To refresh the memory: how did things come to this point in Syria?

Although the problem that has continued in Syria for more than 13 years quickly became an international problem drawing in many countries, in essence it is a problem between the Syrian regime and its own people. The people's quest for redress against the torture suffered by the Syrian children detained in the city of Daraa in March 2011 escalated a notch when state officials turned to assaulting the people's honor and chastity.

At every stage the Baath regime had an opportunity to keep the matter from growing a notch further. A small measure it could have taken, the most basic human understanding it could have shown toward the people, could have stopped things before they grew, before the flames engulfed the roof. Yet the regime chose to quarrel with the people, and what happened soon spun out of control. Spreading across the whole of Syria, it turned into an uprising on the people's demand for dignity, freedom and justice. While events were still at this stage, there could be no talk of intervention by any actor from outside Syria.

In essence the Syrian regime was following a familiar path it had tried before in dealing with the opposition, and it needed no other external actor to provoke the people in this matter. For years there had been an order of public security in which membership of, or affiliation with, opposition parties, especially the Brotherhood, was grounds for execution, and this process had ended with its bloody suppression, through a great massacre, of the revolt that emerged in Hama in 1982. The father Assad had slaughtered more than 30 thousand people, civilians, women and children alike. Afterwards order was indeed maintained for many years.

At a time when the waves of the Arab Spring posed a danger to him, the son Assad too would try the same path for possible demonstrations, and by killing at most 30, or say 50 thousand of his people he would have suppressed the uprising. The tried path, the path he knew, seemed the most reliable path. Yet the world was no longer the world of the seventies or eighties. The more he killed, the more the waves of revolt grew throughout Syria, and the more the revolt grew, the more he continued his massacres, first with his own means and then together with Russia and Iran, whom he called to his aid. It reached such a state that a situation arose in which a return to the past in Syria had become almost impossible for all sides.

The international community, which accused the Syrian regime of massacre, even of genocide, set about calculating whether to impose the necessary sanctions on it, and afterwards abandoned the Syrian people to their fate. The United States, having come to Syria with the promise of toppling Assad, preferred to invent a completely different enemy for itself and to pass the time in a back-and-forth of mutual favors with it. Today the Zionist program behind the real reason for that dallying has been laid bare for all to see. The part of this Zionist program that concerns Turkey is that Turkey itself is also among the targets of its expansionist policy.

Today one of the expectations placed on the rapprochement between the Syrian regime and Turkey is perhaps the creation of a suitable ground for the return of the refugees. But of course it must be clearly seen that for this it will not be enough for the two states, Turkey and Syria, to reach an agreement with each other. By going back to the point where the events began, what we must see is that the problem that has arisen between Turkey and the Syrian regime in the course of this process is only a result of the affair. The real problem is between the Syrian people and the Syrian regime, and as long as this regime stands in this way, the roads for the Syrians' return to their country cannot be opened.

First, in response to the "normalization" statement coming from Erdoğan, Assad's initial "stipulation that Turkish troops withdraw" seemed to end, before it was born, the already impossible prospect of such a normalization. But Assad afterwards, in a speech in his own parliament, saying "It is not true that we will not start talks if Turkey does not withdraw its forces," gave up putting forward this precondition.

In fact, the condition he put forward served no purpose other than to expose even more tragicomically the reality that his own country's integrity had already been shattered enough by Iran, Hezbollah, Russia and the United States. If the Turkish soldier withdraws from Syria, can Assad dominate there, or will other structures, which he would not want at all, fill the vacuum that arises? On the other hand, Turkey's presence there constitutes a guarantee that prevents further asylum-seeking from Syria both to Turkey and to other places.

Moreover, if the subject is the fight against terror, Turkey is fighting there both against DAESH and against the terror elements under US-Israeli direction. Of course, Assad needs to thoroughly change, from this hour on (in fact on the principles he accepted at the Astana and Sochi talks too), his discourse toward his own people, whom he deems terrorists. Escaping responsibility toward his own victims by deeming them terrorists cannot be an approach anyone can accept from now on.

On the other hand, the real party to the matter is the Syrian people, who in this process have suffered heavy losses, been killed, wounded, deported, and shoved around everywhere in the world. Even if the whole world makes peace with Assad, can the Syrian people, who were forced to leave their country fleeing his massacres, make peace? Of course it is the Syrian people themselves who will decide this. We did not live what they lived, and we are not living what they are still living. If they can enter into a dialogue even with Assad, there is no question of Turkey or anyone else preventing it. But it appears that it is not possible for someone who is the cause of massacres that resulted in the deaths of nearly 1 million people he left behind to inspire trust in the Syrians. No one can question the Syrian people either as to why they do not feel this trust.

Even so, in order to see how the Syrian people view these processes and what kind of horizon of national reconciliation they have regarding a new Syria, the Harmoon Center for Contemporary Studies, based in Istanbul, is holding a conference in which intense discussions have taken place over two days.

At the conference, held within the center's periodic annual activities, Syrians are discussing their own future with participants from different social segments, researchers and opinion leaders. It is worth lending an ear.