My wife and me rode our bike in Syria two times in the last two years: travelling around the Med in summer 2002, and in summer 2001, going back from Iran.
I think Syrian people are the best, the more friendly and the more nice people of all the inhabitants of the country I have visited in my life.
In Syria we never felt ourselves unsafe, and everybody tried to meet us, to talk with us and to help us. Of course, last summer the americans hadn't attacked Iraq yet, but the situation was - officialy - considered unsafe.
The official web site of the italian ministry of foreign affaire (you can translate it with altavista or other online translator) -
http://www.viaggiaresicuri.mae.aci.it/index2.html - do not consider the situation very dangeorus, they just advise to warn the embassy and to be extra careful. Those advice are, of course, for italian, maybe anglosaxon traveller are not so well accepted.
About Turkey, is a well developed country with good roads (but very few highways) and not too much traffic, so you can travel across it as fast as on normal road (no highway) in any western country.
Have a nice trip
Pietro
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