ANKARA, Dec 20 (AFP) - Having set a foot firmly in Europe's door last week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan turns his attentions to the Middle East and heads for Syria Wednesday to consolidate the newly found friendship between the once-feuding neighbors who came to the brink of war in 1998.
Erdogan's two-day trip follows a historic European Union summit last week that invited Turkey to negotiate its eventual entry into the EU, making it the first Muslim-majority nation to get as close to the European bloc.
Although many skeptics still say Turkey's culture and religion make it an unlikely EU member, partisans say secular Turkey will bridge the cultural and geopolitical gap between Europe and the Middle East.
Insistent media reports say a trip to Iran is also on the agenda, as well as a possible visit to Israel, with Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul going in advance to prepare the ground, although no dates have been mentioned yet.
Starting with Syria will add polish to a fence-mending exercise that has been under way since the two countries almost went to war only six years ago.
Ankara then threatened military action unless Damascus stopped supporting the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), then engaged in a war against Ankara that claimed 37,000 lives in southeast Turkey between 1984 and 1999.
Syria complied and expelled PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, to whom it had granted safe haven.
As a result, Turkish intelligence operatives arrested Ocalan in Kenya, where he had fled, and brought him back for trial to Turkey, where he is serving a life sentence for treason.
During his trip, Erdogan will meet his Syrian counterpart Mohammad Naji Otri in Damascus and also visit Aleppo, in the north of the country, Turkish officials said.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, war-torn Iraq -- which borders both countries -- and the Kurdish question will figure high on the agenda of the talks, the officials said.
Turkey and Syria, both home to sizeable Kurdish communities, fear a possible upsurge in nationalist and separatist sentiment in their respective countries if the Iraqi Kurds, allies of the United States, are granted autonomy under a planned federal system in Iraq.
Turkey is a NATO-member ally of the United States, as well as of Israel, but has been making more and more overtures to Syria since the start of the Iraq war despite disapproval from Washington, who would prefer a more limited relationship between Ankara and Damascus.
The two countries have since signed a series of economic and security agreements, including one to jointly combat crime and terrorism.
The latter bore fruit last year, when Syria detained and extradited to Turkey 20 people wanted in connection with suicide-bombings that targeted synagogues and British interests in Istanbul.
The high point in the improved relationship was the January visit here of Bashar al-Assad, the first to Turkey by a Syrian head of state.
The two countries then signed two economic agreements, covering investment promotion and taxation, in preparation for a free-trade agreement that Erdogan is expected to conclude this week.
"This agreement should immensely improve economic ties between the two countries," whose trade volume stood at one billion dollars (750 million euros) in 2003, said Turgut Boyran, co-chair of the Turkey-Syria Business Council.
Despite the improved ties between the two countries, which share an 800-kilometer (500-mile) border, two sticking points remain: the waters of the Euphrates, which has its source in Turkey, and the status of Turkey's southern Hatay province, formerly Alexandretta, which Syria still claims.

12/20/2004 08:14 GMT - AFP