WHAT’S ON THE MENU FOR ERDOGAN’S VISIT TO THE U.S.
Foreign Policy
/04/06/whats_on_the_menu_for_erdogans_visit_to_the _us
April 7 2010
After a month of uncertainty, on Friday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan finally announced that he would attend the Nuclear
Security Summit hosted by President Obama in Washington. He also
announced that the Turkish Ambassador to the United States, Namik Tan,
is preparing to fly back to Washington today. This is a clear sign that
the recent phone conversation between the Turkish Foreign Minister,
Ahmet Davutoglu, and the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has ended
a month-long row between the two countries over the House Foreign
Relations Committee’s passage of the Armenian resolution (H.R. 252)
by a narrow margin on March 4, 2010. In protest of the resolution,
Turkey recalled Ambassador Tan to Ankara for consultations. During this
period of uncertainty, both Turkish government officials and business
leaders in Turkey canceled/postponed their U.S. trips in line with
the Turkish government’s protest over the Armenian resolution. The
annual conference organized by the American-Turkish Council (ATC),
the leading business association in the US promoting Turkish-American
commercial and defense relations (considered by Washington insiders
to be Turkish equivalent of AIPAC), was rescheduled for a future
date. The conference has traditionally been attended by high-ranking
Turkish and American officials.
There are conflicting views among Turkey experts in Washington
regarding the underlying causes of the recent tension between the two
countries. While some argue that Erdogan has been pushing Obama’s
limits, others maintain that Obama does not read the dynamics of
Turkish domestic politics well, and still others claim that Turkey has
given domestic calculations precedence over its relations with the US.
The disagreement has two main causes: misapprehension of the concept
"model partnership", and the difference of methodology in foreign
policy.
The hierarchical relationship that long characterized US-Turkey
relations began to change when Turkey refused to allow US forces
across its territory into Iraq on March 1, 2003. After that, crisis
became a normal component of bilateral relations through the rest of
the Bush administration. But between these once close-knit allies,
a new era for relations started with Barack Obama’s election victory.
Different approaches to regional problems that had previously created
crises helped the formation of what President Obama sought as a
"model partnership" between the two countries. The model partnership
proposes that bilateral relations should be based not on a perception
of hierarchy but on mutual understanding and cooperation whenever
possible. It also aims to diversify relations and not confine them
only to security cooperation.
Yet this transformation from a hierarchical relationship to a
model partnership does not seem to be appreciated fully by analysts,
especially those used to seeing the Turkey-US relationship within the
former hierarchical framework (where any disagreement between the two
states was considered to justify US intervention in Turkish domestic
politics). As such, it is important to further conceptualize and give
meaning to what the notion of a model partnership might actually look
like in practice, including the potential roadblocks that can still
make this re-framing of relations a difficult one.
There are different approaches that the two countries can now
pursue to resolve certain conflicts, which can be summed up as a
comprehensive approach versus a fragmented approach. Ankara fully
supports Washington’s comprehensive approach in Iraq, Afghanistan,
and more recently in the Middle East Peace Process. It appreciates
Washington’s new strategy that treats these conflicts not as isolated
issues but as regional problems, by taking into consideration the
concerns of neighboring countries. However, Ankara believes that the
US does not follow the same comprehensive strategy in dealing with
Turkish-Armenian relations or in its attitude towards Iran. The Turkish
side expects the US to deal with the Armenian and Iranian issues in a
comprehensive manner and has thus found it lacking in these instances.
Since Prime Minister Erdogan did not postpone his visit to Washington
as some observers expected, we can assume that Turkish-US relations
are starting to get back on track. But now all eyes are turned
towards potential points of contention between Turkey and the US that
will be discussed during Erdogan’s visit to the US, especially the
Turkish-Armenian relations and Iranian nuclear issue.
At the moment, Turkish-Armenian relations are trapped between two
issues: the future of the Armenian resolution in the US House of
Representatives vote and the protocols waiting to be approved by the
Turkish National Assembly. Washington’s game plan was to use the H.R.
