Turkey-bound Barzani slams Syria turncoats

File photo of Erdogan and Barzani, who meet again tomorrow in Diyarbakir

Masoud Barzani, uncontested leader of more than 25 million Kurds living in parts of Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq, has given a sharp kick in the teeth to Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian Kurds’ Democratic Union Party (PYD).

The PYD, which is affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), this week declared a transitional administration in northeastern parts of Syria bordering Turkey.

Barzani, president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, accused the PYD in Syria of “autocracy,” rejecting its unilateral declaration of independence in Syria’s Kurdish northeast.

He said the PYD was missing “a golden opportunity” by trying to hurriedly seize unilateral control of the Syrian Kurdish areas, or Rojava.

“This is autocracy and marginalization of the other Kurdish parties in Rojava.”  Barzani said in a statement. “We only support steps that have the consensus of all Kurdish parties in Rojava,” he added. “We refuse unilateral actions.”


“The PYD claims to have made a revolution in Rojava. But may I ask whom is this revolution targeted at? The only thing [the PYD] does is administer areas handed over to it by the [Assad] regime,” Barzani said in his written statement.

Barzani warned that the PYD was driving Syrian Kurds down a dead-end.

“There is serious concern this golden opportunity will be missed because the (Damascus) regime has not recognized Kurdish rights. At the same time, the Syrian opposition considers the PYD as an offshoot of the regime,” said Barzani. “This poses a serious danger for the future of our people.”


Barzani, who brokered a July 2012 deal in Erbil to forge a united stance among all Kurdish parties, called on the PYD and all other Kurdish groups to return to the terms of that accord.

“Despite our reservations about the PYD’s behavior and actions, we are happy to return to consensus, because autocracy will neither benefit the PYD nor the Kurdish people,” Barzani said.

“The PYD benefited from the agreement, but it did not commit to it. It suppressed other political parties at gunpoint and secretly sided with Assad’s regime to make itself a solo de facto military force on the ground,” Barzani said without mincing his words.


“I advise all Kurdish parties in Rojava to promote the interests of the Kurdish people and return to the principles of the Erbil agreement, because this is the best option to strengthen the Kurdish position in Syria,” Barzani said. “We will assist you to the best of our ability.”


The Kurdish president also accused the PYD of fighting a war that does not serve Kurdish interests, saying the PYD’s clashes with Qaeda-affiliated jihadists since last summer have forced tens of thousands of Kurds to flee Rojava.
  

The PYD’s armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), also clashed in late March with other Kurdish forces in northeast Syria and in the city of Amuda, where local residents protested against the arrest of three Kurdish activists by the PYD.

“It was decided Kurds would not get involved in the internal Syrian war, but the PYD got our people in a war that is not in their interest,” Barzani said.

Barzani’s Iraqi Kurdistan regional administration denied PYD leader Saleh Muslim entrance to its territory last week, which was interpreted as a sign of the disagreements between the PYD and the KRG. The Syrian Kurdish leader says he had to wait five days before ultimately being told he would not be allowed into Iraqi Kurdistan.

Barzani also denounced the PYD for banning the Kurdistan flag in Rojava.

Diyarbakir summit

The Iraqi Kurdish leader is set for an important visit to Diyarbakir tomorrow, Saturday, where he will meet with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Selin Caglayan, writing today for Rudaw, Kurdistan’s English-language newspaper, notes the meeting comes when Erbil’s differences with the PYD are escalating and Ankara’s peacemaking with the PKK is on the rocks.

The weekend summit will focus on bilateral ties, Ankara’s recently improving relations with Baghdad, developments in Syria and the government’s peace process with the PKK, the premier’s aide and foreign ministry sources in Ankara told Rudaw.


Barzani’s visit “is a message both for the PYD and PKK,” said Mehmet Ozcan, an academic and director of the Ankara Strategy Institute. “’You are not the only Kurds in the region’ is the message,” he told Rudaw.


