Duck
This is a guest post by Peter S. Henne. Peter is a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University. He formerly worked as a national security consultant. His research focuses on terrorism and religious conflict; he has also written on the role of faith in US foreign policy. During 2012-2013 he will be a fellow at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia.
The Syrian shelling of Akcakale--a Turkish village on the Syrian border--and Turkey's military response against Syrian targets was shocking. Personally, it made me think of a 2009 trip I took to Antep and Urfa--cities in southeastern Turkish--sponsored by the Rumi Forum. The region, long underdeveloped, was experiencing a boom thanks to infrastructure investment and trade with Syria, as I saw in both of these cities. I wondered what a trip there would be like now, given Urfa is less than an hour from Akcakale and Antep two and a half hours away.
What happened? How did the Turkish-Syrian relations go from close-and-getting-closer to on-the-brink-of-war?
Only a short time ago, Turkey was establishing unprecedented ties with its Middle Eastern neighbors. Although much has been made of Turkey's break with the United States over the Iraq invasion and tensions with Israel, more dramatic changes occurred with states like Syria and Iran. Turkey almost came to blows with both in the 1990s over the insurgent Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), which found support in Iran and Syria. Likewise, Turkey had generally not been involved in Middle Eastern politics. Turkey's improved relations with these states under the currently-governing Justice and Development Party (JDP)--and the popularity of JDP Prime Minister Erdogan among Arab societies--is thus a major development.
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