The aim to bring order, security and stability is another motive for Turkey given its geopolitical, social, and psychological proximity to conflicts in the region. Many Turks live in neighbouring countries including Syria and vice-a-versa. As Haşimi argued, Turkey is affected by conflicts in the region, inter alia, as a result of its diverse population that includes many ethnicities such as Arabs and Jews.560 He notes,
Speaking to both of the parties is enough to be a mediator but you also should have a perspective. The Israeli-Syrian talks were conducted for the sake of bringing peace into the Middle East and resolving the problems in one way or the other. You have a perspective on the Middle East, which entails, politically speaking, the transformation of the Middle East from a zone of conflict into a region of trade and an island of peace. This was the initial target. This is why Turkey was mediating, not simply to provide a platform. The practices in the West are generally limited to providing a platform whereas the political agenda and political priorities of our mediation is predetermined which is inevitable here in the Middle East and there is no other way. This is why our Prime Minister has to take a position when one of the parties does something that damages the political relationship and the process of partnership.561
Compared to the US, for Turkey there is always a greater risk of spill-over which has become more evident, for instance, during the Arab Spring. According to a recent report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Turkey hosts the highest number of refugees in the world with about 2 million Syrians, and a financial cost of about $6 billion.562 Turkey has also become a transit route for militants and faces the threat of being dragged into the war. It seems obvious that Turkey would highly benefit from stability in the region.
A Syrian-Israeli peace deal would also have a positive impact on the Turkish economy. For instance, the opening of the Syrian-Israeli border would have significant impact on
560
Interview with Haşimi.
561 Ibid.
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Turkey's trade with the region. As noted in Chapter 3, economic and domestic stability are two of the main catalysts for consolidating the position of Turkey’s new elite. As Aras contends, Turkey’s mediator role started as a result of its quest for regional stability which is also significant for its economic growth. He notes,
Turkey wants to have influence in its region and utilize those markets. Therefore, it [mediation] is significant for adding value to the economy. Secondly, Turkey is a country which is very much affected by the developments in neighbouring geographies. Turkey cannot be stable unless the neighbouring geographies are stable which is apparent, for instance, in the spill-over of the events in Kobani.563
Turkish policy makers have underlined in a number of occasions that Turkey’s own future is bound up with the future of the region and its neighbours such as Syria in a way that the future of America or other Western mediators are not. Turkey has vested interest in mediating to resolve the problems that could threaten its stability. As Gezer postulates, Turkish policy makers maintain that Turkey would be able to maximize its interests much more in a cooperative atmosphere. Contributing to regional cooperation would enable a sustainable environment that would serve Turkey’s national interests.564
The mediator role also provides positive input for Turkey in dealing with its own problems that have regional dimensions such as the Kurdish issue.
Similar to Turkey, the US would benefit from a possible order, stability and security in the region considering its political and economic interests.565 Looking at all instances of its mediation between Syria and Israel, it may be argued that the US was weary of the conflict in the Middle East. The on-going disputes only dragged it further into problems with costly
563
Interview with Aras.
564 Interview with Gezer.
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consequences attached. As argued by Quandt, many of the crises that erupted within the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict have challenged American interests in the region.566 This view is also supported by Kurtzer and Lasensky who argue that a possible Arab- Israeli peace would serve US national interest. They note that, “September 11, Iraq, and increasing instability in the Middle East have made US leadership in the peace process more, not less, important.”567
Salem contends similarly that a Syrian-Israeli peace deal would widely serve the US interests in the Middle East that “include a more stable Iraq, a weaker Iran, progress in the Arab–Israeli peace process, a stable Lebanon, a weaker Hezbollah, a weaker Jihadi movement, and an improved American image.”568
Moore argues in a similar vein that “The United States has had longstanding political, economic, and strategic interests in the Middle East and assertively intervened as a broker in attempts to promote stability in the region.”569
Quandt suggests that during the Cold War the US feared a large-scale war in the Middle East, similar to that of the 1973 War, and a possible Soviet intervention. Despite the fact that the Soviet threat was removed with its collapse, the intifadas and the rise of radicalism in the region emerged as new challenges.570 Quandt contends that,
After the intifadas there was a feeling that this kind of violence was going to be hard to contain. It could spill over into Lebanon, into Jordan; Arab governments would be destabilized by either supporting the intifada in which case the Israelis would see them as enemies or not doing anything in which case their public might have turned against them. So there was a fear that if this was left unresolved, radicalization in the Middle East would go further. Of course you know when al Qaida came along it played on this issue. In some ways, you wanted to take the Palestinian
566 Quandt, Peace Process, 415.
567 Daniel C. Kurtzer and Scott B. Lasensky, Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East, USIP Press: Washington, D.C., 2008, 26.
568
Salem, “Syrian–Israeli Peace,” 5-6.
569 Moore, The Mediation Process, 51. 570 Interview with Quandt.
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issue off the agenda of radical Islamic movements. Not that it would solve the issue but that it is one less issue for them to play with.571
One of the motives for the US to mediate the Syrian-Israeli talks during the Gulf War was that it wanted the support of Syria in Iraq and Hafez Assad proposed the Syrian-Israeli talks as a precondition for joining the coalition forces of the Gulf War.572 Quandt says that Syria became an objective ally of the US against Saddam during the Gulf War. He notes,
Syrian troops were actually going and fighting alongside the Americans. Unbelievable; you cannot imagine it now. So, for the first Bush administration, the relationship with Syria, this was largely the president and Secretary Baker himself, seemed strategically quite important while coming out of the Gulf War. Of course, Egypt was already at peace with Israel. So, the next building block was going to be Syria, not the Palestinians. And so, the Syrian-Israeli relationship began in 1991 with Bush and Baker and it led to the Madrid Conference.573
Quandt argues that while the main justification for the US to mediate conflicts in the Middle East before September 11 was to “promote stability, bolster pro-American regimes, and help to avoid conflicts that could prove costly to the United States,” it has later become to reverse “the rising tide of anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world, that it might reduce the number of recruits for extremist political organization, and that it might facilitate the spread of democracy and political reform.”574
These examples demonstrate that Turkey and the US had similar motives in wanting to bring order, security and stability to the Middle East from which they would largely benefit.