Turkish-Israeli-Syrian relations and their impact on the Middle East

Middle East Journal

Volumn 52, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 187-202

  Gresh, Alain ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0003353794     PISSN: 00263141     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (70)

1. Interview with Moshe Arens in Tel Aviv in October 1997.
2. Ibid.
3. See Netanyahu's speech at the award ceremony at the National Defense College, 14 August 1997. Available on the Israeli foreign ministry website (www.israel-mfa.gov.il/).
4. Interview with Moshe Arens in Tel Aviv in October 1997.
5. See, for example, Michael Eisenstadt, "Turkish-Israeli Military Cooperation: an Assessment," The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, "Policywatch," no. 262, Washington, June 1997.
6. Turkish Daily News (Ankara), 11 May 1997.
7. Statement made to the author in October 1997 by a diplomat who cannot be identified.
8. Statement made to the author by a Turkish intellectual in Ankara in October 1997.
9. Interview with an Israeli diplomat in Tel Aviv in October 1997.
10. Interview with a Turkish journalist in Istanbul in October 1997.
11. Off-the-record statements by American and French diplomats in Ankara and Damascus.
12. Turkish Daily News, 11 December 1997; Financial Times (London), 2 January 1998.
13. Turkish Daily News, 11 December 1997; Financial Times (London), 2 January 1998.
14. Turkish Daily News, 24 December 1997.
15. Despite Turkey's claim of support for the PLO, its policy has not always been clear on this issue. In 1982, after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, when Turkish-Israeli relations were at their nadir, Israeli troops captured 29 members of Turkish leftist groups that had supported the PLO in southern Lebanon. Israel offered to send them back to Turkey, but Ankara declined the offer but accepted receipt of the dossiers on these 29 "terrorists." The 29 were finally expelled to Algeria.
16. Alan Makovsky, "Israeli-Turkish Relations: A Turkish 'Periphery Strategy'?" in Henri J. Barkey. ed., Reluctant Neighbor: Turkey's Role in the Middle East (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1996).
17. Interview with Amikam Nachman in Jerusalem in October 1997.
18. On 26 April 1997, the Turkish newspaper Yeni Yzyil published an interview with Israeli defense minister Yitzhak Mordechai. "There is no agreement between us [Turkey and Israel] to use or defend our territories in the event of attack. But if countries like Iran, Iraq or Syria want to resort to violence against Turkey, they should know that they will be facing a united force," stated Mordechai. The authenticity of the statement is not in question, even though it was denied by Mordechai the following day.
19. Interview with Uri Or in Tel Aviv in October 1997.
20. Interview with Mesut Yilmaz in Ankara in October 1997.
21. The province was ceded by France, the then Mandatory power in the Levant, to Turkey in 1939, in the hope of distancing Ankara from Germany.
22. His trial in absentia opened in Ankara in October 1997 before the State Security Court.
23. Interview with Faruq al-Shar' in Damascus in October 1997.
24. A written text of the interview in Ankara in October 1997 was supplied to this author by Sezgin.
25. In the 1970s Israel had even assisted the Kurdish national movement in Iraq.
26. Interview of Netanyahu on Turkish television printed in Ha'aretz (Tel Aviv), 27 May 1997.
27. Mideast Mirror (London), 4 June 1997.
28. On 10 August 1920, with the Treaty of Sèvres, the World War I victors dismembered the Ottoman empire and several areas of Anatolia escaped from control by Istanbul. The treaty provided in particular for the creation of an autonomous Kurdish region. It was against this "iniquitous treaty" that Atatürk, successfully, declared his revolt.
29. Interview with Mesut Yilmaz in Ankara in October 1997.
30. Ibid.
31. Interview with a Turkish diplomat at the foreign ministry in Ankara in October 1997.
32. For the text of the accord, see J.C. Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East: A Documentary Record, 1535-1956 (Gerrard Cross, England: Archive Editions, 1987).
33. The Turkmen are Turkic speakers who number about 500,000 and who inhabit northern Iraq between Jabal Sinjar and the Tigris river.
34. See Phebe Marr, "Turkey and Iraq," in Barkey, ed., Reluctant Neighbor: Turkey's Role in the Middle East.
35. Interview with KDP and PUK officials in Damascus in October 1997.