”In Syria the PYD is bullying the other Kurdish parties and trying to be the sole representative of the Syrian Kurds, as  the PKK once did in Turkey,” Ozcan said. “On the other hand, the PKK is creating problems by blocking the peace process and putting pressure on the public before the local elections” in March, he added.


Kurdish author and commentator Irfan Aktan agreed that developments in Syria, where the PYD runs its government from the city of Qamishli with strong support from the PKK in Diyarbakir, were driving Ankara and Erbil ever closer.  “This alliance would weaken the Diyarbakir-Qamishli axis, and this makes many Kurds uneasy,” he said.


According to the Yeni Safak daily, which is close to Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), Barzani will meet with key Kurdish figures in Diyarbakir to deliver this message: “The armed struggle is over; now it is time for political struggle for all the Kurds.”


It expects Barzani to propose mediating between Ankara and PKK headquarters in the Kurdistan Region’s Qandil Mountain to restart a stalled peace process.

While Ankara’s ties with Baghdad are on the mend, its relations with Erbil have been hitting new highs. Turkey is Erbil’s largest trade partner, and the two are involved in multi-billion dollar pipeline deals to get the Kurdistan Region’s rich energy reserves to markets in Turkey and beyond.


Barzani reportedly visited Diyarbakir in 1996 and stayed one night. But this will be his first visit as president.

He arrives in Turkey with beloved Kurdish singer Shirwan Perwer, who has been in exile for 37 years.  Erdogan announced that Perwer would sing a duet in Diyarbakir with legendary Kurdish singer Ibrahim Tatlises.

Syrian Kurds declare transitional administration

The PYD's Saleh Muslim and a map showing "Rojava" along Syria's border with Turkay

Syrian Kurds yesterday declared an interim administration in northeastern parts of the country (Rojava), further solidifying their geographic and political presence after driving out radical Islamist rebels. 

Long oppressed under Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his father before him, Kurds view the Syria war as an opportunity to gain more autonomy -- like their ethnic kin in neighboring Iraq. 

Control over Syria's northeast, where Kurds predominate, had in recent months swung back and forth between them and mainly Arab Islamist rebels, who strongly oppose what they suspect are Kurdish plans to secede.

But a Kurdish militia prevailed earlier this month, and at a meeting held in the Syrian city of Qamishli yesterday, a committee of Kurdish and other groups said it was now time to set up an administrative body to run the region. 

"In light of the current circumstances which Syria is going through, and in order to fill an administrative vacuum... we see it as an utmost necessity to reach a transitional, pluralistic, democratic administration," said a statement sent to Reuters.

The statement said they were committed to the unity of Syria and asked world powers and neighboring countries to back the new administration, which they said had won the support of different political groups and minorities in the area.

The dominant force on the ground in Syria's Kurdish areas is the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has a well-trained militia and is affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The PYD's growing clout has also dismayed some fellow Kurds, who accuse it of being in league with Assad and seeking to replace his authoritarian one-party rule with its own.

PYD representative Mohammed Reso said some Syrian Kurdish parties had refused to sign up to the plan.

Davutoglu

In his first remarks after the declaration of the interim administration, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused the PYD of "not keeping its promise."

"We told them to avoid a de facto administration declaration that could divide Syria. We told them to put a distance between themselves and the [al-Assad] regime," Davutoglu said during a live interview on private broadcaster NTV on Tuesday. 

He criticized the Kurdish group for adopting an "ambivalent" posture. "The most serious mistake that the PYD is making is to put under pressure on the other Kurdish opposition groups in [their] controlled areas. We receive a lot of complaints from Kurds [in northern Syria], and we hope they will change this attitude," Davutoglu added.

PYD leader Saleh Muslim had visited Turkey twice in a brief period in July and August as the open conflict between Kurdish militia groups and jihadist rebels mounted, causing a refugee outflow from Rojava. He reportedly discussed with Turkish officials PYD's plans of forming an autonomous administration that triggered concerns in Ankara.

Barzani

The Turkish government and Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have adopted a similar attitude on the situation in northern Syria. Both oppose the PYD's creation of a politically autonomous entity in the region.

