Israel Matzav

Turkey makes another move toward Damascus and Tehran

Following up on its refusal to participate in the Anatolian Eagle joint exercise with Israel, Turkey has now sent a delegation of ten ministers to Syria for 'strategic talks' within the framework of something called the Turkey-Syria High Level Strategic Cooperation Council. The Turkish ministers are scheduled to arrive in Syria on Tuesday.

The council was established last month in Turkey at a meeting between Turkish foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his Syrian counterpart, Walid Moallem. At that meeting, the two countries - which were on the verge of war over a border dispute in the 1990s - agreed to do away with visa requirements for visitors to and from both countries.

Among the Turkish ministers who will meet their Syrian counterparts on Tuesday are Davutoglu, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz and Interior Minister Besir Atalay.

Turkey forged a similar strategic cooperation agreement with Iraq in August, and - according to Israeli government officials - this is part of a new overall Syrian [I suspect that is supposed to say "Turkish" and not "Syrian." CiJ] strategic strategy to "rebrand" itself and forge much stronger ties with the Muslim and Arab world.

I suspect this means that Turkey has given up on ever being admitted to the European Union. I cannot believe that the Europeans would be dumb enough to maintain an open border policy with a country that allows the citizens of Syria - a state which is known to harbor terrorists - to enter and leave without visas. But if they do ever let the Turks into the EU, a lot of other countries need to think long and hard about reinstating a visa requirement for European visitors.

JPost's Herb Keinon goes on to report that Turkey sees itself as a bridge between Syria and the West and that they want to 'mediate' between Israel and Syria and between Israel and Hamas. Israel has no interest in anyone mediating between it and Hamas, and has abandoned Turkish mediation with Syria since Netanyahu took office.

Keinon also reports that Turkey issued a veiled threat against Israel over the Anatolian Eagle cancellation:

Meanwhile, the Turkish Foreign Ministry released a statement Monday that included a veiled threat to Israel not to make too much of the Anatolian Eagle incident.

According to the statement, which appeared in the Turkish press, "the Anatolian Eagle is one of the concerted drills of the Turkish Air Forces which has been held regularly since 2001 with international participation."

"The first two stages of this year's exercises were conducted successfully.
But the international part of the third stage, which was scheduled to be carried out on October 12 and 23, was cancelled in consultation with the other participating countries. But, the exercise is continuing as a national event. Therefore, it is not correct to impose political meanings to Turkey's decision to cancel the international part of the multi-national Anatolian Eagle air defense exercise."

According to the statement, various assessments and comments that have appeared in the Israeli media and attributed to Israeli authorities were unacceptable.

"We call on Israeli officials to act with common-sense in their statements and attitudes," the statement said.

Israel's foreign and defense ministries are both trying to downplay the crisis, but it's pretty clear that there is one.

And given that they're allowing Syrians in without visas, I'd be really leery about flying through Istanbul's Attaturk Airport (which I have actually done twice - will the airport be renamed?).

The picture at the top is Assad and Erdogan.

By the way, this is off topic but I don't know where else to put it. It was widely reported in the American media yesterday that eight years after 9/11, the US still has no clue when people overstay their visas. This is absurd, but the reason why should be obvious to anyone who has ever traveled. The US is the only country I have ever been in where you don't go through passport control when you leave the country. In every other country you go through passport control when you leave as well as when you arrive. If the US added that checkpoint, they would have a list of who has left and when and then could keep computers running to find those who have not left.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:36 AM