ANKARA: A serious diplomatic crisis erupted on Sunday between Ankara and Washington after the US Embassy in Ankara said it had suspended all non-immigrant visa services at its diplomatic facilities in Turkey.
“Recent events have forced the United States Government to reassess the commitment of the Government of Turkey to the security of US Mission facilities and personnel,” the embassy said in a statement posted on its Twitter account.
“In order to minimize the number of visitors to our Embassy and Consulates while this assessment proceeds, effective immediately we have suspended all non-immigrant visa services at all US diplomatic facilities in Turkey.”
Ankara retaliated via its embassy in Washington hours later.
With a word-for-word copy of the American announcement but replacing the country names, Ankara suspended all non-immigrant visa services at all Turkish diplomatic facilities in the US, including visas in passports, e-visas and those acquired at the borders.
Visa applications for tourism, the media, study, marriage and business are included in this restriction.
The tit-for-tat moves are seen as a further deterioration in relations between the NATO allies. Turkish authorities last week arrested a Turkish employee at the US Consulate over his alleged links with leading members of the outlawed Gulen network, which is believed to be behind last year’s coup attempt.
In March, a Turkish interpreter working at the US Consulate was detained in the southern province of Adana over his alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since the 1980s.
This unprecedented new low in bilateral relations is likely to affect joint counterterrorism efforts and defense cooperation due to decreased trust.
“This should be seen as part of US pressure on Ankara in reaction to the worsening of relations and the erosion of democracy in Turkey, rather than to one incident only,” Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, Ankara director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told Arab News.
The US is using Turkey’s southern Incirlik air base in its campaign against Daesh. If relations do not improve soon, the US might seek alternatives to the base, like Germany did in September by relocating its soldiers to Jordan after months of tensions with Ankara.
Unluhisarcikli said US policy circles were inspired by the German move, adding: “While US-Turkey ties have always seen ups and downs, this is one of the lowest points in the relationship, at a crucial time when there are tectonic shifts both globally and around Turkey. Diplomats rather than politicians should do most of the talking if the relationship is to be put back on track.”
The two countries have been at odds before, mainly due to Washington’s partnership with and arming of the Syrian-Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considers an extension of the PKK. Ankara has also been urging the US to extradite Fethullah Gulen over the coup attempt, in which more than 240 people were killed.
The leak by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency of the locations of 10 sensitive US military sites in northern Syria in June infuriated the Pentagon, which voiced concerns about the reliability of the partnership with Ankara.
Mehmet Ali Tugtan, an expert on transatlantic relations at Istanbul Bilgi University, said the arrest of the US Consulate employee was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and reflects an overall deterioration in bilateral ties.
He said that joint efforts against Daesh would be affected under two scenarios: If the escalation leads Ankara to restrict US military operations from Turkey, particularly Incirlik, and if the Turkish military or Free Syrian Army units attack the Kurdish-controlled Syrian district of Afrin, in which case YPG forces poised to complete the operation in Raqqa would be diverted to defend Afrin.
State-run Anadolu news agency said another US consulate worker had been summoned to testify over his wife and daughter’s suspected links to Gulen — which it said had emerged during the questioning of Metin Topuz, the employee arrested last week.
Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat who now chairs the Istanbul-based Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, said the crisis demonstrates the limits of the personal relationship established between presidents Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“The hollowing out of institutional ties has created an environment open to escalation,” Ulgen told Arab News, adding that the crisis will complicate efforts to find room for convergence in the two countries’ regional policies.
Escalation will increase Ankara’s psychological alienation from the transatlantic community, Ulgen said.
“On the Turkish side, the American decision will deepen the belief that the US is unwilling to empathize with Turkey’s concerns over threats to its domestic security,” he said.
“On the US side, it will increase the degree of frustration over influencing the Turkish government to start improving the rule of law.”
According to Reuters, Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul said that if Washington had serious security concerns about its missions in Turkey, steps would be taken to address them.
“But if it’s an issue regarding the arrest of the consulate employee, then this is a decision the Turkish judiciary has made,” Gul said. “Trying a Turkish citizen for a crime committed in Turkey is our right.”
US-Turkey visa crisis: The tip of the iceberg?
US-Turkey visa crisis: The tip of the iceberg?
Syria authorities say torched 1 million captagon pills
DAMASCUS: Syria’s new authorities torched a large stockpile of drugs on Wednesday, two security officials told AFP, including one million pills of captagon, whose industrial-scale production flourished under ousted president Bashar Assad.