KRG leader Massoud Barzani is troubled by the disputes among Kurds, particularly between the PYD and other Kurdish parties, over the areas in Syria's north.

The Turkish government and Barzani also backed the Syrian Kurdish National Council (KNC), a group that agreed to join the main Syrian opposition body, the Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.

“The KNC is close to Barzani. Barzani wanted to impose his policies in Rojava and Turkey wanted to use Barzani to establish an alternative group to the PYD, which was the KNC. They tried hard, but failed. The KNC is not stronger than the PYD,” Iso said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to meet Barzani in Diyarbakir at the weekend.

According to Turkish media sources, Erdogan will visit Diyarbakir, a predominantly Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey on Saturday, when he will be meeting the Iraqi Kurdistan president.

A source from Turkish Channel Show TV said renowned Kurdish singer Shivan Perwer will be back to Diyarbakir from self-exile in Germany to meet Barzani and Erdogan.

Relations between Iraq’s Kurdistan Region and Turkey have been improving steadily of late.

The volume of trade between Iraq and Turkey is about $12 billion, with three quarters of it being between Ankara and the Kurdistan Region.

Iran

Writing for the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat today, former editor-in-chief Tariq Alhomayed quotes a Reuters dispatch yesterday as saying the Kurds’ military gains in Syria is posing a dilemma for regional powers.

Syrian Kurds view Syria’s civil war as an opportunity to gain the kind of autonomy enjoyed by their ethnic kin in neighboring Iraq.

The seriousness of the report, says Alhomayed, is that their offensive has stirred mixed feelings, globally, regionally and locally, even among some fellow Kurds, who say the Kurdish fighters have drifted into an Iran-led regional axis supportive of Assad, something they deny.

To Assad and his Shiite allies, their gains mean more territory out of Sunni rebel hands two and a half years into a revolt against his rule.

Islamist rebels -- particularly the Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) that have been imposing their will across rebel-held territory -- argue that their defeat says more about who was helping their foes than the strength of the Kurdish forces themselves. They said help from Assad's forces and Shiite-led Iraq was the reason for Kurdish gains.

The Iraqi government strongly denies supporting any faction in Syria, including Kurds.

A closer reading of this and other reports shows the Kurds’ military gains in Syria are posing a bigger dilemma for Syrian Kurds than for regional powers.

A senior Iraqi politician told Reuters Shiite powerhouse Iran, Assad's main regional ally, was also actively backing the PYD and emboldening the PKK, with which it is closely aligned.

"Iran supports these groups to guarantee having a powerful group in Syria in case things go out of control," he said, adding that Tehran was creating a network of allies from minority groups across the country to bolster their interests and to create alternative partners should Assad fall.

The Iraqi politician said Baghdad's Shiite government was supporting the Kurds to weaken cross-border ties among Sunnis.

"(They) may help them in cooperation with Iran to create an autonomous Kurdish region ... to establish a buffer zone between Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis."

This of course means the Kurds will have hostile and unbalanced relations with a predominantly Sunni region.

Also, can Syria’s Kurds genuinely withstand Turkey’s ire and eventually that of Tehran, which is home to eight million Iranian Kurds?

Syrian Kurds are set to realize that you don’t build nation-states by simply having minorities go their separate ways.

Turkey takes the side of Syria's Kurds

Yesterday's Erdogan-Barzani meeting and the title of Michael Weiss' piece

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has now played his “Kurdish card” -- not to win Syria back, but mire Turkey and hopefully walk away with an Alawite state.

This explains why he mobilized his Qaeda-linked surrogates to take control of Kurdish areas in the north of Syria on the border with Turkey.

In the face of the Syrian uprising, Assad forces originally pulled out of those areas in July and August 2012, hoping the vacuum would be filled by Turkey’s nemesis at the time, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The March 2013 peace deal between Turkey and the PKK spoiled Assad’s plan.

His fallback in recent weeks on his Qaeda-linked proxies – Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) – is to keep the plan alive.

In context, I can’t think of a better eye-opener than yesterday’s commentary by Michael Weiss fittingly titled “Assad’s no enemy of al-Qaeda.” You can read it here.

