PROTESTS IN SYRIA
While the NATO intervention in Libya continues, protests in Arabian Peninsula spreads to Syria after Yemen and Bahrain; against President Bashar al-Assad who ruled the country more than three decades after his father Hafez al-Assad’s regime. The Assads originally came from an elite minority in Syria which established itself first in top government positions.
The country remains as one of the most authoritarian regimes in the region and no wonder Syrians were not too late to join the democracy movement in Middle East. The protests first started with the regime change in Egypt and forced President Assad to make several reforms to respond public’s demands. After three decades of emergency-law, Syrians call for more freedom, an independent judiciary system and a less corrupt government.
Even though, President Assad has taken several steps to make democratic reforms, it appears from the continuing protests that Syrians are not satisfied and they may keep calling for a government step-down.
WHY TURKEY SHOULD PAY EXTRA ATTENTION
After Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, it is possible to expect a similar outcome from Syria as well. However, this close neighbor of Turkey deserves a little more attention from Ankara. First, Syria is a relatively stable southern neighbor of Turkey next to an unruly Iraq. Taking the Kurdish issue of Turkey’s southeast region into account, another chaos in the area would certainly not benefit Turkey’s struggle for peace between different minorities in its southern border.
Second issue is the near-perfect relations Ankara has with the Assad regime since October 1998, when the two countries came to the brink of war when Turkey threatened military action if Syria continued to shelter PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in Damascus, his long-time safe haven. Relations have improved when Öcalan was expelled by Damascus and when Syria pledged to stop harboring the PKK rebels and the 1999 signing of the Adana agreement, following his subsequent capture in Kenya, envisaged security cooperation between the two countries. Today Turkey and Syria enjoys many trade and economic relations as well as a joint military strategic council.
If the Syrian protests persist despite the reforms, it will be important to watch closely how President Assad will handle the angry crowd. The word so far has not been so different from Libya, since many news agencies reported deaths caused by shootings at protesters. The violence by the government may result in another Western involvement in Syria, which can damage Turkey’s stability much more than any other Arabian state.
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