Waging Peace, Pages 62-63

SETA Panel Discusses Turkey’s Role as Israel-Syria Mediator

(L-r) Geoffrey Aronson, SETA-DC director Nuh Yilmaz, Daniel Levy and Ufuk Ulutas. (Staff Photo A. Blakely)

THE WASHINGTON, DC office of the Turkish think tank SETA (Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research) held its inaugural event on Nov. 17—a panel discussion on the status of and prospects for Turkish mediation in Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations. Ankara’s role as mediator has recently been called into question as a result of escalations in rhetoric between Turkey and Israel and a demonstrated willingness of France to oversee the process.

Ufuk Ulutas, SETA’s Middle East program coordinator, expressed confidence that “a deal between Syria and Israel is reachable if the parties are willing to make the necessary concessions.” The differences separating the Israeli and Syrian positions are less complex than those present in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he pointed out. Reaching an agreement on the Israeli-Syrian track is certainly feasible, therefore. Ulutas warned, however, that “neither side is ready to make the concessions” required at this stage.

Stressing the transient nature of the current tensions between Israel and Turkey, he suggested that tensions could be reduced through a series of gestures by both sides. Ulutas proposed, for example, that Turkey could help “free the prisoner Gilad Shalit.” Even if Turkey is able to reclaim the role of mediator and guide Israel and Syria to an agreement, he concluded, the U.S. must step in during the final stages to ensure successful implementation and stability of the agreement.

“They are knocking on everyone’s door,” Geoffrey Aronson, director of research and publications at the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said of the Turks. “Sometimes they are let into the room, most of the time they are not.” Aronson remarked that Ankara’s constant desire for involvement anywhere and everywhere can “be an asset, but can [also] reflect a lack of focus.” Referring to periodic cases of disappointment with Israel, as happened in 2004 and 2008, Aronson criticized Turkey’s habit of “permit[ing] themselves to be diverted.”

The collapse of Israeli-Syrian peace talks in 2008 resulting from Prime Minister Recep Erdogan’s outrage at the Israeli invasion of Gaza, Aronson argued, illustrates Turkey’s “inability to maintain a strategic interest in talks” regardless of “extraneous events.” The failure of Turkish mediation was twofold, Aronson added. As mediators, the Turks were unable to initiate direct talks or to “add value to the talks.” Aronson emphasized the need to recognize the limitations of third-party mediators that are not great powers. Turkey’s inability to exercise major levers of power, including “force and money,” is the type of constraint that “we must keep in mind as we look to the future.”

The final panelist, Middle East Task Force director Daniel Levy, pointed out issues of continuity that threaten the future of the Israeli-Syrian track. The Netanyahu government is unlikely to resume negotiations from the point at which they ended during the Olmert government, he noted. Moreover, rhetoric emanating from the current Israeli Foreign Ministry, he argued, provides a “backdrop” that will make it “very difficult to move forward on this track.”

Levy expressed particular concern over the deterioration of Israeli-Turkish relations. The current crisis in the relationship “pose[s] a major challenge to the maturity of Israeli foreign policy,” he said. Israel’s inability to maintain consistently good relations with one of the most democratic and most moderate of Muslim countries is deeply concerning, said Levy, who expressed notable pessimism on the potential for peace between Israel and Syria in the near term. Despite the relatively straightforward nature of the conflict and the consensus among upper-level Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials that peace should be made with Syria, Levy asserted that he was “not at all convinced that Netanyahu will go for this” or “that he has a majority in the Knesset on this.”

—Andrew Blakely