Turkey, the Syrian regime…and old scores

There are old disputes between Turkey and its different regimes that ruled in it on one side, and the current Syrian regime on the other. The Syrian regime has been in Damascus since 1970. What's different now is that this is the first time since he took over from his father that Bashar al-Assad described the situation in his country as it actually is, after the downing a Turkish plane by the Syrian army. The Syrian president said that Syria was in a state of a “real war”. Yes Syria is in a state of real war, but not with Turkey as he wants to portray. It is a war with the Syrian people that refuse humiliation and slavery on one side, and a 42-year-old regime on the other. That’s all. There is a war between a regime that refuses to admit its days are numbered, and people who say they have a right to restore their freedom and dignity. The regime has sought since the beginning of the popular revolution in Syria, which is the mother of Arab revolutions and the peak of the Arab Spring, to depict the struggle as an anti-Syrian conspiracy. Actually, there is a conspiracy against Syria and the one behind this conspiracy is the regime that has deprived Syrians from the right to live with dignity, and forced them to try and escape. They are the basic rights that anybody, in any country, is supposed to enjoy. The development of the Syrian-Turkish relationships in the last 40 years shows how the Syrian regime is unable to deal with this fact. In addition, of course, is the world of its own that the Syrian regime is living in, making it a unique case. The income of the Syrian citizen has been declining since Hafez al-Assad ruled in the year 1970, while Turkey is an economic success story, among the world's 20 leading economies. On the other hand, the income of the Syrian citizen is less than that of the Lebanese or Jordanians, although Lebanon is a poor country, while Jordan is among the world’s poorest countries due to the lack of any natural resources except one named "humans". Instead of benefiting from being a neighbour to Turkey, the Syrian regime is seeking to blackmail them by all available means as if Syria's regional role will be strengthened by doing so. Because of that, the Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan was very frank and clear in his last speech, in which he talked about the downing of the Turkish aircraft. Erdogan did not hide his disappointment about Syria's unchanging policy towards Turkey in the era of Assad Jr. It seemed that history is repeating itself and that the Syrian regime has learned nothing from its previous experiences with Turkey that has proved Ankara's nature. Certainly Erdogan has reopened the file of Syrian support to what is called the “Armenian Secret Army” that was working against Turkey from Syria, Lebanon and other countries. It is also certain that the Turkish premier has recalled the record of the Syrian-Turkish regime during the Cold War. For example, Syria signed a treaty of amity and cooperation in April 1985 after then Turkish-Bulgarian relations have witnessed tension due to the totalitarian regime of Bulgaria forcing its Turkish minority to change their names. It seemed as if there was no aim for Syrian foreign policy at this time except to weaken Turkey through all possible means. Suppose the Syrian campaign on Turkey was related to the Cold War, why did it continue after the Soviet Union collapsed? What is certain is that there was no policy by the Syrian regime on its neighbours, Arab or non-Arab, except blackmail and exporting terrorism that it calls “security”. Nothing has changed in Syria's dealings with Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan… or Barain. Turkey realised this in the late 1990s. What it realised the most is that it should send a direct threat to Damascus if it wanted to end the activities of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), headed by Abdullah Ocalan, who was living in the Lebanese Bekaa Valley and the Syrian capital. The threat was sufficient to imprison Ocalan in a Turkish jail. What's more, Syria has abandoned once and for all Liwa' aliskenderun. Turkey thought that the Syrian regime had changed and that it was ready to adopt a different approach based on opening-up, cooperation, dialogue, common economic interests, that is not based on using the relationship with Turkey to target Lebanon in a certain stage, then to suppress the Syrian people, especially after the eruption of the popular revolution 16 months ago. What the Turkish officials have found out in the end is that the Syrian regime is not capable of reform. This is the conclusion of Erdogan’s last speech. If this was possible, the Syrian president would have admitted that the war in Syria has nothing to do with the outside world and all that it should leave immediately, just because no regime can defeat its people. If that was in fact possible, the Bulgarian regime, led by Todor Zhivkov, with whom the late President Hafez al-Assad had signed a treaty of cooperation in the 1980s, would have still existed. Perhaps the only difference between Syria and others is that the delay of the regime in declaring its end will have implications on the Syrian entity in its current form… This is what Turkey is well aware of! -- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.