TURKEY AND THE CRISIS IN THE CAUCASUS
The Daily Star
d=10&categ_id=2&article_id=96082
Sept 17 2008
Lebanon
The outbreak of war between Georgia and Russia following the
ill-advised Georgian attempt to wrest control of the breakaway
province of South Ossetia on August 7 posed an immediate challenge to
Turkish interests. The conflict introduced instability and dangerous
unpredictability immediately beyond Turkey’s northeastern border after
a period of relative calm in the Caucasus. It also placed Turkey in
a difficult diplomatic position, not only between two neighboring
countries with which it has been cultivating close relations and
cooperation, especially on energy, but also between the United States
and Russia.
Georgia has assumed particular importance to Turkey as the middle
leg of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline carrying Azeri oil to markets
through the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum
gas pipeline bringing Azeri gas to Turkey. However, after centuries
of conflict and confrontation, Turkish-Russian relations have also
witnessed a remarkable improvement and Russia now supplies over 60
percent of Turkish gas via Thrace and the Bluestream pipeline under
the Black Sea.
After reportedly attempting to contact Russian Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Georgian President
Mikhail Saakashvili on August 8 to express support. However, three
days later, as Russian forces were pushing deeper into Georgia and
Saakashvili was pleading for immediate help against Moscow, Erdogan
unveiled a Caucasus Cooperation and Stability Pact which would include
the two combatants as well as Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey.
Significantly, Erdogan first took his plan to Moscow on August
13, where he met President Dimitri Medvedev and Putin, who were
predictably receptive to the idea, before going on to Tbilisi to
meet the beleaguered Saakashvili, whose response to the idea of
participation in a new cooperative forum with a country occupying
portions of his country was understandably less enthusiastic. The plan
was then conveyed by Erdogan to Azeri President Ilham Aliyev in Baku
on August 20 and by President Abdullah Gul to Armenian President Serzh
Sarkisian during his ground-breaking visit to Yerevan on September 6.
Although the fighting in Georgia has ended, the recognition by
Russia of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia ensures the
continuation of the Georgian-Russian confrontation. Azerbaijan and
Armenia remain locked in a seemingly endless dispute over Nagorno
Karabakh. It is therefore unlikely that the proposed pact will
come into being in the near future. Consequently, the Justice and
Development Party (AKP) government’s willingness to push ahead with
this proposal as its primary response to the Caucasus crisis needs
to be understood with reference to its broader policy of striving
for "zero problems" with its neighbors as well as its demonstrated
enthusiasm for playing the role of a mediator or facilitator in the
solutions of problems in the regions surrounding Turkey.
These goals were also displayed during the prolonged effort to
encourage Israel and Syria to proceed to a peace settlement, most
recently during a visit by Erdogan to Damascus on September 4 where
Syrian President Bashar Assad was reported to have given Erdogan
yet another proposal to convey to Israel. At the same time, the
AKP government has been trying to help in reducing tensions between
the United States and Iran, whose controversial president Mahmoud
Ahmedinejad visited Turkey on August 14-15.
While there have been periodic statements by Turkish leaders and
officials that their diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East
were coordinated with the United States, as part of what Ahmet
Davutoglu, the leading foreign policy adviser to Erdogan, calls
"rhythmic diplomacy," it is noteworthy that the Bush administration
has shown a distinct reluctance to provide open support for these
efforts. Nevertheless, Erdogan remained convinced that despite its
skepticism about the likelihood of positive results, the United States
would ultimately recognize the benefits of his approach.
Growing tensions in US-Russian relations engendered by the war in
Georgia seem likely to test the limits of Washington’s tolerance of
Erdogan’s brand of active regional diplomacy and coordination with
Turkey’s main ally. On August 19, a senior US official focusing on
the Caucasus crisis, Matthew Bryza, hinted at the divergence between
the two countries by publicly expressing his "surprise" over Ankara’s
Caucasus proposal.
After an initial hesitation at the beginning of hostilities,
the Bush administration has adopted a policy based on buttressing
Georgia through the provision of diplomatic and economic assistance,
mobilizing its allies and, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
put it somewhat undiplomatically, "punishing" Russia. A critical
component of this strategy involved Turkey directly as the planned
dispatch of US Navy vessels to deliver supplies to Georgia required
passage through the Turkish Straits.
