Transitions on Line, Czech Rep.
Aug 23 2005

Murky Seas

by TOL
22 August 2005

Could a new vision for the Black Sea area yield new ideas about how
to promote democracy on Russia’s fringes?

So it seems that Europe may soon have a new organization to become
used to, an alliance of democracies stretching from the Baltic to the
Black and the Caspian seas intent on acting as `a strong tool to free
our region from all remaining dividing lines, from violations of
human rights, from any spirit of confrontation, from frozen
conflicts.’ That, at least, is the vision for a “Community for
Democratic Choice” put forward by Ukraine’s President Viktor
Yushchenko and Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili on 12 August.

That is of course an appealing vision, but it will be competing with
others, particularly in the Black Sea region. Since 1992, Turkey –
historically the greatest power in the Black Sea, arguably the
region’s greatest power at present, and now also a pipeline hub – has
promoted its own notion of a peaceful and prosperous Black Sea
through the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) group, an
association of Black Sea countries and their immediate neighbors.

Since the end of the Cold War, others in the West have formed their
own vision of a secure Black Sea, with Turkey as a cornerstone. From
an outpost of NATO, Turkey has come to be seen as a key to the
security of the Black Sea and a stabilizing force in the Middle East.
That is a concept that underpins the United States’ – and others’ –
support for Turkey’s membership of the European Union. In the grander
variant of the current U.S. administration, Turkey could even become
part of an arc of democratic Muslim states stretching from Iraq’s
Gulf shores to the Bosphorus.

TURKEY’S SWING TOWARDS RUSSIA

George Bush’s grand vision is currently being mauled by the
instability in Iraq. It may also be being undermined by Turkey itself
because, judged by recent developments, Turkey may have a different
idea of who its key partners are in the Black Sea – and what changes
are desirable.

First, in May in a development noted perhaps only by The Economist,
the United States was refused observer status by the BSEC. The
decision relegated the United States below such Black Sea
heavyweights as Slovakia, a country that enjoys observer status.
Russia is thought to have blocked its application, a veto that
angered eight post-communist Black Sea states who publicly said the
United States should be allowed to attend their meetings. Turkey
remained silent – not perhaps the type of support that Ankara might
have been expected to give to a country that has been a great
agitator for its admission to the EU. Given that the BSEC was its
brainchild, surely Turkey could have insisted on opening the doors to
the United States.

Turkey’s silence gains in significance when seen against the backdrop
of Turkey’s rapid and dramatic upswing in relations with Russia. The
signs include the first visit to Ankara by a Russian head of state
(in December 2004), four meetings between Russia’s President Vladimir
Putin and Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in seven
months, a huge rise in trade, a hefty increase in the flow of gas
through a pipeline leading from Russia to Turkey through the Black
Sea, and talk of more pipelines as well as supplies of electricity
from Russia.

The second development is the evidence that Russia and Turkey are not
simply improving their relationship; they seem to have found a new
and surprising congruence of interests. At a meeting with Putin in
July, Erdogan told the world that `our views totally coincide with
regard to the situation in the region as well as to the issues
concerning the preservation of stability in the world.’ If he meant
it, Erdogan was saying something disturbing, because Russia’s idea of
stability is deeply antithetical towards the West and had no qualms
about the Uzbek government’s killing of hundreds (possibly a
thousand) protestors in Andijan this May. Indeed, Erdogan’s phrase
could have been taken straight from meetings between Putin and the
presidents of Central Asia. Could that be possible? Turkish analysts
believe it is and their answer seems plausible: apart from asking
Uzbekistan to remove Turkish flags from jeeps used by Uzbek forces,
Ankara has been very reticent in making any criticism of Uzbekistan’s
President Islam Karimov.

All of this suggests a major shift in the position of two regional
powers who have usually competed rather than coincided in their
interests. Both seem keen to work more closely still. In January,
Turkey expressed an interest (`unexpectedly,’ said Putin) in joining
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Central Asian grouping
comprising Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan. Though a competitor with Russia for influence in Georgia,
Turkey is now apparently angling for a role as a mediator in the
dispute over Abkhazia. Erdogan and Putin have, it seems, decided that
their countries are not playing a zero-sum game either in the Black
Sea or in Central Asia.

So, what should be made of Ankara’s new friendship with Moscow? Not
too much is one answer.

