War minus the shooting

With Turkey accusing Syria of backing Kurdish insurgents and warning of "imminent action", the two countries are in a state of undeclared war.

KESAVA MENON
recently in Ankara

IN the first week of September, when this correspondent asked Necati Utkan, the spokesman of Turkey's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to describe the state of his country's relations with Syria, he at first jocularly remarked: "There is no relationship." Then, in a more serious vein he observed that any country would know when another country was sponsoring terrorism against it and that Turkey was convinced that Syria was acting in such a manner. At that stage Turkish utterances in regard to Syria were of the nature of a complaint, but the tone was to change soon.

Turkey's military chief of staff Gen. Huseyin Kivrikoglu fired the first salvo in a new and much more intense verbal offensive when he declared, in the first week of October, that his country and Syria were in a state of "undeclared war". President Suleyman Demirel, Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz and officials down the line joined the chorus and issued dire warnings or threats of imminent action if Syria did not desist from a course of action which Turkey alleges it is set upon. Yilmaz's statement of October 11 gives an idea of the kind of tone and language that Turkey has now begun to use. The official Anatolian news agency quoted Yilmaz as saying: "If Syria does not come to its senses, it is our duty to bring Syria's world tumbling down. We do not have our eyes on anyone's territory but we are obliged to poke out the eyes of those who are eyeing our territory."

YILMAZ'S allegation that Syria is "eyeing" Turkey's territory indicates other issues are at stake. The two countries are caught up in a territorial dispute; Syria is also incensed about Turkey's plans to dam the Euphrates and develop the river basin. But the immediate cause of Turkey's fulmination is its perception that Syria stands behind a Kurdish rebel group. The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish Government for over two decades; the violent campaign has claimed thousands of lives. Ankara alleges that Damascus has provided the PKK with training bases in Lebanon's Beqa'a valley (which the Syrian military controls), that PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan has been provided a safe house in Damascus and that Syria encourages and even actively assists the PKK to carry out attacks inside Turkey. Syria denies the substance of the allegation that it provides shelter, encourages or actively assists the PKK.

Kurdish groups, which are trying to establish an independent homeland, have caused problems for almost all West Asian states in which they make up a substantial population in distinct enclaves; Iraq and Iran have also faced problems from rebellious Kurds. However, Turkey has found the PKK a particularly adamant foe. Other Kurdish groups, such as the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), have struck deals with Turkey; the KDP has even finalised an accommodation arrangement of sorts with Iraq. Hurriyet columnist Ferai Tinc says that Turkey has found the PKK a hard nut to crack because, unlike other Kurdish factions, it is not just a conglomerate of tribes. The PKK has an ideological base.

Although Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), is ranged against the socialist PKK and the socialist Ba'ath Government of Syria, it would be simplistic to see this as a re-enactment of Cold War politics. Relations between nations in this corner of West Asia are in a state of flux. For instance, the Cold War lines could be said to have been erased when Turkey and Syria joined up in the coalition against Ba'ath-ruled Iraq. But over the past year Syria has resumed commercial exchanges with Iraq. While Iraq makes the routine protests about Turkish violations of its sovereignty whenever the latter's troops make incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan, Baghdad and Ankara do seem to have an informal understanding about the need to curb Kurdish ambitions. Syria and Iran are allied to each other fairly closely but that has not prevented Iran from rebuilding and strengthening its ties with Turkey.

In this complex situation a new factor has been added: the growing military ties between Turkey and Israel. The forces of the two countries have conducted joint exercises; Israeli and Turkish fighter-planes have conducted exercises in each other country's airspace; Israel is to upgrade ageing Turkish aircraft; and the two countries' navies have jointly undertaken manoeuvres at sea. Both Turkey and Israel maintain that no other country need to be alarmed over their military exchanges since these are not directed at anyone. Even so, the scale of the exercises and the intensity with which they have been conducted over the past months have caused alarm.

With Jordan having sent its observers to the Israel-Turkish exercises and having indicated that it might join in the future, none of the other regional states can feel comfortable with the situation. These three countries are among the closest regional allies of the United States, and any acknowledged opponent of Washington's West Asia policy can see the framework of a new containment machinery being built up. Turkey, Israel and Jordan together could form a formidable pincer against Syria, open the flanks of Iraq and Iran and have the potential to project power as far as the Arabian peninsula.

