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Turkey Launches Military Drills Along Syria Border

Suriye sınırında yapılan NATO tatbikatı soru işaretleri doğurdu

Exercise at NATO Base to Test ‘Readiness for Battle’

by Jason Ditz

With tensions soaring in the wake of the weekend Israeli attacks on Syria, the Turkish military has launched a round of military drills at a NATO air base along the Syrian border.

The 10-day drills will involve military and government ministry coordination in mobilization for a war with Syria. NATO says the mission was planned ahead of time, but was never reported until it began.

The drill adds to speculation about the possibility of a NATO attack on Syria, though officials downplayed that possibility. The Assad government has not commented on the exercise.

Indeed, military drills in NATO nations are so common that it is entirely possible that they did just plan a small drill they didn’t figure was worth mentioning and it became a bigger deal because of the tensions with Syria.

via Turkey Launches Military Drills Along Syria Border — News from Antiwar.com.

May 8, 2013
Turkey Fears Russia Too Much to Intervene in Syria

Turkey Fears Russia Too Much to Intervene in Syria

Ankara won’t step into the conflict because it’s terrified Moscow will retaliate — again.

SONER CAGAPTAYMAY 6 2013, 10:16 AM ET

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu (R) reach out to shake hands following a joint news conference at Ciragan Palace in Istanbul on April 17, 2013. (Murad Sezer/Reuters)

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov visited Ankara on April 17th, but the event went almost unnoticed. Despite deep differences between Ankara and Moscow over Syria, Turkey has refrained from rebuking Moscow. That’s because Turkey fears no country more than it fears Russia.

Ankara has nearly a dozen neighbors if you include its maritime neighbors across the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Emboldened by its phenomenal economic growth in the past decade and rising political power, Turkey appears willing to square-off against any of them; Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has publicly chided the leaders of Syria, Iran, and Iraq. In fact, none of the country’s neighbors can feel safe from Ankara’s wrath — with the exception of Russia, that is.

“The Russians can make life miserable for us, they are good at this.”

The Turks suffer from a deep-rooted, historic reluctance to confront the Russians. The humming Turkish economy is woefully dependent on Russian energy exports: More than half of Turkey’s natural gas consumption comes from Russia. Consequently, Turkey is unlikely to confront Moscow even when Russia undermines Turkey’s interests, such as in Syria where Russia is supporting the Assad regime, even as Ankara tries to depose it.

Historically, the Turks have always feared the Russians. Between 1568, when the Ottomans and Russians first clashed, to the end of the Russian Empire in 1917, the Turks and Russians fought 17 wars. In each encounter, Russia was the instigator and the victor. In these defeats, the Ottomans lost vast, and often solidly Turkish and Muslim, territories spanning from the Crimea to Circassia to the Russians. The Russians killed many inhabitants of these Ottoman lands and expelled the rest to Turkey. So many Turks descend from refugees from Russia that the adage in Turkey is: “If you scratch a Turk, you find a Circassian persecuted by Russians underneath.”

Having suffered at the hands of the Russians for centuries, the Turks now have a deeply engrained fear of the Russians. This explains why Turkey dived for the safety of NATO and the United States when Stalin demanded territory from Turkey and a base on the Bosporus in 1945. Fear of the Russians made Turkey one of the most committed Cold-War allies to the United States.

Recently, Turkish-Russian ties have improved measurably. Russia is Turkey’s number-one trading partner, and nearly four million Russians vacation in Turkey annually. At the same time, Turkey’s construction, retail, and manufacturing businesses are thriving in Russia. Turkish Airlines, the country’s flag carrier, offers daily flights from Istanbul to eight Russian cities.

Still, none of this has erased the Turks’ subconscious Russophobia. In 2012, I asked a policymaker in Ankara whether Turkey would take unilateral military action to depose the Assad regime in Damascus. “Not against the wishes of Moscow” my interlocutor said. Adding: “The Russians can make life miserable for us, they are good at this.”

