Turkey fights calls for greater Afghan role
By Delphine Strauss in Ankara
FT
December 6 2009 20:23
Turkey is `already doing what it can’ in its dispatch of troops to
Afghanistan, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister, said on Sunday,
signalling he would resist US pressure to send a bigger contingent to
back the American surge.
He spoke before flying to Washington on an official visit intended to
dispel suspicions of an eastwards drift in Turkey’s foreign policy,
and show its value as a partner in addressing regional challenges –
from stabilising Iraq to ending frozen conflicts in the Caucasus or
containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
The decision may feed doubts in Washington that Turkey’s pursuit of
closer ties with Muslim neighbours could dilute its support of western
aims. Mr Erdogan’s visit comes soon after a crisis in Turkish-Israeli
relations, and a defence of Iran’s nuclear programme as `peaceful and
humanitarian’.
`The US side needs to impress diplomatically on [Mr Erdogan] how much
his populist rhetoric in support of anti-western bugbears is damaging
Turkey’s position with its key partners and … in Washington and
Brussels,’ Hugh Pope, an author on Turkey, wrote in a paper for the
Transatlantic Academy.
Despite the criticism, Mr Obama’s administration considers Ankara a
vital partner in a difficult region. It supports Mr Erdogan’s drive to
broaden rights for Turkey’s Kurdish minority, aiming to end a conflict
that has deepened divisions within Turkey and also threatened
stability in northern Iraq. The US shares intelligence with Turkey on
Kurdish rebels operating from Iraq, and Mr Erdogan is accompanied on
the trip by a senior general.
Mr Obama, who before his election promised to recognise Ottoman-era
massacres of Armenians as genocide, is also likely to urge Mr Erdogan
to speed ratification of a deal to normalise relations with Yerevan.
The agreement, signed after last-minute mediation by Hillary Clinton,
US secretary of state, is one of Mr Obama’s few tangible successes in
foreign policy, but he will face pressure from Armenian groups if it
does not take effect before April.
The real test of what Mr Obama has called a `model partnership’,
though, will be Iran. Turkish diplomats say they share western fears
of Tehran gaining nuclear weapons, and differ only in their approach
to preventing it.
But Turkey, which imports gas from Iran and wants to expand trade
ties, is against any new sanctions and abstained in last month’s
United Nations vote condemning Iran’s nuclear activities, even though
China and Russia joined the censure.
Ian Lesser, in a paper for the German Marshall Fund, said Turkish
foreign policy was `in the European mainstream’ on most issues, but
warned its position on Iran’s nuclear programme `holds the potential
for a damaging departure’.
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