By Sibel Utku Bila

Agence France Press

ANKARA: Turkey is to send envoys to Syria Thursday to turn up pressure for reform as raging unrest there keeps Ankara on a tightrope, scrambling to push democratic change without harming flourishing ties.

President Abdullah Gul revealed Ankara had began to pressure Syrian President Bashar Assad to initiate reforms back in January when Tunisia’s leader was forced from power in the first of revolts across Arab countries.
“Some never accept change – they don’t have any chance at all. Others are playing for time but time will outpace them,” Gul told the Hurriyet daily in remarks published Wednesday.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Tuesday telephoned Assad, with whom he enjoys a close personal relationship, to voice “concerns” and “discomfort” over a bloody crackdown on protesters demanding reform.
“Of course the lifting of the state of emergency is a good start, but this is not enough … Syria must take many other steps,” Erdogan said, announcing he would send a Turkish delegation to Damascus to discuss the crisis.
“We don’t want … an authoritarian, totalitarian regime” in Syria, he said. “We wish that … the process of democratization is rapidly pursued.”

Ankara’s appeals to Syria have been carefully worded, in sharp contrast to the blatant warnings Erdogan had sent to ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak before he stepped down in February.
A senior Turkish diplomat conceded Wednesday that Assad “is not listening to us” and blamed the bloodshed in Syria on foot-dragging by its leader.

“But it is still not too late if he initiates the reforms immediately,” the Turkish diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Ankara however is opposed to international sanctions on Damascus because it “does not believe in their efficiency,” he added.

After decades of animosity, Turkish-Syrian relations thawed in 1998, when Turkish threats of military action forced Syria to expel Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, who guided a bloody Kurdish insurgency in southeast Turkey from his safe haven in Damascus.

The ties flourished after Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted ruling party came to power in 2002 and launched a drive for a Turkish leadership role in the Muslim world.
Since then, bilateral trade has more than tripled, reaching $2.5 billion in 2010, and the two countries have introduced a visa-free travel regime for their citizens.

In February, Turkey and Syria began building a joint dam along their frontier, announcing also projects to set up a joint bank, inaugurate a cross-border high speed train and link their natural gas networks.

Turkey’s National Security Council, where civilian and military leaders meet, was to discuss the situation in Syria Thursday as Ankara worries that deepening instability in its southern neighbor could have a spill-over effect.
The possibility of an exodus from Syria to Turkey is a matter of concern, said a government official who declined to be identified.

“It would create a security problem as it would be difficult to distinguish between civilians and PKK people,” the official said, referring to Ocalan’s separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which enjoys a support base among Syria’s Kurds.
In another dilemma for Turkey, some observers have also pointed out that democratic change and Assad’s departure would strengthen Syria’s Kurds, which could also play into PKK hands and fan Kurdish separatism in the region.

“Ankara prefers that the Assad regime takes quick steps to satisfy the people and secure calm in the country. That would mean … political change without the change of the leader,” foreign policy analyst Sami Kohen wrote in the Milliyet daily.