FROM POWER POLITICS TO PERSONALITY
By Gareth Jenkins
ISN
fairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=96528
F eb 16 2009
Switzerland
What was once viewed as a promising role for Turkey in helping to
broker peace in the Middle East may be no longer, with the ruling AKP
unequivocally aligning itself with Hamas following the Gaza brutality,
Gareth Jenkins writes for ISN Security Watch.
Since it first came to power in November 2002, the Justice and
Development Party (AKP) has sought to establish Turkey as a regional
power by actively trying to resolve disputes between Israel and the
Arabs. It has frequently argued that Turkey’s good relations with
both sides mean that it is uniquely positioned to broker a permanent
peace agreement in the Middle East.
However, ever since Israel launched its devastating three-week
military offensive in the Gaza Strip on 27 December 2008, the AKP
has aligned itself unequivocally with Hamas. Indeed, at the height of
the fighting, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was Hamas’ most outspoken
international advocate. He not only denounced Israel itself but also
lambasted Hamas’ bitter domestic rival, the Palestinian Liberation
Organization (PLO), and Turkey’s EU and NATO allies, who have refused
to engage in dialogue with Hamas on the grounds that it is classed
as a terrorist organization.
In addition to severely damaging Turkey’s relationship with Israel,
Erdogan’s repeated championing of Hamas has meant that, for the
first time, a Turkish government has taken sides in an internal
dispute inside an Arab country. Perhaps most remarkably for a country
frequently touted as moderate, pro-western and secular, the AKP has
opted to support one of the most anti-western, hard-line Islamist
organizations in the region.
The repercussions of this dramatic shift in Turkish policy were
graphically illustrated during a recent visit to Turkey by Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak to seek support for Cairo’s efforts to broker
a permanent truce between Israel and the Palestinians. But Mubarak’s
public statements served as a reminder that it is not only Israel
that has been made uneasy by the AKP’s support for Hamas.
The Egyptian government has little affection for Hamas, which is
closely affiliated with the most powerful Islamist organization in
Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood – a group officially outlawed since
1954. In a joint press conference with Turkish President Abdullah
Gul on 11 February 2009, Mubarak pointedly referred to the PLO as
the sole legal representative of the Palestinian people. In contrast,
Gul’s statement focused on what he described as Turkey’s willingness
to contribute to reconciliation between Hamas and the PLO.
Yet, despite its consequences, the AKP’s change in policy does not
appear to have been the result of a carefully calculated strategy. On
the contrary, it seems to have been primarily the product of Erdogan’s
volatile personality.
Strategic depth and Ottoman nostalgia
Throughout most of the 20th century, Turkey’s foreign policy had been
based on strengthening its relations with the West. The Middle East
had been largely ignored except when it directly impinged on domestic
affairs; such as during the oil price shock of 1974 or the use by the
separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) of bases in Syria and Iraq
as platforms for attacks inside Turkey.
However, in 1996, Turkey signed military training and defense industry
cooperation agreements with Israel. The impetus for the agreements
came from the rigorously secularist Turkish General Staff (TGS),
which has traditionally been disdainful and suspicious of the role
that Islam plays in public life in most Arab states.
The TGS was also attracted by the opportunity to establish closer
links with the strongest military power in the region and secure
access to its sophisticated defense technology. Over the years that
followed, Turkish and Israeli personnel regularly underwent training
in each other’s countries and Israeli firms were awarded a string of
lucrative defense contracts.
After the AKP took office in November 2002, Erdogan appointed Ahmet
Davutoglu, a professor of international relations, as his chief
foreign policy adviser.
The AKP had grown out of Turkey’s Islamist movement, which has always
included a very strong element of Ottoman nostalgia; albeit more for
the kudos that the Ottomans had enjoyed as the leaders of the Muslim
world than a desire to control territory.
In 2001, Davutoglu published a book called Stratejik Derinlik or
"Strategic Depth," in which he argued that Turkey’s excessive emphasis
on closer ties with the West had created an imbalance in its foreign
policy. He suggested that the discrepancy could be redressed through
building on what he euphemistically described as Turkey’s close
cultural and historical ties with the countries of the Middle East,
which in reality meant Islam and its Ottoman heritage.
During its first years in office, the AKP oversaw a rapid rise
in official visits to and from the Muslim states of the Middle
East. Closer political ties were underpinned by a substantial
increase in bilateral trade. Even though Turkey’s ties with Israel
were occasionally strained, the tensions tended to be relatively
short-lived; not least because the mainstay of the relationship,
namely the bond between the two countries’ militaries, was untouched
by the AKP’s policy of increased engagement with Muslim countries.
As a result, Turkey really did appear to be uniquely placed to act as
an intermediary between Israel and the Arabs; which in turn promised
to enable the AKP to realize its ambitions of establishing Turkey as
an acknowledged regional power in the Middle East.
