Arab-Turkish relations

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the long Ottoman history of the Arab world was turned, and radical transformations in Arab-Turkish relations began. The book begins its chapters with these transformations. The Ottoman Empire was in its throes of decline, as a result of the internal decline of its authority and the profound impact of European influence on its political, economic, and cultural structures. This resulted in a state of weakness that led some writers and diplomats of the time to describe the Ottoman Empire as a "sick man." The book begins from a historical perspective, providing a preliminary picture essential for understanding the political stages of Arab-Turkish relations. It revisits important historical backgrounds to explain the basis of the tension, such as the Unionist coup against Abdul Hamid and the Great Arab Revolt, which prompted Jamal Pasha to adopt a policy that cast a heavy shadow over the lost friendship between Arabs and Turks. The book then focuses on Mustafa Kemal's hostility toward Arabs and Muslims, his severing of the Sanjak of Alexandretta in 1939, Turkey's recognition of the Zionist entity in 1948, its accession to NATO, and the emergence of the Euphrates River problem and its flow into Syria and Iraq. The author addresses a fundamental chapter of the distrust between Turks and Arabs in general, and Syria in particular, namely the separation of the security, military, and strategic alliance between Turkey and the Zionist entity. The Kurdish problem within Turkey, with the Workers' Party (PKK) beginning in 1984, and Turkey's accusations against Arab parties of supporting the Kurdish rebellion, exacerbated by repeated Turkish incursions into northern Iraq under the pretext of pursuing Kurdish rebels. This turmoil of tensions was punctuated by a chapter outside the general context: the period of normalization between Syria and Turkey following the signing of the Adana Agreement between the two countries in 1998. The book reaches the twenty-first century, analyzing the Turkish-Syrian path in particular, and its strategic significance with Bashar al-Assad's rise to power in the summer of 2000. The result is that the author offers readers a comprehensive, reference tour from which they emerge with a profound understanding and a very rich record of an ambiguous relationship that has yet to reach a safe shore.