On August 14 the vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
James Cartwright, identified the two ships that would be sent as the
Comfort and the Mercy. As the tonnage of the ships exceeded the limits
of the 1936 Montreux Convention governing passage through the straits,
the United States may have expected Turkey to show flexibility in a
gesture of allied solidarity. However, when Turkey chose to demand
strict adherence to the convention, smaller US vessels were sent
through the straits.
After a pointed reminder from a Russian admiral that the US ships
would have to leave the Black Sea after 21 days in accordance with the
convention, the Turkish Foreign Ministry proceeded to confirm that
Turkey would insist on the application of the relevant provision
and notify the embassy of the country concerned in the event of
transgression. The positive signals sent to Moscow were then underlined
by an astonishing gesture on the part of the Turkish Navy commander,
who hosted his Russian counterpart on a Turkish frigate in the Black
Sea on September 1.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan had joined his NATO colleagues
at an emergency meeting on August 19, convened at the request of
the United States to formulate a response to the Russian military
action, where it was agreed, as the NATO secretary general announced,
that there could not be "business as usual" with Russia. However,
Erdogan made it clear on September 2 that Turkey would not be a
willing participant in a policy of confrontation with its important
neighbor. In comments published in Milliyet, Erdogan said: "It would
not be right for Turkey to be pushed toward any side. Certain circles
want to push Turkey into a corner either with the United States or
Russia after the Georgian incident. One of the sides is our closest
ally, the United States. The other side is Russia with which we have
an important trade volume. We would act in line with what Turkey’s
national interests require."
Erdogan’s stance seems to have popular support in Turkey. While
there is no particular affection for Russia or its leaders, there is
also little sympathy for Georgia or its impetuous president. At the
same time, as opinion polls confirm, Turks have developed a strong
aversion to the policies and methods of the Bush administration and
are therefore cool to the idea of cooperation with Washington against
Moscow. The nuanced approach also has the backing of the influential
Turkish General Staff which has been carefully cultivating its own
links with the Russian military parallel to its traditionally close
ties to the US military establishment.
Turkish national interests apparently dictate a continuing dialogue
with Moscow even as Washington is trying to isolate it. On September 2
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Istanbul for talks with
his Turkish counterpart. After promising a resolution of the costly
delays in the processing of Turkish goods through Russian customs,
Lavrov publicly acknowledged the favorable thrust of Turkish diplomacy
by expressing "appreciation for Turkey’s efforts in the Caucasus." It
is noteworthy that while Lavrov was enjoying Turkish hospitality,
US Vice President Dick Cheney was on a trip to Georgia, Azerbaijan
and Ukraine to underline the Bush administration’s determination
to confront Russian policy in the Caucasus. Cheney’s itinerary did
not include Washington’s closest ally in the region and the task
of maintaining contact with Turkey was delegated to William Burns,
the undersecretary of state for political affairs, who was received
by Erdogan on September 5.
In view of the stated seriousness of the Bush administration’s new
policy toward Russia and the Turkish government’s demonstrated
desire to avoid a deterioration of its relationship with its
northern neighbor, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the
Caucasus crisis is once again heightening sensitivities in US-Turkish
relations. To be sure, both sides remain committed to the alliance and
have endeavored to repair the breaches caused by Turkey’s unwillingness
to support military action by the United States against Iraq in
2003 and the American delay in backing a Turkish military response
against Kurdish terrorism emanating from northern Iraq. However,
the shared interests which bound them so closely in their Cold War
alliance against the Soviet Union are not as strong as they once were
as Ankara’s pursuit of its own interests with Moscow confirms.
As the Bush administration is on its way out, it will be its successor
which will have to determine how it will maintain the alliance with
Turkey as well as the future relationship with Russia. Another
important related task will be to examine the viability of the
East-West energy corridor, which is the product of US-Turkish
cooperation, in the new geopolitical environment. As part of its
review it will have to take into account the North-South axis linking
Russia and Turkey which is helping to shape international relations
and energy politics in the Caucasus as well as beyond.
Bulent Aliriza is director of the Center for Strategic and
International Studies’ Turkey Project.
From: Baghdasarian