BY ERDAL SAFAK
SABAH)- There’s no doubt that the most thorny issue in this week’s talks between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and US President George Bush, and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul with his counterpart Condoleezza Rice, will be relations with Syria.
Vis-a-vis the US administration, which wants Turkey to exert pressure on Syria, Ankara is following an exactly opposite stance. Moreover, Turkey’s frequent visits to Damascus of late have weakened the isolation policies of the US, France and the United Nations.
One of Turkey’s friends in the US Congress, Robert Wexler, openly told Erdogan last week that the White House feels uneasy over this situation. ‘Turkey continues its relations with Syria despite the international front that aims to exert pressure on Syria,’ he said. ‘However we want Turkey to have its place on this common front.’
Syria is cornered. I can even say that in the psychological state it’s in, it could blow itself up together with everybody around it. It’s like a suicide bomber.
A handful of Syrian Baath Party, army, and secret service administrators are risking everything to preserve their positions.
Last week’s assassination of Lebanese journalist Samir Kassir, just like Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in broad daylight and in the center of Beirut, shows how seething Syria is. This murder is an indication that Syria has withdrawn from Lebanon only on the surface, but that that its secret service El Muhaberat is continuing its activities.
On the same day that Kassir was murdered, Nakshibendi Sheik Masuk El Haznevi was found dead.
On the days that coincided with these murders, the missile test conducted by Syria must be seen as part of Damascus’ challenge.
As you probably know, on May 27, Syria launched three missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Parts from one of these missiles landed in the Turkish villages of Hatay’s Mahmutlar and Golbasi.
The missile broke up into pieces in the Turkish skies, and this was done deliberately.
The fools in Damascus were tying to say before Erdogan’s US visit: ‘If you join the front against us, Syria will break with you too.’
But what was strange was that Turkey accepted the apology of Damascus, which said that this happened ‘accidentally,’ and closed the subject.
But for example, if Greece had conducted a similar test and its missiles fell on Edirne or Izmir, would we have remained so silent? The US is not so mistaken in its suspicions over Ankara’s relations with Syria.