Turkey remains at odds with U.S. over Iraq war
By Amberin Zaman, Special to the Los Angeles Times
post-gazette.com
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
ANKARA, Turkey — When a U.S. ambassador to Turkey asks to see the
country’s leader, an appointment is usually made within days. But
recently, it took the current envoy six weeks to get an audience with
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The delay was a another sign, many analysts and policymakers in the
Turkish capital say, of the deepening rift between Turkey and its
most powerful ally. The split reflects anger among Turks over the
war in Iraq and their growing pressure on their government to stand
up to the United States.
Using exceptionally harsh language, Turkish officials and politicians
in recent weeks have attacked the Bush administration, with much of
their invective reserved for U.S. policy in Iraq.
The opening salvo came from Erdogan, who last month referred to Iraqi
insurgents killed in a U.S.-led assault on the city of Fallujah as
“martyrs” and exhorted the Muslim world to unite behind Turkey
“against powers that are seeking to assert their hegemony.”
Tensions shot up when Mehmet Elkatmis, a lawmaker from Erdogan’s
conservative Justice and Development Party, which has Islamist roots,
likened the U.S. occupation of Iraq to “genocide” and said the
U.S. military might have used atomic weapons against Turkey’s neighbor.
“Never in human history have such genocide and cruelty been witnessed,”
Elkatmis declared. “Such a genocide was never seen in the time of
the pharaoh, nor of Hitler nor of Mussolini.”
Angered by the Turkish government’s halfhearted rebuttal of Elkatmis’
remarks, several U.S. officials have warned that the next time Congress
considers legislation labeling the mass killings of Armenians by
Turkish forces during World War I as genocide, the Bush administration
might not quash the bill.
The latest spat comes before a summit Friday of European Union leaders,
who will decide whether to open talks aimed at admitting Turkey to
the union. The United States has long lobbied for Turkey’s membership,
and Washington’s influence over seven former Soviet bloc nations that
joined the EU last year so far has bolstered the Turks’ case.
Emerging from a 90-minute meeting with Erdogan yesterday,
U.S. Ambassador Eric S. Edelman sought to downplay the chill,
describing the talks as “constructive, thorough and frank.” Turkish
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul called the tensions a misunderstanding.
“Why would we want to weaken ties with a superpower?” he said in an
interview with the daily newspaper Hurriyet.
But for all the upbeat talk, analysts predict further turbulence.
“Despite 50 years [of partnership], it is clear that Turkish-American
relations will remain fragile and replete with mini-crises,” said
Asli Aydintasbas, a longtime observer of ties between the two nations.
Turkey, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s sole majority-Muslim
member, served as a bulwark against communism during the Cold
War. During the 1990s, the Turks allowed U.S. warplanes to use bases
in their nation to patrol a “no-fly” zone over northern Iraq after
the defeat of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.