Episode Notes:

Last week, two catastrophic earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria. Joining us to discuss their impact in Syria is Natasha Hall. Natasha is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who’s worked in conflict zones and humanitarian emergencies for 15 years.

[:37] Impact

[1:58] Rebel-held region

[4:13] Turkish-held regions

[5:58] Syrians in Turkey

[8:42] Regime-held regions

[9:34] Sanctions

[11:36] Assad's rehabilitation

[14:00] Future of Syria

Episode Transcript

Nicholas Danforth: My name is Nicholas Danforth and I'm an editor at War on the Rocks. You are listening to the WarCast, the members-only podcast for what you need to know — now. Last week, two catastrophic earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria. Joining us now to discuss their impact in Syria is Natasha Hall. Natasha's a senior fellow at CSIS who's worked in conflict zones and humanitarian emergencies for the last 15 years. Thank you for joining us on the WarCast. 

Natasha Hall: Thanks for having me, Nick. 

Nicholas Danforth: Now, the earthquake was centered in Turkey. A lot of the press coverage has understandably looked at how it's affected Turkey, but, obviously, the whole point is earthquakes don't follow national borders. It's had a huge impact south of the Turkish-Syrian border. Tell us a little bit about that. 

Natasha Hall: As you point out, the epicenter of the earthquake was in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep or around thereabouts. But it rippled out primarily into the northwest region of Syria, just south of the border. And this was [significant] for a couple of reasons. One, this northwest area in particular, this opposition-held area of Syria contains some of the most vulnerable people within the Syrian context. So about 5 million people — many of them have been displaced from other parts of Syria multiple times, have lost their assets multiple times, have been the victims of airstrikes and sieges for over a decade. And they were highly dependent upon cross-border aid from Turkey, and the hubs for that cross-border aid just happened to be Gaziantep and Hatay, which are two of the most-affected areas in Turkey. 

Nicholas Danforth: So now talk us through, as you say, there have been logistical challenges in continuing to get aid to northwestern Syria because of the impact on infrastructure in Turkey, but also legal challenges. How have those played out? What's the international dimension of trying to continue to get aid to opposition-held parts of Syria? 

Natasha Hall: Well, the first thing I would say is actually the infrastructure is fairly well in place. Most of the time when an acute emergency happens, there isn't a waiting humanitarian response that's already there to help. So you quickly have to scale up assets, you quickly have to scale up teams and get supplies in with no infrastructure in place to begin with, especially in the case of an earthquake, which usually doesn't have much warning. So, I mean, in this case, in the early days, there were issues with I think a lot of misinformation regarding the damage to the roads, actually. While many of the roads were damaged in Turkey, there were clear roads to various border crossings from Turkey into Syria, including the main hub, which is Bab al-Hawa for the U.N. In terms of the legal obstacles that you were referring to, just to give a little bit of background, this crossing for the U.N. that allows them to fund and implement and deliver aid cross-border into opposition-controlled areas without the Syrian government's control has been put in place since 2014. 

It is very contentious because the Syrian government's ally, Russia, is on the Security Council and therefore has the right to veto this border crossing as it has threatened to do every six months for the past three years. So the U.N. feels constrained to use this one border crossing. But nonetheless, there were logistical ways to get assistance through to scale up capacity right away. I would say the largest logistical barrier was the fact that Turkey was so badly affected as well. But I think that there is rising frustration, to be diplomatic, about the lack of capacity even today, a week after the earthquake has taken place. 

Nicholas Danforth: And what about in areas like Afrin that are directly controlled by the Turkish government? How has aid continued to flow or not continued to flow into there? 

Natasha Hall: Yeah, that's a good question. I think that this will be an ongoing question, as well, in the weeks and months ahead. But to date, actually, there have been international journalists, for example, that have gone into these areas, especially Jindires, which is in Afrin and one of the worst affected towns in northwest Syria. And that's primarily because they do want to show the devastation. They do want the world to see the devastation and the needs there. So there are Turkish doctors in these areas. One of the biggest hospitals in Afrin is a Turkish-run hospital. That said, there are other political issues at play, which I think you know even better than anyone else. But there is a Turkish election coming up in about four months. And so President Erdogan is up for reelection once again. 

And it is quite clear that this response will make or break that election. And there has already been rising frustration with the response in Turkey, with regards to there really being a lack of a response in many parts of the affected areas. And so one can imagine a situation where the president would get flack or even more criticism for allowing convoys to go across the border to Syrians or even Syrian refugees actually within Turkey. And we're already seeing some tensions there as well. We're seeing less of that at this moment, but I think we will see more of that in the weeks and months to come as recovery efforts scale up. 

Nicholas Danforth: And I did wanna ask you a little bit more about that, because obviously right as Turkey's going into an election, the refugee issue is already very sensitive. There was a lot of very ugly nationalist rhetoric directed against Syrian refugees, which the government, I think in the pre-election context, felt a need to respond to. Then we've already seen more ugly examples of that in the aftermath of the earthquake. Do you have a sense of how, specifically for Syrian refugees in Turkey, many of whom are living in the affected areas, this has impacted them? 

Natasha Hall: Yeah, I mean as you pointed out, there are public opinion polls that suggest that the majority of Turkish people would want most Syrian refugees to be returned to Syria, regardless of the outcome of the peace there or the lack thereof. And so we've seen some reports of, for example, Syrian refugees being kicked out of dormitories. We've seen some other reports — although this would affect the Turkish people, too — of corruption in terms of search and rescue workers looking for specific buildings because the relatives of a parliament member are buried underneath there versus another area. So I mean, I would point out that if this is going to be an issue even amongst the Turkish population, this will certainly be an issue between the Turkish population and Syrian refugees. And there's about three and a half million Syrian refugees in Turkey to date. 

