The Turkish General Staff announced Jan. 2 that Syrian air missile batteries used their radars to lock onto two Turkish F-16 jets conducting a sortie to monitor Syrian aircraft close to the Turkish border. Given the harassment of the radar lock and the already elevated tensions between Syria and Turkey, the incident could have escalated into a skirmish.
Turkish media also reported Jan. 2 that a truck heading from Kirikhan in Turkey's Hatay province toward the Kilis province and onward to Syria was stopped briefly on the road between Kirikhan and Reyhanli in Hatay province. However, due to intervention from local government officials, it was not searched and was allowed to continue on its way. Speculation that the truck was carrying weaponry has not been confirmed; Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala simply stated that the truck was carrying "aid" to Turkmen in Syria.
While the Turkish government consistently has denied supplying rebels in Syria and is actively hunting down Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant cells, there is plenty of evidence that significant flows of weapons (as well as foreign fighters) cross the Turkish border and find their way to rebels. It is therefore entirely plausible that the truck was indeed carrying weaponry to Syrian rebels. Turkey has ties with Turkmen rebels — a small subset of the Syrian insurgency — and with the Free Syrian Army, and Ankara even selectively supports certain Kurdish and Islamist factions in its efforts to play different sides of the rebellion against each other.
With the rise of jihadist activity in northern Syria and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant's advances near Turkish border crossings, the Turks have greatly toned down their calls for Bashar al Assad's ouster and have increased monitoring of their border crossings. At a time when the United States is pursuing negotiations with Iran, Ankara has incrementally moved toward involving Tehran in seeking a potential approach to the Syrian crisis that favors stability over the complete overthrow of the regime.
However, the Turks have hardly stopped supporting rebels in Syria and continue to be heavily involved — along with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and the United States — in transferring aid and materiel to rebel camps, particularly the beleaguered rebel Supreme Military Council. Having committed itself publically to the demise of al Assad's regime, Ankara would like to avoid the humiliation of seeing al Assad stay in power, particularly since his regime would be unlikely to forget Turkey's involvement against him. Turkey likewise will be hard pressed to forget Syrian-sponsored militant attacks that have taken place in Turkey's borderland with Syria. To have a stake in the game as well as to achieve a negotiated solution that is at least somewhat favorable to Turkey (however unlikely), the rebels need to get enough support not to be annihilated, and they are getting at least some of that support from Ankara.
Moreover, Turkey is also very concerned about the emerging power of both the jihadists and Kurdish militia forces in Syria. By maintaining a direct connection to amenable Syrian rebel groups, Ankara can try to play different rebel factions against each other in an attempt to mitigate the jihadist and Kurdish separatist threat.
The Turks have also greatly expanded their air patrols close to the Syrian border since the Syrian military shot down a Turkish military aircraft on June 22, 2012. The increased tensions on the border have since resulted in numerous exchanges of artillery fire, as well as the destruction of a Syrian helicopter by Turkish aircraft after it allegedly violated Turkish airspace on Sept. 16, 2013.
Domestic considerations, foreign policy initiatives and greater wariness about the growing presence of transnational jihadist forces in Syria have curbed Ankara's enthusiasm for a violent demise to the al Assad regime. However, Turkey continues to funnel aid to the rebels through various programs — whether by sending in mostly nonlethal aid in collaboration with a hesitant West or by cooperating with the more proactive states of the Gulf Cooperation Council in dispatching weaponry to rebel groups.
As operations intensify across the length of the Turkish-Syrian border, the risks of clashes between Turkey and the Syrian regime, transnational jihadists or the advancing YPG Kurdish militia remain very real. Indeed, sharing a vast border with a destabilized Syria, Ankara cannot hope to completely isolate itself from Syria and can only take measures to diminish the risk.
