Barbara Walters chats with Forward Syria
Swaying between art and seduction
Discussing monetary policy with the man in charge
Where the earth screams in horror
08/03/2010 - Issue 42
A recent history of Syrian-Turkish relations
When Recep Tayyip Erdogan told an audience attending a Syrian-Turkish Business Council meeting in April 2008 of how if trade relations between Turkey and Syria should reach their potential, the two countries would “be able to extract milk even from the male goat.” Everybody laughed. Over two years on however, the traders, businessmen, and shopkeepers of north Syria and southeast Turkey are those who are grinning.
Last year the two countries signed 50 protocols to grow ties in areas ranging from energy to transport to tourism to cement. The Turkish side of Bab Al-Hawa, the main artery linking Europe and the Middle East region, has been revamped to facilitate growing traffic flows—luxury ice-cream flooding south, Arab tourists heading north.
Syrian businessmen, particularly those based in Gaziantep, were to a significant degree responsible for the abolishment of visa requirements brought into law last September. Visits by President Assad and Prime Minister Erdogan to their respective capital cities have increased several fold over the last number of months. Around the time of the Flotilla attack on May 31st, President Assad had been in Ankara twice in a two-week period for conferences and to launch business commitments. The Turkish government has offered Syria $6.3 million USD to support 42 projects being carried out as part of a burgeoning regional cooperation program between the two countries.
Anyone with a television knows the extent of influence Turkish melodramas now hold over Syria, and much of the wider region. Dubbed into Syrian Arabic from the Turkish, the antics of Noor, Mirna, Khalil, and Lamis have previously been standard gossip points in households across the country. The value of these shows may still be slight in terms of cold hard cash, but their popularity creates a growing awareness of Turkish society and culture: In 2008 and 2009 hundreds of Syrian couples spend part of their honeymoons visiting the houses in Istanbul popularized by the characters Mohannad and Noor.