36. See Murhaf Jouejati, "Water Politics as High Politics: The Case of Turkey and Syria," in Barkey, ed., Reluctant Neighbor: Turkey's Role in the Middle East.
37. United Nations General Assembly, UN document GA/9248, 21 May 1997.
38. Interview with Faruq al-Shar' in Damascus in October 1997.
39. Interview with a Western diplomat in Damascus in October 1997.
40. This decision was made public in a letter from President Clinton to the Congress in November 1997. See US Information Agency, Washington Files, 10 November 1997.
41. Interview with David Bar-Ilan in Jerusalem in October 1997.
42. Interview with Faruq al-Shar' in Damascus in October 1997.
43. This formula caused controversy in Israel, since the cease-fire lines of 4 June 1967 do not correspond to the international borders designated after World War I. Several zones belonging to mandatory Palestine were demilitarized after the 1948-49 war.
44. See "IDF Planning Branch, Analysis of the Israeli-Syrian Document," Ha'aretz, 30 June 1995.
45. For the negotiation procedure and the Syrian point of view, see the interview with Syrian ambassador Walid al-Mu'allim in the Journal of Palestine Studies 26, no. 2 (Winter 1997).
46. Interview with Uri Savir in Tel Aviv in October 1997.
47. Ibid.
48. Written responses to author's questions submitted to Al-Mu'allim.
49. Estimates on water consumption vary widely. The figure of one-third of Israel's consumption is according to Uri Or and was supplied during an interview with the author. Other estimates place the figure at 22 percent of Israel's consumption. See Le Monde (Paris), 29 January 1992.
50. Interview with a senior Turkish diplomat at the foreign ministry in Ankara in October 1997.
51. Some Israeli officials believe that Damascus gave the green light to the Hamas attacks after Israel announced the suspension of the talks. Obviously, this is denied in Damascus.
52. Interview with a Syrian official in Damascus in October 1997.
53. Interview with Itamar Rabinovitch in Tel Aviv in October 1997.
54. Interview with a Syrian diplomat in Damascus in October 1997.
55. Interview with Muhammad al-Wadi in Damascus in October 1997.
56. Ibid.
57. Interview with Faruq al-Shar' in Damascus in October 1997.
58. Ha'aretz, English edition, supplement of The International Herald Tribune, Tel Aviv, 24 October 1997.
59. Interview with Faruq al-Shar' in Damascus in October 1997.
60. We now know that those were rumors based on disinformation by Yehuda Gil, a retired Mossad official, who was exaggerating the threat of Syria to undermine the Israeli-Syrian negotiations. See Charles Enderlin, "Mossad. La saga tourne à la farce" (Mossad. The saga turns into a farce), in Marianne (Paris), 15-21 December 1997.
61. Mideast Mirror, 2 May 1997.
62. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and during the 1982-85 period, resistance to the occupation was led principally by the left, and in particular by the communists.
63. Written responses to author's questions submitted to Al-Mu'allim.
64. Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 20 October 1997.
65. It is also more assured on the economic front. At the end of August 1997, Syria paid its debts to the World Bank, amounting to nearly $270 million. Its financial position should allow it to acquire new credits on the international market. The country is also self-sufficient on the agricultural front and has even begun to export wheat. The economic reforms have payed off and Syria has begun to negotiate an association with the European Union. For Asad, it remains imperative not to become dependent on the outside world, in order to retain a free-hand in political decision making. As Al-Shallah says, "the economy is not our main problem. We face other questions of life and death." Interview with Ratib al-Shallah at the Chamber of Commerce in Damascus in October 1997.
66. Tehran has been accused of having a secret nuclear and chemical arms program, though opinions differ on the truth of this. On the other hand, Iran is acquiring medium range missiles. It is developing and testing the Shihab 3, with a range of 1,300 kilometers, and is starting to develop the Shihab 4, with a range of 2,000 kilometers.
67. The previous trip was in September 1990, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
68. The Egyptian press agency MENA, quoted by SWB, BBC, 7 July 1997.
69. Interview with a Western diplomat in Damascus in October 1997.
70. Interview with Ratib al-Shallah at the Chamber of Commerce in Damascus in October 1997.