ASSAD VISIT SIGNALS DEEPENING RAPPROCHEMENT BETWEEN TURKEY AND SYRIA
By Gareth Jenkins
Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
Oct 17 2007
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad arrived in Turkey yesterday
(October 16) at the beginning of a four-day visit, in another sign
of a deepening rapprochement between the two countries less than a
decade after they almost went to war over Damascus’s support for the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Assad last came to Turkey in January 2004 when he became the first
serving Syrian head of state ever to pay an official visit to the
country. In fall 1998 Turkey threatened to invade Syria, and massed
troops and armor on the two countries’ border, unless Damascus expelled
PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who had spent most of the previous 20
years either in Damascus or the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley in
Lebanon. After initially prevaricating, Syria agreed and subsequently
also dismantled PKK camps in the country. Turkish intelligence reports
suggest that today the organization has only a token presence in Syria,
although it continues to use the country as a conduit for supplies
and personnel going to the main PKK camps in northern Iraq.
Although bilateral ties had already improved considerably before the
ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in Turkey
in November 2003, there is little doubt that the party has been
particularly assiduous in cultivating a better relationship with
Damascus, not only on a political level but also in the economic
sphere. In the last two years the Syrian authorities have approved
more than 30 Turkish investment projects in the country with a total
value of over $150 million (Zaman, October 17). Bilateral trade is
expected to be around $1.5 billion in 2007, more than triple the
figure when the AKP came to power.
When Israel launched an air strike against Syria on September 6,
Turkey was not only vigorous in its condemnation of the raid but —
amid speculation in the international press that the Israeli planes
had used Turkish airspace — publicly reassured Syria that it would
never allow its territory to be used for an attack against the country.
The rapprochement with Syria forms part of a strategy of what Professor
Ahmet Davutoglu, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chief foreign
policy advisor, describes as "strategic depth" (Ahmet Davutoglu,
"Stratejik Derinlik," Kure Yayýnlarý, 2004). Davutoglu maintains that
the emphasis of previous governments on relations with Europe and the
US has created an imbalance in Turkey’s foreign policy, which needs
to be redressed by a more active engagement with the region.
However, there is little doubt that the concept also has considerable
emotional appeal for the AKP and its supporters, not only because
countries such as Syria are predominantly Muslim but also because the
idea of Turkey playing a more active role in the Middle East plays
into the AKP’s strong Ottoman nostalgia and its vision of Turkey
emerging as a neo-Ottoman regional power.
In this context, it is not surprising that in their background
briefings to Turkish journalists, AKP officials have been playing up
the possibility of Assad’s visit forming part of a Turkish attempt
to broker an agreement between Syria and Israel or at least lower
tensions between the two countries (NTV, CNNTurk, October 17). Last
week the official Syrian news agency, SANA, reported that Assad had
confirmed in interviews with two Tunisian newspapers that Turkey was
trying to mediate between Syria and Israel.
During his time in Turkey, Assad is also expected to discuss Turkey’s
threat to launch a cross-border military operation against PKK camps
in northern Iraq (see EDM, October 11) and plans for a ministerial
meeting of Iraq’s neighbors in Istanbul at the beginning of November;
although it is difficult to see how the meeting will be productive if
Turkey defies the Iraqi government in Baghdad and launches a military
strike against the PKK presence in northern Iraq.
In addition to meeting in Ankara with Erdogan and President Abdullah
Gul, Assad is also expected to spend two days in Istanbul, where
he will visit a shipyard and meet with members of Turkey’s business
community.
It is a sign of the dramatic change in the bilateral relationship
that Assad’s visit has so far received very little coverage in the
Turkish press. In the late 1990s, it was Syria that was vilified
for its alleged complicity in the killings conducted by the PKK. In
recent weeks, it has been the United States for opposing Turkey’s
plans to launch a military strike against the organization’s camps
in northern Iraq. Anti-Americanism has risen still higher since
the October 10 approval by the House Foreign Affairs Committee of a
resolution characterizing the massacres and deportations of Armenians
by the Ottoman authorities during World War I as a genocide.
During an October 7 visit to Damascus, several days before the
resolution was passed, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan described
ties between Turkey and Syria as being "at their highest possible
level" (CNNTurk, NTV, October 7). Such enthusiasm is in marked contrast
to the distrust and distaste with which many in Turkey currently view
the United States.
–Boundary_(ID_dY+/VMAkthCRXELK2JiSyg)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress