Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVlEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RwISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASIN ÖZETÎ
Turkish Probe September 7, 1993
Belations With Syria Frail as Ever
A
news item last week proved again just how
tenuous and full of mutual suspicion the relationship
between Turkey and Syria is, and
how little has changed as far as the basic subjects
governing this relationship are concerned.
Mehmet Ali Birand, a leading TV personality and
journalist writing mostlyon foreign policy in the
mass circulation Sabah, indicated in a piece he
wrote that Prime Minister Tansu Çiller was preparing
to send an envoy secretly to Damascus on a
"carrot or stick mission."
What Birand was saying was that the government
had decided to get tough with Syria for its continued
support for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK), and was, to this end, going to offer
Damascus "the hand of positive cooperation" if it
would stop giving this support.
Damascus was also to be told that if this support
was not halted, then Turkey, which has been suffering
increasingly from the terrorist attacks of the
PKK, would not hesitate to bomb PKK camps in Lebanon's
notorious Syrian-controlled Bekaa valley.
Birand, who is known for his close ties with official
circles, did not say who this envoy would be and
when he would be traveling. But he suggested that
this message would be given to the Syrian leadership
soon.
Sources close to Foreign Minister Hikmet Çetin
said later that the minister was not aware of any
such initiative, and therefore contacted the prime
minister immediately to find out what was going on.
Çiller reportedly said she also did not know what
the news item was referring to. Her chief advisor,
Volkan Vural, issued a statement later that day saying
Turkey did not plan to bomb the Bekaa.
Whether there was truth to Birand's story and the
government buried the plan as soon as it was out of
the bag or whether Birand's story was based on misinformation
is not clear. But if it was misinformation,
it was well-placed and hit its mark by bringing
the subject of Syrian help for the PKK, and the need
for some kind of retaliatory step by Turkey, back
on the public's agenda.
The fact remains that, while denying the Sabah
story, the government still took the opportunity -- as
it always does -- to express what it expects from
Syria vis-a-vis the PKK camps in the Bekaa, and to
raise the question of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of
the PKK who is allowed to keep a flat in Damascus.
The Syrians, no fools in the game of diplomacy, for
their part continue to make it known through various
channels that they are holding the "PKK card"
against the threat that Turkey will some day cut the
waters of the Euphrates river to meet the needs of
its massive Southeastern Anatolia Project, known
as GAP. What the Syrian side wants is to codify a
1987 protocol, signed during the visit of late President
Turgut Özal to Damascus when he was still
prime minister.
That protocol committed Turkey to giving a
monthly average of 500 cubic meters a second of
water from the Euphrates to Syria. Apart from a
month during which work was underway on one of
the stages of filling the Atatürk Dam, the main dam
within GAP, Turkey has on the whole honored this
commitment.
However Syria, for whom water is as valuable as
oil because of the country's parched landscape,
wants this commitment to be increased in cubic meters,
and enshrined in a long-term agreement.
The message seems to be that, until that time,
the PKK trump card will be available for use against
Turkey to gain concessions on water.
Foreign Minister Hikmet Çetin told the private TV
channel ATV last week that the basic problem between
the two countries arose because Syria links
water and the PKK, something that is totally unacceptable
for Ankara.
In other words, the situation appears to be a kind
of stalemate, fed by suspicions resulting from a lack
of dialogue geared to establishing joint projects,
whether these be in irrigation, electrification or otherwise.
But while the basic parameters of relations between
Turkey and Syria have not changed much since
the mid 1980s, the regional environment in which
both countries are caught has changed in a manner
that affects them both very seriously.
Thé number one issue at the present time for the
Syrian leadership is not the water issue but the course
the Middle East peace process is taking.
This leadership is also alert to the fact that Syria
is enjoying the privilege of being a country that is
considered by the West, which it ultimately looks up
to, as a legitimate player in the international game.
This privilege was a reward for Syria's role in the
international coalition against Iraq, and came opportunely
for Syria as it was rapidly losing its patron,
the Soviet Union -- its safeguard against the U.S.
backing Israel during the Cold War.
The trump card for Turkey lies precisely in Syrian
insecurity and its need, as a small nation, to find
bigger nations to lean on for security.
Syria today is increasingly leaning on the West,
and this is imposing on it the need to respect the requirements
of the West's phobia against terrorism
and countries supporting it. This gives an opportunity
to Turkey to continue pressuring Syria on the
PKK issue. But in doing so, if Ankara can also offer
new options on the water issue that are mutually
satisfying, it could help in eliminating suspicion on
both sides.•
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