Overnight, news broke of jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda -- read Assad -- having taken hostage around 200 Kurdish civilians after violent clashes with Kurdish fighters in two villages of northeastern Syria.

“Fighters of Jabhat al-Nusra and the ISIL have seized control of Tall Aren village in Aleppo province and are laying siege to another village nearby, Tall Hassel,” said the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Clashes between jihadists and Kurdish fighters have raged for some two weeks, after jihadists were expelled from the key town of Ras al-Ayn on the Turkish border.

The fighting claimed a prominent casualty on Tuesday, as a car bomb planted by Jihadists killed Kurdish leader Isa Huso, a leading member of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), a pro-PKK organization of Syrian Kurds and the most powerful faction of the ethnic group in the region (see yesterday’s post).

Politically, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met yesterday with Nachervan Barzani, prime minister of Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government and nephew of KRG President Massoud Barzani.

The two-hour meeting at the Prime Ministry in Ankara was closed to the press.

The talks are believed to have focused on bilateral relations, the PYD’s agenda in Syria and the upcoming three-day Kurdish National Conference.

The latter opens in Erbil on August 19 with 500 Kurdish delegates attending, mostly from Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran.

Before Barzani's visit, PYD co-chair Salih Muslim, a graduate of Istanbul Technical University in the late 1970s, was able -- on Turkey’s invitation -- to fly from Erbil to Istanbul after 35 years.

Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu told reporters after meeting with Muslim he acknowledged Syrian Kurds’ need to establish a “civilian administration” in their areas, just as other opposition groups have. He warned such provisional measures were possible provided the administration does not gain “permanent status.”

The understanding is that such a provisional local administration would include other ethnic groups such as Christians, Turkmen and non-Kurds who live in the Kurdish-majority areas of northeastern Syria.

Turkish columnist Sedat Ergin, writing for Hurriyet daily, says Turkey’s dilemma of late was to choose one of two options that would serves it interests best: Control of Syria’s Kurdish areas by the PYD or by the Qaeda-linked groups?

“We understand from Muslim’s interview with Ali Çelebi for Özgür Gündem daily,” writes Ergin, “that the Justice and Development (AKP) government has gone for the first option.

“…This being the case, instead of approaching the Syrian Kurds with animosity, building a permanent friendship with them starting today appears to be a wiser, more realistic policy. The path to this passes along a road that approaches them with respect, knows them and talks to them as counterparts.

“From this aspect, Muslim’s visit has been a positive step in the sense that a dialogue has been launched between Turkey and Syrian Kurds; also, it complements the peace process launched with the aim of solving the Kurdish issue domestically.”

Separately, Turkey has also stepped up economic relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq.

The KRG is now pushing ahead with plans to build an oil pipeline between Turkey and northern Iraq despite objections from Baghdad and the United States.

“Three Syrias” to go with “three Iraqs”

Premier Erdogan and Turkey's top brass (top) and a march by Syrian Kurds

Syria is coming apart at the seams.

Having lost Syria, President Bashar al-Assad and his Shiite allies from Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah are waging a campaign of sectarian cleansing in order to carve out a rump state along the Mediterranean coast.

With its capital in Latakia, it would reflect the geographical contours of the traditional Alawite heartland.

At the same time, Syria’s Kurds are now fighting for an autonomous Syrian Kurdistan in their portion of the country bordering Turkey, with its putative capital in Qamishli.

The breakup of Syria into three enclaves for Kurds, Shiite Alawites and Sunnis mirrors the gradual dismemberment of Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion.

The northern province of Iraqi Kurdistan is today an independent country in all but name, while Sunni and Shiite Iraqis are more likely to splinter into distinct entities than remain part of a cohesive nation-state.

Image by Daniel Sitts

An autonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Syria is the second piece in a four-part puzzle of a “Kurdistan country.” A 1983 map by the Financial Times shows a big Kurdish country separated into four pieces -- one in northern Iraq (which is in place), one in northeastern Syria (which is in the making), one in Iran and the last in Turkey’s southeast.