Captagon is a banned amphetamine-like stimulant that became Syria’s largest export during the country’s more than 13-year civil war, effectively turning it into a narco state under Assad.
“We found a large quantity of captagon, around one million pills,” said a balaclava-wearing member of the security forces, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Osama, and whose khaki uniform bore a “public security” patch.
An AFP journalist saw forces pour fuel over and set fire to a cache of cannabis, the painkiller tramadol, and around 50 bags of pink and yellow captagon pills in a security compound formerly belonging to Assad’s forces in the capital’s Kafr Sousa district.
Captagon has flooded the black market across the region in recent years, with oil-rich Saudi Arabia a major destination.
“The security forces of the new government discovered a drug warehouse as they were inspecting the security quarter,” said another member of the security forces, who identified himself as Hamza.
Authorities destroyed the stocks of alcohol, cannabis, captagon and hashish in order to “protect Syrian society” and “cut off smuggling routes used by Assad family businesses,” he added.
Syria’s new Islamist rulers have yet to spell out their policy on alcohol, which has long been widely available in the country.
Since an Islamist-led rebel alliance toppled Assad on December 8 after a lightning offensive, Syria’s new authorities have said massive quantities of captagon have been found in former government sites around the country, including security branches.
AFP journalists in Syria have seen fighters from Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) set fire to what they said were stashes of captagon found at facilities once operated by Assad’s forces.
Security force member Hamza confirmed Wednesday that “this is not the first initiative of its kind — the security services, in a number of locations, have found other warehouses... and drug manufacturing sites and destroyed them in the appropriate manner.”
Maher Assad, a military commander and the brother of Bashar Assad, is widely accused of being the power behind the lucrative captagon trade.
Experts believe Syria’s former leader used the threat of drug-fueled unrest to put pressure on Arab governments.
A Saudi delegation met Syria’s new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Damascus on Sunday, a source close to the government told AFP, to discuss the “Syria situation and captagon.”
Jordan in recent years has also cracked down on the smuggling of weapons and drugs including captagon along its 375-kilometer (230-mile) border with Syria.
Jordan says 18,000 Syrians returned home since Assad’s fall
AMMAN: About 18,000 Syrians have crossed into their country from Jordan since the government of Bashar Assad was toppled earlier this month, Jordanian authorities said on Thursday.
Interior Minister Mazen Al-Faraya told state TV channel Al-Mamlaka that “around 18,000 Syrians have returned to their country between the fall of the regime of Bashar Assad on December 8, 2024 until Thursday.”
He said the returnees included 2,300 refugees registered with the United Nations.
Amman says it has hosted about 1.3 million Syrians who fled their country since civil war broke out in 2011, with 650,000 formally registered with the United Nations.
Lebanon hopes for neighborly relations in first message to new Syria government
- Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah played a major part propping up Syria’s ousted President Bashar Assad through years of war
- Syria’s new Islamist de-facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa is seeking to establish relations with Arab and Western leaders
DUBAI: Lebanon said on Thursday it was looking forward to having the best neighborly relations with Syria, in its first official message to the new administration in Damascus.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib passed the message to his Syrian counterpart, Asaad Hassan Al-Shibani, in a phone call, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry said on X.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah played a major part propping up Syria’s ousted President Bashar Assad through years of war, before bringing its fighters back to Lebanon over the last year to fight in a bruising war with Israel – a redeployment which weakened Syrian government lines.
Under Assad, Hezbollah used Syria to bring in weapons and other military equipment from Iran, through Iraq and Syria and into Lebanon. But on Dec. 6, anti-Assad fighters seized the border with Iraq and cut off that route, and two days later, Islamist militants captured the capital Damascus.
Syria’s new Islamist de-facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa is seeking to establish relations with Arab and Western leaders after toppling Assad.
Iraqi intelligence chief discusses border security with new Syrian administration
BAGHDAD: An Iraqi delegation met with Syria’s new rulers in Damascus on Thursday, an Iraqi government spokesman said, the latest diplomatic outreach more than two weeks after the fall of Bashar Assad’s rule.
The delegation, led by Iraqi intelligence chief Hamid Al-Shatri, “met with the new Syrian administration,” government spokesman Bassem Al-Awadi told state media, adding that the parties discussed “the developments in the Syrian arena, and security and stability needs on the two countries’ shared border.”