At least some of the Turkish fear of Russia appears grounded in reality. Turkey is dependent on Russia more than any other country for its energy needs. Despite being a large economy, Turkey has neither significant natural gas and oil deposits, nor nuclear power stations of its own. Ankara is therefore bound to Moscow, which has often used natural gas supplies as a means to punish countries, such as Ukraine, that cross its foreign policy goals.

There is also a security component: Russia helped set up the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group that led a terror campaign against Turkey for decades, causing over 30,000 casualties. The PKK emerged under Russian tutelage in Lebanon’s then-Syrian occupied Bekaa Valley during the 1980s, and it has enjoyed intermittent Russian support even after the collapse of Communism.

Turkey recently entered peace talks with the PKK, and many in the group are likely to heed the advice of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and lay down their weapons. Yet, a pervasive fear in Ankara is that some rogue elements and hardliners could emerge from the PKK, denouncing the talks and continuing to fight Turkey.

Meanwhile, Ankara has been confronting the Assad regime in Damascus since late 2011 by supporting the Syrian opposition. This had led to a spike in PKK attacks against Turkey, most coming from Iran, which apparently has allowed the PKK freedom of movement in its territory to punish Ankara for its stance against Assad.

The fear in Ankara is that Russia might just do the same if Turkey were to invade Syria, propping up rogue PKK elements inside that country to lead an insurgency against Turkish troops. Together with other concerns, such as the risk of the conflict in Syria spilling over into Turkey, the Turkish fear of Russia has led Ankara to avoid direct intervention in Syria.

Such fears have also led Turkey to pivot further toward the United States, once again seeking protection under the NATO umbrella against the looming Russian giant. Taking into consideration Turkey’s fear of Russia, any Turkish military action against the Assad regime will have to be predicated on full NATO support and involvement.

For the Turks, history repeats itself every day when it comes to Moscow: don’t stand in Russia’s way lest it torment you, again.

via Turkey Fears Russia Too Much to Intervene in Syria – Soner Cagaptay – The Atlantic.

May 7, 2013
If Turkey Does Not Change Its Syria Policy …

US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) meets with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at Ankara Palace in Ankara, March 1, 2013. (photo by REUTERS/Jacquelyn Martin)

By: Kadri Gursel for Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse Posted on May 6.

Let’s begin by reading some paragraphs from a speech that captures Turkey’s new profile in the Middle East, complete with its policy, ideology and, of course, rhetoric. International readers who follow Turkey closely will guess who the speaker was. These quotes are long, but not boring:

About This Article

Summary :

If Turkey doesn’t change its partisan, sectarian approach to Syria, it will provoke further sectarian tensions among armed groups in Turkey and the region, writes Kadri Gursel.

Original Title:

If Turkey Does Not Change Its Syria Policy…

Author: Kadri Gursel

Translated by: Timur Goksel

Categories : Originals Syria Turkey

“Today they are saying prayers for us. They are praying for us in Gaza, Beirut and Mecca. This is the massive responsibility we are shouldering. You are not only responsible for Edirne, Hakkari and Van. You are bearing the responsibility for Nicosia, Sarajevo, Baghdad, Gaza, Jerusalem, Erbil and Damascus. There is the responsibility for 250 innocent Syrians who were viciously massacred yesterday [May 4] by having their throats slit at Banias. I am appealing to my organization. Every life lost in Syria is one of ours. … We don’t care who says what. What we care about is the conviction that ‘Believers are brothers.’ …

“We are not like other states. We are not a state that will keep quiet to protect its interests. We want to be able to account for ourselves when the book is placed in front of us. When screams of slaughtered children are resonating, we can’t be mute devils. You, Bashar Assad, you will pay for this. You will pay heavily, very heavily for showing courage you can’t show to others to babies with pacifiers in their mouths. A blessed revenge will smother you. With God’s permission we will see this criminal asked to account and bless his almighty. What is going on has long reached the point of forcing the limits of tolerance. The international community has not yet taken the steps expected from it about Syria. … To the Syrians who ask when is God’s help coming, I say there is no doubt God’s help is near.”

