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Syria Syrian-Turkish Tensions
Relations between Syria and Turkey, which share a long
border, have ranged from normal diplomatic ties to political and
military tension. Conflicts have arisen over border problems, the
apportionment of river water flow, smuggling, and charges of
internal subversion. Some of these conflicts have historical
roots, particularly in Syrian resentment at the arbitrary
transfer in 1938 of the province of Alexandretta (or Hatay, as it
was named by the Turks) to Turkey by the French Mandate
authorities
(see
Concepts of Nationalism, Unity, and the Arab Nation
, ch. 4).
Turkey has charged Syria with supporting Armenian, Kurdish,
and Arab terrorist groups operating against Turkey. Turkey
believes Syria offers training facilities and arms to Armenian
terrorists belonging to the Armenian Secret Army for the
Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and assists them in infiltrating
across their common border and into Western Europe for attacks
against Turkey and Turkish targets, particularly diplomats.
Turkey has also charged that Syria was behind the activities of
anti-Turkish Kurdish separatist groups. Syria, in turn, has
asserted that Turkey gave refuge to members of the Syrian Muslim
Brotherhood and other opposition elements at the height of
agitation in Syria in the early 1980s.
Delineating the 1,347-kilometer-long border between the two
countries has been another sensitive issue. Border problems have
included smuggling illegal narcotics and arms by individuals and
militant groups on both sides and (because of the arbitrary
border demarcation) illegal crossings by related peoples, leading
to clashes between border guards and at times, military
maneuvers. Border crossing has remained a problem in the absence
of a Turkish-Syrian agreement on border security and the "right
of hot pursuit," which in Turkey's view would prevent acts
against it by separatist groups tied to the Syrian government. In
the mid-1980s, Syria was implicated in two terrorist attacks in
Turkey. In the July 1985 murder of Jordanian diplomat Ziad Sati
in Ankara, an arrest warrant was issued for a Syrian diplomat.
However, the Syrian was allowed to leave Turkey shortly before
the trial because Turkey did not want the incident to affect its
relations with Syria. The chief defendant in the trial, who was
employed as a translator in the Jordanian embassy, carried a
Syrian passport. During the trial, he confessed to having worked
for Syrian intelligence, stating that his control officer was a
Syrian diplomat in Turkey who had given the order to assassinate
Sati. The same Syrian diplomat was also suspected of complicity
in the terrorist attack on the Neve Shalom Synagogue in Istanbul
in September 1986, in which twenty-two people were killed.
Data as of April 1987
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