Arab unrest: perspectives - XXVIII

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan makes a phone call to Syrian president Bashar-al Asad. But he is informed by the latter's officials that the President cannot take his call now "because he's on the phone with [Iranian President] Mahmoud Ahmedinejad". Bashar did not return Erdogan's phone call.
Miffed by Erdogan's growing interaction with US President Obama in the midst of escalating violence in Syria, eye doctor-turned-politician has sent a very clear signal to the Turkish prime minister that he no longer needs Ankara's "counsel" on how to overcome the crisis Damascus is facing at this point in time. A peep into the Turkish press, however, suggests that Turkey, perhaps, still believes Asad's regime should be given more time to make reforms, giving a clear message to the United States that any untimely intervention would be unwelcome.
"We want a smooth transformation and an orderly transition," Hürriyet Daily News quoted a senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official as saying on Tuesday, after a meeting between the Turkish prime minister and US Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone. According to the newspaper, the meeting came a day after a senior American military official held talks in Ankara and in Izmir with top Turkish generals.
Terming Bashar's decision not to speak to Erdogan anymore a serious blow to Syria-Turkey relations, Amrullah Ouslo, a professor of international relations at Yeditepe University in Istanbul, tells Dareen Abughaida at Al Jazeera's Inside Story programme that Erdogan has taken Bashar's act "as a step that Syria is getting closer to Iran".
Turkey is now deciding to put more pressure on Bashar to take further reforms. Turkey is in between reforms and revolution in Syria as the Turkish foreign minister has said that Syria needs "shocking reform", which falls between the two-reforms and revolution. But the Syrian government has decided not to come to this point, which is an extremely troublesome development for Turkey. For Syria, Turkey was a model-a model of diplomatic engagement.
"For the last six years, Turkey has been telling the West that you do not need to engage with [Syria] militarily, you have to engage diplomatically...look at Syria, it is coming closer to the West ....Now it's a big test of Turkish foreign policy," he argues. However, Ilnur Cevic, the editor-in-chief of The New Anatolian newspaper in Ankara, another guest on the show, does not attach high importance to this development in Turkish-Syrian relations. According to him, Iran could be a factor, but it can be replaced by a number of other factors. "Turkey is irreplaceable for Syria because Turkey is the next-door neighbour. If there is a serious refugee problem, and there might be if the struggle continues, people [in very large numbers] will be coming over to Turkey."
Does Erdogan have much sway and leverage at this point in time? Obeida Nahas, the director of The Levant Institute in London answers this question by saying that Erdogan is feeling a little bit let down by Bashar at the moment. Bashar was required to speed up the process of reform after people took to the streets. According to him, Turkey and Syria have been enjoying a strategic alliance for the last few years and that Turkey wasn't seeing Syria as an economic partner only, it was, in fact, looking at Syria as a gate to the Arab world.
"If you think about it this way, Syria becomes very very important to Turkey. Turkey is looking for a strategic ally...to have relations for decades to come. That is not going to be definitely related only to the regime. I think Turkey wants to see a much stable Syria but with a more democratic government," he argues.
"As Syrians were seen clearly protesting for freedom and democracy then Turkey cannot ignore that. I mean in the past, they [Turkey] did try to help the Syrian regime to regain some trust in the West-in the EU and in the US-but that was when people were silent. But once Syrians go out and speak out, Turkey can't ignore that," according to him.
He also argues that one must not forget the fact that in addition to political and economic relations, the two countries share deep social ties. "Turkey is now feeling the heat." Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group tells the host of another TV programme, Charlie Rose, that "there's been this projection that the Arab Spring is a bunch of dominos that are going to continue to fall the same way in the Middle East as when you had the Orange and Rose Revolutions in the former Soviet Union...that hasn't happened."
Communists became democrats? "Precisely. And I think you are going to see that most of the dictators in the region in the Middle East are going to stay as dictators..." According to him, the Turks are actually showing some inconsistencies in policies. On one hand, he argues, "they really want to be this model of the secular democratic state that has an Islamic people across the region; on the other hand they want to build their economic ties with all these countries."
He points out that the Turks have been incredibly successful at building their soft influence and economic influence across the region. "So you go across the Middle East, Turkish soap operas are the most popular. The visa regime....The most exciting investment story in all of the Middle East is right now Iraq. Turkish companies are better positioned for white goods, for construction, for energy than anyone else in the region. Those are fantastic things going in Turkey's favour. But there's no question that to do business in this part of the world you are continuing the support of a bunch of regimes that aren't particularly democratic. I suspect most of those regimes are still going to be there in the next couple of years. But the Turks aren't going to look quite so attractive... ."