TURKEY: RELATIONS BETWEEN ANKARA AND ISRAEL BECOMING CHILLY
Yigal Schleifer

nsightb/articles/eav101909a.shtml
10/19/09

The once-vital relationship between Turkey and Israel is going through
a distinctly frosty period. The chill began after the invasion of
Gaza earlier this year, which Ankara criticized harshly. But now
ties between the two Middle East allies are diving further and some
experts are wondering if the relationship is coming to end.

Concern was first raised in mid-October after Turkey indefinitely
postponed annual military exercises, reportedly because of Israel’s
planned involvement. The exercises — air force maneuvers dubbed
Anatolian Eagle — were also to have included the United States, Italy
and other NATO countries. The other participating states reportedly
pulled out of the exercise after learning of Israel’s exclusion.

Israeli officials also have expressed outrage over a new dramatic
series being screened on Turkish state television that shows Israeli
soldiers mercilessly killing Palestinians, including one scene of a
soldier shooting a young girl at point blank range.

Observers suggest the postponement of the military exercises and the
ensuing tension reflect shifts in Turkey’s domestic politics and its
foreign policy outlook. "I think the timing [of the cancellation]
has more to do with Turkey’s internal and foreign politics," says
Lale Kemal, a military analyst based in Ankara.

"We should bear in mind that the balance of power [in Turkey]
is shifting toward civilian authority," Kemal continued. "Despite
the military’s plans for the exercise, which included Israel, the
government asked them [military planners] to exclude it."

Turkey’s Islamist press has strongly criticized Israel’s involvement
in previous military exercises, and Kemal believes the liberal
Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) government was worried
about the domestic fallout of this year’s drill. "Had it been up to
the military, the exercise would have continued as planned, but the
military can’t dictate its policies on the government the way it used
to. The equation is changing. We see this in other areas and in the
Turkish-Israeli relationship also. The military cannot dictate its
positions all the time right now," she said.

On the foreign policy front, Ankara, for the last few years, has
actively sought to establish itself as a kind of regional soft-power
broker, working to strengthen relations with neighbors that it has
previously kept at an arm’s length, most notably Syria and Iran.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu — the main architect of
this new foreign policy — and 10 other ministers recently visited
Syria for the first meeting of a newly created Strategic Cooperation
Council, and to sign an agreement doing away with visa requirements
between the two countries.

In many ways, this change reflects a fundamental shift from the period
when Turkey and Israel began developing their strategic relationship.

At the time, both countries looked at countries like Syria as a common
threat. Turkey and Syria almost went to war in the late 1990’s after
Ankara accused Damascus of supporting the separatist Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK).

"In Davutoglu’s ideological framework, Israel doesn’t play a central
role. Things have changed," says Ofra Bengio, an expert on Turkey at
the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel
Aviv University.

Says Suat Kiniklioglu, a member of the governing Justice and
Development Party (AKP) and spokesman of the parliament’s Foreign
Affairs Committee: "We need to be clear: the strategic relationship
between Turkey and Israel is no longer what it was in the late 1990s."

Bengio believes that the postponed air force exercises may also be
the victim of the continuing fallout from the January invasion of Gaza.

Davutoglu recently cancelled an upcoming visit to Israel after he
learned he was not going to be allowed to visit Gaza. Excluding
Israel from the Anatolian Eagle maneuvers might well have been
Turkey’s response to that, Bengio says. "I think Turkey is doing
this to punish Israel for everything that has happened since Gaza,
not because it might hurt its relations with Syria or Iran. The
situation is starting to look more like a game of ping-pong," she said.

During the Gaza fighting, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
accused Israel of "perpetrating inhuman actions that would bring it to
self-destruction" and of committing a "crime against humanity." More
recently, Erdogan charged the country with being a "persecutor."

Ankara initially said that no political meaning should be derived
from the postponement of the military exercises, but Turkish officials
later altered their tune. "Turkey cannot be seen as being in military
relations with Israel at such a sensitive time, when there are no
peace efforts, when peace has not gained momentum," Davutoglu told
reporters in a recent news conference. "We cannot ignore what is
going on in Gaza."

Some critics believe that altering the old balance in bilateral
relations could damage Turkey’s overall foreign policy interests.

"Turkey’s relations with Israel . . . are very vital and should not
be a tool for playing domestic games," political analyst Mehmet Ali
Birand recently wrote in a column in the English-language Hurriyet
Daily News. "We need to protect the balance as we used to do."

Israeli officials have already voiced skepticism about Ankara’s
ability to serve as an "honest broker," if talks between Jerusalem
and Damascus were to be renewed.

"They are forcing the limits of their ability to maintain relations
with both sides," says Bulent Aliriza, an expert on Turkey at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based
think tank. "Turkey has every right to open up to the Middle East
and to criticize Israel, but the impression is being developed that
Turkey is developing its relationships in the Middle East at the
expense of Israel."

Editor’s Note: Yigal Schleifer is a freelance reporter based in
Istanbul.