Turkish authorities -- already apprehensive about Syrian Kurdish militants' recent strengthening along Turkey's borders -- are further alarmed over reports that the Democratic Union Party (PYD), an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), is preparing to declare autonomy in northeastern Syria.

There is now talk of DYP leader Salih Muslim Muhammad announcing shortly a nine-member government to run the would-be enclave.  

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said the move would undermine Syria’s territorial integrity and pose a security threat to Turkey.

Speaking at a press conference after a cabinet meeting in Ankara on Monday, Arınç called efforts by the PYD to declare autonomy in northeastern Syria “irksome.”

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu reiterated yesterday Ankara would not accept de facto autonomous regions in Syria before the country elects a legitimate national parliament.

He told reporters in Warsaw, "This does not mean Turkey is against the rights of any group in Syria, chiefly Kurds... So, this is not a position against our Kurdish brothers [in Syria]… We are concerned any de facto move could further deepen the crisis in Syria."

"With regards our security and the security of our border districts, villages and towns as well as Syria's future, we want everyone to avoid conflict pending a new democratic regime in Syria," Davutoglu said.

Turkey’s Yeni Şafak daily said last week Assad endorsed plans for an autonomous Syrian Kurdistan in a recent meeting with PYD representatives.

He reportedly agreed to recognize the autonomy of Kurds in an area covering al-Hasakah, Ras al-Ayn, Afreen, Ayn al-Arab and Qamishli.

If so, the move might force Turkey’s hand, according to Dr. Ghassan Shabaneh, a Mellon Fellow in Human Security at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Relations at the CUNY Graduate Center, and an Associate Professor of Middle East and International Studies at Marymount Manhattan College in NYC.

Shabaneh told Aljazeera TV earlier this week Turkey would most probably have no choice then other than to set up safe havens or a security zone in Syria’s Kurdish areas.

Israel held a 4-to-12-kilometer-deep South Lebanon Security Zone from 1985 to 1999.

Turkish political analyst, columnist and commentator on A9 TV Aylin Kokaman says Turkey is now facing the PKK threat it braved 30 years ago.

An autonomous Syrian Kurdish enclave is tantamount to “a declaration of war on Turkey,” she writes today for the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat.

Ms Kokaman says Ankara will have no option but to use its armed forces to protect Turkey’s national unity and territorial integrity, with or without American and European backing.

Turkish bombings linked to Banias suspect

Mihraç Ural in Syria

The man I called five days ago “the ethnic cleanser of Banias” is emerging as the suspected mastermind of Saturday’s twin bombings in the Turkish town of Reyhanli, a main hub for Syrian refugees and opposition activity in Turkey's Hatay province, just across the border with Syria.

“A fugitive Turkish Alevi with Syrian citizenship and a checkered past has emerged as the chief instigator and overseer of last week’s massacres in Bayda and Banias. A native of Hatay Province in southern Turkey, his real name is Mihraç Ural,” I wrote in my May 8 post, “Syria: Enter the ethnic cleanser of Banias.”

Turkish authorities are holding nine Turkish citizens believed to have links to Syrian intelligence in connection with the two car bombs in Reyhanli that left 46 people dead and 100 injured.

Today, Turkish political analyst Murat Yetkin essentially writes about Ural’s role in his column for Hurriyet English-language daily:

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said during a live TV show yesterday, “Those who committed the Banias massacre are also responsible for these (Reyhanli) attacks.”

He was talking about a Syrian army operation supported by “المقاومة السورية” -- the “Syrian Resistance” -- against the Sunni population of the historical coastal town of Banias, killing hundreds of civilians, including children.

Davutoglu had denounced the operation as an “ethnic cleansing” campaign against Sunnis by Assad, as a contingency plan to set up a rump Alawite state…

The point is there was somebody, technically still a Turkish citizen, Mihraç Ural, who was shown as the responsible party… There are videos of him available on YouTube as he speaks in Arabic and tries to incite militiamen around him to cleanse Banias of Sunnis as soon as possible.

