Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RNISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASlN ÖZETi
2 Turkish Probe February 10, 1994
Turkey, Iran, Syria Talks:
A Waste Of Tim.e?
The
spice that the public had been led to expect
from the meeting of the foreign ministers
of Turkey, Iran and Syria in Istanbullast
Saturday, especially given Ankara's perennial problems
with these countries, was clearly lacking.
Expectations had been raised in the first instance
by the tension that existed between Turkey
and Iran just prior to the talks, because of Turkey's
Feb. 1 air raid against the PKK's (outlawed Kurdistan
Workers' Pcfrty) Zaleh camp in northern Iraq.
As a result of the raid 10 people died and many
were wounded on the Iranian side of the border
leading Tehran to demand a formal apology and
compensation.
Turkey eventually gave both and the crisis was
settled after a surprising and quite unique display of
understanding by Iran which did its best not to escalate
tensions unnecessarily. The matter was a nonissue
by the time Foreign Minister Hikmet Çetin met
with his Syrian and Iranian counterparts on Saturday.
This was reflected in the fact that Iran's Foreign
. Minister Ali Akbar Velayeti made no reference to the
matter and was not asked any questions on the
subject (or any other subject for that matter) at the
press conference at the end of the talks. As far as
spice on the Syrian side is concerned, this was generally
provided by the PKK-water equation which
represents the root of all suspicions between the
two countries. This is the scenario under which Damascus
feels Turkey is going to decrease the flow
of the Euphrates by its massive dam projects and
Ankara believes Syria is harbouring PKK guerillas in
retaliation.
As far as these issues were concerned, Çetin repeated
to Syria's Foreign Minister Farouk al Shara
that there was "apprehension in the Turkish public
regarding support by Syria for the PKK."
He suggested that this apprehension had to be
dispelled for the sake of healthy relations between
the two countries; relations which would also accommodate
discussion about the water issue.
Shara, for his part, forcefully denied that th~y
were helping the PKK and added that they had
placed the activities of this organization firmly u8d!3'r
control and were cooperating with Lebanon on this
score.
He even offered increased contacts to investigate
security matters that were of concern.to Turkey.
Shara repeated his country's desire concerning
the sharing of what he referred to as "international
waters" even though they originated in Turkey.
The Turkish side stuck to its guns concerning the
argument about the "allocation" of waters by Turkey
rather than the "sharing" of the waters originating on
its soil.
All this went to show that the "bilateral side" of the
.Istanbul gathering had produced nothing new or unexpected,
in fact it was mostly old hat.
The "tripartite" aspect of the talks was even more
staid and produced almost a carbon copy of what
had been expected before the meeting.
This meeting was the fifth in a series which started
in Ankara in November 1992 in order for the
three countries to express their commitment to the
territorial inte0rity of Iraq and to signal their opposition
to the establishment of an independent Kurdish
entity in the region.
Çetin told the Turkish Probe that the importance
of the meeting lay in the fact that it had been held at
all. It had been originally scheduled for November
but was postponed because of differences between
Turkey and Syria over the PKK-water issue.
Syria's efforts to establish a link between terrorism .
and water had been unacceptable to Ankara which
was concerned Damascus might try to turn the trilateral
consultative process on northern Iraq into a forum
for debate on these subjects. These differences
of opinion had even put Iran's Foreign Minister Velayeti
in the position of hinting at mediation between
Ankara and Damascus.
Given this strange situation, it was hardly surprising
that the trilateral talks should have concentrated
on a "straight and narrow" agenda and ended with a
joint statement that merely restated what had been
said after all of the previous meetings. The three
sides expressed the continuing importance of Iraq's
territorial integrity and said the Iraqis had to find
their own solutions to normalize the situation in the
country. They indicated that Iraq had to comply with
U.N. resolutions and added that once this was done
the embargo on Iraq should be lifted.
The one "bonus," a small one at that, for Turkey
was that the statement also said that the sides condemned
terrorist activities aimed at each others'
c0!:lntrfes and reiterated these countries' commitment
to taking the necessary action against this activity.
The fact that there .wasnothing new at this gathering
does not lessen the importance of keeping open
channels for dialogue between the three countries.
Just because there was no excitement this time
does not mean that this channel will not be very
useful on other occasions.•
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