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A new age for Turkey-Syria
relations
By K Gajendra Singh
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withdrawn its reservations on signing the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
(Copyright 2005
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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