The name is not alien to Turkish security circles.

Ural was among the founders of an armed leftist group dubbed “Acilciler” – the “hasty ones” – in the late 1970s and is responsible of a number of political murders, bank robberies and similar acts of terror.

The group had been denounced by other leftists as a tool of Syrian intelligence, and even mocked as the “Hatay liberation army” since some of its members were from Hatay and of Nusayri (Alawite) origin…

Ural’s name and organization were mentioned by Turkish security and media right after a similar car bomb attack at Cilvegözü border gate with Syria on Feb. 11, killing 13 people...

In Syria, where he commands “المقاومة السورية” (the “Syrian Resistance”) militia, a shabiha subdivision, Mihraç Ural goes by his Arabic nom de guerre: Ali at-Kayyali.

Ural left Turkey for Syria after the 12 September 1980 Turkish coup d'état, headed by Gen. Kenan Evren.

He is said to have introduced PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan to Hafez Assad, Bashar’s father, in Damascus.

In his leader comment this morning, Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, also alludes to the Reyhanli-Banias connection.

Writing in Arabic about what he describes as “post-honeymoon bitterness,” Charbel says:

It is not child’s play for Ankara officials to say perpetrators of the deadly bombings in Reyhanli are Turkish citizens associated with Syrian intelligence.

It is not child’s play either to say some of the suspects were involved in the latest Banias massacre.

True, the fallout between the two countries is not new. Equally true, the wrangle has now acquired grave dimensions.

When a government accuses a neighboring state of being behind bombings on its territory, it commits itself to a response.

The response could have been a classical recourse to the UN Security Council, but Ankara is aware that Council’s door is firmly locked and strictly guarded by Russia.

Ankara is thus expected to seek a response surpassing a salvo of cross-border shells or a reminder underscoring its NATO credentials.

Recent months were replete with signs of the mushrooming estrangement between Ankara and Damascus.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has not tired of asking Assad to step down. He has used tough words to describe his former friend. Ankara did not suffice with hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees. It went further and assumed the mantle of the safe haven and stronghold of Assad’s enemies, including the Free Syrian Army.

Assad did not grin and bear his former friend either. He hosted Turkish opposition leaders and held Erdogan fully responsible for the rot. He addressed the Turkish public via the Turkish media to increase the pressure on Erdogan, denying him the chance to do the same. Syria’s state-run media unearthed old wordbooks to warn of the Ottomans getting astride Muslim Brotherhood horses to ride back and revive the caliphate. Syrian state media also revitalized the Iskenderun (Alexandretta) file, which has been dormant for decades.

The Reyhanli bombings’ timing elicited much scrutiny and a series of scripts.

The outrage came a few days after the U.S.-Russian agreement to hold an international conference for a political solution in Syria based on the June 2012 Geneva Declaration.

It also came after fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) started withdrawing from Turkey in keeping with the Erdogan-Ocalan agreement.

Incidentally, Erdogan’s deal with Abdullah Ocalan was a game-changer for Syria’s Kurds, turning them from a card up Damascus’ sleeve into an ace of trumps in Ankara’s hand.

The Reyhanli bombings also came in the week of Erdogan’s talks with President Barack Obama at the White House next Thursday.

Turkey-watchers believe the Reyhanli bombings will spur Erdogan to urge Obama to stop fudging and dithering and be more decisive on Syria. They believe Erdogan “considers Assad’s lingering in any part of Syria would seriously undermine Turkey’s stability and territorial integrity. And Ankara is prepared to bear the burden of safeguarding its stability and engaging further in the battle to remove Assad.”

The Turkish-Syrian honeymoon was drawn out.

Turkey hoped an “exemplary rapport” with Syria was its gateway to the Arab world and key to building bridges to the region.

Syria too was elated to reach out to a Sunni member of NATO. Damascus felt relations with Turkey compensated for its tiff with Saudi Arabia and Egypt and imagined Ankara becoming both its passageway and password.

The post-honeymoon bitterness followed.

