Today’s Zaman , Turkey
March 8 2009

Stop the alarm bells! It’s not the return of the Ottomans

The government’s continuous efforts to expand influence in the Middle
East, Africa and the Caspian Basin have introduced a new concept into
Turkey’s extensive political jargon: neo-Ottomanism.

The notion is a catchy phrase that both arouses a proud nostalgia for
an empire that ruled over this vast geography for centuries and a
creeping sensation of a fear to return to a past where religious bonds
surpassed national identity. But analysts caution against both and say
a pragmatic desire to expand influence in the region should not be
mixed up with ideologically charged imperialism.

The ruling AK Party is hardly a follower of the static Cold War era
policy, when Turkey was firmly a part of the Western camp threatened
by the Soviet Union on its eastern borders. It has forged ties with
ex-foe Syria, rival Iran, initiated dialogue with Palestinian radical
group Hamas and mediated in Lebanon and between Israel and Syria. It
also advocates a regional conflict-resolution mechanism in the
southern Caucasus that would include Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and
Armenia.

Last but not least, it has been seeking to expand influence in Africa,
even at the expense of standing by Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir in
the face of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal
Court (ICC) on charges of crimes against humanity.

This unconventional interest in the South has already led to
speculation that Turkey is drifting away from the West, a charge the
government firmly denies. But things took a more dramatic turn when
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an stormed off from a Davos
panel in late January after telling Israeli President Shimon Peres
that `when it comes to killing people, you know it well.’
ErdoÄ?an’s move was definitely the harshest protest against
Israel for a recent Gaza offensive that killed more than 1,300
Palestinians in the coastal strip. And it quickly made ErdoÄ?an
the darling of Arab nations frustrated with the inaction of their own
governments in the face of the plight of the Palestinians. Some
commentators in the Arab media said neo-Ottomanism was on the rise. In
Turkey, ErdoÄ?an was given a hero’s welcome upon his return from
Davos, with supporters carrying placards that described him as `the
conqueror of Davos.’

The combined effect of all these events was enough to create a wave of
neo-Ottomanism at home. It went on to such an extent that an AK Party
supporter hailed ErdoÄ?an as an Ottoman-style sultan on a
placard he carried during a ceremony to launch a Metrobus line running
uninterrupted between the Asian and European parts of Ä°stanbul
earlier this month. That placard, said a commentator in the mainstream
media, is as dangerous as placards calling for the army to intervene
in politics, such as those carried by the AK Party’s secularist
opponents in anti-government rallies in the recent past.

And an unlikely contributor in the debate, the head of the private
intelligence institution Stratfor, George Friedman, poured more fuel
onto the fire when he forecast at a meeting in Ä°stanbul this
week that Turkey would rule the former Ottoman territory, which
includes almost the entire Middle East as well as North Africa, by the
mid-21st century.

`Muslim countries are not looking for a leader,’ said Egemen
BaÄ?ıÅ?, the state minister in charge of Turkey’s
accession talks with the European Union, in televised remarks last
week. `We can only be a source of inspiration.’

The debate is reminiscent of the controversy surrounding the term
`moderate Islam,’ which some American policy-makers thought would best
describe Turkey, raising questions over the AK Party’s commitment to
Western ideals in foreign policy and secular principles at home. The
government has firmly rejected the term `moderate Islam’ and denied
several times that its growing links with the East are at the expense
of its ties with the West. In a recent meeting with journalists, Ahmet
DavutoÄ?lu, widely seen as the architect of the AK Party’s
foreign policy, said the growing Turkish influence in the Middle East
and Africa was an effective way to undermine the opposition of some
European countries that have vital interests in these regions — such
as France — to Turkey’s membership in the European Union.

`This region is an area where Turkey has comparative advantages, given
its cultural and historical affinities. It is not rational to not
utilize these advantages,’ said Ã-zdem Sanberk, a foreign policy
analyst and a former undersecretary of the foreign ministry. Sanberk
says in a dynamic society prone to polarization like Turkey, concepts
— such as neo-Ottomanism — can easily spark confrontations. But any
substantial claim that Turkish foreign policy is drifting away from a
national framework to an imperial one based on religious bonds needs
to be backed by credible evidence of imperialist ambitions.

`Unless you have imperialist desires, it would be irrational not to
use the cultural, historical and geographical advantages that you have
in this region,’ he said. Attempts to expand regional cooperation
existed in the 1970s, 1980s and following the dissolution of the
Soviet Union in the 1990s, but none were accompanied by imperialist
goals, he added. `Turkey’s foreign policy is dictated by the economic
and strategic interests of the country,’ he told Sunday’s Zaman.

Dangers of swimming in Ottoman waters

In a 2005 speech, ErdoÄ?an said Turkey was a `core’ country —
as opposed to a peripheral one — that has the potential to influence
a wide area at the intersection of Asia, Europe and Africa and that
`Turkey ought to embrace its historic mission and take up a role that
befits its rich historic background.’ But he insisted this did not
mean a change in the current `route’ of its traditional foreign
policy, emphasizing instead that the route will be modified in
accordance with modern global realities.

But with a highly charged domestic atmosphere where division along the
lines of secularism runs deep at home, the government may need to
express its non-imperialist intentions more clearly than it does now
to avoid further polarization. In addition to deepening the rift
between the government and its secularist opponents, an Ottoman
rhetoric may also serve to radicalize Islamic groups, says Yasin
AtlıoÄ?lu, a researcher at the Ä°stanbul-based
think tank Bilgesam. `Frequent references to ideologies like
neo-Ottomanism and Islamism may lead conservative Islamic groups to
radicalize and seek to expand their influence beyond the state’s
control,’ he told Sunday’s Zaman.

At the height of Israel’s Gaza operation, radical Islamic groups were
at the forefront of protest demonstrations across Turkey. An
ideological rhetoric representing ErdoÄ?an as some sort of
`caliph’ defending Muslims’ rights may fuel their enthusiasm to be
more active, according to AtlıoÄ?lu.

In the Middle East, Arab leaders are also likely to be alienated by a
talk of a resurging Ottomanism in Turkey and poison the atmosphere of
cooperation growing between them and Ankara due to suspicions over
Turkey’s possible expansionist intentions. `The government should make
clear, especially to Arab leaders, that its policy does not include
revisionist goals or objectives such as the creation of an Islamic
union and that its policies are confined to political and economic
cooperation,’ he said.

8 March 2009, Sunday
FATMA DEMÄ°RELLÄ° Ä°STANBUL