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RUMICEA/USCENTCOM INTEL CEN MACDILL AFB FL
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DAMASCUS 000010 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/ELA, EUR/SE 
LONDON FOR LORD 
PARIS FOR NOBLES 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/04/2020 
TAGS: PREL SY TU
SUBJECT: ERDOGAN VISIT TO DAMASCUS WAS FLAWLESS, SAYS 
TURKISH AMBASSADOR 
 
Classified By: CDA Charles Hunter, Reasons 1.4 b and d. 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: Both the substance and the atmospherics of 
the December 22-23 visit that brought Turkish Prime Minister 
Erdogan and a large cabinet-level delegation to Damascus were 
outstanding, according to diplomatic contacts.  The visit saw 
the first meeting of the High-Level Strategic Cooperation 
Council and the signing of 50 agreements and memoranda of 
understanding in fields ranging from transportation and 
security to energy and water.  (See para 5 for a listing of 
topics.)  Erdogan and President al-Asad, meeting primarily 
one-on-one, found their views nearly perfectly congruent 
regarding Middle East peace and Lebanon, and close together 
on Iraq, but possibly with a small bit of daylight between 
them concerning Iran's nuclear ambitions.  End summary. 
 
¶2. (C) Relaxing after his prime minister's stay in Damascus, 
which had required more than a solid week of intensive 
preparation, Turkish Ambassador Omer Onhon told CDA on 
December 27 that in his whole career he had never seen a 
visit go so smoothly.  "I kept expecting something, even 
something minor, to go wrong," he crowed, "but nothing did." 
The official delegation comprised over a dozen ministers, 
most of them having at least brief separate meetings with 
their Syrian counterparts to discuss and sign agreements 
concerning subjects under their purview.  President al-Asad 
had been a gracious host, twice coming to the hotel where his 
Turkish guests were staying, and personally drove Erdogan to 
their tour of the al-Taqqiya al-Suleimaniya handicrafts 
complex and mosque.  The bulk of the two men's discussions 
had been tete-a-tete, according to the ambassador, who did 
not have extensive readouts to complement what the leaders 
had said in their press conference.  He did offer the 
following tidbits: 
 
-- Concerning Middle East peace, where Syria and Turkey see 
eye-to-eye on the desirability of Ankara's mediation with 
Israel, prospects for movement are dim given how little PM 
Netanyahu trusts Turkey.  Onhon recounted that Erdogan had 
been plain-spoken, using a popular expression the ambassador 
translated as "unless asked to clean up the dust, we won't do 
it by ourselves" to reassure Asad that the ball is in 
Israel's court.  Onhon did divulge, however, that he 
anticipated positive developments between his country and 
Israel "in the first half or three weeks of January," just 
before an Arab League-Turkey meeting he will attend in Cairo. 
-- On Lebanon, Erdogan thanked Asad for playing a positive 
role in the formation of PM Hariri's government, expressing 
pleasure at Hariri's visit to Damascus earlier in the week 
and the positive Syrian response to him. 
-- With regard to Iraq, Erdogan asserted that instability 
hurts the entire region, especially Iraq's neighbors, and 
Asad concurred. 
-- Iran was discussed, Onhon confirmed.  But Erdogan was 
apparently tight-lipped about this afterwards, perhaps 
indicating divergence of views on at least some matters.  "I 
don't know what he said," the ambassador admitted, guessing 
that the prime minister embraced diplomacy rather than 
sanctions and reiterated Turkey's position that although 
peaceful nuclear power is acceptable, Iran should not get 
nuclear weapons. 
 
¶3. (C) Other diplomats reported hearing from their Turkish 
and Syrian counterparts that the subject of Iraqi-Syrian 
relations absorbed more time than expected.  (Note: The 
Turkish ambassador to Baghdad traveled to Damascus for 
Erdogan's visit.  End note.)  Neither side saw much hope for 
defusing the current tensions prior to Iraqi elections, 
however.  Representatives of Iraq, Syria and Turkey had 
briefly met during the Arab-Turkish Forum ministerial in 
Damascus on December 16 but the meeting was "pointless." 
"Why should we talk to the Iraqis about anything directly," 
wondered a Syrian Foreign Ministry contact, "when the Iraqis 
want to have the UN involved and when FM Zebari says he's 
coming and then doesn't come?"  Arab embassies and the Turks 
 
DAMASCUS 00000010  002 OF 002 
 
 
here interpret the December 21 visit to Damascus of former 
Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi as a signal that the SARG will support 
Allawi in the upcoming election. 
 
¶4. (U) Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Naji Utri chaired the 
Syrian side for the first meeting of the High-Level Strategic 
Cooperation Council.  Under the Council's auspices more than 
four dozen agreements and memoranda of understanding (MOUs) 
were signed, the most ambitious envisioning the eventual 
irrigation of 150,000 hectares of farmland in al-Hasakah 
province using water drawn from the Tigris River, the 
construction of a dam on the Orontes River for power 
generation and irrigation, and the linking of Syria's natural 
gas pipeline to the Nabucco pipeline that crosses Turkey from 
central Asia into Europe.  Some of the MOUs signed in 
December represented the culmination of preparatory work that 
had taken place during earlier visits throughout the fall; 
Ambassador Onhon indicated that still more MOUs remain to be 
finalized.  All told, the two sides hope to increase their 
bilateral trade to USD 5 billion annually from its current 
level of USD 2 billion. 
 
¶5. (U) The 50 MOUs covered a wide variety of topics, with the 
largest number (8) having to do with health-related 
cooperation.  Other fields included trade and transportation 
(5), security and borders (5), water (4), agriculture and 
animal husbandry (3), housing and construction (3), education 
(3), two each concerning media, culture, science, diplomacy, 
and the oil and gas sectors, one each in tourism, meteorology 
and environment, and four miscellaneous cooperation 
agreements. 
 
¶6. (U) Media recap: The Syrian media warmly welcomed the 
visit of the Turkish prime minister and highlighted the 
signing of the memoranda of understanding.  The 
government-owned newspapers prominently featured positive 
stories regarding the meetings between Asad and Erdogan. 
Tishreen's headline read, "A Busy Day with Turkey: Signing 
the Agreements Has Redrawn the Map of the Middle East and 
Broken the Borders between the Two Countries."  Privately 
owned Al-Watan's lead headline read, "Syria and Turkey 
Establish a Better Future.  Erdogan: Syria is our Gateway to 
the World."  In addition to front-page stories, all papers 
dedicated one or two inside pages to the talks.  Coverage of 
the visit was also widespread on Syrian radio and television 
news and talk shows. 
HUNTER