Syria accuses Turkey of spewing out arms and rebels. Ankara accuses Damascus of trying to destabilize Turkey and undermine the unity of its social fabric. Ankara yearns for Syria without Assad while Assad dreams of Turkey without Erdogan. The Syrian information minister did not omit calling on Erdogan lately to step down.

But the game is more intricate.

Russia insists it is the door and latchkey to a solution. Iran does not lack the appetite to assume such a role despite its deep involvement.

Solving the Syria crisis is so difficult. The door is stuck shut and the small key is lost.

Erdogan will surely ask Obama to open the door and find the key, arguing that the once widespread treatment of wounds by cauterization is long overdue.

Iran can’t just gobble up and Shi’ize Egypt

Political analyst Yasser el-Zaatreh, a native of Jericho, has been  freelancing for 27 years. He wrote this think piece in Arabic for Aljazeera.net

File pictures of Morsi and Ahmadinejad

Egyptian leaders are keeping nose to grindstone to mitigate internal disquiet.

They are less focused on recovering Cairo’s Arab and regional clout and role.

So before Egypt overcomes its internal travails, its leadership will find it hard to conjure up a clear Arab and regional vision.

Where events in Syria are concerned, Cairo remains as supportive of the Syrian people as it can be.

President Mohamed Morsi’s Syria statements and Cairo’s backing of the Arab League decision giving Syria’s seat to the Syrian Opposition Coalition corroborate this. The Arab League switch would not have been possible without Egypt’s full backing.

When discussing Egypt’s stance on Syria, we’re talking by implication about the position of Iran, which sees in Bashar al-Assad’s political survival the cornerstone of its strategy in the region.

After all, Iran effectively sacrificed its relations with the best part of the Ummah to preserve this immoral position. And the Islamic Republic’s loss on that matter is immeasurable by strategic standards.

Morsi would not have been supportive of the Syrian opposition had he been anxious to win Iran’s heart and mind.

He is aware that vexing Iran could tempt her to support and fund his opponents, if not tamper with Egypt’s internal security – chiefly in the soft areas of Sinai, where tribal groups and some Islamists are being led to believe they could challenge “Zionists” from that particular frontline.

On his February trip to Egypt for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not meet with Morsi except at Cairo airport, which is where Ahmadinejad offered him oil grants and financial support. Morsi simply ignored the offer.

Likewise, you can’t read much into the bilateral tourism promotion agreement between Egypt and Iran and the normalization of their commercial ties.

By comparison, tourism and commerce links between Turkey and Iran continue to prosper even though the two countries are exchanging blows in Syria and fighting a cold war across the region.

This is not to mention Tehran’s attempts to play the Kurdish card – a no-hoper since Recep Tayyip Erdogan made his historic peace deal with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

While Egypt has yet to resume diplomatic relations with Iran and bilateral tourism and commerce is just beginning, Arab Gulf states and the Islamic Republic share a wide range of diplomatic, tourism and trade links. For instance, hundreds of thousands of Iranians travel to Saudi Arabia annually to perform the Hajj and Umrah. Tens of thousands of Iranians also visit the UAE, Kuwait and Oman.

So can Morsi and his government overlook Egypt’s economic interests and shut out Iran? And is Egypt’s national security so porous as to be easily compromised by Tehran?

This takes us to the preoccupation of many people with Shi’ization (or the “missionary-style” spread of Shiism).

In truth, the obsession with Shi’ization is an insult to the Sunni branch of Islam, depicting it as vulnerable and easily pliable, which is far from being the case.

Inasmuch as Alawites are part of Shiite Islam, did 40-plus years of Alawite rule in Syria convert the country’s Sunni majority to Shiism?

More importantly, was Shiite Iran able to Shi’ize its own Sunni population (of about 10 percent) over the years?

Iran’s occasional dabbling in Shi’ization drives is provocative, featherbrained and futile. But the Arabs’ problem with Iran is far from being sectarian. The problem is political par excellence.