I took these lines from a May 6 news report in the daily Milliyet. When you read it, you’ll see that the speech was on May 5, and that from the references to cities, the speaker was from Turkey.

In its content and style, this text is a perfect specimen of the Islamist, pro-Ottoman political culture that has spread and gained strength in Turkey over recent years. Those who apply the norms of traditional diplomacy and statesmanship that prevail in international institutions to this text might surmise that that the speech was given by a fiery Islamist orator. But these remarks belong to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the Turkish Republic — generally assumed to be a secular state.

He was addressing members of the parliament and officials of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The venue was the town of Kizilcahamam, near Ankara. The meeting’s purpose was a discussion of party policies.

The prime minister often gives these kinds of talks. Whenever he does, Turkey’s political culture becomes more closely attuned to the Middle East.

The debate in Turkey drags on: What is the reality of Ankara’s Syria policy? What have we reached with this policy, what results did we obtain and how would it affect Turkey if we persist without making changes?

To answer these questions, a reality check is needed that goes beyond Turkey’s feverish, epic-heavy rhetoric. Objective and cool-headed observations from outside become important at times like this.

An April 30 report by the International Crisis Group, “Blurring the Borders: Syrian Spillover Risks for Turkey,” represents a significant contribution that objectively narrates the results of Turkey’s response to the Syrian crisis — and the risks it poses for the country.

The follow assessments made in the report’s executive summary illustrate the gap between Erdogan’s rhetoric and realities: “Turkey is seen increasingly as a partisan actor. While Turkish leaders claim it has sufficient resources to be the region’s main power, leverage over Syrian events is clearly limited. … Turkey has no capacity to solve intractable problems inside Syria alone, and is not considering significant military intervention. Stepped-up arming of opposition fighters seems unlikely to enable them to topple the regime quickly. And Turkey’s wishful thinking about the Ottoman past and a leading historical and economic role in its Sunni Muslim neighbourhood is at odds with the present reality that it now has an uncontrollable, fractured, radicalised no-man’s-land on its doorstep.”

In the same section of the report, Turkey is asked to accept that the Syrian crisis may continue for a long time and to make long-term political modifications accordingly. The Syrian crisis served as a litmus test that exposed the neo-Ottoman tendencies of those running Turkey’s foreign policy. By definition, the pro-Ottoman inclination of the neo-Islamist ruling political class is also pro-Sunni. Turkey’s Syria policy has put Turkey on the Sunni side of the Sunni-Shiite fault line in the Middle East. This gives rise to a perceived geopolitical threat among Shiite actors.

The report warns on this tendency: “Whereas Turkey in 2008 was praised for its ability to speak to all regional players from Israel to Iran, it has now aligned predominantly with conservative Sunni Muslim partners such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia… In order to talk to all parties from a position of greater moral authority, it should avoid projecting the image of being a Sunni Muslim hegemon. It should also re-secure its border and ask Syrian opposition fighters to move to Syria. Publicly adopting a profile of a balanced regional power, rather than a Sunni Muslim one, would likewise do much to reduce any possibility that the sectarian polarization that is crippling Syria will jump the border to Turkey, in particular to Hatay province.”

The International Crisis Group suggests that Turkey not follow a tacitly Islamist foreign policy, but rather a secular one. This is an appropriate recommendation. Of course, to follow a foreign policy not imbued with Islamism, the Islamists have to make extraordinary efforts. But if this Islamist, pro-Sunni and pro-Ottoman Syria policy is maintained in its current form, Turkey will find itself in opposition to alienated Muslim actors who are not conservatively Sunni. This will substantially weaken Turkey’s soft power in the Middle East and the world and will limit its ability to launch initiatives.

