WEST’S RELATIONS WITH TURKEY STRAINED FURTHER
by Anthony Manduca
Times of Malta
?id=5116
Oct 21 2007
Malta
Relations between Turkey and its natural allies – the US and the EU
– continue to be strained, and this is cause for concern. First the
Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives voted in
favour of a non-binding resolution which labelled the mass killings
of Armenians in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire as genocide,
infuriating Ankara and threatening to damage US-Turkish relations.
A few days later the Turkish Parliament gave the go-ahead – by a
massive majority – to the government to use military force in Iraq
against Kurdish guerrillas, further straining ties with Europe and
the United States.
Turkey’s geo-political and strategic importance cannot be
underestimated, and coupled with Ankara’s stalled EU membership talks,
these two events are indeed very worrying developments which can only
lead to a worsening of relations between Turkey and the West.
After the US congressional vote, Turkey recalled its ambassador
to Washington "for consultations" and the country’s most senior
general warned that military ties between the US and Turkey will be
severely damaged if the House of Representatives adopts the genocide
resolution. General Yashar Buyukanit said the US had "shot itself in
the foot" as a result of the congressional committee vote.
The non-binding resolution calls on the Bush administration to
"accurately characterise the systematic and deliberate annihilation of
1.5 million Armenians as genocide." President George Bush opposed the
resolution, rightly so in my opinion, explaining that if approved,
US-Turkish relations would be harmed. The two countries, which
have the largest armies in NATO, have been close allies since the
1950s. Furthermore, eight former US Secretaries of State (from both
parties) lobbied House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not to go ahead with the
resolution, warning of the consequences of a ‘yes’ vote.
I am certainly not arguing that the Armenian genocide question
should be ignored because of wider strategic interests. However,
it is not for politicians to decide whether genocide took place,
but for scholars and academics. Will the congressional resolution
solve anything or bring justice to the Armenians? No, it will not.
The modern Turkish Republic is certainly not responsible for the mass
killings of the Armenians; the Ottoman Empire is. Yes, Turkey must
come to terms with its past and change the outrageous Article 301 of
its penal code which makes it a crime to "insult Turkishness". This
law has been used to convict people for simply daring to say that
genocide took place against the Armenians.
The official Turkish version of events is that hundreds of thousands
of Armenians – who were being deported to Syria and Iraq for siding
with the Russians in World War I – were killed between 1915 and 1917
as the Ottoman Empire collapsed, but Ankara refuses to accept the
charge of genocide, and points out that many Turks were also killed
in inter-ethnic violence.
It is true that most academics believe that genocide took place and
20 countries – including France, Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Italy,
Russia and Uruguay – have formally recognised that genocide was
committed against the Armenians. However, what is needed is an open
and free debate in Turkey, with the participation of international
scholars, to determine exactly what took place. Modern day Turkey
needs to come to terms with its past, but it is unlikely to do so
with foreign parliaments unilaterally deciding what took place.
The approval on Wednesday by the Turkish Parliament of a military
incursion into Iraq, in response to numerous attacks by Kurdish
separatists based there, certainly raised some eyebrows in Brussels
and Washington. As a result of the vote oil prices jumped more than
a dollar to a fresh all-time high of $90 a barrel. Both Bush and the
EU’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana made it clear to Ankara that
they didn’t think it was in their interest to send troops into Iraq to
pursue Kurdish guerrillas. The West’s main fear, of course, is that
a massive Turkish incursion could destabilise the only relatively
stable region in Iraq and widen the Iraqi conflict. The last thing
the US wants to see is a war between two of its key allies – Turkey
and the Kurds in Iraq.
The massive Turkish parliamentary vote was expected – especially
after the US congressional vote on the genocide question – as Ankara
was in no mood to listen to calls for restraint from Washington. As
a result of Turkey’s obvious displeasure at the US vote and its
subsequent parliamentary vote on Iraq, it now seems that the number
of sponsors and co-sponsors in the US House of Representatives for
the Armenian genocide resolution has fallen considerably, meaning
that it is probably unlikely to be put forward for approval by the
full House of Representatives, which might calm matters.
It is time for strategists in Brussels and Washington to assess the
West’s strategic relations with Turkey. Brussels is dragging its feet
over Ankara’s EU accession talks, relations between the US and Turkey
have been strained over the invasion of Iraq and Washington’s policy
in the Middle East, the Armenian vote angered Turkey and the Turkish
parliamentary vote has the potential to increase tensions in Iraq.
Public opinion in Turkey has slowly been turning hostile towards both
the US and the EU, and this is very worrying indeed. This situation
cannot go on forever; Turkey is too important a country. Surely a
major effort needs to be made by all sides aimed at reversing the
trend in Ankara’s ties with its traditional allies.