Turkey and peace on the Syrian track
Turkey-Regional, Politics, 12/20/1999

The Turkish Daily News said on Saturday that the Turkish leadership has been discussing the effect of the possible peace agreement between Damascus and Tel Aviv against Turkey.

The paper said that Turkey, which has established a strong partnership with Israel and who has been in disputes with Syria over the last 15 years, is closely watching the talks between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa.

The paper continued that the Turkish concern is concentrating on five areas: the question of waters, redeployment of the Syrian forces, the Syrian position regarding anti-Turkish organizations in Syria, the US-Syrian relations, and the effects of a Syrian-Israeli peace on Turkish-Israeli relations.

The paper said that water has been a question of dispute between Turkey and Syria since the middle of the 1980s and was one of the discussion points between Israel and Syria when they met in Washington four years ago and did not reach a result.

The paper added that the Israelis had earlier stressed that they had debated the question of the Turkish waters with the Syrians, saying that the Israelis are trying to find a way to get water from the Golan Heights, which it occupied in the war of 1967, and to provide Syria with what it needs of water.

The paper indicated that Turkey refuses to make the question of water into an international case and stressed that the distribution of waters is an internal matter and should be dealt with through bilateral negotiations between Turkey and Syria and that Ankara strongly denies the interference of a third party in this dispute.

The paper quoted Zavi al-Baleigh, the former Israeli ambassador to Turkey, as saying in a statement to it that the question of waters will be on the agenda of the Israeli-Syrian talks when they resume in January 2000, but he explained that Israel will not permit the question to be a point of tension between Israel and Turkey.

Al-Baleigh indicated that Israel may ask Turkey to give more water to Syria when a peace agreement is reached, adding that, "Israel may ask Turkey to give more waters to Syria. But we have to keep in mind that Israel is a friend and not a foe for Turkey."

Previous Stories:
  US asks Turkey to settle water issue with Syria   (11/3/1999)
  Barak in Turkey today   (10/25/1999)
  Turkish FM discuss economic and military cooperation with Kuwait   (8/26/1999)

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