BARACK OBAMA AND TURKISH FOREIGN POLICY
By Emre Uslu & öNder Aytac*
Today’s Zaman
May 22 2008
Turkey
With his latest victory in Oregon on Tuesday, it became clear that
Barack Obama will be the Democratic Party’s nominee for president of
the United States to run against Republican John McCain.
Given the current economic conditions and the bitter frustrations of
the American people over the war in Iraq, unless there is a dramatic
change before November 2008, it is very likely that Obama will be
the next president of the US.
Obama’s presidency would influence Turkey’s relations with the US
for a number of reasons. The first thing Turkey has to deal with
is the Armenian genocide issue. Obama has already declared that
he would recognize the events of 1915 as genocide if he becomes
president. McCain on the other hand thinks that it is not in the
best interests of the US to confront Turkey based on an event that
occurred close to a hundred years ago. McCain’s position on the
Armenian issue naturally gained some sympathy from Turkish people,
including politicians and diplomats. However, for a number of reasons,
Obama’s basic foreign policy position would be more beneficial to
Turkey’s interests than that of McCain.
Obama outlined his foreign policy initiative as a dialogue not just
with the US’s allies but with its foes as well. He very straight
forwardly suggested that the US engage in dialogue with Iran and
Syria. His position on the foreign policy of the US is clear —
change. Obama states that he will carefully withdraw the US troops
from Iraq as soon as possible.
Obama’s foreign policy position would help Turkey on three
fronts. First, Obama’s basic premise of finding a solution to
international problems through dialogue overlaps a great deal with
Turkey’s current foreign policy initiative of a multi-dimensional
approach to find ways to solve its international problems through
dialogue. Despite the Bush administration’s open criticism of Turkey’s
efforts to maintain friendly relations with Iran and Syria, the
Turkish government’s new foreign policy initiative would become an
opportunity to strengthen its strategic relations with the US during
Obama’s presidency. In fact, Turkey would play an intermediary role
between the US and Iran to prepare basic necessities between the
two countries. Even if Turkey did not play such an intermediary role
between Iran and the US at least the US would not criticize Turkey
for the initiative to develop dialogue between its neighbors.
Second, Obama’s decision to withdraw the US troops from Iraq
would eventually benefit Turkey in its relation with northern
Iraq. Iraqi Kurds now realize that they will need Turkey after US
troop withdrawal. If Turkey manages to present the similarities
between its foreign policy initiative and that of the US this would
lead to more cooperation between the US and Turkey on the issue
of fighting terrorism and sharing similar views on the issue of the
Kurdish question. Obama’s foreign policy perspective would provide the
basics for dialogue between Kurds in northern Iraq and Turkey. This
eventually would lead to finding a permanent solution for the problem.
Obama’s position on the Armenian genocide issue seems to be
a problematic one for Turkey. However, if Turkey were able to
demonstrate its openness to solving this issue through dialogue
— i.e., establishing a commission for independent historians to
investigate the issue objectively by examining international archives,
including Ottoman, Russian, British and Dashnak archives in Boston —
Obama would put pressure on the Armenian side to accept Turkey’s offer
as the first step of establishing dialogue between the two sides. Thus,
what Turkey should do is to choose a way to demonstrate its openness to
dialogue if the Armenian side accepts Turkey’s offer to establish the
commission of historians. On this matter, Professor Yusuf Halacoglu’s
recent statement of suggesting $20 million of financial help to open
the Dashnak archive in Boston would be clear evidence of the Turkish
authorities’ openness to dialogue on this subject.
* Emre Uslu is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Utah Middle
East Center. Onder Aytac is an associate professor at Gazi University
department of communications and works with the Security Studies
Institute in Ankara.
–Boundary_(ID_BIC6TaCRSfpPMoZ7C0mYJw)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress