Journal of Turkish Weekly
Nov 15 2009

Western Turkey in the East: New Turkish Foreign Policy

European Union With Turkey
Sunday, 15 November 2009

By Sedat LACINER

Turkey’s location impacts too much its foreign policy for the ages.
First of all, Anatolia is a special place between the continents of
Asia, Europe, and Africa. It was always an important place for the
Romans, for the Greeks, Arabs, Iranians, and Russians. It has always
been between important sea ways and trade routes. Anatolia is a
passage between different cultures and religions. If a country is
located in such a special place, it needs a special foreign policy to
protect its interests and to maintain its relations with the
neighboring regions. The Anatolian political and economic order needs
to be integrated with that of the Balkans and the Caucasus, and with
that of today’s Middle Eastern systems, for otherwise it cannot
maintain its sovereignty, development, independence, or peace. Turks,
during the Ottoman era, first integrated the Anatolian territories and
then moved to the territories that connect Anatolia to Europe, Asia,
and northern Africa. That is why the first sultans of the Ottoman
Empire gave great importance to integrating the Balkans and Asia Minor
before integrating the Black Sea region and the Caucasian and Middle
Eastern territories nearby.

Now, times have changed. Today, you cannot conquer countries by
invading them; this is not the way to protect your interests. Wars,
territorial wars, are not effective to unite peoples and countries.
>From satellite systems to the communication revolution to the
transportation revolution, the needs of the information age are
completely different than those of the past regarding foreign
relations. Today’s Turkey still needs to integrate the surrounding
regions, but the methods will be different, and in today’s world
Turkey cannot impose its ideas and policies on the surrounding
countries. Turkey, unlike the Ottoman Empire, should not dictate
policies and should not aim to be a hegemonic state in the region.

Turkey first needs to integrate the surrounding regions, which had
collapsed by the First World War. The global powers’ mistakes during
the 20th century unfortunately increased the disintegration of the
region. For example, in the Middle East, the deadly impacts of the
Palestinian-Israel problem and the wrongs of the great powers
regarding the region decreased democracy, tolerance, co-operation,
stability and economic development. The leaders of these countries are
afraid of each other.

There is a huge problem of mistrust among the leaders of the region,
and they look for friends outside the region instead of concentrating
on cooperation and dialogue amongst themselves. Turkey was one such
country at the end of the Cold War. But with the disintegration of the
Soviet Union and the collapse of the bipolar system, Turkey gained
more room to maneuver in the region and discovered that the main
problem was mistrust between regional countries. Turkey understood
that regional countries had to develop a common understanding to solve
their own problems and that regional, local prescriptions instead of
outside powers’ solutions were needed. But the problem during the
1990s was that Turkey’s economy was limited, and Turkey’s problems
with the neighboring countries were still hot and fresh. For instance,
the PKK terrorism problem between Turkey and Syria was a very big
barrier between the two countries. Syria was supporting PKK terrorists
against Turkey, and it was impossible for the two countries to develop
a close friendship. With the death of Hafez al-Assad, Syria changed.
And after the 1999 earthquake, the 2001 economic crisis in Turkey, and
the grave political changes following these events, Turkey also
changed. Both states need each other. Syria seeks to break the
isolation and to integrate with the rest of the world. However the
problems with Israel prevent its integration attempts with the West.
Turkey plays a crucial role in normalization process of the country.
Similarly co-operation with Syria helps Turkey in security and trade
areas. Syria is a gateway to the Arab world. Good relations between to
countries encourage the other Arab states to develop their relations
with Turkey. Furthermore both state sees the Kurdish issue as a common
problem. US President George W. Bush’s wrongs in the Middle East
feared both Turkey and Syria and these two states made co-operation to
prevent the deadly effects of the US’ Iraq politics during the Bush
era.

* DIRECTION OF TURKISH FOREIGN POLICY CHANGED OVER TIME?

With the AK Party (Justice and Development Party) government, Turkey
declared a new foreign policy understanding. The architect of this new
foreign policy understanding is Ahmet Davutoglu, an International
Relations professor. He calls his understanding `strategic depth’, or
a `zero problem with neighbors foreign policy’. Although we must
accept the change, actually this is not a deviation from the Turkish
foreign policy orthodoxy. There is a great continuation in Turkish
foreign policy understanding and implementation. The only difference
is that as Turkey and the world have changed over the years, Turkey’s
relations with the outside world have evolved accordingly. In the
1950s, for example, Turkey was quite a poor country, and although the
Turkish football team had qualified to participate in the World Cup
tournament in 1950, it was in Latin America, and Turkey did not have
the financial resources to send its football team to the tournament.
Imagine how poor Turkey was. (Now we have money, but our football team
cannot qualify for the tournament!) The financial power of a country
certainly shapes its diplomacy and external relations. Now, the
Turkish foreign minister, president, prime minister, each of the heads
of the Turkish military forces, have their own jets. Turkey’s foreign
policy infrastructure has also been much improved with the economic
boom in the Turkish economy, and this has created political
improvements as well.

Turkey, after the AK Party’s rise to power, first aimed to solve its
problems with neighboring countries. First, Turkey started a dialogue
process and created new dialogue channels. Syria-Turkey relations
would be a perfect example of this new foreign policy understanding.
Since 2003, Turkish high ranked politicians have visited Damascus more
than 100 times. This is unusual for the Middle East region, whose
leaders normally do not visit each other so frequently. For example,
Iranian president Ahmadinejad visited Istanbul last year for the first
time in nearly 12 years. When President Abdullah Gul visited Saudi
Arabia he became the first Turkish President who visited the country
in last 19 years. But in Western European political life, the German
and French prime ministers see each other two or three times every
month, sometimes every week. There are many occasions for European
prime ministers to meet, such as the NATO summits, UN, OECD, World
Bank, IMF, G7, G20, European Union meetings, historical days and their
own bilateral negotiations and meetings. Turkey that’s why
concentrates on more visits between the regional countries. Moreover
if any leader has problem with another one in the region Turkey
involves the problem and make efforts to overcome the distrust or
animosity between the leaders as we experienced in Syrian-Saudi
leaders case. It can be said that the dialogue and strengthening of
the communication ways are at the heart of the new Turkish
understanding.

Apart from Syria, Turkey has made efforts to improve its relations
with Iraq and Iran too. But the problem with Iraq was that it was in a
state of conflict and war, and it was almost impossible to improve
relations, especially in the economic and political areas. The problem
with Iran is trust. Historically, Turkey and Iran have been completely
different leaders of the Muslim countries. Turkey has been the leader
of the Sunni Muslims and Iran has been the leader of the Shia
communities. Turkey has always represented a more moderate religious
understanding. As a matter of fact, the ethnic difference between the
countries is not so large. More than 30 percent of the Iranian
population is Turkish origin ` Azeri and Turkmen. And until the 20th
century, Iran had been governed by Turkish leaders for centuries. One
example of this relationship is the famous war between Yavuz Sultan
Selim and Shah Ismail. Yavuz Sultan Selim was one of the greatest
Ottoman Sultans, and Shah Ismail was the greatest Iranian Shah. Shah
Ismail was Turkish, as was, of course, Yavuz. Yavuz would send a
letter in Persian and Ismail would respond with a letter in Turkish,
for the Iranian palace leaders spoke Turkish until the 20th century.
The two countries’ ethnic compositions are very similar, but the
problem is they represent completely different religious
understandings. Istanbul was the capital of moderate, or liberal,
religious understanding.

The biggest problem between Turkey and Iran today is mistrust. Some of
the Iranians still see Turkey as an agent of the Western world, as an
agent of the United States and the European Union, and they think that
Turkey may undermine Iranian sovereignty and Iranian dominance in the
region. Even during the Ottoman time, though the Ottomans were
stronger than the Iranians, Iran cooperated with the Vatican, the
center of Christianity. Iran cooperated with Christian countries
against Muslim countries. It is even the case now that Iran’s one of
the closest allies is Russia. And in the conflict between Azerbaijanis
and Armenians, Iran has better relations with the Christian Armenians.
This is not a matter only of religion; the realpolitik side must be
taken into account as well. Turkey is trying to alleviate the mistrust
between the two countries, saying `Forget the past; let’s create the
future.’ For the new Turkish understanding Iran is not a competitor
but one of the most important partners in the Middle East for Turkey.

Turkey first aims to solve its hot and current problems. Then the
second step of this understanding is to set up a foundation for future
political cooperation. Turkey does not start with the sensitive
political issues. Turkey is not involving itself in the internal
problems of other countries. First of all it is trying to establish
economic cooperation and trying to increase social relations between
the countries and between the societies. The aim is to establish
long-lasting dialogue and cooperation, or the institutionalization of
regional cooperation. Maybe economic integration would be possible
after that, but it is still early for such cooperation. We need a safe
base for the politics and economic-social tools will provide that
needed base for the leaders.

* FIRST TRADE, NOT POLITICS

In the past, the regional states mostly discussed, or argued about,
`big’ political problems. But now, Turkey is not talking about
politics, but also economics, as well as technical questions such as
transportation infrastructure, visas regimes, and tourism. As a matter
of fact this is the spirit of the EU. After World War II, the EU
countries began to cooperate on economic and technical matters, and
the spillover effect eventually led to more and more political
cooperation. In 2009 Turkey and Syria for example reached a visa-free
partnership after many co-operation efforts.

