Last Tuesday, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad paid his second visit to the capital of Turkey in less than four years. The visit signals mutual interests to further improve relations between two neighbours facing serious regional challenges and bad relations with the US. It came after the mysterious Israeli raid inside Syria; during which Israeli warplanes, many believe, may have used Turkish aerospace to reach deep inside the Syrian desert. The visit was also planed amidst rising tension between Damascus and Washington. Syria, under pressure from the US concerning Lebanon, Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict and calls for domestic reform, is looking for allies beyond the Arab world to alleviate its security dilemma and improve its economic ties with increasingly prosperous Turkey.
Ankara, on the other hand, is seeking to act independently, perhaps provocatively, towards Washington, which has completely disregarded Turkish interests in the region. Last week, the Foreign Affairs Committee at the US House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning as genocide the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during the First World War. Though nonbinding and largely symbolic, Turkey reacted angrily to the vote, recalling its ambassador from Washington and threatening to withdraw its support for the Iraq war. The chief of the Turkish armed forces went as far as to warning that military relations with the US would take a negative turn if Congress approved the Armenian genocide resolution.
Sensitive time
The vote in the US Congress came at a particularly sensitive time; wherein the Turkish military is said to be mobilising its forces on the border with Iraq, threatening an incursion against Kurdish insurgents. Early this month, Turkish warplanes were reported to be flying close to the border, but not crossing it. The Turkish government has also begun the process of gaining parliamentary approval to conduct cross-border operations. Most Turks believe that Washington might be using the Kurdistan Workers Party (the PKK) as a tool to penalise Turkey for refusing to fall in line with its policies in the region.
Having said that, the Syrian president's visit to Ankara last week is of considerable geo-political significance. It demonstrates that regional alliances are still seen by vulnerable states as a key means to ward off threats and tackle challenges. In light of the longstanding enmity that marked the relationship between the two countries, it seems that Damascus and Ankara have finally reached the conclusion that cooperation may serve their economic and security interests better than conflict.
Security pact
Syrian-Turkish rapprochement began in 1998 when the two countries singed a security pact following the close-to-war confrontation over Damascus's support to the PKK. But relations improved dramatically only when the Islamists in Turkey assumed power following the November 2002 general elections. This new trend in Syrian-Turkish relations came as a surprise for those who have for long argued that Turkey and Syria, taking into account their geo-strategic dispositions and conflicting interests, cannot develop normal relations.
Indeed, if we consider the history of the two countries, their differences and the politics of the Middle East, where most states are involved in one dispute or another with some, or sometimes several, of their regional neighbours, this argument is of importance. Yet, small states tend to form what sometimes appear to be odd alliances to ensure their security and survival.
Turkey and Syria have also discovered mutual interests. Regional developments of the past few years have brought them closer together. Both have opposed the US invasion of Iraq and expressed their interests in that it must remain a unitary state. They have also shared concerns about what they see as a dangerous American temptation, to weaken Iraq by re-building it on a federal basis without a strong central government - thereby paving the way for the establishment of an independent Kurdish state.
To the dismay of Washington, the Syrian president's visit to Ankara put all these factors into perspective and opened a new chapter in the relationship between the two countries
Dr. Marwan Kabalan Lecturer in Media and International Relations Faculty of Political Science and Media Damascus University Damascus, Syria.
