Turkish leader backs force against Syria
By Amberin Zaman in Hatay and Alan Philps in Jerusalem
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THE president of Turkey, Suleyman Demirel, yesterday backed his threat of force against Syria by warning "the entire world" of the consequences if Damascus did not end its support for rebels of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
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He said: "Syria's hostile attitude is neither commensurate with Islam, nor good neighbourliness. Turkey has suffered enough." Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, was expected in Ankara today with a message from President Assad of Syria, on the second leg of a mediation mission aimed at heading off a military confrontation.
But Turkey declared that unless Syria was prepared to hand over the PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who lives in Damascus, and to shut down all PKK camps in its territory and the Bekaa Valley in the Lebanon, Mr Mubarak's efforts would fail. Ismail Cem, the Turkish foreign minister, again accused Damascus of blocking a diplomatic solution, and said Turkey would be justified in "any measures we choose to take".
The latest round of sabre-rattling came amid continued reports of a military build-up along Turkey's 386-mile border with Syria. Nationalist fervour is especially high in Hatay, a predominantly-Arab province, which is separated from Syria by barbed wire fencing and millions of land-mines. The potential for war between the two countries lies in their failure to agree on the status of the Euphrates river.
Syria has long complained that a Turkish scheme to build a string of dams across the Upper Euphrates as part of the £23 billion South-East Anatolia Project, is depriving it of water on which its agriculture so heavily depends. Damascus has been pressing Turkey to sign an agreement to share the water, but Ankara says that it releases more than enough water downstream and has nothing to discuss until Syria ends its support for the PKK.
The threats of war on the border between Turkey and Syria bear out the predictions of strategists that the next conflict in the Middle East may be over water, not oil. With fast-growing populations to feed, Syria and other Middle Eastern states are looking anxiously at where they will find the water for agriculture and industry. A regional expert said "The Middle East has basically run out of water. Only in the Tigris and Euphrates is there some surplus, and Turkey controls this vital resource." Disputes over water have long divided Israel and its Arab neighbours. |
