Turkey and the EU: the play for a security zone in Syria

The military successes of Assad’s forces backed by the Russian Federation in northern Syria marked the beginning of a new phase in the Syrian crisis. One of the temporary effects of the offensive was the increasing number of refugees on the Turkish border (30,000 – 70,000 people) and the threat of another wave of migration from the Middle East to the EU in the short term. In the extreme situation, a successful offensive could have ended the Syrian opposition’s resistance in the north of the country and, as a consequence, led to a breakdown of the Turkish policy on Syria. The way the situation has developed in Syria complicated and intensified the ongoing EU-Turkish dialogue on halting and resolving the migration crisis.

This became the subject of the unplanned visit which the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, paid to Turkey on 8 February 2016 and it has been discussed during the EU-Turkey summit scheduled on 18 February 2016 in Brussels. Ankara seemed to be determined to force the EU to offer tangible political support for its policy: to stop and protect refugees while they are still in Syria; this would prevent their exodus and would also allow the opposition forces to remain effective in northern Syria. In practice, this was a return to the proposal to create a security zone in northern Syria, which Ankara has been pushing for without effect for years. For the EU, this would have meant a serious step towards direct engagement in the Syrian conflict, something it has consistently avoided. The alternative for the EU would have been a crisis in relations with Turkey and would have included the threat of a huge wave of new refugees coming from both Syria and Turkey, and, in effect, the need to thoroughly revise its approach to Turkey and the region as a whole.