Smiles all round
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad paid a groundbreaking visit to Turkey last week. But beneath the talk of warmer bilateral ties, each country was also pursuing its own agenda, reports Gareth Jenkins from Istanbul
In last week's talks in Turkey, Syria's main aim was to convince Ankara to exert pressure on Israel to resume peace talks, while Turkey was gathering regional solidarity to prevent the formation of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq.
It has now been five years since the two countries nearly went to war over Damascus's alleged support for separatist Turkish Kurds, but Al-Assad's visit is the clearest sign yet of a rapprochement between the two.
During his three days in Turkey, in the first official visit by a Syrian head of state, Al-Assad signed a series of agreements with his Turkish counterparts on taxation, investment promotion, tourism and the clearing of minefields on the border they share. Accompanied by his wife and two children, Al-Assad also succeeded in what the Turkish media described as a charm offensive, taking time out from his official engagements to visit tourist sights, smiling for the cameras and repeatedly stressing his hopes for strong ties between the two neighbours in the future.
Away from the glare of the media, Turkish officials said that Al-Assad had asked Ankara to exert pressure on Israel, and the US as its main international sponsor, to resume peace talks with Syria. Publicly, officials close to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan have indicated Ankara's willingness to act as a mediator between Israel and Syria, including hosting peace talks between the two sides in Turkey. Privately, they have been more skeptical, doubting both Israel's commitment and the extent of their own leverage. Turkey and Israel signed a defence training agreement in 1996 and have continued to cooperate in defence industry projects. Yet since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, cooperation has stalled in both political and economic spheres.
"Of course, we would like to do everything we can to help the cause of peace in the region," said one official. "But the two sides are so far apart on issues such as the Golan Heights and weapons of mass destruction that, unless Washington was to apply pressure on the Israelis, I don't think we would be able to achieve anything."
Turkish officials have said that Al-Assad's visit is likely to lead to more progress in another area, namely cooperation in opposing the Iraqi Kurds' plans to establish some form of political autonomy in northern Iraq. Ankara fears that the Iraqi Kurds will first try to establish an autonomous region, probably as part of a federal system in Iraq, which they will then use as a base upon which to found a fully-fledged independent state. During the 1990s Turkey frequently accused Damascus of supporting the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). In 1998 it was only a round of shuttle diplomacy by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, convincing Damascus that Turkey was serious in its threats to invade unless it expelled PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, that prevented the two sides from going to war.
The prospect of an independent Kurdish entity in northern Iraq has brought Turkey together not only with Syria but also with Iran, which has its own, potentially restive, Kurdish minority. On Saturday Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul visited Iran, ostensibly to offer Turkey's condolences for the massive loss of life in the Bam earthquake in December. The real agenda seems to have been to discuss ways in which Ankara and Tehran can cooperate in stifling Kurdish nationalist aspirations in northern Iraq.
"The Syrians have made it plain that they don't want to see the breakup of Iraq or an independent Kurdish state there any more than we do," said a Turkish official. "They, like us, don't want their own Kurds to get any ideas. And why do you think Gul has chosen now to go to Iran? It is nothing to do with the earthquake."
