Turkey cools down tempers over
Syria By MK Bhadrakumar
As Monday dawned, Turkey kept its fingers
crossed in keen anticipation of the nationwide
address by President Bashar al-Assad on the
situation in Syria. Ankara sent an open message
ahead of Assad's speech that if he failed to
announce reforms even in a third attempt, he would
"miss a big chance" to preserve power.
Turkey saw hopeful signs in the
"retirement" of Rami Makhlouf, the controversial
cousin of the president, soon after Assad's
special envoy Hasan Turkmani returned to Damascus
after talks with the Turkish leadership.
The influential editor of Hurriyet
newspaper Murat Yetkin quoted Turkish Foreign
Ministry officials that Ankara has been giving
"strong messages" to Assad and the two-fold
message is that: a) There shouldn't be any use of
violence; b) He should forthwith
announce concrete reform
steps. Yetkin quoted Turkish officials, "We are
not interested in names, but principles." In
short, Ankara is not pressing for a "regime
change".
The Turkish officials felt
exasperated that Assad kept changing his mind.
Yetkin quoted them: "There are groups inside and
outside Syria that want to stop him from taking
reformist steps, in order to see him put down at
the expense of the Syrian people. Ankara doesn't
want that. That's why we don't want him to miss
this chance."
'Not enough, but yes'
In the event, Assad met the Turkish
leadership more than half way by announcing a road
map that was largely specific but left vague in
patches. Assad outlined steps for revising or
rewriting the constitution and the formation of a
national dialogue committee to draw up new
election laws. He set time limits for reaching
reforms: a new parliament will be elected by
August and the package of political reforms will
be finalized by September.
The dialogue,
he said, would "commence immediately". The Turkish
reaction has been mixed. President Abdullah Gul
said it is "not enough, but yes" - meaning,
despite shortfalls it is a step forward. Ankara
seems satisfied that Assad took its suggestions.
Gul said Assad could have said things more openly
and still wouldn't have risked his hold on power.
Gul's was the voice of reasonableness; it
had nothing of the harshness of Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan's tone who recently described
the Syrian crackdown as "savagery". There has been
some cool stocktaking by Ankara.
Only last
weekend, Gul's key advisor Ersat Hurmuzlu told
Saudi Arabia's al-Arabya television that Assad had
less than a week to meet the demands of the
protesters, failing which "it wouldn't be possible
to offer any cover for the leadership in Syria
because there is the danger ... that we had always
been afraid of, and that is foreign intervention."
By Monday, Hurmuzlu had retracted.
"We are
not redesigning others' houses. It is Syria's own
problem," he clarified. Obviously, the Saudis are
muddying the waters for Ankara. The Saudi media
have been highly critical of Assad and openly call
for regime change. The Asharq Alawsat carried a
pungent commentary on Monday:
The problem with Syria today is that
everybody is looking at what is happening there
as if it is the conclusion of [what is happening
on] the Arab scene, and that the same pattern
exists for each country. Many believe that the
Syrians are "copying" the Tunisians, the
Egyptians, and others, and this is simply not
true. The size and depth of the Syrian
opposition within the country is greater than
everybody thinks. The demands that are being
called for today by the Syrians have been in
place ever since 2000.
Therefore what is
happening in Syria is not the same as what
happened in other parts of the region; it is a
genuine movement ... Syrians are demonstrating
and shouting, "We don't love you [Assad], we
don't love you, leave us alone and your party
too!"
Again, the European voice has
been strident, too. British Foreign Secretary
William Hague said:
I hope our Turkish colleagues will
bring every possible pressure to bear on the
Assad regime with a very clear message that they
are losing legitimacy and that Assad should
reform or step aside. And I hope they will be
very clear and very bold about
that.
French Foreign Minister Alain
Juppe outstripped Hague: "Some believe there's
still time for him [Assad] to change his ways and
commit to a [reform] process. For my part, I doubt
it. I think the point of no return has been
reached." But Turkey grasps too well the nuances
of European diplomacy to know what such gratuitous
advice means.
United States President
Barack Obama phoned Erdogan on Monday following
Assad's speech. The White House statement said,
The leaders agreed that the Syrian
government must end the use of violence now and
promptly enact meaningful reforms that respect
the democratic aspirations of the Syrian
people.
But Erdogan's office merely
said he and Obama agreed to monitor developments
in Syria closely. It claimed that the conversation
was wide-ranging and covered the situation in
Libya and the imperative need of a Middle East
process as well.
Libyan quagmire
Why is Turkey cooling down tempers after
having ratcheted up the rhetoric? A combination of
factors is at work. First, as it happens
frequently in Turkey, hot-headed politicians say
intemperate things due to domestic compulsions and
before long, the Foreign Ministry steps in for
course correction.
Turkey's able diplomats
would have assessed that Assad's position was not
so shaky despite the West's pressure tactic.
(Interestingly, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud
Barak said on Monday he would expect Assad's
departure in a time frame of six months.)
Turkey would know six months is a long
time in politics. So, it would rather work to see
if the reasonable assurances by Assad regarding
reforms could be tested on the ground. Assad
carefully chose an ethnic Turkmen as his special
envoy to hold talks in Ankara last week, which
itself was a highly symbolic gesture to instill
confidence. Ankara took note.
Furthermore,
Turkish diplomats would factor in that the Western
intervention in Libya is in a bit of a mess. The
initial assumption that Muammar Gaddafi's regime
would pack up has been belied and it didn't turn
out to be a clear-cut fight between
authoritarianism and democracy. It is proving to
be a tribal confrontation and a conflict between
ethnic groups and evidently, the Western
interventionists overestimated the power of the
Libyan opposition.
Turkey understands the
importance of avoiding a similar miscalculation
over Syria. If there is anarchy in Syria, it will
be almost entirely Turkey that picks up the debris
- not Iraq, Jordan, Israel or Lebanon. A
distinguishing feature of the Turkish state that
Kemal Ataturk founded has been to avoid getting
entangled in conflicts in the Muslim Middle East.
"Peace at home, peace abroad" - that's how Turks
describe their state dogma. The Saudis may clap
their hands in glee, Europeans may exhort, but the
toil will be Turkey's alone.
Finally, what
about international legitimacy? Russia and China
made it clear in their joint statement issued in
Moscow last weekend after the visit by President
Hu Jintao that they won't let the West do a
"Libya" on them over Syria. Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview on Monday
that Moscow will use veto if the West presses for
a resolution on Syria at the United Nations
Security Council.
"What I will not support
is a resolution similar to 1973 on Libya, because
I am convinced that a good resolution has been
turned into a piece of paper to cover a senseless
military operation," Medvedev said.
He
pointed out that the use of violence on the part
of the Syrian opposition would prompt any
government to respond with force, and in any case,
Russia finds it unacceptable if attempt is made to
interfere in the domestic affairs of another
sovereign country under the questionable slogan of
"protecting civilians".
A delegation of
the Syrian opposition will visit Moscow on June 27.
The Russian stance is that it should be left to
the Syrians to settle their problems and the
international community should assist such a
process rather than, as Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov put it, "Create circumstances for new armed
conflicts." Ankara knows Moscow's stance reflects
the aspirations of the Arab street.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a
career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His
assignments included the Soviet Union, South
Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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