Monday Morning Weekly, Lebanon
Jan 10 2005

Whither Turco-Israeli relations?

`Turkey could help mediate in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts if it
persuades the Palestinians to stop carrying out terror attacks’. This
was how the Israeli president, Moshe Katsav, reacted when Turkish
Foreign Minister Abdallah Gul said that Syria was serious about peace
and proposed his government as a mediator in resuming the peace
process since, Gul said, it had the trust of all the parties
concerned. Gul, who was accompanied by a large delegation of
businessmen, journalists and government officials, was making his
first visit to Israel since taking office in March 2003, in order to
improve the bilateral relationship that had been disrupted in the
previous months.

The first impression was positive, but Turkey today is different
from what it was a few months ago. In the past Ankara always
approached the Jewish state as a strategic ally; now it is proposing
a role of mediator in the peace process, which means it stands midway
between the Arabs and the Israelis.
After months of diplomatic troubles between Ankara and Tel Aviv, and
following a visit by the US State Department No. 2, Richard Armitage
to Turkey, Gul led a delegation to Tel Aviv in order to warm up the
cold relationship between two allies. Months ago Ankara drew up a new
policy rejecting strategic military cooperation with Israel. The
Justice and Development Party government, led by Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, sought, after taking office, to freeze its relations
with Israel in protest against its daily brutal practices against the
Palestinian people in the occupied territories. Erdogan refused to
receive Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last year, and he
cancelled visits of a number of Israeli ministers to Turkey, in
addition to cancellation of his foreign minister’s scheduled visit to
Israel because of the Israeli assassination policy against
personalities of the Palestinian resistance. And Erdogan went as far
as to describe Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip as `state
terrorism’.
Ankara also decided to cancel contracts with Tel Aviv in accordance
with which Israel would modernize Turkish aircraft, tanks and other
equipment. Ankara would, Turkish officials said, find new,
non-Israeli firms to do this work.
New data
Turkey has been Israel’s chief regional ally and the two countries
have close economic and military ties. But analysts say Erdogan has
been under pressure from his Islamic-based party to protest against
Israeli military action which has left dozens of Palestinians dead.
Besides, the regional conditions are now different from before.
Turco-Syrian relations have clearly improved after long years of
friction. Syria shelterd the main Kurdish anti-Turkish insurgent
movement, the PKK, for many years before abandoning the movement.
Eventually the PKK leader, Ocalan, was captured by Turkish
intelligence and is now in jail.
Now Damascus and Ankara even recently reached an accommodation over
the vexed question of the Sanjak of Alexandretta (Iskanderoun), the
Syrian territory handed over by France, the mandate power, to Turkey
in 1939 despite Syrian protests. Since then no contentious issues
remain between the two countries. And it was a clever move by Gul to
fly to Tel Aviv and propose acting as a mediator in the peace process
in the light of the new regional data, standing half way between
Arabs and Israelis instead of being unashamedly biased in favor of
one side (as the US is perceived to be).

Indispensable links
Gul had a cordial reception despite the new `data’ of Ankara’s
relations in the region. Israel needs Ankara because it is a big
partner on all levels. For Ankara and Tel Aviv, good relations
between Turks and Jews go back at least to the Ottoman capture of
Constantinople in 1453. Sultan Mohammad the Conqueror provided Jews
with a safe and secure home. And when the Jews were expelled from
Spain in 1492, the Ottomans offered them sanctuary and thousands
migrated to Turkey.
When after the First World War the empire collapsed, Jews made the
transition to the republic proclaimed by Ataturk much better than the
other two minorities, the Greeks and Armenians, partly because the
Jews made no territorial demands. During World War II, Turkey gave
refuge to Jews, and in 1948 Turkey was the only Muslim country to
recognize Israel. In February 1996, Turkey and Israel — reportedly
with the active encouragement of Washington — signed a military
training agreement, followed six months later by an arms-industry
cooperation pact. Since that time, military and economic ties between
the two countries have developed. Both states share sophisticated
intelligence information, and have extensive trade relations, and
cooperate on joint security and weapon projects. Israel hopes to
change the equation again, aligning Ankara on its side. The new
policy is subject to changes in the future if Erdogan’s ruling party
loses future elections.
Turkey’s claim to be able to mediate between Arabs and Israelis is
less well-founded than that of Egypt which, in addition to its
diplomatic links with Israel, has long ties of history and culture
with the Syrians and Palestinians, something Turkey cannot claim.
Israel’s Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies drew
up a paper some years ago in which it stressed the need to anchor the
Turco-Israeli relationship. Tel Aviv is likely to do everything it
can to restore the link established in 1996.