ISRAELIS & TURKS FORM MILITARY ALLIANCE AGAINST THEARABS
WASHINGTON -- One of the best diplomatic stories going these daysis a little-known cloak-and-dagger thriller involving bombs in Syria, anassassination attempt in Turkey, missing bags of money in Ankara and covertTurkish-Israeli military cooperation. It's James Bond does the Tigris andEuphrates and it's what Middle East leaders are really talking about.
Scene One : Our story opens in Israel in February 1996, when theTurkish military's Deputy Chief of Staff, Cevik Bir, pays a secret visitto forge a military alliance with Shimon Peres. The deal calls for Israeliplanes to practice in the open skies over Turkey and for Turkish planesto train over Israel. This gives Israel's air force its first staging areain Asia, from which it could outflank Syria and intimidate Iran. It givesthe Turks a perfect way to squeeze Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, whohas been providing a sanctuary for Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the KurdishWorkers Party, the PKK, which has been fighting a bloody guerrilla war againstthe Turks from bases in Syria. Mr. Assad keeps Mr. Ocalan around to preventTurkey, which is building a dam on the Euphrates, from choking off Syria'swater supply.
Scene Two : At a meeting of Central Asian leaders in Ashkabad, Turkmenistan,in May, Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani meets with Turkey's President,Suleyman Demirel, who had recently visited Israel. Mr. Rafsanjani, accordingto a participant, goes "bananas" over the Turkey-Israel pact,fulminating that "the Israelis will use it to bomb Teheran."
Scene Three : Two days later, Mr. Demirel is cutting the ribbon ata new office building in Izmit, Turkey, when Ibrahim Gumrukcuoglu, a 47-year-oldpharmacist with Islamic fundamentalist leanings, steps out of the shadowsand tries to shoot the President. A Demirel bodyguard deflects the gunman'sarm and foils the assassination attempt. The assailant says he attackedthe President to express anger over the Turkey-Israel pact. The shootingcomes days after Iran and Turkey quietly evicted several of each other'sdiplomats on suspicion of fomenting trouble.
Scene Four : In early May a series of unexplained bomb explosionstake place around Syria. The Financial Times reports that one bomb explodedon May 6 on the route Mr. Assad was to have taken to the annual commemorationof the day Syrian nationalist rebels were executed by the Ottoman Turksin the 19th century. The Syrians round up 600 ethnic Turks living aroundDamascus on suspicion of involvement in the bombings.
Scene Five : Turkey's coalition government collapses and NecmettinErbakan, head of the Islamist Welfare Party, is called on to form a newgovernment. But the Turkish military, working behind the scenes, effectivelyblocks Mr. Erbakan from building a coalition, because the army fears hewould scotch the Israeli-Turkish military deal. Word then leaks that formerTurkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller can't explain what happened to $6 millionfrom the prime minister's discretionary operations fund. Mrs. Ciller saysthat if she were to disclose where the money went it could damage relationswith neighboring states and possibly cause a war. Speculation in Istanbulis that the money went to Chechen rebels or for bombings in Damascus. Meanwhile,the Turks report that a squadron of their F-4 Phantom jets have been reconfiguredwith Israeli electronics so they can fire on Syrian surface-to-air missilesbefore the Syrians can fire on them.
What's going on here? Quite simply it's a major strategic realignmentin Middle East-Asia. Israel's peace process with the Muslim world has givenTurkey the cover to openly align with Israel so the two can undercut theircommon foes: Syria and Iranian-style Islamic extremism. This realignmentis a reminder that for the Peres-Rabin team the peace process was not justa romantic adventure, but a strategic choice to help Israel make peace withthe inner ring of countries around it so that it could deal more effectivelywith the real long-term threats to its security on the outer ring -- Libya,Iran and Iraq. Maybe the most important strategic relationship the new IsraeliGovernment will inherit, and have to deftly manage, will not be the oneto the west with Egypt or to the east with Jordan but to the north withTurkey.
Copyright 1996 The New York Times Company
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