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Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer's visit to
Damascus, despite United States ambassador to Ankara
Eric Edelman's public stand against it, highlights
the churning of regional strategic relationships in
the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, and more
recently the September 11 attacks on the US and its
illegal invasion of Iraq.
Sezer's visit this week is a reciprocation of Syrian
President Bashar Assad's visit to Ankara in January
2004, the first ever such visit since Syria broke
away from Ottoman Turkey after World War I. As
recently as 1998, Turkey had threatened to invade
Syria unless it expelled Abdullah Ocalan, leader of
the Marxist Kurdish Workers party (PKK), sheltered
by Damascus as a lever against Turkey for its share
of Euphrates waters and irredentist claims over
Hatay province, which was annexed to Turkey in 1939.
Its patron the Soviet Union having collapsed, Syria
expelled Ocalan, who first looked to Russia for
asylum, and then to Italy, but was finally nabbed in
Kenya and brought in chains to Turkey, where after a
trial he was imprisoned.
Today, relations are steadily improving. The
historical disputes over Euphrates waters and Hatay
province have been put on the back burner, and
Ankara has kept quiet on the sale of short-range
Russian missiles to Damascus, a deal it would have
howled over in the past.
During his visit, Sezer is expected to discuss -
apart from blossoming bilateral relations - regional
and international issues that have implications for
both sides. They aim to step up their dialogue to
promote stability and reduce tensions in the region.
In this regard, Turkey is pleased that Syria has
begun the withdrawal of its forces from Lebanon in
accordance with United Nations Security Council
resolutions.
Building on trade
In December 2004, Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan's visited Damascus, where a free
trade agreement, which was under negotiation for
several years, was signed by Erdogan and his Syrian
counterpart Mohammed Naji Otri. "Our links will
develop in all fields in the future, especially in
trade," Otri said at a joint news conference, while
Erdogan said it "shows how far relations have come
between the two countries".
A Turkish diplomatic source said that Damascus had
withdrawn its reservations on signing the agreement
"after a certain accord" was reached on Turkey's
sovereignty in the southern province of Hatay,
formerly Alexandretta, on which Syria also laid
claims.
Otri said "other problems are now forgotten",
apparently referring to another key obstacle to a
full normalization of relations, ie the sharing of
the Euphrates River, which has its sources in
Turkey.
"We are in agreement. We want a comprehensive
cooperation in the region," said Otri, adding that
Erdogan had agreed to increase the flow of water
into Syria. Turkey used to blame Syria for not
having built enough dams to store water.
The free trade agreement will form the cornerstone
of the friendship. Trade between the two countries
amounted to US$1 billion dollars in 2003. When this
author visited Mardin in southeast Turkey, situated
at a height that offers a panoramic view of the
north Mesopotamian plains in Syria and Nusaybin,
another historic city just bordering Syria, there
was considerable illegal trade. The trade agreement
and improved relations will help develop the region,
which is being revived economically with the
construction of power and irrigation projects . It
will also help neutralize the Kurdish insurgency in
the region.
Since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq , Turkey and
Syria have signed a series of economic and security
agreements, including one to jointly combat crime
and terrorism.
Assad's 2004 visit to Turkey
Assad's landmark visit to Turkey last year took
place following many steps to bring the two
countries closer, both wanting to achieve peace and
stability in the Middle East. Turkey even offered to
help Syria make progress with its overtures toward
Israel. Later, when Turkey found out about Israeli
interference in Kurdish north Iraq, there was a
precipitous decline in the almost allied-like
relations between Turkey and Israel, which were
maintained during the Cold War and even improved in
1990s. Erdogan has repeatedly accused Israel of
state terrorism in Gaza.
Bashar Assad, who succeeded his father Hafez Assad
five years ago, also took a series of steps to
repair relations with Turkey during the visit. "We
have moved together from an atmosphere of distrust
to one of trust," he said. "We must create stability
from a regional atmosphere of instability." Sezer
responded that "no time can be lost in replacing the
atmosphere of enmity, distrust and instability which
unfortunately prevails in our region with one of
peace, stability and prosperity". Both countries
remain opposed to the US-led invasion and occupation
of Iraq.
"We condemn all approaches that pose a threat to
Iraq's territorial integrity," Sezer said. Syria and
Turkey have a common objective in a stable Iraq.
