OBAMA TO WOO TURKS, ARMENIAN PITFALL AWAITS
By Alistair Lyon
Reuters
March 24 2009
BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama has created a chance
to turn Turkey’s role in the wider Middle East to maximum advantage
simply by going there so early in his term.
Turkey, a sometimes prickly NATO ally, holds no magic solutions, but
it can help the United States in confrontations and conflicts that
stretch from Israel to Afghanistan — via Syria, Iraq and Iran —
and from Cyprus to the Caucasus.
Obama’s April 5-7 visit is a nod to Turkey’s regional reach, economic
power, unrivalled diplomatic contacts and status as a secular Muslim
democracy that has accommodated political Islam.
"It’s a symbolic piece of public diplomacy at a time maybe not of
crisis, but great uncertainty in U.S.-Turkish relations," said Philip
Robins, a Middle East expert at Oxford University.
Turkey will not be the venue for Obama’s promised major speech in a
Muslim capital, but Lawrence Korb, senior fellow at the Center for
American Progress, said his stop there was still a way to emphasize
his message of reaching out to Muslims.
Obama may unlock the kind of goodwill generated by former
U.S. President Bill Clinton when he came to Turkey in 1999, but risks
dissipating it all if he uses another G-word, genocide, to describe
the fate of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.
"With the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) under control in Iraq and the
Americans at least not confronting Iran at the moment, the Armenian
issue is the thorniest," Robins said.
In his election campaign, Obama pledged to call the killings of
Armenians genocide, and a resolution so to designate them was
introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives last week.
A similar resolution two years ago was approved in committee but
dropped after Turkey denounced it as "insulting" and hinted at halting
logistical support for the U.S. war in Iraq.
Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman
Turks during World War One, but denies that up to 1.5 million died
as a result of systematic genocide.
TURKISH-ARMENIAN BREAKTHROUGH?
Ironically, Turkey and Armenia are perhaps as close as they have ever
been to normalizing ties and reopening the border.
Omer Taspinar, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, argues that
accelerating this process could relieve Obama’s dilemma.
"This is exactly what President Obama needs," he wrote, urging Turkey’s
ruling party to show "visionary statesmanship."
If the Armenian issue can be finessed, Obama has everything to gain
from reinvigorated U.S.-Turkish ties, particularly when he is making
overtures to adversaries such as Iran and Syria.
He has already sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Middle
East envoy George Mitchell on visits to Ankara.
"Turkey plays a pivotal role in this region," said Karim Makdisi,
at the American University of Beirut. "If you are going down this
route of cooperation and dialogue, countries that have open channels
like Turkey are the ones you want to talk to."
Turkey, once on uneasy terms with many of its neighbors, now has ties
that span faultlines in the Middle East and beyond.
"Who else can go to Moscow and Tbilisi, to Tehran and Tel Aviv? Who
else can speak to Hamas in Damascus and also to the Egyptians and
have good relations with the Saudis on top of that?" asked Hugh Pope,
an International Crisis Group analyst.
U.S.-Turkish ties suffered badly in 2003 when Ankara opposed the
invasion of Iraq — and opinion polls show most Turks remain hostile
to Washington — but former President George W. Bush’s administration
began to repair the damage five years later.
"The United States is now cooperating with Turkey over Iraq and that
has had amazing consequences," Pope said, noting there had been no
big clash for several months between Turkish forces and PKK separatist
rebels, who have bases in northern Iraq.
LOGISTICAL SUPPORT
Turkey, vital to Washington as a logistical hub for U.S. forces that
are set to ramp up in Afghanistan and draw down in Iraq, has its own
vital interests in regional security.
"The breadth of relationships and the involvement of Turkey is huge,"
said a Western official in Ankara, citing Turkish mediation between
Syria and Israel among other examples.
"The United States is working very closely in sharing intelligence
against the PKK and supports contacts between Turkey and the Kurdish
regional government."
President Abdullah Gul this week became the first Turkish head of
state to visit Iraq in over 30 years. He won harsh words for the PKK
from Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and signaled Turkey’s growing
acceptance of the autonomy Iraqi Kurds enjoy.
Steven Flanagan, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington, said the United States welcomed
Turkey’s stated willingness to play a bigger role in central Asia and
help more in Afghanistan, where it has more than 800 non-combat troops.
"Turkey will also want to hear more about the U.S. withdrawal plans
for Iraq," he said.
Turkey declared this month it would consider mediating between Iran
and the United States, although Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
later said there was no need for this.
With U.S.-Iranian relations in flux after Obama’s offer of better ties
last week drew an Iranian demand for U.S. policy changes, Washington
values Turkey’s input on its neighbor.
"Before the president takes any steps on Iran, he wants to hear from
the Turks," the Western official in Ankara said.
(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell and Caren Bohan in Washington
and Ibon Villelabeitia in Ankara; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress