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Assad naively trusted Erdogan until he was stabbed in the back

Assad naively trusted Erdogan until he was stabbed in the back

 


Former Syrian President Bashar al Assad and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

For many years, until the Syrian Civil War of 2011, Syria and Turkey enjoyed very close relations. In a series of reciprocal visits, Pres. Bashar al-Assad made a historic trip to Ankara in 2004, becoming the first Syrian president to do so. Then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Damascus to sign a free trade agreement. In 2007, Erdogan and Assad attended the opening ceremony of the Aleppo International Stadium. Commerce flourished thanks to visa-free travel. In 2008, Erdogan and his wife hosted the first Syrian couple for a vacation in the Turkish resort of Bodrum. In 2009, the two countries conducted joint military exercises along their shared border. I was told that Pres. Assad, to appease his Turkish ally, even banned books on the Armenian genocide from bookstores in Syria.

In 2008, during this period of warm relations between the two countries, the Catholicos of Cilicia Aram I met in Damascus with the President. Assad. The Catholicos later informed me that Pres. Assad told him that Armenians were making a big mistake by being anti-Turkish and constantly talking about the Armenian genocide. Assad said Armenians should forget the past and establish good relations with Turkey, which he described as a powerful and important country. He suggested that the Armenian economy would benefit greatly from trade with Turkey.

As a descendant of survivors of the Armenian Genocide and a long-time advocate for justice for the victims of this mass crime, I was deeply moved to hear from the President. Assad's terrible advice to Aram I. With this conversation in mind, when I had the chance to visit Damascus in early June 2009, I asked a mutual Armenian friend close to the President. Assad to arrange a meeting for me with the president.

After I arrived in Damascus, my friend called the presidential palace to confirm the meeting. The president's chief of staff told my friend to come to the palace alone to discuss the requested meeting. An hour later, my friend returned from the palace and told me in a discouraged voice that the meeting would not take place, because the chief of staff had searched my name on the Internet and discovered that I had wrote hundreds of critical articles on Turkey and the Armenian Genocide. He told my friend that it would not be possible for an anti-Turkish man like me to meet the president. Assad because of the friendly relations between Syria and Turkey.

Naturally, I was very disappointed. The reason I wanted to meet Pres. Assad had to tell him that not only was his advice to the Armenians wrong, but that he himself was making a grave mistake in trusting the President. Erdogan. I wanted to tell Pres. Assad that Armenians know all too well the deceptive nature of Turkish leaders given the genocide suffered by Armenians. I wanted to warn Pres. Assad that the day would come when his good friend Erdogan would betray him and stab him in the back.

I could not have imagined in 2009 that two years later a major civil war would break out in Syria with the full support of Erdogan. Although I had the chance to meet Pres. Assad to warn him, I wasn't sure he would have listened to me. Anyway, I wanted to give him my opinion.

I later heard that Pres. Assad had also told other Armenians he met that they should be friends with the Turks and Turkey. Assad particularly criticized the Armenians for burning the Turkish flag on April 24.

Following my visit to Damascus, Pres. Assad visited Armenia on June 17-18, 2009 and proposed to the President. Serzh Sargsyan will serve as a mediator between Armenia and Turkey due to Syria's close relations with both countries. However, Pres. Assad did not make a ceremonial visit to the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan, as all foreign leaders do, to lay a wreath. This was yet another example of Pres. Assad is excessively sensitive so as not to upset Turkey. Assad also explained that, out of respect for Turkey, Syria cannot recognize the Armenian genocide.

In a Facebook post last week, Samvel Farmanyan, a former MP and press secretary to the president. Sargsyan in 2009 reported that when President. Assad spoke enthusiastically about his excellent relations with Erdogan, the president. Sargsyan replied: You don't know the Turks well. The time will come and we will judge by the result. This ties in with the message I wanted to convey to Pres. Assad in Damascus.

More interestingly, in March 2014, after several years of attacks on Syria orchestrated by Turkey, when Farmanyan led a parliamentary delegation to Syria and met with the president. Assad, he asked Farmanyan to convey to the President. Sargsyan the following message: I remember our private conversation in Yerevan very well [with Pres. Sargsyan]. Assad then added: President Sargsyan was right. We didn't know the Turks well.

Naira Karapetyan, another member of the parliamentary delegation that visited Syria in 2014, confirmed the accuracy of Farmanyan's report on the president. Assad, recognizing that he was wrong to trust Erdogan.

Of course, it was too late in 2014 for Pres. Assad realizes that he should not have trusted Erdogan. This big mistake was one of the main reasons for his eventual downfall.

Harout Sassounian

Harut Sassounian is the publisher of The California Courier, a weekly newspaper based in Glendale, California. He is chairman of the Armenia Artsakh Fund, a non-profit organization that has donated $1 billion in humanitarian aid, mainly medicines, to Armenia and Artsakh. , since 1989 (including its predecessor, the United Armenian Fund). He was decorated by the presidents of Armenia and Artsakh as well as the heads of the Armenian Apostolic and Catholic churches. He is also a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

Harout Sassounian

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