The Golan, Via Ankara
May 10, 2008
Turkey has openly acknowledged that it has been mediating between Syria and Israel for close to a year, in a strong sign that contacts between the two enemy states have reached a new level of development. However, significant obstacles remain to the resumption of full negotiations with few hopes held for high-level talks in coming months.Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Damascus on 26 April, holding talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that focused both on bilateral ties and on prospects for Syrian-Israeli peace feelers.
Foreign Minister Ali Babacan subsequently confirmed that Turkey was willing to retain the role of mediator for the foreseeable future, while downplaying short-term expectations for official face-to-face talks between Israeli and Syrian representatives. He added that “diplomatic traffic” between the enemy states had picked up considerably in recent months.
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad confirmed in a recent interview with Qatar’s Al-Watan newspaper that Erdogan had passed on a message from Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert stating Israel’s willingness to forego control of the Golan Heights in return for peace.
Israeli officials have confirmed that messages have been passed to Damascus, but refuse to divulge details.
Unofficial “track-two” talks from 2004-2006 led to the drafting of a “non-paper” framework agreement establishing the basis for an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan, which may influence future talks.
Initially involved in facilitating this parlay, Turkey had pulled out expressing opposition to unofficial talks, Israeli negotiator Dr Alon Liel told ISN Security Watch.
This opposition remains and “is affecting the Syrian position, because in the last month Syrian personalities who were involved in track two talks, and would like to continue, are not getting approvals to meet Israelis,” he said.
“Turkish governments have become increasingly eager to strike good relations with the Syrians and vice versa,” Chatham House analyst Rime Alef told ISN Security Watch.
“Turkey being on good terms with both Israel and Syria, it is really truly one of the few brokers who both sides, technically, could trust, she said.”
Potential disruption
Erdogan acknowledged prior to his Damascus visit that Turkey did not envisage more than low-level talks between Syrian and Israeli officials in the near future. With months of shuttle diplomacy ahead, the current case against the premier’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has thrown a pall across the Turkish political scene.
Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya is demanding that the AKP be closed for purported anti-secular activities, with 71 party members, including the premier and President Abdullah Gul, facing a potential five-year hiatus from political life.
The case is expected to take up to six months and may disrupt Turkish mediation efforts, particularly if the court finds against the AKP, forcing Turks to the polls.
Liel believes that the burgeoning political crisis will not have a “meaningful impact” on the talks. “The success or failure of the Turks [mediation] is dependent on the will in Damascus and in Jerusalem and not on what will happen in Turkey.”
Alef agrees that “internal Turkish domestic issues could [not] have any bearing on what’s happening, just as I don’t think that internal Syrian issues have any bearing.”
Here, the tentative nature of the mediated Syrian-Israeli dialogue and Israeli involvement in negotiations with the Palestinians, alongside other factors, means that there is little impetus for either side to move beyond declarative positions at this point. This allows time for the political ructions in Ankara to die down before a more significant Turkish mediation role is required.
Olmert on the brink
Questions remain as to whether Olmert’s government will survive into 2009, the earliest that full negotiations with Syria can be expected.
The details in the fifth and most serious of the corruptions scandals to engulf the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) remain under a court gag order.
However, the New York Post revealed on Tuesday that the case involves illicit payments to Olmert by Long Island financier Morris Talansky during his time as mayor of Jerusalem in the 1990s. It is believed that Talansky, who is currently in Israel, has been deposed to provide evidence in the case and is cooperating with the authorities.
Rumors emerging from the police investigation, and the absence of supportive statements from Kadima members, indicate that Olmert may be forced to step down as early as next week.
“I don’t believe that Olmert and his government are ready” for talks with Syria Alef said. Referring to the Israeli premier’s recent Golan pledge, she added, “I think that Olmert is in so much trouble politically inside Israel […] maybe he is trying to divert attention.”
Smelling blood, three members of the Knesset (parliament) from the staggering Pensioners Party decamped from the governing coalition this week to a new party organized and financed by controversial Russian-Israeli oligarch Arcadi Gaydamak.
The leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, Eli Yishai, has also clearly expressed his opposition to the resumption of negotiations with Syria, and looks set to wring significant concessions from Olmert or his successor in return for staying in government.
For Kadima and Labor the key will be keeping Shas in the coalition until the last moment when they can go to elections, expected by many commentators in early 2009, on the basis of a framework Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
Should he leave office, Olmert looks likely to suspend himself rather than resign, preventing the attendant collapse of the government and the election of a right-wing Likud-led government.
This scenario remains the most likely and clearly does not involve moving beyond initial low-level contacts with Damascus in coming months.
With haste likely to prevent a serious leadership contest within Kadima, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni looks set to assume the temporary premiership if Olmert goes.
Asked for Livni’s opinion on prospects for the Syrian track, Liel said, “It is hard to tell because she was assigned with the Abu Mazen role [Palestinian talks] and this is what she is busy with.
“I think she is kind of paralyzed on the Syrian track because if she will reveal interest it might be seen as if she is giving up on the Palestinian effort,” he said.
Biding time
Should Turkey’s long-term mediation efforts bear fruit, a key moment will come with the emergence of Syrian-Israeli talks from the shadows, a move that will require the active involvement of the next US administration and, of necessity, must incorporate a formula for the easing of the Lebanese political crisis.
Damascus is clearly hoping that a change in administrations in Washington will have an impact on the reestablishment of bilateral relations with the US.
In the Al-Watan interview, al-Assad appeared to nix Russian efforts to host an international peace conference involving both Syria and Israel - which had already received short shrift from Israel - confirming that Damascus does not envisage full negotiations without the sponsorship of the US. He added that the latter would only become possible once the Bush administration had left office.
Alef argues that this is a flawed analysis that does not take into account the ideological propensities of the three US presidential candidates and overestimates their freedom of action to radically alter established policy from day-to-day.
To Liel a change in administrations in Washington can bring positive results. “I think we can finalize an agreement within a year of a massive Washington involvement,” he said.
In an interview with pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat published on Sunday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “If the two sides wished to exert an effort for peace the United States would give its blessing and back these efforts.”
However, in a thinly veiled warning to Israel not to take these talks too far, she added: “What should not happen is that we talk to Syria about peace ignoring Lebanon.” She said that efforts to revive the Syrian-Israeli talks should not come at the expense of negotiations with the Palestinians.
US warships have been stationed in international waters off the Lebanese coast since February in a bid to pressure Syria over the Lebanese political stalemate.
To Liel, any Syrian-Israeli deal would necessarily have a regional dimension involving a switch in Syrian regional behavior and alliances that could only be achieved through US involvement and guarantees.
Alef doubts Israel’s commitment to talks but agrees that “resuming [US-Syrian] relations would have a lot of impact on a number of regional issues; not only on the Israeli issue but also on the Palestinian issue; but, more importantly for the Americans, on the issue of Iraq.”
Washington’s recent decision to reveal details of the alleged Syrian nuclear facility bombed by Israel last September appeared timed to coincide with the public acknowledgement of Turkey’s efforts to reconcile Syria and Israel. Israeli defense officials strongly opposed the release of the information fearing a negative Syrian reaction.
“The fact that President Bush doesn’t want to assign a senior diplomat to join the talks - not even in the mediation stage; not even when it is indirect - makes the Turkish role a partial task because the Turks can maybe lead the process in the first and maybe the second official meeting, but they cannot go beyond that,” Liel explained.
To Alef, “The Syrians feel that they are in a good enough position now even with American pressure, and even under American sanctions, to be able to push for the peace talks even at the cost of a lot of concessions on their side.”
“The Syrian position is more open to see moves from the other side in a year from now,” she said.
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