ERDOGAN CALLS ISRAEL ‘THREAT’ TO PEACE

Wall Street Journal
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April 8 2010

Turkish premier’s remarks further strain countries’ alliance as
analysts ponder nation’s foreign-policy leanings

By MARC CHAMPION

Relations between Turkey and Israel, already at a low point, took a
further battering Wednesday when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan described Israel as "the principal threat to peace" in the
Middle East.

The remarks, made to reporters on a visit to Paris, came after Israel’s
foreign minister had compared Mr. Erdogan to Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez
and Moammar Gadhafi of Libya earlier this week.

Israel responded quickly.

"We are interested in good relations with Turkey and regret that Mr.

Erdogan chooses time after time to attack Israel," said Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu after a news conference in Jerusalem, adding that
such remarks would do nothing for Middle Eastern stability.

This promises to be a tough month for Mr. Erdogan’s relationships with
some of his most important Western allies, as he seeks to balance
Turkey’s interests in boosting trade and political relations with
its immediate neighbors–including Iran, Syria and Azerbaijan–with
the conflicting goals of Western policy makers.

Mr. Erdogan’s clashes with Israel and rapprochement with Iran and
Syria have led some analysts to believe Turkey is making a fundamental
foreign-policy shift away from its Cold War partners in the West,
in particular the U.S., and toward Middle Eastern powers such as
Iran. At a recent meeting of foreign-policy analysts in Istanbul
held by the Turkish Policy Quarterly, Israeli and Turkish analysts
agreed on one point–the alliance those two countries built on shared
security concerns in the 1990s is probably unsalvageable.

But a 38-page report by the Brussels-based International Crisis
Group think tank on Turkey’s new role in the Middle East, released
Wednesday, said the belief Turkey is turning away from the West
is "incorrect." The report noted that Turkey’s trade with Europe
continues to outweigh its trade with the Middle East by a wide margin,
and European Union membership remains its core goal. But the report
also warned that Mr. Erdogan risks losing the trust of Western allies.

Mr. Erdogan was in Paris on Wednesday to boost a trade relationship
that has recovered from a brief setback caused by France’s recognition
of the 1915 slaughter of Armenians under Ottoman rule as genocide,
and to push for Turkey’s EU bid, which France opposes.

Next week, he heads to Washington for a conference on nuclear security
to be attended by leaders from some 40 nations–including Mr.

Netanyahu. There, he is likely to come under pressure to back
U.S. and French efforts to secure unanimous support at the United
Nations Security Council for further sanctions against Iran. Turkey
currently holds one of 10 rotating seats on the 15-nation Council.

So far, Mr. Erdogan shows no sign of backing down from his opposition
to imposing harsher sanctions on Iran, which together with his tough
rhetoric on Israel and support for Hamas in the Gaza Strip have
brought him popularity in many parts of the Middle East.

"I don’t think those [sanctions] being discussed can be effective,"
Mr. Erdogan told French daily Le Figaro in an interview published
ahead of his visit. "Sanctions have already been agreed on two
occasions. Those who took the decision to apply them were the first
to violate them," he said, specifying the French, Germans, English,
Americans and Chinese.

Mr. Erdogan also repeated his skepticism on whether Iran intends to
use its nuclear-fuel program to build nuclear weapons, saying there
is no such uncertainty concerning Israel’s undeclared arsenal.

Asked on Wednesday if he wasn’t concerned Israel could become the focus
of attack for proliferation during next week’s nuclear conference
in Washington, Mr. Netanyahu said, "I’m not concerned that anyone
would think that Israel is a terrorist regime," the Associated Press
reported.

Western governments and nuclear analysts say there is ample evidence
that Iran’s nuclear-fuel program, which can be used to enrich civilian
or weapons-grade fuel, is being developed to give Iran a military
capability.

Also on the agenda in Washington will be Turkey’s troubled initiative
to reopen its border with Armenia. This week, Mr. Erdogan sent a
senior diplomat to Yerevan to discuss how to keep alive an effort
that a growing number of Armenians see as a ploy to ensure President
Barack Obama doesn’t recognize the 1915 killings as genocide in an
annual statement to mark its April 24 anniversary.

Turkey was angered by the Obama administration’s failure to lobby
strongly against a resolution to recognize the genocide in the House
Foreign Affairs Committee last month. Its ambassador, withdrawn in
protest at the vote, returned to Washington this week. While there is
confidence in Ankara that President Obama won’t use the "genocide"
word, the White House continues to press for ratification of the
Armenia deal. Turkey says it won’t open the border until Armenia moves
toward settling a territorial dispute with neighboring Azerbaijan.