252 as a bargaining chip to urge Turkey to move forward on the
protocols, normalize relations, and reopen its border with Armenia.
However, the US plan failed due to several miscalculated factors,
including domestic pressure in Turkey and Turkish-Azerbaijani
relations.
Ankara claims that the Armenian Constitutional Court’s decision
on protocols "contains preconditions and restrictive provisions
which impair the letter and spirit of the protocols." Additionally,
it argues that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenian-Azerbaijani
relations, and Turkish-Armenian relations are all interrelated, and
progress in one track would require progress in others. Washington,
on the other hand, believes the ball is in Turkey’s court while Armenia
tries to deal with Turkish-Armenian relations and the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict separately.
These are the main issues that will be on the table in a potential
trilateral meeting between Erdogan, Obama, and Armenian President
Sarkissian in Washington. However, Turkey still doubts the Obama
administration’s willingness to deal with the issue comprehensively,
taking into consideration the fact that Azerbaijan was not invited
to the summit while Armenia, Georgia, Russia, and 40 other states were.
Ankara has also demanded assurances from President Obama for his April
24 speech addressing the Armenian-American community. Considering
Erdogan’s recent decision to come to the US, it seems that Ankara has
indeed received the necessary assurances from the US administration.
Therefore, it would be safe to assume that the US administration
will do its best to keep the resolution out of the House and not
use the "g-word" on April 24. In Washington, Turkey will urge the
OSCE Minsk Group member countries to speed up the process to find a
peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and in return,
give necessary assurances to the US that it is still committed to
the protocols.
The second potential point of conflict where the US and Turkey
haven’t always seen eye-to-eye is regarding Iran. When the Assistant
Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, Philip Gordon, described
the Obama administration’s perspective on Turkish-American relations
last month at a Brookings lecture, he urged Turkey, more than anything,
to be on the same page with the US on Iranian sanctions.
To send a strong signal to Iran, the US and its European allies are
now trying to avoid a divided vote in the United Nations Security
Council (UNSC) on a sanctions resolution. Turkey, like Brazil, is a
key country in this sense to secure a united front if not a unanimous
vote. However, Erdogan has repeatedly expressed his disapproval on
imposing crippling sanctions on Iran by arguing that such sanctions
would not serve their ultimate purpose. Ankara believes that the
diplomatic track has not been fully exhausted, and any decision on
Iran should be made through consultations, primarily with neighboring
countries, since they are the ones that will most suffer the spillover
effects of any sanctions on Iran. Ankara underlines the necessity to
deal with the Iranian issue based on "universal" standards without
"ideological constraints."
Ankara also thinks that the US is acting rather hastily on Iran in
order to appease a vocal domestic opposition in the US against Iran,
and is further using the Iranian issue as leverage on Israel to push
for Middle East peace. Ankara certainly supports Obama’s efforts on
the Middle East Peace Process and made it clear that it does not want
nuclear weapons in the region. But while both Turkey and the US want
to achieve peace in the Middle East and a nuclear weapon-free Iran,
they clearly differ in their methodologies .
What would be Turkey’s vote in the UNSC on sanctions against Iran?
Would Turkey give in to US pressure and change its rhetoric on the
Iranian nuclear program? It is unlikely that Turkey would vote
affirmatively on the UNSC vote on Iran, and abstaining would be
considered a last resort. The "model partner" Turkey would keep
voicing its concerns and propose methods to find a negotiated and
peaceful solution to the Iranian problem.
A "Nuclear-Free Middle East" will most probably be the motto of the
Turkish delegation at the Nuclear Summit. And a nuclear-free Middle
East would obviously have implications not only for Iran, but also for
another country in the region that already has nuclear capability:
Israel. Yet again, it seems that everything is interrelated in the
Middle East–a fact which is surely not lost on both sides of the
Turkish-US relationship as they navigate through the varied landscapes
of the ‘model partnership’ this week.
Nuh Yilmaz is Director of SETA-DC and Ufuk Ulutas is the Middle East
Program Coordinator for SETA-DC.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