Turkey applied to the EU (EEC at that time) in 1959 and we have many
written agreements between the EU and Turkey. Turkey is now in full
membership negotiations. But although Turkey and the EU have been
partners for more than a half-century, they have not been able to
reach a visa-free agreement. So Turkey-Syria relations have progressed
faster than Turkey-EU relations, at least with respect to the visa
process. Some say we cannot establish Schengen regime, but we have
Shamgan, in reference to the Turkish name for Damascus, Sham.

Another success is the establishment of common cabinet meetings
between Turkey and Syria, and of course between Turkey and Iraq.
Usually countries cannot establish such cabinet meetings, and very few
countries in the world have done so. For example, Germany and France
have common cabinet meetings. Now Turkey and Syria, and Turkey and
Iraq have common cabinet meetings, and ministers meet at least once a
month.

Turkey further does not `allow’ any conflict between its neighboring
countries. For example, Baghdad accused Damascus of `encouraging’
terrorism inside Iraq. Damascus denied the accusation and the
relations strained. Turkey immediately got involved and asked them not
to go to the media. The Turkish foreign minister visited Damascus and
Baghdad and convinced the leaders to come to Istanbul and Ankara to
solve the problem. Similarly, Saudi Arabia’s king Abdullah and Syria’s
Bashar al-Assad had a disagreement, and both leaders were so reluctant
to get together. Turkey persuaded Assad to visit Saudi Arabia first;
he agreed on the condition of the Saudi Arabian king returning the
visit. So, thanks to Turkey’s efforts, the two leaders solved the
issue and paid mutual visits for the first time in more than five
years.

* TURKISH ECONOMY AS THE DETERMANT OF EXTERNAL RELATIONS

Turkish economy, in terms of trade, direct Turkish investments,
foreign investments in Turkey, tourism, industrial production etc.,
has boomed in the last five-six years. Growing economy directly affect
Turkey’s external relations and increase capabilities of Turkish
diplomacy. The economy also strengthens Turkey’s soft power over its
region. Millions of people thanks to tourism come to Turkey and visit
seaside resorts; Iranians, Israelis, Arabs, Russians, Georgians etc.
enjoy the Turkish way of life.

Turkish cultural products are also part of its soft power and affect
the Middle Eastern societies. For example, in the Arab world the most
popular television drama series are recently Turkish (like `GümüȔ,
`Nur’ in Arabic; `Years of Loss’; `Bouquet of Flowers’ etc.), and
Turkish satellite TV shows have an audience of millions in the region.
Turkish soaps such as `Nur’, , which was first dubbed into the Syrian
Arabic dialect to be broadcast on Arab satellite channels rapidly
captured the attention of various groups of society, not only women.
These drama series have previously been dubbed into German, Romanian
and other European languages to be broadcast in Europe.

Tourism and culture relations are not just business; they affect
culture, political understanding and many other things. The television
dramas for example deal with social issues within the framework of
overlapping stories and dramatic plots for suspense. These series look
at issues such as love, family values, society, unemployment, poverty
and greed from a Turkish angle.

Turkey with its success stories and export products shapes these
countries, these societies’ structures, but not by imposing or
dictating change. Turkey knows each country has its own story. If you
try to change their leaders, their regimes, you cannot get results you
expect. We need time and we need different methods. Of course the
improvement of democracy, human rights standards, and transparency all
are Turkish foreign policy’s preferences, but Turkey or any other
country should not dictate something to these countries. Turkey is
trying to be a model and therefore first has to improve itself before
dictating democracy or human rights standards to other countries.
First, Turkey is improving its own political life, maturing its own
political culture, and it gives inspiration to other countries. For
example, Iranians, Syrians, even Saudi Arabians look at the Turkish
experience and they see that the Turks are Muslim, Turks are Middle
Eastern, Turks are like us, and they can be democratic, they can be
rich, they can be like the Western nations, so all are possible.
Turkey shows other nations that such a path is possible, that liberal
democracy and liberal economy with a huge Muslim population (as seen
in the Turkish experience) do not cause instability and chaos. Arabs
and Persians fear instability and chaos, and are afraid that more
democracy, more rights may cause anarchy. But Turkey proves the
reverse is true.

The second thing that the Turkish experience proves is that true
friendship, reliable partnership between Turkey and the Western
countries is possible. There are not many success stories between the
West and the Muslim world. Al Qaeda and other extremist violent
terrorist organizations argue that the Western people are enemies of
the Muslim people. The United States and European countries, they
argue, aim to undermine Islam and to take natural resources without
paying anything. If Turkey can be successful in its relations with the
EU, for example if Turkey can be a full member of the EU, with its
Turkish identity and Muslim religion, it will be a success story and a
model, an inspiration for the rest of the Muslim countries.

