Turkey And Syria Make Trade, Water Agreements

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
December 22, 2004 2:41 p.m.
DAMASCUS (AP)--Turkey and Syria improved their once-hostile relations Wednesday when they sealed a trade pact and agreed to share more water. The agreements came during a visit to Syria by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

At a press conference after his talks with Erdogan, Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Naji al-Otari blamed Israel for the impasse between that country and Syria.

Syria has repeatedly said in recent weeks that it wishes to resume peace talks with Israel, which haven't taken place since 2000. But Israel replied Syria must first clamp down on the Palestinian militant groups on its soil.

"The main problem," al-Otari told reporters of the peace overtures, "is with the other party, which does not accept peace and does not believe in paying the price for peace in accordance with international resolutions," he said, referring to U.N. Security Council resolutions that call for Israel to withdraw from territory it captured in the 1967 and 1973 Middle East wars.

Erdogan, whose government enjoys good relations with Israel, has offered to mediate between Syria and Israel. He repeated the offer in an interview published Wednesday in the Lebanese newspaper Al-Mustaqbal.

When Israeli-Syrian talks broke down in January 2000, Syria wanted assurances that Israel would withdraw completely from the Golan Heights, which it captured in 1967, and return land extending down to the Sea of Galilee. Israel refused to make such a pledge and insisted that they first agree on security arrangements and normal relations.

Erdogan told reporters Wednesday that he and al-Otari also discussed the Palestinian peace process.
"We studied the path to cooperation and what we could do to achieve a lasting and comprehensive peace between the Israel and the Palestinians," Erdogan said.

Al-Otari said that Erdogan had "ordered" that the flow of Tigris water to Syria would be increased. The Syrian leader didn't give an amount, but said it would be adequate to irrigate 150,000 hectares of land in northeastern Syria.

The independent Turkish channel NTV reported that Syria wants to construct a pumping station and draw water from the Tigris, which runs along 40 kilometers of the Syrian-Turkish border.

"We are ready to cooperate," NTV quoted Erdogan as saying.
Erdogan said the trade agreement signed Wednesday laid out "the legal framework to organize commercial and economic relations" between Turkey and Syria. He said Turkey 's total investments in Syria amounted to an estimated $150 million.

Syrian-Turkish relations were poor for much of the 1980s and 1990s when Turkey accused Syria of harboring Turkish Kurd guerrillas and Syria said Turkey 's construction of dams was restricting the flow of water down the Euphrates and Tigris.

But relations improved after 1998 when Syria, bowing to Turkish pressure, expelled the Turkish Kurd guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan. The following year Ocalan was captured and imprisoned in Turkey .

Erdogan, who arrived in Syria early Wednesday, later met Syrian President Bashar Assad. The official Syrian Arab News Agency said the two leaders expressed pleasure at the level "the relations between their two countries had progressed to."

Assad's visit to Ankara, the Turkish capital, earlier this year was the first by a Syrian head of state.
Erdogan has long promoted his country as a bridge between the Islamic world and the West. His visit to Syria was his first to a largely Muslim country since last week when the European Union agreed to start membership talks with Turkey next year.

Syria and Turkey border Iraq and both have sizable Kurdish populations. They opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, partly because they feared it could lead to the emergence of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq, and encourage separatist aspirations in their own Kurdish communities.