After the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Turkey and Israel seem to be increasingly on a collision course of who gets to control the nation, and how much of it. Israel has been growing its military presence in the occupied southwest, while Turkey has its sights on growing its own military presence further north.
Turkey has been talking about establishing military bases in the northernmost border areas, but the latest interest is in central Syria, with the T4 air base near the city of Tadmur (formerly the ancient city of Palmyra).
Turkey is in the process of taking control of the T4 base, and plans construction the refurbish the site, once a substantial military air base for Syria, and surround it with air defense systems. The arsenal to be deployed at the base includes surveillance and attack drones, along with more traditional systems.
The air defenses are a key aspect of this deployment, as just over the previous weekend, on March 22, Israeli attacked the T4 air base, saying it was necessary to destroy the “strategic capabilities” of the facility and other nearby airports.
Both Israel and Turkey cheered Assad’s ouster, and indeed both took credit for it. Since then, Turkey has tried to align closely with the Islamist government that seized power, while Israel has spurned them and used the “threat” posed by the Islamists as a pretext to occupy more Syrian territory. Both sides have also condemned the other in the course of this.
Israeli officials expressed concern about Turkey taking over the T4 base, saying it would harm their “freedom of action” in attacking Syrian territory. Israel has recently been condemning Turkey’s President Erdogan as an “anti-semitic dictator,” and Erdogan has increasingly criticized Israel for invading and occupying Syrian soil.
Though both nations had problems with Assad, they both have starkly different visions about what comes next. Israel has envisioned creating a “David’s corridor” of client states and state-lets crossing through Druze-dominated southern Syria all the way up to the Kurdish northeast, while Turkey’s main priority is to tamp down Kurdish autonomy at all costs.
As interests conflict, the relationship between Israel and Turkey seems to be worsening all the time, and Turkey’s presence at the T4 base will likely only add to the acrimony there.