The first indication that Turkey’s new role had the potential to
produce concrete results came in May 2008 when it emerged that the
AKP had initiated discreet indirect peace negotiations between Israel
and Syria in February 2007. As the negotiations continued through
the rest of 2008, there were genuine hopes that they could lay the
foundation for a permanent peace.
Turkey also facilitated a number of other, less high-profile,
contacts. For example, in late August 2008, Arab and Israeli scientists
and health officials, including Palestinians, met in a hotel in
Istanbul to discuss how to coordinate their responses in the event
of an outbreak of a highly contagious disease, such as avian flu,
close to their shared borders.
Pique and prejudice
On 22 December 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with
Erdogan in Ankara to discuss the ongoing indirect peace negotiations
with Syria. Olmert’s visit went so well that Turkish officials were
confident that Israel and Syria would soon be ready to hold direct
talks. Privately, Turkish officials also insist that Olmert gave them
the impression that military action against Gaza was not imminent.
As a result, when Israel launched air strikes into Gaza on 27 December
2008, Erdogan’s outrage at the civilian casualties was exacerbated
not only by feelings of Islamic solidarity with the Palestinians but
also by a sense of personal betrayal. In his first public reaction
to the Israeli military offensive, Erdogan accused Israel both of
targeting innocent Palestinians and of abusing Turkey’s trust. "They
have insulted us," he declared.
Over the weeks that followed, Erdogan’s anti-Israeli rhetoric
intensified and the AKP launched fund-raising campaigns to provide aid
to beleaguered Palestinian civilians. Erdogan’s outspoken support for
Hamas culminated in him launching an extraordinary attack on Israeli
President Shimon Peres during a panel discussion at the World Economic
Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on 29 January. "You know very
well how to kill people," he shouted at Peres, and then stormed out
of the room after the panel moderator tried to cut short his tirade.
Erdogan returned to Turkey to a hero’s welcome, proudly declaring that
his outburst had been triggered by "a humanitarian conscience." He
was accused by opposition parties of exploiting the Gaza conflict
for domestic political purposes in the run-up to nationwide local
elections on 29 March. However, there appears no reason to doubt
the genuineness of Erdogan’s outrage at Israel; even if both his
"humanitarian conscience" and his logic appear to have been somewhat
selective.
On 4 February, Erdogan held discussions in Ankara with Sudanese
Second Vice President Ali Osman Taha on strengthening Turkey’s ties
with Sudan. No mention was made of Taha’s alleged close links with
the militias responsible for the atrocities in Darfur.
Similarly, despite his insistence that the West should engage with
Hamas, Erdogan continues to refuse to meet with members of the
pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which won 22 seats in
the last Turkish general election, until it condemns the PKK as a
terrorist organization.
Unlike Erdogan, the TGS was originally careful to avoid any public
condemnation of Israel. The military campaign in Gaza was launched
soon after Turkey took delivery of the first two of 10 Israeli
Heron unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which are expected to make a
significant contribution to intelligence-gathering operations against
the PKK.
However, earlier this month, Erdogan’s attacks on Israel resulted in
even the military relationship between the two countries coming under
strain. On 13 February, Major General Avi Mizrahi, the commander of
the GOC Army Headquarters in Israel, responded to Erdogan’s attack on
Peres at Davos by suggesting that the Turkish prime minister should
"look in the mirror" and alluded to the Armenian genocide.
The following day, the TGS issued a furious statement condemning
Mizrahi’s remarks as totally unacceptable. Later that same day, in
a very unusual move, the Israeli military publicly distanced itself
from what it described as Mizrahi’s expression of a personal opinion.
Personality politics
The alacrity with which the Israeli military sought to placate the TGS
demonstrated the importance it continues to attach to good relations
with Turkey; and suggests that the military-to-military relationship
will survive. But the damage to Israeli perceptions of Erdogan and
the AKP is likely to take considerably longer to repair.
Syria withdrew from the indirect negotiations with Israel as soon as
the Gaza offensive began. Such is the current lack of trust between
the AKP and Israel that it is difficult to see how Turkey could
oversee the process if it is ever revived.
Although most Arab leaders would doubtless endorse Erdogan’s
condemnation of Israel, many will have been considerably less
enthusiastic about his outspoken support for Hamas against the PLO;
not least because there is little desire for outsiders to play an
active role in what is regarded as an internal Arab matter.
Perhaps the most startling outcome of the AKP’s reaction to the
war in Gaza has been that it demonstrated how vulnerable years of
careful diplomacy can be to Erdogan’s volatile personality, which
has now effectively become one of the main determinants of Turkish
foreign policy.
Gareth Jenkins is a writer and analyst based in Istanbul and
specializing in civil-military relations, political Islam and security
issues. His is the author of Political Islam in Turkey: Running West,
Heading East? (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).