Egypt, it must be said, is a regional heavyweight with an impressive cultural and historical legacy. It is also home to the millennium-old Al-Azhar University, the foremost institution in the Islamic world for the study of Sunni theology and Islamic law, and to Al-Azhar Mosque.

The future will show that whoever thinks Iran can gobble up and Shi’ize Egypt is hallucinating.

Egypt will never fall in Iran’s lap, neither under Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood nor under anyone else. Politics, history and the balance of power won’t let this happen.

Let’s stop portraying Iran as an omnipotent sovereign when it is wobbling under the weight of its problems in Syria, in Iraq and at home.

Iran will revert to its original size once Assad is shown the door. The Arab world will then have no problem building good neighborly relations with Tehran as it now has with Ankara.

Syria repeats threat to use chemical weapons

Image of the Kornet missile set up on its tripod

Says it might also deliver Kornet missiles to all Kurds to fight Turkey 

Syria has again made clear it would use its deadly chemical and biological weapons if it were attacked by outside Arab, Turkish or Western forces.

Damascus is also serving notice it would provide a Russian-made Kornet anti-tank guided missile to every Turkish and Syrian Kurd to fight Turkey in case it openly intervened militarily in Syria.

Hezbollah, which is Syria and Iran’s cat’s-paw in Lebanon, relayed the double-barreled Syrian forewarning on its Al-Manar portal this morning.

The new caution follows Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s revelation in his interview with U.S. journalist Charles Rose broadcast on Thursday that Moscow helped broker American-Syrian contacts on security issues related to Damascus’ chemical and biological stockpiles.

“I hope that I disclose no big secret by saying that we [Russians] were helping American experts to come into contact with Syrians on this issue, and that we got explanations and assurances that the Syrian government safeguards these facilities with chemical weapons in the best way,” Lavrov said in the interview.

Syrians have moved some of their chemical weapons capability to better secure it, but the country’s main chemical weapons sites remain intact and secure under government control, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the day after, citing U.S. intelligence. 

“There has been some intelligence that with regards to some of these sites that there has been some movement in order for the Syrians to better secure ... the chemicals,” Panetta told a Pentagon news conference with his Canadian counterpart, according to Reuters. “So while there’s been some limited movement, again the major sites still remain in place, still remain secure.”

“We still believe, based on what we know and what we’re monitoring, that the principal sites remain secure,” he said.



Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile is the largest in the Middle East, but its precise scope remains unclear, according to analysts.



The regime said in July it might use its chemical weapons if attacked by outside countries, although not against its own people.



Here is how Hezbollah relayed this morning the Syrian regime’s warning:

“The U.S. delegation to the 67th session of the UN General Assembly sought to contact the Syrian delegation through Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Arab sources in France told al-Manar the United States wanted to discuss the weapons of mass destruction in Syria’s possession.

“According to the sources, the Syrians gave assurances, endorsed by Russia, that chemical and biological weapons won’t be used under any circumstances in Syria in the course of the ongoing fighting between the Syrian state and the armed opposition, which is backed by the United States directly and through its Arab and Turkish allies in the region.

“The Arab sources said the Syrian delegation reiterated the weapons in question are secure and safe and won’t be used except if Syria faced outside military intervention. Only in such a case would the countries inciting and participating in any kind of aggression against Damascus become a legitimate target for Syrian missiles with chemical and biological warheads, including unspecified countries neighboring Syria.

“The Arab sources said Turkey and Israel were in the gunsight of unconventional Syrian missiles in the event the Syrian Arab Republic confronted outside military intervention as proposed by Qatar’s Emir at the United Nations and backed up as expected by Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby.

“In the same context, Syrian Kurdish sources close to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its Syrian offshoot, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), said Syria notified Turkey of the following: any Turkish meddling in Syria -- now at the stage of direct military intervention across the border and in Idlib -- will push Syria to arm every Kurd in Turkey and Syria with a missile. The Kurdish source said Syria is seriously tending to provide the Kurds with heavy and advanced weapons, such as Kornet missiles the Kurds need for their war against Turkey. Delivering such military hardware to the PKK would change the face of the conflict in the Qandil Mountains.”