SYRIAN BRIDGE

The situation in Syria, the fight against Islamic State and Russian-Turkish relations have been accompanied by at least two important events in the recent period. It is the creation of the Islamic anti-terrorist coalition (IAC) and the visit of US Secretary of State John Kerry to Moscow on 15 December.

The new coalition

The initiative to create the IAC belongs to Saudi Arabia, and the operations centre will be located in Riyadh. The alliance will unite 34 countries, which will make it unprecedented. Besides Saudi Arabia itself, participants will also be such Arab countries as the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Yemen. African countries, including the most important ones - Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Nigeria - are also widely represented. Other important members of the future alliance are Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia, and the Palestinian Authority. The goal of the coalition is to protect the Islamic nation from terrorist groups and organizations regardless of their persuasion and name. Saudi Foreign Minister Adil al-Jubeir said that coalition members will share information with each other, train and equip military units and use modern military equipment. It has already been announced that the IAC plans to send a special force to Syria.

At the moment, an international coalition led by the United States operates against the main terrorist threat in the world - the Islamic State group, which has taken root in some parts of Iraq and Syria, but carries out attacks outside their borders as well. It includes more than 50 countries - from Australia to Canada. In late September, Russia also got involved in the fight against terrorism on the territory of Syria. They did it at the request of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and therefore, they consider themselves the only legitimate party to the hostilities in the territory of the Arab republic. The problem, however, is that there are few who regard Assad himself as legitimate. After the bloody terrorist attacks in Paris in November, French President Francois Hollande made an attempt to create a universal coalition against Islamic State, which would include Russia too. But the initiative failed after the unprecedented aggravation of Russian-Turkish relations due to Turkey's downing of a Russian bomber. It is noteworthy that last year members of the Arab League agreed to jointly counter Islamic State in cooperation with the United States and Iraq, but this idea was not really successful, and now Saudi Arabia has come up with a new proposal.

The coalition will not include Iran, Iraq, Syria and Oman, which caused certain questions, because it is Iraq and Syria that are the most affected by terrorism, while Iran is one of the strongest Islamic countries, which is fighting Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq. In such a case, will the coalition be really Islamic or is it more correct to call it a Sunni coalition? There are also questions about whether the rest of the coalition members will be able to coexist with each other. For example, everyone is aware of differences between Saudi Arabia and Qatar itself or between Qatar and Egypt. The list goes on, but it seems that Saudis decided to immediately settle some contradictions with money. For example, Egypt, which was strongly affected by the "Arab Spring", all subsequent revolutions, and now by the departure of Russian tourists, is promised investments totalling 8bn dollars, and in addition, Riyadh will provide Egypt with oil for 5 years, while Saudi ships will give priority to the new Egyptian channel.

It is noteworthy that Turkey will receive its own benefits from closer cooperation on terrorism. Turkish Ambassador to Qatar Ahmet Demirok said that Ankara is planning to set up a military base there - the navy and the air force - about 3,000 marines - will be deployed there. "Today we are not just creating a new alliance, but also reviewing historical cooperation," Demirok said. In turn, Qatari Ambassador Salim Mubarak Al-Shafi said that Doha, which has 14 per cent of all gas reserves in the world, is ready to supply Turkey with as much gas as it needs.

Russia and Turkey: reconciliation is out of the question

For Turkey, this is even more important in light of the fact that Russian-Turkish relations continue to teeter on the brink, and thus gas supplies and logistics are still at risk. According to various media reports, eight ships with Turkish flags were detained in the Black Sea ports of Russia in the recent period. In turn, the Turks detained 27 ships under the Russian flag. On 13 December, the Russian patrol ship Smetliviy, located 22 km from the Greek island of Lemnos, fired warning shots towards a Turkish fishing boat that approached the ship for about 600 metres. The Mediterranean is becoming more and more dangerous, which, of course, is not in the interests of Turkish trade and tourist business. Moreover, Russia continues to talk about the expansion of sanctions against Ankara. At the annual press conference for journalists on 17 December, Vladimir Putin said that it is almost impossible for Russia to reach an agreement with the current leadership of Turkey, and Moscow sees no reasons for this. The Russian president continued to insist that the plane, which was downed "for absolutely unknown reasons", was a stab in the back. Putin suggested that Turkey did so in the hope that the Russians would withdraw from Syria, and added that now that Moscow has deployed S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems in Syria, "let Ankara itself try and fly there". In short, reconciliation is out of the question.

Immovable "stumbling blocks"

Meanwhile, in Kerry's visit to Moscow, many observers suddenly saw the hope that differences in the positions of Russia and the West on the Syrian issue are gradually decreasing. There are suggestions that the United States refuses to demand the resignation of al-Assad as an indispensable condition for the beginning of a political settlement in Syria, while Russia finalizes the terms of Assad's departure in the transition process. The same was reported by Reuters referring to Western diplomats who noted that the Russian authorities have already prepared a list of potential candidates to replace Assad. During the press conference, Putin said that Russia does not need a base in Syria, because if Russia wants "to get someone, it will get them anyway", and the Russian Federation will remain in Syria as long as the Syrian army needs support against terrorists. However, this enthusiasm is most likely a consequence of differences within the US administration. The next day after Kerry's visit, White House spokesman Josh Earnest stated that the US administration insists on the departure of Bashar al-Assad as president of Syria. Another immovable "stumbling block" is which groups should be considered terrorist, especially as not only Moscow and Washington, but all players in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran are talking about this.

Who has more trump cards?

Although Putin says Russia is not bargaining, bargaining is still under way. What trump cards does Russia have? No one knows the exact results of the Russian operation in Syria. Fox News reports that the revenues of Islamic State militants from oil have halved because of Russian air strikes. According to Russian media, Assad's troops are not giving up their positions and are even going on the offensive. The possible veracity of this information and the unquestionably serious presence of Russian weapons in the region give Moscow a considerable opportunity to influence the situation in Syria and the Middle East. It is not in vain that the Kremlin constantly emphasizes that "the Syrians themselves must decide the future of their country". However, the thing is that in a country ravaged by war and actually broken into different parts, the ability of the "Syrians themselves" to choose "their own future" raises serious doubts. Hence, we can conclude that the future of Assad is not really that big a problem as it is presented in many media on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Americans have a lot more trump cards, of course, and the creation of the IAC is seen as just one of them. Formally, the US is not involved in it, but this formality is unlikely to mislead anyone. The Western coalition and the 34 countries from the future Islamic coalition create an overwhelming numerical superiority around Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq. Moreover, US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter paid an unplanned visit to Iraq to "discuss the opportunities for the expansion of cooperation between Washington and Baghdad in the fight against Islamic State militants in the region". The situation is all the more interesting because unlike European countries that are not too willing to fight, many members of the Islamic coalition have real and recent combat experience and can provide ground forces in any quantity. It's one thing when Russia is accused of hitting the positions of the Syrian opposition, and another thing is when they face IAC forces instead of Syrians. Against this background, the downed Su-24, which became the cause of aggravation in Russian-Turkish relations, can be a minor incident.