A pro-Sunni foreign policy and narrative could also upset the already sensitive sectarian harmony in Turkey.

Turkey decided in August 2011 to topple the Baath regime and open its borders to the armed Syrian opposition, thus making Turkey the rear base of rebel forces. Border security was intentionally neglected to ease the movements of rebel forces. To change this policy now, and to act again as a state of law and order, may lead to a loss of prestige and influence by Ankara over the armed opposition, especially the Free Syrian Army. But if this risk isn’t taken, the consequence will be that Turkey will substantially fall short of having a state of law. The Turkish-Syrian border may pose threats to Turkey’s security, as seen in the Feb. 11 bombing at Cilvegozu border crossing [Bab al-Hawa] that resulted in the deaths of 14 people.

In addition to internal clashes in Syria mutating into a sectarian civil war, the danger for Turkey involves its image as a party to this war — and the possibility that it may be held responsible for its share of the war crimes committed by Sunni groups it has been militarily supporting.

To be sure, there is a political price to be paid by Turkey for changing its Syria policy — but the cost of not changing it will be higher.

Kadri Gürsel is a contributing writer for Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse and has written a column for the Turkish daily Milliyet since 2007. He focuses primarily on Turkish foreign policy, international affairs and Turkey’s Kurdish question, as well as Turkey’s evolving political Islam.

Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2013/05/turkey-syria-policy-backfire-sectarian.html#ixzz2Sa5FdwMl

May 7, 2013
‘Chemical weapons for Syrian opposition may have come from Turkey’

Syria’s chemical weapons compound is heavily guarded, with the state fully aware of the consequences of a security lapse, German journalist Manuel Ochsenreiter told RT, noting the opposition could have acquired the weapons through Turkey.

In this image made available by the Syrian News Agency (SANA) on March 19, 2013, a man is brought to a hospital in the Khan al-Assal region in the northern Aleppo province, as Syria’s government accused rebel forces of using chemical weapons for the first time (AFP Photo / Sana)

The Western-backed theory that chemical weapons were taken from the Syrian government’s military compound is very doubtful, according to Ochsenreiter, because “the military compound where gas is stored is heavily guarded. The Syrian government knows exactly what might happen if this gas comes out.”

He said that the weapons might have been from Turkey as it is one of the “most important players in the conflict, which supports the so-called armed opposition” and “Turkey already used chemical weapons in battles against the Kurdish population and militia.”

There have been false statements before, for example the blame of the Syrian government for the June 2012 Houla massacre, which was later refuted “but it didn’t have any affect or result in diplomatic means” noted the German journalist.

Peace activist and journalist Ryan Dawson told RT that it would be difficult to determine where the weapons originated from as the so-called opposition has many outside sources financing it and aiding with weapons.

“We have the Gulf monarchs and Israel. Probably not directly from the US and Israel, because they like to have plausible deniability – they probably went through Qatar or Turkey.”

RT: There’s been widespread opinion, promoted by some major world powers that any chemical weapons use in Syria would only ever be down to the Assad regime. So are you surprised to hear it may have been the rebels using them?

Ryan Dawson: I’m not surprised, because we’ve heard that before, back in December there was a scare about chemical weapons and red lines being crossed. That turned out to be the terrorist mercenaries in Syria. And there was an Israeli airstrike following that in January. So this is the exact same scenario.

RT: If it turns out to be true, where would the rebels have got them from?

RD: It will be difficult to pen down because the so-called opposition has so many outside sources financing them and aiding with weapons. We have the Gulf monarchs and Israel. Probably not directly from the US and Israel, because they like to have plausible deniability – they probably went through Qatar or Turkey.

RT: This investigation is separate from the one launched by the UN’s own chief – so why are there two different probes being carried out by the same body?