They both have sizeable Kurdish populations and if
Iraqi Kurds win political and economic autonomy or
independence in the new constitution, it would
adversely affect them. The two countries have also
demanded that foreign troops leave Iraq as soon as
possible.
The US, meanwhile, has accused Syria of everything,
including guarding Iraq's alleged weapons of mass
destruction, seeking weapons of mass destruction,
and encouraging insurgents in Iraq. With support
from France, the former colonial power in Syria and
Lebanon, the US pushed through Resolution 1559 in
the Security Council last November, which required
that Syria withdraw its forces from Lebanon and the
disarming of Hezbollah in the south, which has
support from both Syria and Iran.
Assad announced in Ankara that Damascus would only
renounce its weapons of mass destruction programs in
tandem with similar dismantling by Israel. It was
"natural", Assad said, for his country to defend
itself with coordinated disarmament throughout the
Middle East. Israel is widely believed to hold a
nuclear arsenal, but has never admitted it. And no
one ever mentions it in the Western media or at the
international nuclear agency in Vienna .
"If Iraq breaks up, we will pay a very heavy bill.
It is difficult even to guess what dangers we may
encounter," Assad told CNN Turk.
The Iraq invasion and regional cooperation
There are many problems in the region left over from
when the Arabs revolted against Sultan Caliph in
Istanbul following unfulfilled promises of freedom
at the time of World War I. They were betrayed by
Western Christian powers. In 1921, when the French
government became the mandatory power in Syria and
Lebanon, it hurt Syrian interests by taking away its
territory and joining it to a Christian-dominated
Lebanon .
Turkey's boundaries with Iraq and Syria, which were
part of the Ottoman Empire up to 1918, were fixed by
the Treaty of Lausanne. Turkey ceded all its claims
to these two countries, which were placed under the
League of Nations mandates under Britain and France,
respectively. Turkey and Britain agreed on the 331
kilometer boundary between Turkey and Iraq by the
1926 Treaty of Angora (Ankara). Turkey's 822
kilometer boundary with Syria was not fixed by
Damascus. The Treaty of Lausanne gave the former
Ottoman Sanjak (sub-province) of Alexandretta
(present-day Hatay province) to Syria, but France
agreed in June 1939 to transfer Hatay province to
Turkish sovereignty after a hasty referendum,
despite strong objections from Syrian leaders.
It has been claimed that the Syrian protests would
have been louder if the majority of the Arabs in
Hatay were not Alawites. At that time - unlike now,
with the ruling elite in Damascus being Alawite, led
by Assads - it was the Sunnis, a majority, who were
the ruling elite. Syria, which became independent in
1946, did not really reconcile to the loss of the
province and its principal towns of Antakya and
Iskenderun port (formerly Antioch and Alexandretta).
France gifted Turkey with Alexandretta for Ankara's
signing of a non-aggression pact and in the fond
hope that Turkey would join England and France
against Nazi Germany in World War II. Turkish
president Ismet Inonu faithfully implemented the
advice of Kemal Ataturk - the founder of the Turkish
republic and its first president - given even before
the war clouds were on the horizon, not to join a
coalition against Britain. But it has also been put
differently. By joining Britain, Turkey did not want
to be devastated first by the Nazis and then
liberated by the Soviet troops. Meanwhile, Antakya (Hatay)
remained in Syrian consciousness. Whenever this
author visited Syria from Jordan between 1989-92, on
all official Syrian maps Hatay appeared as part of
Syria, along with the Golan Heights, Syrian
territory that was later recovered.
Similarly, Turkey has also not given up its claim
over Iraqi Kurdistan. Britain had denied Ataturk's
new Turkish republic, the oil-rich Kurdish areas of
Mosul and Kirkuk, now in northern Iraq. British
forces occupied the area after the armistice,
because of its oil reserves around Kirkuk.
But, by constructing a number of dams on the Tigris
and Euphrates rivers, including the giant Southeast
Anatolia Development Project, Turkey gave itself
control over how much of the Euphrates waters flow
into Syria and then to Iraq. Still, it is a
strategic threat with major political implications.
Ankara could withhold water from Syria, which
Turkish politicians threatened to do publicly. Or it
could flood Syria. Former prime minister Suleiman
Demirel even claimed that as Arabs had their oil,
Turkey owned the waters of its rivers.
