From Akkuyu to the tripartite Ankara summit: What is going on in the region?


Ankara hosted two key events in the last week, marking the formation of a new vision, which may also contribute to the global peace agenda.

No matter if some Western newspapers preferred to define the meeting of the three leaders, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, as a step against Western powers, the summit of Turkish, Iranian and Russian leaders is the example of common sense for the well-being of a geography.President Erdoğan hosted the gathering where the three leaders paved the way for a serious solution to the Syrian crisis. A day before the Erdoğan-Rouhani-Putin summit, Erdoğan and Putin pressed the button for the start of the biggest project of the Turkish Republic, the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). The Akkuyu power plant has been recorded in Turkish history as an investment of $20 billion, which will enable Turkey to provide 10 percent of its energy needs.

Besides, without leaving any space for a deadlock to a solution to the Syrian crisis, the three leaders presented an initiative for short and long term means which would open the way for the peace in Turkey's neighborhood.

The Geneva process initiated for a solution to the Syrian problem turned out to be a process which continued to assure that the problem would not be solved. President Erdoğan stated that the Ankara meeting was not an alternative to the Geneva process, as well.

It is a fact that various problems in the international arena still stay unresolved because of the fact that global powers prefer them to be unresolved. The Syrian crisis is of course one of those problems, being probably the biggest one. What is clear is that the fear and hostility of some circles in the West against Islam and Muslims forced them to digest the policies of Bashar Assad, the brutal dictator in Damascus, leading many to suffer or flee the country. The circles, which are one of the most significant root causes of the Syrian crisis, didn't/don't support the moderate opposition in Syria, and instead have been assuring the survival of Assad since 2014, when they cut out support to the opposition.

In such an environment, the aforementioned three leaders were and are the only ones who became the guarantee of the Syrian people. A number of reactions came from some countries, which had difficulty digesting the powerful steps taken by the three countries.

Nils Annen, a German state minister, was quoted as saying that the meeting was "in fact a war summit," claiming that the three states had responsibility for the continuation of the war in Syria. Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman argued that the meeting was the first since the end of World War II, which did not ask for approval of the United Nations.

(As a small note, Israel is preparing for a tripartite summit with Greece and the Greek Cypriots, "without approval of the U.N.")Instead of supporting the idea, those who defend the continuation of the Syrian deadlock try to find arguments against the summit. Additionally, French President Emmanuel Macron, who wanted to take part in the tripartite summit, took irresponsible steps which would complicate the crisis, after being refused by one of the three countries.

Parallel to the Ankara summit, confusing messages given by the confused responsible figures in Washington vis-a-vis Syria also complicated the crisis. And the chaos in the international system concerning Syria confirmed the fact that the initiative of Turkey, Russia and Iran is only the guarantee of peace in Syria and the region.