conducted by Turkey has been able to be supported by the FSA to effectively fight against DAESH/ISIS which is a terrorist organization utterly exerting efforts to attack Turkey and other countries. Moreover, jointly-participated military operations have been mutually favorable because of FSA is able to gain more territory with Turkey’s support while Turkey is eradication the region from terrorist threats. In other words, the two has an effective cooperation in the region to provide sustainable peace and prosperous atmosphere.
The most concrete supportive relationship established between the two took place in August 2016 when the Operation Euphrates Shield was launched. In that operation, Turkey’s main aim was to eradicate the region from terror threat which has been the policy of FSA since its formation. In that regard, the two exerted effort to expel YPG/PYD and DAESH/ISIS from Afrin and providing Turkey’s control in the region. Thus, FSA, backed by the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF), had control over an area of 2,015 km2 and deactivated 2,647 DEASH members. Another example is the Operation Olive Branch where two forces again moved in a cooperation and supportive way. The two prioritized to wipe out the terror threat in the operation place, as being in the last operation, Peace Spring.
To conclude, FSA has been fighting alongside Turkey against DAESH/ISIS and YPG/PYD, which are terrorist organizations and targeting Turkey through particular terror attacks while the international actors and Syrian regime forces have not met Turkey’s legal concerns and supported YPG/PYD. The formation of FSA is mainly to facilitate operations which are conducted against three terrorist organizations, PYD, Daesh and Al Qaeda under one command. In this fight against terrorism and radicalism, Turkey has delivered supports to FSA because of the reasons explained above.
[1] “Strategies of Turkish proxy warfare in northern Syria”, Clingendael Website, retrieved from, https://www.clingendael.org/pub/2019/strategies-of-turkish-proxy-warfare-in-northern-syria/1-turkey-and-the-armed-syrian-opposition-from-free-syrian-army-to-syrian-national-army/
[2] Ataman, Muhittin, and Çağatay Özdemir. “Turkey’s Syria Policy: Constant Objectives Shifting Priorities.” Türkiye Ortadoğu Çalışmaları Dergisi 5.2 (2018): 13-36.
TURKEY'S FIGHT AGAINST DAESH/ISIL 