But the main bone of conflict was the sheltering by
Syria of Ocalan. A rebellion led by him against the
Turkish state since 1984 cost over 35,000 lives,
including 5,000 soldiers. To control and neutralize
the rebellion, thousands of Kurdish villages were
bombed, destroyed, abandoned or relocated. Millions
of Kurds were moved to shanty towns in the south and
east or migrated westwards. The economy of the
region was shattered. With a third of the Turkish
army tied up in the southeast, the cost of
countering the insurgency at its height amounted to
between US$6 billion and $8 billion a year. But
Syria was careful. The PKK cadre always entered
Turkey from north Iraq and Syrian Kurds were
generally not allowed to join the PKK.
Until 1987, Damascus even denied Ocalan's presence
in Syria or any support for the PKK. But only when
Turkey gave the address of Ocalan's residence in
Damascus did the Syrians acknowledge his presence.
In July 1987, the two governments signed a security
protocol during a state visit by former prime
minister Turgut Ozal to Damascus, in which they
promised to "obstruct groups engaged in destructive
activities directed against one another on their own
territory and would not turn a blind eye to them in
any way". But the Syrians did not keep that promise,
or others made in August 1988, April 1992, November
1993, and April 1994.
It was Syria's way of interlinking Turkish control
of Euphrates waters and Syrian sponsorship of the
PKK as a pressure point for getting their share of
water. In November 1995, Turkey transferred a full
division of troops to its border region with Syria.
Arab countries Iraq, Egypt and Gulf Cooperation
Council members supported the Syrian position and in
December 1995 they called on Ankara to reach "a just
and acceptable agreement on the sharing of Euphrates
waters". But Turkey insisted on Ocalan's extradition
from Damascus before discussing the water issue. It
also initiated its own water campaign concerning the
Orontes River, which begins in Lebanon, passes
through Syria and ends up in Hatay, with a "meager"
10% of the river's waters reaching Turkey, but
Damascus refused even to discuss this matter, on the
plea that Hatay was a part of Syria and thus it was
an internal affair of Syria.
Withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon
Syrians are nimble footed. When faced with intense
US-led pressure to withdraw its forces from Lebanon
following the assassination of former Lebanese prime
minister Rafik Hariri on February 14, Syria first
orchestrated a huge show of support on the streets
of Beirut and Damascus to counter US-sponsored
street crowds with ready-made tent cities, similar
to what took place in Georgia and Ukraine.
Buthaina Shaaban, the Syrian minister for expatriate
affairs, said that "the army will be in the Bekaa
Valley by the end of March and ... could be back [in
Syria] by the end of April". It was a military
decision and not a political one, said Walid
Mouallem, the Syrian vice minister for foreign
affairs. He added, "I imagine that the American
pressure on Syria will not end, because every time
you fulfill a demand, they bring you another three.
It is an open-ended list. What next? We want you to
change the color of your eyes?"
Washington will maintain the pressure, because it
wants to "change the regime's attitude". But, it has
climbed down from the requirement of Resolution 1559
that armed militias, including Hezbollah, disarm
after a massive show of support, with over a million
people brought into Beirut. It is strange that not
only Lebanon but even Iraq now has had armed
militias for decades. There are the Kurdish
peshmergas, the al-Badr militia, and the Mehdi army
of young Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. US
double-talk exposes its own double standards and
further reduces its already tattered credibility.
The US also demanded that Syria not harbor militant
Palestinian leaders, which was a doubtful
allegation, and end its chemical weapons program,
without reciprocal steps from the Israelis. Perhaps
in its zeal of promoting democracy, it would want
Syria to liberalize its institutions and finally
agree to a peace deal with Israel on the latter's
terms.
And then there is the Israeli and US opposition to
Russian plans to supply short-range missiles to
Damascus. It is a ridiculous concern, as Israel
flies over Syrian space at will and even buzzes
Assad in his Damascus residential palace.
But, like his father Hafiz Assad, called the "Sphinx
of Damascus", Bashar Assad will wait and watch and
most probably survive. Many US secretaries of state
sat on the same Damascene sofa next to Hafez Assad,
however Syria remained steadfast in its objectives
and adroitly handled the situations. When US
President George W Bush leaves the White House, it
is quite likely that Bashar will still be in
Damascus to wave goodbye to him, just as his father
did to the senior George Bush.
K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired),
served as ambassador to Turkey from August 1992 to
April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as
ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is
currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic
Studies. Email: Gajendrak@hotmail.com
www.atimes.com
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