I felt the same sensation, which sent chills down my spine when I went to Athens for the first time several years ago. At that time, the following words had come out of my mouth involuntarily: "So close, yet so far away."Actually, these words do not hold true for the current state of bilateral relations between the two countries. During the 1990s, which corresponds to my career as a foreign news editor at the Zaman newspaper, when I had a closer interest in foreign policy and diplomacy, the main items on the agenda included the support Syria gave to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorist organization and claims about land and conflict over Turkey's water policies toward Syria. Likewise, the never-ending disputes between Turkey and Greece over the territorial waters in the Aegean Sea, the flight information region (FIR) demarcation, small islands, the mutual armament race, Cyprus, military excises and dogfights were our main areas of occupation. Bilateral relations were so complicated that a friend of mine who is an academician and an expert on Turkish-Greek relations had once joked, "As long as there are hostile relations between the two countries, I will never lose my job until my retirement," and we had burst into laughter at this tragicomic revelation. Today, those unlucky years when Turkish-Greek and Turkish-Syrian relations were defined as hostile are long past. The concrete results of the "policy of zero problems with neighbors," the theoretical framework of which was drawn up in the post-2002 era by Ahmet Davutoğlu, acting first as a chief foreign policy adviser to the prime minister and then as a foreign minister, are now visible everywhere.
Seeing that we were engulfed by a friendly atmosphere during our visit to Damascus struck not only me but also the editors-in-chief of leading Turkish newspapers with whom I was touring around the streets of Damascus, which felt so familiar to us. We were extremely happy to observe that despite the false stories about hostility that we have been hearing since the 1970s, we are so close to the beautiful people of this beautiful country, and we are like each other.
The fact that when the last of the Ottoman sultans, Vahdettin, who is depicted by our distorted official education system as a traitor, died in Italy in exile with many debts, our Syrian sisters and brothers brought his corpse to Syria and laid him to rest in a tranquil place that they carefully selected shows me a gleaming sign of the loyalty our Syrian sisters and brothers feel toward us Turks and to their past. While we failed to ask the simple question, "How can a sultan betray the country that is accepted as his own property?" and we labeled Sultan Vahdettin a traitor with blind fanaticism. The Syrian subjects of Sultan Vahdettin did not regard him a traitor but brought his corpse from Italy in order to bury him in the cool courtyard of Suleymaniye Complex, built by Mimar Sinan, in Damascus.
If we recall the sad story of Sultan Vahdettin, the following can be said: On Oct. 17, 1922, 16 days after the bill abolishing the sultanate was passed on Oct. 1, 1922, he left İstanbul and spent his last years in San Remo, Italy, where he died on May 15, 1926. When he died, he was so poor that even his coffin was confiscated, and his corpse was transported first to Beirut and then to Damascus in the company of his son-in-law Ömer Faruk Efendi. The Syrian government had held an official funeral ceremony which then-Syrian President Ahmed Nami Bey, who was the first husband of Ayşe Sultan, the daughter of Sultan Abdülhamid II, attended, too. Later, some other members of the Ottoman dynasty who were living in several European cities were also laid to rest next to him. His burial place, which is held in high esteem by Syrians, and Suleymaniye Mosque are now being renovated with sponsorship from the Ministry of Culture and the Turkish Cooperation and Development Agency (TİKA). Learning that Turkey has done something, though a bit late, to place importance to its past, which was never betrayed by Syrians, was like receiving a nice present in Damascus.
Actually, the warm welcome offered by Syria, which very much resembles Turkey, and by Syrians, who embrace Turks with strong feelings of love and fraternity was the real present we got in Damascus. When we walked in the majestic Hamidiye Bazaar, which was crowded until very late at night, and when we visited the grand 1,300-year-old Umayyad Mosque, which was converted from a church, Damascus always gave us that striking sensation of happiness one can get when he meets relatives whom he hasn't seen for years.
Compared to the atmosphere of hatred and hostility and the likelihood of an imminent war just 10 years ago, there is a completely different climate between Turkey and Syria. No doubt that not only the existing Turkish government's foreign policy, which radically changed the way Turkish people view their neighbors, and also Syria's young, moderate and far-sighted leader, al-Assad, have played a big role in this meeting between two countries who have long established friendly ties. At this point, I would like to express my thanks and gratitude to all the leaders who contributed to the creation of this friendly atmosphere that brought these two sister nations together once again.