BURHAN OZBILICI / AP
Turkish President Suleyman Demirel (right) with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who was in Ankara on October 6 in an effort to mediate between Syria and Turkey following their stand-off over alleged Syrian support for Kurdish insurgents.

In the face of Turkey's verbal offensive, Syria played on the regional fears about an emerging alliance. Damascus took the line that Turkey had been prodded into such an aggressive policy by Israel, which wanted to step up pressure on Syria. It was not clear whether Syria was suggesting that Turkey had been emboldened by its growing military ties with Israel. Such an accusation might not bear up because Turkey has the second-largest military among the countries of NATO and should be able on its own to out-match Syria, which has faced a shortage of arms after the collapse of its former supplier, the Soviet Union. On the other hand, at least according to Israeli intelligence, Syria had opened a new line of supply from Russia so as to build up its military forces in specified areas. Again, it was unclear from Syria's statements whether it feared that Turkey would launch an attack before its own forces had been built up to strength.

THERE were other unexplored nuances. Was it possible that Ankara, trying to shore up its relations with the U.S., was using the Tel Aviv route to grace in Washington? With Israel trying to make Syria soften its position on the Golan Heights issue, and the U.S. desirous of making some headway on the Israel-Syria track of the negotiations, Turkey could help out both by applying pressure on Syria from another direction. By doing so Turkey could cement its ties with the U.S. and in return get Washington's assistance in its own dealings with other NATO members on the Cyprus issue and in the matter of its entry into the European Union.

So far, however, Syria has not played up these nuances. Syria's move to draw particular attention to the friendly relations between Turkey and the U.S. is a chancy one at the moment. Syria needs to maintain a cooperative line with the U.S. since the superpower alone can make Israel deliver on the Golan Heights issue. However, by highlighting the Turkey-Israel connection, Syria could caution the U.S. that if it was to take sides with Ankara (even if it was on the PKK issue) it would be seen as having shifted decisively to Israel's side overall. Since the U.S. is trying to maintain a delicate balance in its relations with Israel on the one hand and the Arab world on the other, any pro-Israeli shift would jeopardise its relations with the Arab world. The U.S. kept out of the whole controversy; it merely asked Turkey and Syria to solve their problems through diplomatic means and encouraged those who were interested in trying to mediate. Israel too bent over backwards to show that it was not connected with the Turkish moves: it abruptly postponed the military exercises, which were to have taken place close to the Syrian border.

Syria's highlighting of the Turkey-Israel connection helped it secure the unanimous support of the Arab world. The Arab League come out overwhelmingly in support, and even Iraq (which is currently estranged from the League) condemned the Turkish statements. In this situation it was curious that Egypt should have felt emboldened to come forward as the chief mediator. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak flew to Damascus and Ankara on a peace mission arranged at short notice and promised to keep up the mediatory efforts. Egypt's Foreign Minister Amr Moussa expressed confidence that although the issues were complicated, a solution could be found. However, the fact that Egypt is the leading Arab country and the fact that the Cairo-based Arab League has taken an anti-Turkey line render Egypt's position very delicate.

AP
Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa (right) receives Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa at Damascus airport on October 12.

U.S. Defence Secretary William Cohen, who visited the six Gulf countries at this juncture, gave perhaps the first indication that the U.S. supported Egypt's efforts at mediation. It was unclear whether this U.S. endorsement of Egypt's role was prompted by the fact that another regional actor had also got into the mediation act. Iran, which was slower to move than Egypt although it probably has better relations with both Syria and Turkey, sent Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazzi to Damascus and Ankara. Not much information was provided about the nature and outcome of the discussions that Kharazzi had in the two capitals, but the rhetoric from the Turkish side was not really toned down in the wake of these mediatory efforts.

At the end of its talks with Mubarak, the Turkish side put out, as a "last warning", what it wanted Syria to do if a violent conflict were to be averted: the PKK bases in Beqa'a should be closed down, Ocalan must be handed over to Turkish custody, incursions into Turkish territory by the PKK must be stopped and Syria must agree to establish good neighbourly relations.

Syria has of course officially denied that it was doing anything against Turkey's interests. There have been reports in the Turkish press, which have not been corroborated independently, that the PKK bases in the Beqa'a are being closed and that the Kurdish faction has begun to shift to bases in northern Iraq.

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