Firstly, the relationship between Russia and Turkey may be warming
up, but there is little doubt that at present its relationship with
the EU is far more important to Turkey than its ties with Russia.
Ankara may take a more positive view of Moscow than Brussels does at
present, but it is always going to follow an independent Russia
policy. And, in any case, Europe’s largest countries – France,
Germany, and Britain – all have relationships with Russia that are
also very cozy and differ from the increasingly skeptical position of
the European Commission. (Where this all leaves Ankara’s relationship
with Washington is another matter, but it is primarily through the EU
that Turkey can be tied more closely to the West.)

Secondly, Turkey may be more interested in maintaining stability than
in promoting democracy in Central Asia but in that respect it is
behaving like the United States, which responded with woefully weak
words to the events in Andijan.

And, in any case, there are reasons to welcome the impact on the
region of a better relationship between the two countries. A
rapprochement between the main supporter of Armenia – Russia – and
the main backer of Azerbaijan – Turkey – could push the issue of
Nagorno-Karabakh towards a settlement and help push Armenia and
Turkey towards opening up an economic relationship. An improvement on
either front would help everyone (as well as promoting Turkey’s case
for EU membership). And if Turkey could deliver a solution to the
Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, it would (of course) have achieved what
no one else has proved able to do.

PROMOTING DEMOCRACY

Still, the contrast between Turkey’s call for stability and
Yushchenko’s and Saakashvili’s implicit call for democratic change
does highlight some of the weaknesses in assuming that Turkey might
be a force for positive change in the Black Sea and Caspian Sea
regions.

For one, the contrast underlines that Turkey has its own,
long-standing interests in the Caucasus and Central Asia and – as the
thorny, even neuralgic relationship with Armenia indicates – Turkey
is perfectly capable of helping to maintain instability and retard
progress in the Caucasus in defense of those interests. There may
have some positive recent moves in relations between Turkey and
Armenia, but the collapse of a joint historical commission and the
imprisonment in Armenia of a Turkish historian indicate that a
breakthrough in their relations is still a distant prospect.

Second, achieving breakthroughs may be beyond Turkey. A summit
between the Azeri and Armenian presidents on 26 August should again
demonstrate how hard it will be for anyone to broker a settlement
over Nagorno-Karabakh. In any case, all countries in the region,
including Georgia and Azerbaijan, will be wary of the motivations of
two powerful neighbors suddenly working together.

And third, whatever the virtues of having a democratic Turkey
embedded in the EU, Turkey is not yet an active promoter of the
democratic changes that it itself is now embracing. Indeed, analysts
believe that Turkey is very wary, for example, about potential
upheaval after parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan this November.
If key supporters of Turkey’s membership of the EU – Britain and the
United States – anticipate that Turkey would be active in promoting
change in the region, they may well be wrong. At least for now, it
looks likely that Turkey’s contribution to political progress in the
region will be passive, as an example that internal change is
possible.

Which brings to the fore the point that Yushchenko and Saakashvili
implicitly highlighted: that current policies to promote democracy in
the region are inadequate. Turkey seems interested in the status quo,
not change. The EU’s approach – demonstrated again in the spat
between Belarus and Poland – is out of touch. With Belarus, its
policy is based on reciprocity, a “step-by-step” approach under which
the EU will respond to overtures made by Minsk. That is a passive
position that relies on the EU’s magnetic appeal to its neighbors.
That may be fine when its neighbors – like countries in the western
Balkans – are attracted to the EU, but clearly leads merely to
disengagement with neighbors – like Belarus – who have no interest in
the EU. If the EU wants to help promote political development in
Central Asia or in the Caucasus, it needs something better than that
– and also something better than its muted response to events in
Andijan.

The U.S. approach to the promotion of democracy also fails to provide
a convincing model. In Turkey’s neighborhood, it has used three
approaches. Faced with an election-stealing government in Eduard
Shevardnadze’s Georgia and the “soft authoritarianism” of Ukraine’s
Leonid Kuchma and Kyrgyzstan’s Askar Akaev, it deployed soft power,
mainly by supporting civil society groups. Faced with “hard
authoritarianism” in Iraq, it opted for violent overthrow, with
uncertain long-term results. In Uzbekistan, it plumped for a few
quiet and reluctant words of concern about the Andijan killings, a
lily-livered policy that did nothing to save its troops from being
ordered out of the country.

What practical form the Community for Democratic Choice might take
remains shadowy (all that is known is that a conference should be
held in the autumn), but the Yushchenko-Saakashvili initiative –
backed already by Poland and Lithuania – at least heralds the
prospect of some new thinking about how to promote democracy. Given
the inadequacies of the “models” provided by the big powers – the EU,
Turkey, and the United States – some competition of ideas would be
welcome.