* TURKEY DOES NOT CHALLENGE THE WEST AND WESTERN VALUES

Lately, there have been claims that Turkey is shifting its foreign
policy focus. Some columnists have recently argued that Turkey’s
foreign policy direction is changing, that the new government is
shifting Turkish foreign policy from the West to the East. I disagree.
Turkey is expanding its foreign policy, not shifting it.

Turkey applied to the EU for full membership, and in 2005 EU leaders
confirmed Turkey’s standing and decided that Turkey’s human rights
standards, economic development, and political maturity were
sufficient for full EU membership. The negotiation process was set up
to improve the details. So, in principle, Turkey could be a full
member of the EU. As a matter today Turkey’s economy and political
life are much better than some of the EU members. But Germany’s
Merkel, France’s Sarkozy, and some other leaders in some of the EU
countries are preventing Turkey’s membership. If EU countries were to
accept Turkey as a full member today, Turkey would be ready to be a EU
country. The current government has no problem with the West, or the
EU and, when compared with previous Turkish governments, Turkey is
much closer to EU membership. The problem in becoming an EU country, a
full Western country, is not on the Turkish but the EU side. As
President Abdullah Gul underlined in his USAK Speech on 4 November
2009 one who is interested in Turkey’s ultimate direction should look
at the values of Turkey not the appearance. Turkey strengthens its
Western values, like democracy and liberal economy.

Turkish – European interaction started almost a thousand years ago and
Turkey immensely influenced the continent’s political, economic,
social and cultural life. In return, the Renaissance, Reformation,
Enlightenment and the French Revolution played a crucial part in the
transformation of Ottoman Empire, and the creation of modern Turkey.
Both sides shaped each other and a European history cannot be written
without Turks. It is obvious that Turks are European for the
centuries. Europe is a deniable part of Turkish identity and at the
same time Europe is the homeland of the Turkish people. Integration
with Euro-Atlantic institutions stood out as a prime objective for
Turkey and it was among the founding members of the United Nations and
the Council of Europe and attained memberships to the OECD and NATO.
Turkey was a pivotal member of the NATO alliance during the tense
years of the Cold War. Turks protected the Western Europeans and the
free world from the Soviet threat at a high cost. Turkey still
actively contributes to efforts to protect the Western values in the
world and to bring lasting peace, stability and prosperity to regions
ranging from Afghanistan to the Balkans, Caucasus and the Middle East.
In 1963, Turkey signed an Association Agreement, which set joining the
European Communities as a goal. Accession negotiations with the EU
were initiated in 2005. Turkey has launched a national mobilization to
do what needs to be done. Every Ministry, every state institution, the
academia, the civil society is engaged with a view to bringing all of
our country into this modernization project. Moreover Turkey starts a
campaign against the militarist factors (deep state) inside the state.
Moreover the new Turkish policies regarding the Kurdish issue,
Armenian issue and the human rights were beyond the EU’s imagination.
In brief Turkey continues its reforms but generally the EU is falling
short in its performance. It is obvious that Turkey’s activism in the
east does not keep back Turkey from the EU direction.

* WHY SYRIA AND IRAN?

The second thing some columnists in the Western media ask is why
Turkey is improving its relations with Syria and Iran, the most
problematic countries in the world. It seems they are right; maybe
Turkey should improve its relations with so-called `better countries’,
like France, Germany, or Italy, but the problem is that Turkey’s
neighbors are Syria and Iran, not Germany or France. We cannot change
our neighbors. Maybe `these neighbors are from Hell’ as the West sees
them, but they are still our neighbors. States cannot change their
locations. We have to first change our neighbors’ nature if we are not
happy with them and then we have to `tame’, I think, these countries
and persuade them to cooperate. Turkey has to make them true
neighbors, genuine and truthful partners. If Turkey were between
France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, then of course everything
would be different. But our neighbors are relatively poor and
problematic countries; they are not fully democratic. We are so close
to Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Israel etc. Turkey has to accept its
situation and change it with time. Turkey should not be accused of
improving its relations with its neighbors. And it should be
remembered that France for example has better economic relations with
many Middle Eastern countries than Turkey has. So, do we accuse France
of shifting its foreign policy to the East? No. Every country has the
right to improve its relations with any other country in the world.
And if something is acceptable for France, it should be acceptable for
Turkey as well.

* Sedat Laciner: BA (Ankara), MA (Sheffield), PhD (King’s College London)
Language Edit by Kaitlin Mackenzie

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