Syria used to have territorial disputes with Turkey when Bassar Assad's father, Hafiz Essad, was in power. Both Syria and Turkey after Hafiz Essad started to cooperate against the Kurdish aspirations for national rights and they become very close allies. Iran was also a strong partner to the alliance.
Turkey's current foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, came up with a concept of "Zero problems" with neighbours.
Turkey and Syria got much closer and they agreed on travel without Visa's. This was good news, especially to the Kurds who happened to live on both side of the borders and used to have many difficulties in seeing their loved ones on the other side of the border.
Turkey's PM, Erdogan and Syrian President Essad become family friends. They start to meet socially and possibly had holidays together.
Than Arab Spring began and things started to change for the region and its people. Turkey was slow in recognising the pace of the change. The officials in Turkey probably did not realised that this "Arab spring" is not going to go away so easily.
Turkey changed its known official policy and supported uprising or revolutions in Libya and other countries.
When Arab Spring reached Syria, Turkey was not certain in relation to what position to take. Supporting Assad was no longer an internationally acceptable choice and supporting the people uprising against Assad was hard choice to make. What if Assad do not lose the fight as others like Kaddafi did? What will happen to the 2 million Kurds in the Syria who live in the bordering area with Turkey? What if toppling Assad could create another de-facto independent Kurdistan just like the one in Iraq?
The Kurdish issue in Turkey yet again prevents Turkey from taking an active role in a crisis in its neighbour which was certainly going to became a problem for her.
Now, Turkey hosts a meeting of Friends of Syria in Istanbul and the FM, Ahmet Davutoglu, acknowledges the Syrian People's right to defend themselves against the Assad regime and International community including Turkey recognises the Syrian National Council as the representative of Syrian People.
At the same, Russia with possible support from China is known to be working hard to gather its own Syrian National Council. Russia is keen to keep Assad in power and aims to bring different groups representing diverse Syrian people together to seek a solution to the ongoing problems in Syria.
The conflict in Syria, now, began to look more like proxy war than ever..
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