imagine if hafez refused to let the pkk use syria as a staging ground against turkiye?   syria-loves-ankara-but-will-the-rel ationship-last/ syria loves ankara but will the relationship last? emile el-hokayem and mer tapnar april 19, 2005 how quickly things change in the middle east. in 1998, turkey massed troops on its border with syria to coerce the regime of president hafez assad into relinquishing its support for the syria-based kurdish workers party (pkk). within days, abdullah ocalan, the pkk leader, was forced to leave damascus and was eventually apprehended in nairobi by turkish intelligence officers tipped off by the cia and the mossad. those were the good old days of the turkish-israeli-american strategic alliance in the middle east. that has changed. turkey now makes the news because of its growing anti-american and anti-israel feelings. the flashiest symptoms are the two bestselling books in the country: the first is a novel about a turkish-american war depicting washingtons decision to use nuclear weapons. the second is adolf hitlers mein kampf. in such atmospherics, it is no wonder that syria and iran have turned into natural allies. when turkish president ahmet necdet sezer visited syria last week, he was hailed as a hero not only by syrians but also by a turkish public that admired his willingness to resist american pressure. no one in turkey seems to remember that syria is still governed by a regime that supported the pkk. anti-american solidarity can indeed work wonders.
Jihadi