TURKEY TURNS ITS GAZE TO THE EAST
by Hamida Ghafour
The National
rticle?AID=/20091128/WEEKENDER/711279812/1135
Nov 28 2009
UAE
Just before he flew to Libya on Tuesday, the Turkish prime minister,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was asked what he thought of the new European
Union president who once remarked that Turkey could never be a
part of Europe because it did not share the "fundamental values"
of Christianity.
Mr Erdogan had a diplomatic response ready: Herman Van Rompuy would
pose no obstacle to the Muslim nation’s EU aspirations.
Then he took off to Tripoli followed by a gaggle of businessmen, joined
the Libyan leader Muammer Qadafi in his Beduoin tent and announced
that the two nations would sign a free-trade agreement next year.
Following the news that the colourless Mr Van Rompuy, a Belgian
Eurocrat, was appointed to the presidential post, the question "who?"
continues to echo from Westphalia to Manchester.
But the Turks have grown used to hostility from the EU a leading
columnist once called it a "fat midget" which was "lacking perspective"
and gave a collective shrug.
Prospects for Turkey’s accession to the exclusive European club may
look dimmer than ever but the republic, which is Nato’s only Muslim
member, is increasingly turning eastward for its ambitions.
>From the Balkans to the Caucasus to the Middle East, Turkey is focusing
its energies on establishing an arc of influence in many countries
which were once part of the Ottoman empire.
Some call it Ottomania.
But instead of rose-perfumed pashas in embroidered caftans invading
Arab lands with cadres of janissaries, Turkish politicians are arriving
with delegations of business leaders dangling lucrative trade deals
to the economically stagnant region.
"Turkey is carrying western values to its eastern neighbours," said
Mustafa Kutley, an Ankara-based contributor to the Turkish Weekly
journal. "It is trying a very European approach: while increasing
the wealth of its country it is transforming the continent from one
of violence to one of wealth. That is what Europe once did. The EU
is less important on the Turkish agenda."
Ever since the Turks established a secular republic in 1923 by
abolishing the caliphate, they have looked down their noses at the
backwardness of the east and preferred to turn to Europe and America
for role models.
But that is changing at breakneck speed.
In the past two months Turkey’s somewhat Islamist leaders from the
ruling AK party have travelled to Iraqi Kurdistan and promised to
open a consulate in Irbil.
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, may have declared earlier
this month that capitalism was dead, but the two countries which once
ran rival empires have reached a deal to increase bilateral trade
from US$7 billion (Dh25b) in 2008 to $20 billion by 2011.
Turkey has cannily capitalised on anti-American sentiment in Iraq
and signed a raft of deals there. Indeed Turkish exports to the
Middle East and North Africa were valued at $31 billion in 2008,
a seven-fold increase from 2001.
The Turks are making their mark on the diplomatic scene, too. In
trying to mediate between Iran and the West, Turkey is offering to
store Iran’s low-grade enriched uranium. Relations with Israel are
cold but last week a trade minister from the Jewish state visited
Turkey and the two sides promised to improve ties.
More significantly, last month Turkey and Armenia agreed to open their
border and establish diplomatic ties despite lingering hostility over
the genocide of up to one million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman
Turks in 1915.
It was a coup for Turkey’s so-called "football diplomacy" in which
leaders from the two countries met occasionally to watch their national
teams play football, providing a casual setting for negotiations.
A decade ago, the Turks and the Syrians nearly went to war but
last month Mr Erdogan and the Syrian president, Bashar al Assad,
were practically hugging in Damascus as they announced that visa
requirements for travellers would be abolished.
Russia, another historic enemy, is now a major trading partner.
The driving force behind the change is Ahmet Davutoglu, the scholarly
foreign minister who was Mr Erdogan’s chief foreign policy adviser
for seven years before he took up the ministerial job.
The son of a merchant from Anatolia and an outsider to the
Ankara-Istanbul elite, Mr Davutoglu has torn up decades of Turkish
policy in reaching out to former Ottoman dominions.