RD: The first party to call for the UN investigation was the Syrian government themselves, that’s how confident they were that the mercenaries used the chemical weapons. When you look at it, the US and Israel don’t have a leg to stand on to be lecturing anybody about having or using chemical weapons

RT: Syria was hit this weekend by a series of Israeli airstrikes – do you have any ideas why the attacks took place? Was it really self-defense?

RD: Of course not. But its hard to explain Israel’s actions. You are not talking about a rational player. It’s not the first time Israel has struck inside of Syria. Israel from time to time invades Gaza, attacks Syria, they are trying to bolster their image in the Middle East and get the fear factor and deterrent for themselves. Yet again Israel will claim that Syria was shipping weapons to Hezbollah, which they consider a terrorist group. Though the Israelis are aiding the mercenaries in Syria, which have killed up to 70, 000 people. So concerning the chemical weapons killing a dozen or so people – that is just a red line, they are just looking for a pretext. The wanted to strike anyway.

RT: There are so many blank spaces in the story, mostly because Israel’s avoiding all questions about the strikes – Why is that? Do you think international bodies will move in to shatter this silent strategy?

RD: Israel is fishing for escalation; the mercenaries are starting to lose. You’ll see the Western powers backing the mercenary groups just enough to keep the perpetual conflict going. But there are no decisive battles. That’s the whole point, the profit from it, to destroy Syria from within.

RT: Could Israel face justice here?

RD: They ought to, but they won’t. Israel has absolute immunity from international bodies, because the US and Canada back them up no matter what they do. We are talking about a state that has open apartheid, open ethnic cleansing, they are colonizing Palestine, they shoot children at will – they are breaking UN resolutions and nothing ever happens. Israel felt confident that they could go on a clumsy pretext of chemical weapons and bomb whatever they want and get away with it.

via ‘Chemical weapons for Syrian opposition may have come from Turkey’ — RT Op-Edge.

May 7, 2013
Turkish doctors say no nerve gas in Syrian victims’ blood

REYHANLI, Turkey — Doctors in Turkey say initial tests of blood samples from victims of a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria last month are negative for sarin gas.

A Syrian boy holds an AK-47 assault rifle in the majority-Kurdish Sheikh Maqsud district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. US intelligence agencies determined with “some degree of varying confidence” that chemical weapons have been used in Syria as of April 25, 2013. (DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP/Getty Images)

Medics tested the blood samples — which were taken from some 13 victims of an attack that included white powder in the northern village of Saraqeb on April 29 — at the Reyhanli hospital on the same day, but did not find anything unusual, they said.

They tested the blood specifically for sarin gas — a nerve agent — and also ran regular bloodwork.

The samples from the victims, who suffered from dizziness, vomiting and respiratory difficulties, have since been sent to the Turkish capital, Ankara, for further testing.

The development comes as Israeli fighter jets are reported to have carried out at least several airstrikes on weapons convoys near Damascus over the weekend.

Employees at the Istanbul headquarters of the Council of Forensic Medicine, the institute testing the blood in Ankara, were unable to answer GlobalPost inquiries on the status of the additional tests.

Doctors in Reyhanli, in Turkey’s Hatay province, say they believe the Turkish government will keep the final results a secret due to the potential global political consequences of either negative or positive results.

US President Barack Obama had previously said chemical weapons use in the now two-year-long civil war would be a “red line”, and potentially provoke a US-led intervention against the government forces of Syrian president Bashar al Assad.

Both Israeli and US officials have in recent weeks said they believe that chemical weapons, including sarin gas, have been used in the fighting in Syria but it is unclear in what capacity and from where the chemicals originated.

More from GlobalPost: Syria: The horrific chemical weapons attack that probably wasn’t a chemical weapons attack (Graphic video)

But while some Syrians say chemical weapons have been used on civilian neighborhoods in several locations throughout the country, they remain difficult to identify.

