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Thursday, December 3, 2009     GET REAL

Israel maintains military ties with Turkey despite strains over Syria

JERUSALEM Ñ Israel and Turkey have managed to retain military cooperation despite rising political tension, according to a new report.   

The report by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs said that the Islamist government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has continued military cooperation with Israel despite their political crisis in 2009. Still it warned that Israeli-Turkish relations were threatened by Ankara's strategic alliance with Syria, Middle East Newsline reported.

"Israel's military relationship with Turkey Ñ including ongoing joint air force training, military exchanges, and arms sales Ñ appears to be secure for the time being," the center, in a report by a leading U.S. analyst, titled "The Islamist Transformation in Turkish Politics," said.

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"Should bilateral political tensions continue Ñ and as Ankara and Damascus enhance strategic ties Ñ inevitably Israeli-Turkish military to military relations will suffer."

Authored by former Defense Department analyst David Schenker, the report did not detail current Israeli-Turkish military cooperation. Instead, Schenker pointed to Turkey's cancellation of Israel's participation in the NATO-aligned Anatolian Eagle exercise in October 2009.

In wake of the cancellation, the Erdogan government announced plans to conduct a Turkish military exercise with Syria. The report said Ankara's decision was expected and reflected the policy of the ruling pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party.

The report said Turkey's key motive for a military alliance with Israel, launched in 1996, was Ankara's war with the Kurdish Workers Party. By 1999, Turkey had forced Syria to expel PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and later arrested him. Since 2002, Syria and Turkey have signed 46 agreements, including a military training pact.

"Turkey no longer needed Israeli assistance to pressure the Syrian government to change its policy of providing safe-haven to the terrorist Kurdish Worker's Organization [PKK]," the report said.

Schenker, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, said Ankara's embrace of Syria over the last three years reflected the decline of Turkey's military. He said Erdogan's party, which has succeeded in marginalizing the military, has been promoting relations with such countries as Qatar, Sudan and Syria while rejecting pro-Western Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia.

"Today, the Turkish military can do little to impact the policies of the Islamist AKP, which promote solidarity with Islamist, anti-Western regimes while dismissing secular, pro-Western Muslim governments," the report said.

The report said Turkey began weakening its relationship with Israel as early as 2006. In 2009, however, Ankara sparked a crisis with Israel during its war with Hamas as the Erdogan government improved relations with Syria. This included the first Syrian-Turkish military exercise in April.

"Clearly, 2009 was a watershed year for the Turkey-Syria bilateral relationship and a year of setbacks for Israeli-Turkish ties," the report said. "While the long-term implications of these developments remain to be seen, the current trajectory is not cause for optimism."

Schenker said Turkey's support for Iran and Syria has raised concern within NATO. He said Ankara's pro-Iranian policy could harm U.S. interests in the Middle East.

"Perhaps more worrisome is the prospect that Ankara may over time pursue a closer foreign policy alignment with Iran that would undermine U.S. and Israeli regional interests," the report said.



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