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Unisci Dp 23 UNISCI Discussion Papers, Nº 23 (May / Mayo 2010) ISSN 1696-2206 TURKISH-SYRIAN RELATIONS – WHERE ARE WE GOING? Özlem Tür 1 Middle East Technical University, Ankara Abstract: 2009 witnessed a series of developments showing the depth of the relations between Turkey and Syria. Not only in the political and security fields but in the economic relations as well the two countries deepened their relations at an unprecedented level. Just to name a few of the remarkable developments over the last year, the two countries held a joint military exercise, signed a technical military cooperation agreement, established a Turkish-Syrian High Level Strategic Cooperation Council and lifted the visa requirement. These developments were unthinkable only a decade ago. Considering that the two countries came to the brink of war in 1998, the advancement and deepening of the relations to such a level in a decade is impressive as well as interesting. This article aims at looking at the dynamics of the relationship between Turkey and Syria. It argues that not only the common security concerns over the developments in the region, especially the impact of the Iraqi War but also domestic concerns played an important role in the deepening of the relationship. On the Syrian side the coming to power of Bashar Asad, the need for economic development in the country and its international isolation has been important. On the Turkish side, the coming to power of the Justice and Development Party with a new vision for the Middle East has especially been significant. Keywords: Turkey, Syria, Iraqi war and the Middle East, economic integration, Justice and Development Party’s foreign policy. Resumen: 2009 fue testigo de una serie de acontecimientos que mostraban la profundidad de las relaciones entre Turquía Siria. Ambos países profundizaron sus relaciones hasta un nivel sin precedentes, no sólo en los ámbitos políticos y de seguridad, sino también en sus relaciones económicas. Sólo por mencionar algunos de los acontecimientos más destacables del año pasado, los dos países llevaron a cabo ejercicios militares conjuntos, firmaron un acuerdo de cooperación técnica militar, establecieron un Consejo de Cooperación Estratégica de Alto Nivel y suprimieron la obligación de visado. Tales desarrollos parecían impensables sólo una década atrás. Teniendo en cuenta que en 1998 ambos países estuvieron al borde de la guerra, los progresos realizados y la profundización en las relaciones hasta tal nivel en sólo una década, son tan impresionantes como interesantes. Este artículo persigue analizar las dinámicas detrás de las relaciones entre Turquía y Siria. Se argumenta que no sólo las preocupaciones comunes en el ámbito de seguridad por los últimos cambios acontecimientos en la región, en particular en impacto de la Guerra de Irak, sino que también factores de política doméstica tuvieron una influencia determinante en la profundización de la relación. Por un lado la llegada al poder de Bashir Al-Asad, la necesidad de potenciar el desarrollo económico y romper el aislamiento internacional, fueron muy importantes en Siria. Por otro lado, en Turquía, especialmente significativa ha resultado la llegada al gobierno del Partido de la Justicia y el Desarrollo y su nueva visión sobre el Oriente Próximo. Palabras clave: Turquía, Siria, la Guerra de Irak y el Medio Oriente, la integración económica, la política exterior del Partido del Desarrollo y Justicia. Copyright © UNISCI, 2010. Las opiniones expresadas en estos artículos son propias de sus autores, y no reflejan necesariamente la opinión de UNISCI. The views expressed in these articles are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of UNISCI. 1 Özlem Tür is Associate Prof. Dr. in the Middle East Technical University, Department of International Relations, Ankara, Turkey. 163 UNISCI Discussion Papers, Nº 23 (May / Mayo 2010) ISSN 1696-2206 1. Introduction Turkish-Syrian relations have gone through a very troubled period. The two countries were adversaries within the Cold War rivalry, had to manage bilateral problems, a legacy of the Ottoman past, and the stereotypical images of each other 2, Hatay issue and the water problem – the dispute over the appropriation of the waters of the Euphrates and Tigris. The PKK terror was added to the picture in the 1980s as the PKK found shelter in Syria and the Syrian dominated Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. The PKK terrorist activities, mainly operating from Syria and PKK’s head Abdullah Öcalan’s residence in Damascus constituted the most important reason in the escalation of tension between the two countries during the 1990s. The water issue also became linked to the terror issue during this period. In 1995, the then Foreign Minister Deniz Baykal’s words were demonstrative of this: “Syria as a neighbor country should stop being the headquarters of a terrorist organization. It can be thought that hands with the blood of terror could be washed with more ‘water’. However, Turkey will never bargain the use of terror for water.” 