“The symptoms were consistent with those caused by a chemical, and the effects of this chemical were very serious and potentially fatal,” said Dr. Ubada Alabrash, who treated the victims at Reyhanli hospital. “But we couldn’t identify what the chemical was.”

In Saraqeb and in an earlier attack on April 13 where white powder was dispersed in a Kurdish suburb of Aleppo, the civilian victims were displaying similar symptoms: dizziness, vomiting, headaches and breathing problems.

Also, based on photos and videos uploaded to YouTube — and catalogued by independent blogger and weapons monitor, Eliot Higgins — the spent munitions or canisters witnesses said disseminated the chemicals appeared to be virtually identical.

More from GlobalPost: Complete Coverage from Inside Syria

“It appears to be a very strong match to the remnants of devices that were supposedly used in an earlier attack in Sheikh Maghsoud, Aleppo,” Higgins writes of the canisters left behind in Saraqeb on his blog, “Brown Moses.” His work tracking and identifying weapons used in the Syrian conflict is cited widely by both rights groups and international media.

“This leads me to believe the same devices and chemical were used in both attacks,” he writes.

However, both weapons and medical experts are urging caution.

While the same agent could have been used in both attacks, it could have been tear gas or some other kind of generated smoke, normally used for riot control, some weapons experts said.

The telltale sign of a sarin gas attack is myosis, or constricting of the pupils, and fasciculations, the medical term for tremors. While GlobalPost confirmed that some of the victims in the April 13 attack suffered from tremors, it was unable to confirm any of them had myosis.

More from GlobalPost: UN clarifies statement, says ‘no conclusive findings’ on chemical weapons in Syria

While three people were killed in the attack in Aleppo and another person died from the attack on Saraqeb, the majority of victims recovered after just several days.

In Aleppo, the doctors who treated the patients also later suffered similar symptoms to the victims. In Reyahanli, the medics reportedly wore protective suits.

“My effects were mild, but one doctor had to be admitted to the ICU,” said Dr. Kawa Hassan of the Avreen Hospital that admitted the 22 victims of the attack in Aleppo.

When the patients began to arrive on April 13, Dr. Hassan said he was scared not only for himself but for the entire country.

“If he begins a chemical war, he will kill us all,” he said.

Tracey Shelton reported from Aleppo and Afrin, Syria and Reyhanli, Turkey.

May 6, 2013
Turkey may offer citizenship to Syriacs fleeing war in Syria

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been working to provide Syriacs with Turkish citizenship,” Evgil Türker, head of theFederation of Syriac Associations in Turkey said at a conference in Ankara on Syriacs in Syria at the beginning of the week.

Turkey is seemingly preparing, with Turkey’s top government officials having in recent months called on Syriacs to return to Turkey, to offer Turkish citizenship to Syriacs who were or are related to former citizens of Turkey and who are now in a difficult situation in war-torn Syria.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been working to provide Syriacs with Turkish citizenship,” Evgil Türker, head of the Federation of Syriac Associations in Turkey said at a conference in Ankara on Syriacs in Syria at the beginning of the week. Turkey is actually the former homeland of many Syriacs who presently live in Syria and Europe, since, in the past, a large number of Syriacs left the country because they were ostracized by Muslim society due to their religion and were not allowed by the state to enjoy their rights.

According to estimates, out of a total of 2.5-3 million Syriacs living in Syria — Syriacs believe all Christians, apart from Armenians, in Syria to be of Syriac origin based on historical grounds –180,000 live in Syria’s Haseki province, which sits on the Turkish-Syrian border. “Maybe more than 90 percent of them are people whose elders emigrated from Turkey,” Türker told Sunday’s Zaman on the sidelines of the conference “Syrian Syriacs and Turkey: Building Peace Together.” Granting Syriacs Turkish citizenship would not be something unimaginable because Türker’s fathers and grandfathers were formerly registered in Midyat, Mardin province, in the birth registry anyway.

