FRIENDS BY THE BOSPORUS

Economist
y.cfm?story_id=13447023
April 8 2009

Turkey basks in the glory of a two-day visit by Barack Obama

IT WAS sealed with an embrace. Barack Obama concluded his wide-ranging
address to the Turkish parliament on April 6th by kissing the prime
minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on both cheeks. That seemed to please
his audience of parliamentarians, as did the American president’s
pledge that his country was "not at war with Islam." He pointed out
that many Americans are part of Muslim families, and others have lived
in countries where Muslims are in the majority. "I know, because I
am one of them," he said, prompting wild applause.

Mr Obama delivered a high-class performance, charming his audience by
calling Turkey a "critical" ally and an important part of Europe. Its
secular free-market democracy is just the sort of model America hopes
might inspire Muslims everywhere. That message was also received by
millions tuned into Al-Jazeera’s live coverage of Mr Obama’s speeches
during his two-day tour to Ankara and Istanbul.

Mr Obama’s decision to add Turkey to his European tour went beyond
confirming (to the joy of Turkey’s secular elite) the country’s western
credentials. It highlighted Turkey’s emergence as a regional power that
matters and as a large, mainly Muslim member of NATO (tiny Albania,
another Muslim country, has just joined NATO as well). After seven
years under the mildly Islamist Justice and Development (AK) Party,
Turkey enjoys growing influence and popularity in the Arab world.

Turkish support will be critical as America prepares to withdraw from
Iraq and switch its focus to Afghanistan. Mr Obama (who went on from
Istanbul to Baghdad for a flying visit) reportedly urged Abdullah Gul,
the Turkish president, to send more troops to Afghanistan, some of them
for combat. Turkey already has 900 soldiers in Afghanistan and is a
transit hub for supplies to American troops both there and in Iraq. The
Turks have also acted as a conduit for messages between America and
Iran as the two countries consider re-establishing dialogue.

Mr Obama’s trip comes after a prolonged chill between America and
Turkey, prompted largely by differences over Iraq. The Turkish
parliament provoked fury, especially in the Pentagon, when it voted
in March 2003 against letting American troops use the country as a
route for opening a second front in Iraq. America’s refusal to take
action against separatist rebels from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK) in northern Iraq then fed Turkish anger. Some opinion polls
showed support for America in single digits when George Bush was
president. But America’s decision in late 2007 to provide intelligence
on the PKK and to let Turkish planes bomb rebel bases in northern
Iraq changed the mood. So, even more, did Mr Obama’s election.

EPA

Obliging Obama charms earnest ErdoganPerhaps the most important change,
as Mr Obama acknowledged, is that America has overcome its cold-war
habit of engaging mostly with Turkey’s generals. As democracy has
taken root, public opinion has come to count. Turkey’s generals found
this out when voters returned the AK for a second term in the July
2007 general election with a thumping 47% of the vote soon after the
top brass threatened a coup.

Mr Obama’s 25-minute speech to the Turkish parliament offered
something for everyone, whether secularist, Islamist, nationalist
or Kurdish. Even the generals showed up to listen. They have been
boycotting parliament ever since 20 members of the pro-Kurdish
Democratic Society Party (DTP) were elected in 2007.

Most of his listeners will have been pleased to hear Mr Obama stress
Turkey’s Western orientation, saying that America supported Turkey’s
aspirations for European Union membership "not as members of the EU but
as close friends of both Turkey and Europe." The Islamists liked his
reference to Turkey’s Muslim identity. But he also called for respect
for minorities, declaring that the Greek Orthodox seminary on Halki, an
island off Istanbul, must be reopened. In a bold gesture he included
the DTP’s co-chairman, Ahmet Turk, among the opposition leaders
whom he met. Mr Turk has long sought an audience with Mr Erdogan,
but never had one because he refuses to label the PKK as "terrorist".

Only one cloud hung over Mr Obama’s trip: his campaign pledge to call
the mass killings of the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 "genocide". In a
press conference after his talks with Mr Gul, the American president
said that he had not changed his view of history. But in a blow to
the Armenian diaspora, which has long lobbied for a congressional bill
to label the massacres as genocide, Mr Obama suggested that Turkey’s
recent efforts to reopen its border and re-establish diplomatic ties
with Armenia should not be overshadowed by America’s position on the
issue. Turkey and Armenia are expected soon to sign an agreement,
after months of Swiss-sponsored talks in Bern. Officials close to
the negotiations say that a document could be initialled by both
sides in "a matter of days" and that the border could be reopened
"within months".

This was not all a cynical fudge. During his parliamentary speech,
Mr Obama declared that "history…unresolved can be a heavy weight…I
know there are strong views in this chamber about the terrible events
of 1915. While there has been a good deal of commentary about my views,
this is really about how the Turkish and Armenian people deal with the
past. And the best way forward for the Turkish and Armenian people
is a process that works through the past in a way that is honest,
open and constructive."

Not all Turks agree. An Ankara court recently overturned an Istanbul
prosecutor’s decision not to investigate some 30,000 Turks who have
signed an online declaration apologising to the Ottoman Armenians
for the "great catastrophe" that befell them in 1915.

Tensions are also running high in the mostly Kurdish south-east. Mr
Obama praised the recent launch of a state-run 24-hour Kurdish-language
television channel. But only days before his arrival, two Kurdish
youths were killed in clashes with police during a rally called to
mark the birthday of the captive PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan. Over
50 demonstrators who turned out to protest against the deaths are
still in police custody.

Many friends of Turkey hope that Mr Obama will stick by his pledge on
the Armenian genocide. They say that would restore America’s moral
credibility and would allow it to draw attention to Turkey’s patchy
human-rights record. Until recently, the EU’s remonstrations counted
most. But Europe’s habitual foot-dragging during Turkey’s membership
talks has meant that it "has neither any carrots nor any sticks left,"
confesses an EU envoy in Ankara. Enter Barack Hussein Obama to fill
the void.