US embassy cable - 03AMMAN8242

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 AMMAN 008242 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/17/2013 
TAGS: PREL, MOPS, SENV, SY, JO 
SUBJECT: JORDAN-SYRIA RELATIONS BECOME PUBLICLY TESTY 
 
REF: A. AMMAN 7805 
     B. FBIS GMP 20031209000111 
     C. DAMASCUS 6622 
     D. DAMASCUS 4937 
     E. FBIS GMP 20031211000166 
     F. FBIS GMP 20031211000234 
 
Classified By: Amb. Edward W. Gnehm for reasons 1.5 (b) (d) 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1.  (C)  Senior GOJ officials have expressed to us recently 
growing frustration with increased smuggling, depletion of 
water resources, and Syrian military "violations" along and 
across the Jordan-Syria border.  They have complained about 
Syrian unwillingness to restart discussions on a formal 
demarcation of the border, despite a formal request from 
former PM Abul Ragheb.  Jordan and Syria have also clashed on 
trade issues, with the Syrian Ambassador in Amman delaying 
required no-Israeli-content import certifications and the 
Jordanian Trade Ministry temporarily stopping Syrian exports 
to Jordan in retaliation.  CNN remarks by King Abdullah on 
the insecure border touched off a brief war of words in the 
press, quickly ended by a publicized phone call between the 
two Prime Ministers preventing further "estrangement."  The 
Jordanians, not surprisingly, place the blame on the SARG and 
Syrian actions for the increased tension.  Absent Syrian 
accommodations on trade and the border, we expect this 
tension to continue on and off in the new year, and GOJ 
officials are likely to continue to express their frustration 
with the Syrians.  The current testiness falls into a 
familiar pattern, as wider regional changes (i.e. Iraq) have 
historically been cause for readjustments in the always 
uneasy Syrian-Jordanian relationship.  END SUMMARY. 
 
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INCREASED ACTIVITY ALONG JORDAN-SYRIA BORDER 
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2.  (C)  Over the past several weeks, senior Jordanian 
officials have mentioned to USG visitors their impatience and 
growing irritation with the level of activity along the 
Jordan-Syria border, including smuggling of weapons and 
explosives and Syrian military "violations" of the border. 
King Abdullah raised with A/S Burns November 30 his concerns 
with Syrian movement into Jordanian territory after tactical 
repositioning of Jordanian border forces (ref a).  Vice 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, MG Saud Nsirat, told 
visiting Air Force Secretary Roche December 9 that there is 
"routine" shooting across the border and numerous incidents 
of Syrian troops firing small arms at passing Jordanian 
military aircraft.  Nsirat expressed irritation at a recent 
editorial by a writer in the Syrian press (presumably ref b) 
that attacked the Hashemites as tools of American and Israeli 
policy in Iraq and the region.  Numerous senior GOJ 
officials, both military and civilian, have complained to us 
that the volume and lethality of contraband smuggled across 
the Syrian border into Jordan -- they all assume with the 
acknowledge or assistance of the SARG -- have increased in 
the past year. 
 
3.  (C)  Former PM Ali Abul Ragheb complained to the 
Ambassador earlier this year that Syrian forces had 
"occupied" Jordanian territory in several places (and noted 
that Jordanian forces also occupied a smaller amount of land 
that should belong to Syria).  During a September 2003 visit 
to Damascus, then PM Abul Ragheb had discussed with (former) 
Syrian PM Miro the possibility of reviving the Jordan-Syria 
border commission and implementing a 1992 report recommending 
a final border demarcation.  The subsequent change of PMs in 
both Amman and Damascus has prevented movement on this 
request.  An official Petra news agency release on December 9 
noted that new PM Faisal al-Fayez had spoken with new Syrian 
PM al-Itri that day about enhancing bilateral relations. 
 
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SYKES-PICOT THE BEST REFERENCE? 
------------------------------- 
 
4.  (C)  MFA Legal Department head Samer Naber confirmed for 
PolCouns December 10 that Jordan has legally demarcated 
borders with Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, but not with 
Syria.  When working with legal issues surrounding the Syrian 
border, Naber noted, he refers to "an old State Department 
report" and British-French demarcation agreements "that came 
out of the Sykes-Picot Agreement."  He said Syria has over 
the past few years ignored requests by Jordan to revive the 
joint border commission and come to closure on a border once 
and for all.  He also mentioned that Syria has permitted 
Syrian farmers to drill large numbers of wells along the 
border line, depleting the groundwater resources on the 
Jordanian side as well (he claimed that the Jordanian army 
strictly limits the number of wells drilled near the border 
on the Jordanian side).  Jordanian military intelligence, he 
said, had submitted a report on Syrian water use along the 
border earlier this year to PM Abul Ragheb.  The report had 
led the MFA to send a formal note to the Syrian Embassy on 
water use.  Even though several months have passed, Naber 
sighed, the Syrians have not yet responded. 
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TRADE ISSUES ALSO RANKLE 
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5.  (C)  Egyptian DCM Mohammed Khairat (protect) told 
PolCouns that Jordan-Syrian tensions extend beyond border 
issues to trade as well.  He said that senior Jordanian 
officials had complained to him last week that the Syrians 
had recently been more strict in imposing "trade controls" on 
Jordanian goods to ensure that "Israeli" goods did not go 
through Jordan to Syria.  Worse, the Egyptian reported, 
Jordan has heard reports that the SARG has "lobbied" Gulf 
States to impose similar restrictions on Jordanian exports. 
 
6.  (C)  The Secretary General of the Jordanian Ministry of 
Industry and Trade confirmed for EconCouns December 14 some 
increased trade tensions, which he blamed on the Syrian 
Ambassador in Amman.  The Syrian, he claimed, "becomes 
protectionist" and delays signature of the SARG-required 
certification that Jordanian products exported to Syria are 
free of Israeli content whenever a Jordanian company is 
successful in exporting to Syria.  The recent case of a delay 
in exports of aluminum foil prompted Jordan to retaliate, 
holding up 120 truckloads of Syrian exports to Jordan at the 
border for several days until the foil certification was 
issued.  All this occurred, the SYG noted wryly, despite the 
signature two years ago of a Jordan-Syria "free trade" 
agreement -- "This is the way the Syrians are." 
 
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ANY DAM PROGRESS? 
----------------- 
 
7.  (C)  On the positive side, Jordan Valley Authority 
Secretary General Zafer Alem told visiting NEA Senior Science 
 
SIPDIS 
Advisor, EconCouns, and Regional Environment Officer recently 
that construction of the Al-Wihdeh Dam along the Jordan/Syria 
border was moving full speed ahead.  In a visit to the 
construction site in November, Alem and EmbOffs walked down 
to the Yarmouk River bed and along the border, meters from 
non-responsive Syrian security posts.  Walking into Syrian 
territory as they surveyed the weir that had been built to 
divert Yarmouk River waters during the dam's construction, 
EmbOffs saw bulldozers and heavy equipment building the dam's 
buttress on the Syrian side of the border.  Work crews cross 
back and forth on a daily basis with no difficulty, Alem 
said, and no scuffles or administrative problems threaten to 
postpone the Al-Wihdeh dam construction schedule.  The only 
thing Alem lamented was having scaled down the dam capacity 
significantly from its original design -- conceived decades 
ago -- because Syria has been taking more than its share of 
Yarmouk water. 
 
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... AND THE TWO PM'S RESOLVE IT ALL ON THE PHONE 
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8.  (SBU)  Several articles in the local media in the last 
two weeks (see refs e and f for examples) have referred to 
the tensions in relations, blaming either the King's 
interview to CNN during his trip to Washington (in which he 
expressed concern over the security of the Syria-Iraq border) 
or Syrian press responses (ref b) as the proximate cause of 
the crisis.  The Jordanian press expressed particular 
irritation at Syrian press "attacks" on King Abdullah as an 
agent of the U.S.  However, according to several stories, the 
December 9 call from PM Fayez to PM Itri was "enough to end 
the escalation." 
 
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COMMENT 
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9.  (C)   As the King made clear in Washington, there is real 
irritation at the top levels of the GOJ with Syrian policy on 
the border.  The growing list of irritants indicates together 
another oscillation in Syrian-Jordanian relations, which 
throughout their histories have been subject to sharp 
fluctuations, depending on inter-Arab geopolitics and 
domestic pressures.  The latest tensions may simply reflect 
an accumulation of small problems, but it comes against the 
backdrop of the King's disappointment with the Syrian 
president, a perception of Syrian weakness and defensiveness, 
and the eclipse of Iraqi power.  Historically, such wider 
regional changes have provided occasion for readjustments in 
the balance of the Syrian-Jordanian relationship as one or 
the other side sees opportunities to redress old grievances 
or get the upper hand.  However, at this stage, neither side 
appears willing to transform testiness into a real 
confrontation. 
Visit Embassy Amman's classified web site at 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/amman/ 
 
or access the site through the State Department's SIPRNET 
home page. 
GNEHM