Calls made in previous months to Syriacs living abroad to convince them to return to Turkey, by several leading figures of the government such as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu, may be taken as a strong indication of Turkey’s intention of offering citizenship to those Syriacs in Syria who were, or at least whose parents or grandparents were formerly Turkish citizens. A Foreign Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity also believes that recent statements made by top government officials may be taken as a sign that Turkey is preparing to take such a step.

As part of efforts to mend fences with the Syriacs of Turkey, Turkish President Abdullah Gül met with leaders of Turkey’s Syriac community at the Çankaya presidential palace in February. For the first time in history, a member of Turkey’s Christian minority, Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Yusuf Çetin, accompanied a Turkish president on a trip abroad, in particular to Sweden, where a large number of Syriacs live. Davuto?lu, for his part, met with representatives of the Syriac community in Turkey in March and reaffirmed that Turkey was ready to extend help in every way possible to its Syriac brothers in Syria.

Syriacs urge Turkey to adopt a more encompassing discourse, a discourse not solely based on Sunnis, but towards opposition groups in Syria. Tuma Çelik, Turkey representative of the European Syriac Union (ESU), maintained that Turkey has ignored, up until recently, Syriacs in its Syria policy, but he also admitted that there have recently been some positive developments in that regard. Türker is hopeful. “There are indications that Turkey will develop a different attitude [from the one in the past],” he said, adding, “It should also take Christians [in Syria] into account.” Issou Gouriye, leader of the Syriac Union Party, is more cautious in his optimism. “We hear that Turkey has taken some positive steps, but the effects haven’t, as of yet, been felt by us in Syria,” he said at the meeting organized in Ankara.

Although they had, in the past, troubles in living comfortably in Turkey, Syriacs see Turkey as the main actor they could possibly turn to when in trouble and expect to receive greater help from Turkey. “We have lived together for a thousand years. Who else can we lay our expectations on, if not Turkey?” Gouriye, who, having studied at a Turkish university, can speak Turkish fluently, told Sunday’s Zaman. “If Turkey is willing to do its part, there is a lot that can be done together,” he added.

Syriacs, who historically see Syria as their homeland, are probably one of the most adversely affected ethnic and religious groups in the civil war in Syria. Only recently two archbishops from the Syriac Orthodox and Melkite (mostly Greek Orthodox) churches were abducted by gunmen in Aleppo. Syriacs are worried that attacks against Christians aim not only to drive Syriacs out of Syria, land on which they have been living for thousands of years, but also to cause division and conflict among opposition groups fighting the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Syriacs’ fears are not baseless, considering what happened in Iraq. According to Çelik, two-thirds of out of more than 1 million Syriacs in Iraq migrated following the American occupation. For the moment, the total number of Syriacs who fled the civil war in Syria by seeking shelter in a foreign country makes up no more than 1 percent of all Syriacs in Syria. But should the civil war reach the province of Haseki, where a large number of Syriacs live and where there are no major clashes at the moment, the number of Syriacs who may choose to flee the country could significantly increase.

By some estimates, there are presently around 500 Syriacs who have come to Turkey from Syria. But Turkey has been building, in the town of Midyat in Mardin province, a refugee camp for Syriacs with a capacity to accommodate 4,000 people, and another with a capacity of 6,000 people for Kurds and Arabs who might flee to Turkey. It may be out of an expectation that clashes could in the near future reach the Haseki region, which lies along some of Turkey’s border with Syria and which is also densely populated by Kurds, that Turkey is busy with camp building.

As Syria is the only country where Syriacs have a relatively dense population, should Syriacs in Syria, as the ones in Iraq have done in the past, flee the country because of the civil war, the ethnic group will be scattered around the world. That’s why the Federation of Syriac Associations is not willing to give a helping hand to Syriacs of Syria who are trying to emigrate abroad. “The only country where we have now a mass population is Syria,” Türker said, defending the federation’s stance.

May 6, 2013