Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was reported to be planning a visit to Syria last week as Ankara's relationship with Damascus moved towards breaking point, writes Gareth Jenkins Tensions between Turkey and Syria rose last week amid growing frustration in Ankara at Damascus's failure to implement substantive reforms and fears that the trickle of refugees crossing the border into Turkey could turn into a flood if the situation in Syria continues to deteriorate. On Monday, Turkey's National Security Council, which brings together leading members of the Turkish military and the civilian government, issued a statement calling on Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad to implement "urgent reforms" in order to prevent the increasingly violent unrest in Syria escalating into a full-blown civil war. Also on Monday, officials from the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu would soon embark on a tour of the region, including a visit to Damascus, as Ankara's relationship with the Syrian regime moved towards breaking point. Over the last month, nearly 15,000 Syrians are estimated to have fled into Turkey, over 11,500 of them being housed by the Turkish Red Crescent in camps close to Turkey's border with Syria. Thousands more are believed to have fled towards the border, ready to try to cross it if they come under threat from troops loyal to Al-Assad. Turkish officials have repeatedly expressed their fears of a repeat of events in April 1991, when hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Kurds fled to the Turkish border after a failed uprising against former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. There have even been suggestions that the Turkish military should try to establish a buffer zone inside Syria so that those fleeing Al-Assad's forces can be supplied with humanitarian aid in their own country. However, last week there were reports that Syrian troops had been deployed close to the border as a warning to the Turkish military that any attempt to cross into Syria would be opposed. The reports have proved impossible to verify, but there is little doubt that the ruling Turkish Justice and Development Party's (AKP) once warm relations with Damascus are rapidly cooling. In the years preceding the protests, the AKP had vigorously cultivated closer ties with Syria, though although AKP officials publicly talked about cooperation, privately they never regarded it as a relationship of equals. Instead, they tended to see it as a step towards establishing Turkey as a regional power at the centre of its own area of influence. After Syria was first shaken by mass anti-government demonstrations in March 2011, AKP officials repeatedly expressed their support for the Syrian president, while privately encouraging him to implement reforms to address issues fuelling the protests. Al-Assad listened, but did nothing, and in Ankara the result was not only frustration, but also a blow both to Turkish pride and to the AKP's regional ambitions. Most galling for the AKP has been the fact that Al-Assad has clearly been listening to Tehran, which has consistently supported his attempts to crush the anti-government protests. For the AKP, the fear is that a country that it had regarded as being in Turkey's sphere of influence is now aligned with Iran at a time when Ankara's own once-close relationship with Tehran has rapidly soured as a result of Turkish suspicions that Iran helped foment Shia protests against the Sunni government in Bahrain. The influx of Syrian refugees into Turkey has not only raised the spectre of a humanitarian crisis, but it has also put the AKP under pressure domestically by making it increasingly difficult for it to justify supporting the Al-Assad regime. Initially, the Turkish Red Crescent banned journalists from entering the refugee camps across from the Syrian border. Nevertheless, enough of the residents managed to get their stories out to ensure that Turkish newspapers have been carrying tales of violence, torture, mass rape and extra-judicial executions allegedly carried out by troops loyal to Al-Assad. Yet, although there have been signs that the AKP is edging slowly away from Al-Assad, it is still reluctant to make a public break with the government in Damascus, not least because it is still unsure whether al-Assad will be able to cling to power, or, if he is overthrown, who is likely to replace him. AKP fears of what it can expect if it backs the losing side in Syria were graphically illustrated last week by a series of stories in the Turkish press. Although cross-border trade has declined considerably in recent weeks, some Turkish trucks are still transporting goods across the border. However, the truck drivers have reported that, as the AKP has tentatively begun to distance itself from the Al-Assad regime, they have begun to meet with a much cooler reception from officials and supporters of the government in Damascus. "They ask us why Turkey is opening its arms to traitors who are fleeing the country," one truck driver told reporters. Some have begun to fear for their jobs. "The honeymoon is over," said another. "When I stop to buy diesel, they tell me that there isn't any left. But I know they have some. They used to embrace us. Now they look at us very differently." "When officials inspect our documents, they drag out the procedures and send us all over the place," said another Turkish truck driver. "In the past, they used to give us priority because we were Turkish."