3 As the efforts to find a diplomatic solution to resolve the issue of Syrian support of the PKK failed in 1998, consensus emerged among the Turkish policymakers to toughen Turkey’s stance against Syria. 4 The problems have escalated to such a level that on 30 September 1998, the National Security Council ratified a plan of action against Syria which was put forward by the Chief of Staff General Hüseyin Kıvrıko ğlu and as a result an additional 10,000 troops were mobilized along the border. In a speech on the following day, Kıvrıko ğlu stated that “an undeclared state of war” already existed between Turkey and Syria. The same day, President Demirel in his inaugural speech in the Parliament declared that Turkey was running out of patience and that Syria would have to live with the consequences of its support for the PKK. 5A week later the Turkish government issued a final ultimatum to the Syrian government. The outcome was a complete success for Turkey: Damascus yielded to pressure by expelling Öcalan and closing down PKK activities on its territory in accordance with an agreement, the Adana Accords, signed on 20 October 1998. The general idea regarding the reasons why Syria stepped back and expelled Öcalan was that Syria was helpless in the face of Turkish military might and that it had no other choice but to surrender to Turkish demands. In contrast with this view, Bashar Asad, in a recent interview said that looking back to those years the reason why Syria expelled Öcalan and entered into a cooperative relationship with Turkey was “not out of fear but because we preferred you. We would either be friends with the Turkish people or prefer the Kurds and lose you. Because our preference was with you, we sent Öcalan out” 6. Despite this statement, considering Syrian military weakness at the time and the intense cooperation between Turkey 2 Alliance of the Arabs with the Western powers against the Ottoman Empire during World War 1 affected the mindset of the Turks against the arabs for a long time. As a result of this experience Turks refered to arabs mainly treacherous and untrustworthy while the held the idea that Arab underdevelopment was a result of centuries-long Ottoman domination of the arab lands. For details see, Aras, Bülent and Köni, Hasan: “Turkish– Syrian Relations Revisited”, Arab Studies Quarterly, vol. 24, no. 2 (2002), pp. 47–60. 3 Hürriyet, 31 December 1995. 4 Aykan, Mahmut Bali: “The Turkish–Syrian Crisis of October 1998: A Turkish View”, Middle East Policy, vol. 6, no. 4 (1999), p. 177. 5 Milliyet , 2 October 1998. 6 Birand, Mehmet Ali: “ Đsrail’e ve Avrupa’ya Sırtını Dönmü ş bir Türkiye Cazip de ğil”, Posta, 8 November 2009. 164 UNISCI Discussion Papers, Nº 23 (May / Mayo 2010) ISSN 1696-2206 and Israel, this at best seems a preference out of necessity, not out of will. Fred Lawson shares this point by looking at Syrian policy towards Turkey before the Adana Accords and the following three years. Lawson underlines that Damascus’s pursuit of better relations with Ankara from the autumn of 1998 to the end of 2001 grew out of a conjunction of developments that sharply increased the cost of armed conflict with Turkey. 7 Although Israel made sure to remain out of the conflict as Turkey was mobilizing troops along the Syrian border, Turkish-Israeli alignment leaving Syria subject to a possible coordinated military assault maintained its importance in this picture. Considering the Syrian military weakness, this factor becomes more significant. The Syrian military equipment acquisition halted with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Syria was considered to be “in dire need of modern weapons systems and intelligence gathering systems but is constrained by economic problems that are not likely to resolve for many years, if at all”. 8 Thus, after 1998 Syrian officials “took the risk of lowering their guard and adopting a conciliatory posture toward the country’s long- term northern adversary”. 9 In the aftermath of the Accords, it was interesting to see how quickly the bilateral relations developed and the “undeclared state of war” was left behind by both parties. The quick recovery of the relations show from the Turkish perspective the primacy of domestic security concerns. Once the threat to domestic security was eliminated through Syrian compliance, Turkish-Syrian relations began to normalize. What is interesting though is that the relations did not only return back to their normal stance prior to the conflict but rather went to unprecedented levels of cooperation in less than a decade. There was a general expectation at the time that relations would become normal, but this normalization will be followed by Turkey’s traditional policy, in Mufti’s words, “a steady retreat toward the correct but aloof and neutral postures of the past”.
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