Diplomatic sources have informed “Al-Hayat” that a “military cooperation training agreement project” was handed over to the head of the Political Guidance Administration in the Syrian army, General Mahmoud Ammar, during his visit to Ankara a few weeks ago. While nothing has been officially announced about the “agreement project” in Damascus, Çelikol stated that both parties “have started cooperation on military training matters.”
Relations between Ankara and Damascus began evolving in various fields after the signing of a memorandum in October 1998. The visit of the Syrian Vice President, Abdul-Halim Khaddam, to Ankara at the end of last year contributed to the development of these relations. The ambassador mentioned that Khaddam “proposed a comprehensive agreement between the two countries, and it was understood that achieving such an agreement and declaring the principles would be beneficial for both countries. However, the negotiations did not address the essence of these two issues.”
The first round of talks on the “declaration of principles” took place in March of last year, involving the Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister, Oğuz Ziyal, and the Syrian Assistant Foreign Minister, Ambassador Suleiman Haddad. Çelikol stated, “Work is underway through the embassies of the two countries to finalize a declaration of principles that includes a number of regulations governing their relations.”
Meanwhile, Damascus calls for the signing of a final agreement on the division of the Euphrates River’s waters, replacing the interim agreement of 1987, and coordinates with Iraq for “a unified Arab position” on this matter. The ambassador noted that “it is necessary to discuss this issue, like other common issues. Turkey is well aware of the importance of the water issue for Syria, so we have no intention of ignoring Syrian concerns or using water as a political tool.”
He added that the Syrian-Turkish-Iraqi technical committee, which has not met since the early 1990s, will resume its meetings “when the situation matures, and we believe that the water file is one of the regulated issues for bilateral cooperation with neighboring countries.”
