Turkey is now turning eastwards towards Moscow after Western criticism of the brutal suppression of the coup. Recep Erdogan, the president, has been meeting Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg with placatory apologies healing the recent rift over a Russian plane being shot down by Turkish forces.
It’ll make the already over complicated situation in Syria – with a myriad of conflicting groups fighting for different ends – even more of a mire. Rebel forces have just fought back against Assad and Russian planes to open a munitions route to Turkey. Which presumably would be one thought in Putin’s mind. Erdogan’s main aim is to quash the Kurdish separatists, while Putin wants not to get swamped down in Syria for ever and needs a victory of sorts before he exits.
Putin’s relationship with Assad is sagging under disappointment through till late Jan 2017 as tr Saturn opposes exactly this month, and tr Neptune squares the emphasised composite Jupiter. And his relationship with Erdogan will not be easy to hold together with tr Uranus opposing the composite Neptune, trine Pluto; and tr Pluto opposition Uranus from early next year on.
Turkish/US relations, already shaky, look in a parlous state from early 2017 onwards with tr Pluto square the composite Saturn. Even before then the tr Neptune square tr Saturn is in hard aspect to the composite Sun Mercury Venus and following for a couple of years Jupiter as well. This September’s Solar Eclipse will conjunct that composite stellium, so this is a critical, game-changing point on that diplomatic front.
Assad’s presidency chart, 17 July 2000, having weathered a fair few storms since the civil war began, looks insecure and at risk in January 2017 with tr Uranus square Mars; and thrown off course by tr Uranus square the Sun from late April. I’ve given up predicting his exit but, on the astrology, if 2017 doesn’t topple him, it’ll be 2021 when he hits his nadir – with tr Pluto opposition the Presidency Sun; and Solar Arc Uranus square the Pres Pluto. But it’ll be a tough, frustrating, dangerous few years between now and then with tr Pluto opposing the Mars in 2018/19.
The great risk, putting aside the poor Syrian people (the ones who are still left standing), is that what is already a proxy war on the ground between Russia and the West, escalates into something much worse. The US are supporting some of the ‘rebel’ groups who have an uncomfortable provenance; while Putin supports the insupportable Assad.
It was beautifully skewered in a Peter Brookes cartoon a couple of years back with Obama standing on a bluff looking down on a valley full of Arabs tearing each other to bits. The caption read; ‘Can the good guys please put their hands up?’ Who’d know? Following the old Arab saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend – can lead down the road to perdition.