So I would expect that the tensions might rise. There is an opportunity, I should say, to look at some kind of light at the end of the tunnel that this would improve social cohesion. Sometimes you have situations where if there is a mass trauma or an acute emergency, it will at least bind together communities. And we've seen that to a certain extent actually within Syria where you saw, a lack of U.N. aid, for example. But you saw the tribes of Deir ez-Zor, a very poverty-stricken area and affected community in and of itself, bringing over more trucks than the U.N. of aid supplies to the northwest. And even places as far south as Daraa doing fundraisers for victims of the earthquake in the northwest. I want to be optimistic about that, but I do fear that without a really adequate response, without the ability for President Erdogan to look good in the aftermath of this response, that Syria and Syrians could be the scapegoat once again, as they have been in other surrounding countries.

Nicholas Danforth: Now within Syria or within regime-held parts of Syria, what's the impact been? 

Natasha Hall: So I should note that all assessments are still preliminary in terms of casualty counts, in terms of damage to infrastructure in northwest Syria and Turkey and in government-controlled areas. But there is no doubt that primarily, I guess Aleppo city, because it was the highest-populated area has been affected and surrounding areas close to this northwest area, obviously this northwest, rebel-held enclave. What's interesting about that response, though, even though I think many have criticized the isolation of the Syrian regime and also the sanctions against it.

Nicholas Danforth: Well, I wanna ask about that, because this has kicked off a renewed debate about the impact of sanctions on Syria. 

Natasha Hall: Yeah, I mean, there has been a reinvigorated debate, let's say about the sanctions on the Syrian government and Syrian government individuals or linked individuals. That is to say that this has been an ongoing debate, I think, for a long time. I say reinvigorated primarily because there has been almost an immediate response to it at this point. So, the U.S. government has issued this General License 23, which allows for essentially a waiver on all earthquake recovery-related transactions. I think some supporters of the sanctions say that it does not affect humanitarian aid, that there are enough waivers on humanitarian aid for it to get through. Others that criticize say that there are over-compliance issues amongst banks and companies, and that has a humanitarian effect in itself. And just the sanctions themselves, especially sectoral sanctions on Syria also have a humanitarian effect, even though they do not affect humanitarian aid. 

But nonetheless, dozens of international search and rescue workers immediately came into government-controlled areas. Tens of millions of dollars immediately flowed through. You immediately had this general license. Things were moving. I mean, things were in motion in government-controlled areas, whereas nothing was getting through to northwest Syria for five days. So I think that's the frustration amongst a lot of people that have been working on the cross-border response or even the effective population themselves. But as you point out, it has sort of reinvigorated that debate around sanctions, but I think also sort of, maybe a four-year trend, let's say, towards normalization with the regime amongst some countries. 

Nicholas Danforth: And I wanted to ask about that in closing. How is this likely to affect Assad's efforts to rehabilitate himself? How is this likely to affect the broader course of the war? 

Natasha Hall: As I mentioned, I think there was a trend towards normalization, even amongst countries that have resisted saying that. You've seen European diplomats regularly go into Damascus and meet with regime officials. You have seen, for example, now, President Assad will receive Al-Khasawneh, the prime minister of Jordan. This is a moment for the regime to take advantage of. And so we've also seen the government suddenly approve, after rejecting border crossings into non-government controlled areas for many years, opening up two additional crossings for the U.N. for three months. And so one has to wonder what concessions were made for that to happen. And I think that the issue, the concern that many people have is that these steps towards — let's not call it normalization, but let's say easing of ties, I guess — will be difficult to return from if steps are not made in the other direction for the Syrian government to discuss any of the issues that have been stalemated in the peace process. Well, the non-existent peace process, let's say now. And it will be almost impossible to turn back from those compromises. And I think there are some countries that are so eager to move on from this gaping wound that is Syria, that they're going to, it's not just the regime that's taking advantage of this moment, it's them as well, right? So I think it takes two to tango here. I think that the issue for those that are engaged in that process is that they are ruining the limited leverage that they have to move anything forward in a positive direction in terms of regional stability for the future. 

Nicholas Danforth: So, then, what does that look like in the coming years? If the process, if the current trends continue, if they're accelerated by the earthquake, where does that leave Syria? Where does that leave the populations in the opposition-held areas? 

Natasha Hall: Right. I mean, I think, you see that quite tangibly in the direct aftermath of the earthquake with the government labeling buildings for demolition and evacuation without proper independent damage assessments. Buildings can be destroyed by an earthquake, but they can also have been destroyed by airstrikes and barrel bombs from the past 10 years. So I think you have a situation where those who have been disenfranchised and marginalized and persecuted for many years could be even more so, without careful monitoring of even just the aftermath of the earthquake and how aid is distributed. And I'm already hearing from people in Aleppo that soldiers are severely restricting who will receive aid, for example. And we're already seeing aid in the marketplaces rather than given to people. And so, that's an ongoing trend of how the Syrian government has sort of weaponized aid in the past. 

In terms of the longer-term political trend, I think that, with sanctions, waivers, with general licenses and things like that, again, reducing leverage to discuss things like education in opposition-controlled areas, like the 130,000 disappeared people, like their 600,000-something family members that continue to not be able to access their property or their assets because their family members have been disappeared. So there's a lot of humanitarian implications for some of these political questions. And I think that continuing to operate along the lines of just using humanitarian aid and humanitarian aid has nothing to do with the politics of the situation, I think ignores sort of the context, or the quote-unquote conflict sensitivity of the Syrian war. And I suspect that, much like what I saw early on in the conflict, the compromises made now will be very difficult to turn back from.