Sometimes the results are startling.
Last February when his predecessor, Ali Babacan, visited Yemen he was
greeted by a room full of tribal leaders with their daggers drawn. It
was an old custom reserved for the arrival of Ottoman governors.
Mr Davutoglu, who is nicknamed the "Kissinger of Turkey" in reference
to Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state, prefers the term
"strategic depth" to Ottomania.
His slogan is "zero problems with neighbours".
Mr Davutoglu is a supporter of the EU project but unafraid to defend
the Ottomans to European audiences.
"If the Ottoman archive was not opened, European history could not
have been written," he told a Spanish newspaper earlier this month.
Turkey has also become an important energy hub. The most visible
project right now is the Nabucco pipeline, a proposed $11.7
billion plan to carry gas across Turkey from Azerbaijan and perhaps
Turkmenistan, Iran, Iraq and Egypt.
These developments have caused some anxiety in the West because of
fears that Turkey is drifting away from its traditional allies.
Turkey’s chummy relations with Iran will certainly be brought up in
Washington when Mr Erdogan visits the US on December 7, said Hugh
Pope, an Istanbul-based expert on Turkey and author of the upcoming
Dining with al Qaeda: Three Decades Exploring the Many Worlds of the
Middle East.
"The way Erdogan is talking about Iran is definitely damaging him in
Washington policy circles and perhaps irritating people in the EU. But
I think there are valid counter-arguments. The Turks are saying ‘at
least we are engaging Iran’. A million Iranians are coming to Turkey
every year and seeing an alternative way of governing in a developing
country with a Muslim identity. This is possibly more subversive in
Iran than any sanctions could be."
Iranians are joined by a growing number of Arabs flocking to the
beaches and pine forests of Turkey’s south-west coast during the
summer holidays.
Tourism has also been given a boost thanks to Muhannad, the dashing
male lead in the hit Turkish soap opera Noor which is dubbed into
Arabic and broadcast across the Arab world to swooning female
audiences.
There have been missteps though.
Earlier this month Mr Erdogan raised hackles by defending the Sudanese
president, Omar al Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal
Court on war crime charges. "A Muslim could never commit genocide," the
prime minister said. There is also the thorny question of languishing
peace talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in Cyprus.
Still, there is a confidence partly drawn from its history which did
not exist before.
"The Ottomans weren’t seen as a constructive part of Turkey’s past. It
was not natural because Ottoman history is part of Turkey history,"
said Mr Kutley. "It is about making peace with its history."
The high-water mark perhaps came in September during the funeral of
the last Ottoman prince, Osman Ertugrul Osmanoglu, at the Blue Mosque
in Istanbul. He would have been successor to the 600-year-old dynasty
if the empire had not been abolished.
The government granted special permission to allow him to be buried
next to his grandfather, Sultan Abdul Hamid II. Several ministers
attended the service, which would have once been unthinkable in the
fiercely secular republic.
The nostalgia is also apparent at the populist level. A popular new
museum depicting the 1453 capture of Constantinople by Mehmet II has
opened in the capital. The centrepiece depicts his final victory on
the city walls. In January, Istanbul will have the opportunity to
show off its new-found confidence when it holds the title of European
Capital of Culture.
The occasion will be marked by a year-long series of museum openings,
concerts and exhibitions among other events. Ironically, the accolade
was given by the European Union.
"Istanbul is already a city with international stature and has
been from the first day it was founded," said Yeshim Ternar, the
Turkish-born author of The Book and the Veil Escape from an Istanbul
Harem. "It has always been a nexus; a wonderful mix of everything
that fuels culture. There is no other city in the whole world that
disorients a traveller and where any effort at reorientation brings
you somewhere you had never imagined was possible."
For some it was high time the Middle East looked to Turkey for a
fresh approach to solving the region’s problems.
Pope said: "We’re seeing something based on Istanbul as a hub, and a
commercial prestige of Turkey at the moment. Middle Eastern countries
are looking to Turkey for ideas."