Kurds that won't go away

President Hosny Mubarak in Ankara with Turkish counterpart Suleman Demirel

The outbreak of the Syrian-Turkish dispute in October came with no introductions. Suddenly, Turkey embarked upon a heated campaign against its Arab neighbour, going as far as to threaten military action if Damascus did not end its alleged support to Kurdish rebels fighting for self-rule in Turkey.

Egypt, a regional power broker, played a pivotal role in ending the crisis. President Hosni Mubarak and Foreign Minister Amr Moussa shuttled between Damascus and Ankara in order to reach an agreement that would settle all points of dispute between the two neighbours. In doing so, Cairo was fully aware that the volatile situation in the region could not, on any hypothesis, withstand the emergence of another armed conflict.

Syria, for its part, did not respond to the Turkish provocations, feeling that any act which might cause tension to escalate would only serve Israel's interests. Damascus insisted that its main concern is still to liberate the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and not to open new war fronts with its neighbours. The Syrian media also insisted that Israeli hands were behind the tension with Turkey, particularly in light of the growing military cooperation between Turkey and Israel.

Meanwhile, even Turkish newspapers seemed convinced that Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz, who lost his post after losing a confidence vote in parliament in November, may have chosen to increase tension with Syria in order to divert public attention from domestic problems and allegations of his involvement in corruption scandals.

Following Egypt's mediation, officials from the two countries met in Turkey's southern city of Adana for two consecutive days until a deal was concluded. Syria agreed to close down all alleged military training camps of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) led by Abdullah Ocalan, and went as far as accompanying Turkish officers to the alleged sites in both Syria and the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon so they could see for themselves.

Ocalan, the charismatic Kurdish leader known as Apo, also left Syria for Russia, and finally handed himself over to Italian authorities upon arrival at Rome airport, thus causing more problems for Ankara. As a result, the plight of Turkey's Kurds has turned into an international issue, and more countries than ever before are pressing Turkey to recognise the legitimate rights of this large minority. Some Turkish analysts now wonder whether Ankara did the right thing in forcing Syria to expel Ocalan.

"Turkey used to deal with the Kurdish problem in an adamant way, in the belief that the military option could be the right solution," said Wahid Abdel-Meguid, director of the Arab affairs section at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. "Yet I believe that this is not the kind of problem that can be solved by force. Force would only exacerbate the whole situation."

Apart from the Kurdish problem, there are other outstanding disputes between Syria and Turkey, concerning water and sovereignty over Al-Iskandarone province, known in Turkey as Hatay. However, Turkish officials refused to allow any of these matters to be included in the recent negotiations with Syria, stressing that it was security that mattered most.