 | | Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his spouse Esma Assad visited Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his wife Emine Erdoğan in Damascus on Dec. 22. | Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s official visit to Damascus last week has once again put a spotlight on the remarkable progress in bilateral relations between the two neighboring countries, with some commentators suggesting that Syria has been using its rapprochement with Turkey “instrumentally” to defy certain international pressure put upon it.
Even several weeks before Erdoğan’s visit, an article posted by the Agence France-Presse on Nov. 6 cited Syria’s “boosted ties” with Turkey as a source of confidence that led Syria to the point of holding out on a European Union partnership.
While blaming Syria for the failure of Turkey-mediated talks with Israel in remarks delivered on Dec. 12, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Daniel Ayalon said that “Syria didn’t desire peace, and through these negotiations it fooled everyone in a bid to emerge from global isolation.”
A number of articles in both national and international media basically argued that its strengthened relationship with Turkey has provided Syria with political cover and further suggest that Syria gained more than Turkey has from the current course of affairs in this relationship.
“The principle of seeking mutual interests is a basis of international relations, and one should look into the current relationship between Syria and Turkey from this point of view,” a Turkish diplomat told Sunday’s Zaman when asked about the aforementioned comments.
“Where were we standing in these relations a decade ago? In relationships, gains by each party cannot be symmetrical, and counting whether one side has gained more benefits from this relationship is not correct at all,” the senior diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, in apparent reference to the fact that the course of affairs in bilateral relations between Syria and Turkey over the last decade can be considered a bold example of the implementation of Ankara’s “zero-problems policy” in its neighborhood by reaching out to create an atmosphere of maximum cooperation among all its neighbors.
In the autumn of 1998, Syria and Turkey came to the brink of war over the presence of the now-jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, in Syria. At the time, Turkish troops were marshaled along the border with Syria, with Ankara demanding that Damascus end its support for the PKK and hand Öcalan over. Then-Syrian President Hafez al-Assad complied, and eventually Öcalan was deported -- and subsequently captured by Turkish special forces in Kenya. PKK training camps in Syria and Lebanon were also closed down.
Synergy
Such approaches based on incorrect calculations reflect an understanding of a zero-sum game in which one participant’s gains result only from another’s equivalent losses, the same Turkish diplomat argued.
“It’s not a zero-sum game. The whole may be more than the sum of its parts,” the diplomat said, referring to a metaphysical argument by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, a widely used description of the concept of synergy, a situation where different entities cooperate advantageously towards a final outcome.
A Dec. 14 article in The New York Times penned by Robert F. Worth was titled “Relations with Turkey Kindle Hopes in Syria.” The widespread notion that Turkey will draw Syria toward moderation and a regional peace deal may be something of a fantasy, albeit a useful one, Worth said, while citing remarks by Peter Harling, a senior Damascus-based analyst with the International Crisis Group and lead author of a report on Syria’s foreign policy published earlier this month.
The new Turkish alliance may be valuable precisely because it helps Syria hint at change while keeping its options open, Harling said. “In a region full of unresolved conflicts, Syria has chosen to hedge its bets. Aligning with Turkey helps Syria to offset competing pressures from Iran and the West while strengthening its position economically,” Harling added.
Speaking of synergy, it would be appropriate to republish remarks by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that were delivered in a September interview with Sunday’s Zaman.
At the time, with sparingly used words, Assad lent support to Turkey’s democratization initiative, launched by the government, which envisions expanding rights for the Kurdish people of the country, noting that whatever its results, Turkey’s democratic initiative will also affect Syria.
“In my opinion, the initiative is not an end, but a means. The main target is to ensure the country’s stability and development. As for political division, this is one of the greatest sins, one of the greatest evils. Whatever you do, you must maintain the unity, indivisibility and territorial integrity of the country as your most important target. But, in any case, we will eventually be affected by what goes on in Turkey. Therefore, we want this process to result in stability,” Assad had said.
A new lexicon
In Damascus, Erdoğan was accompanied by nine ministers responsible for projects concerning the southeastern Anatolia region: foreign trade; justice; interior affairs; foreign affairs; health; energy and natural resources; agriculture and rural affairs; and environment and forestry. Simultaneous meetings between ministers from both sides took place in different halls of the Prime Ministry building in Damascus. The senior Turkish diplomat, who was among the delegation accompanying Erdoğan, likened the atmosphere in the building to an “energetic exposition that was full of dynamism and festivity.”
The issues discussed at different halls ranged from the significance of upcoming parliamentary elections in the two countries’ common neighbor Iraq for the country and the region’s stability to contentious water issues, via efforts to finalize plans for the building of a dam on the Asi River (also known as the Orontes), which originates in Syria and has an annual water flow of 2.5 billion cubic meters. “That’s why; the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The energy created by all of those meetings actually reflects the level to which the bilateral relations have reached,” the diplomat said. “No wonder, each side will gain certain interests and will give priority to whatever issue they believe is more crucial for the time being.”
What Syria and Turkey have been trying is to create “a new lexicon” for their relationship, which has entered a new phase, and for describing the questions in this relationship, and this is being done by the guidance of the political will, the diplomat concluded.
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