TALKING TURKEY IN DC
Joost Lagendijk
Hurriyet
Feb 28 2010
Turkey
Last week I spent a couple of days in Washington, D.C. talking Turkey.
I was really amazed to see so many other Turks and Turkey specialists
gathered in the United States capital, all in one way or another
involved in debates and research on Turkey, its domestic developments
and its relations with the outside world.
It all started for me with a panel on Capitol Hill, titled "A New
Turkey: What Does It Mean for the Region and U.S.?" Among the other
participants were influential Turkey watchers such as Ian Lesser,
senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund, and Omer
Taspinar, fellow at the Brookings Institution, one of the leading
American think tanks. Moderator of the panel was Graham Fuller, author
of the book "The New Turkish Republic." With me from Turkey came Orhan
Kemal Cengiz, human rights lawyer and columnist for Today’s Zaman,
who had the difficult task of explaining the complicated Ergenekon
case for an interested but largely uninformed American audience.
The hall in which the panel took place was impressive. It was the
biggest meeting room on Capitol Hill, and I felt like one of those
people called in for questioning by members of the U.S. Congress.
Unfortunately, few congressmen were present this time despite all the
efforts of the organizers to get a mixed audience of politicians,
staffers and journalists. The whole thing was organized by the
Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians, an initiative of
Kemal Oksuz, a Turkish-American business man from Houston, Texas who
wants to improve the level of information on Turkey among American
lawmakers. Partly as a result of the combination of a huge room filled
with few people, the debate never really took off. The only issue that
created some controversy was my criticism of the Turkish government’s
handling of the protocols with Armenia. Why did Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan again link the ratification of these protocols by
the Turkish Parliament with progress on the frozen Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict? This policy of threatening Armenia into a deal has not worked
for 15 years, so why stick to it, I wondered? An Azeri diplomat could
not resist, stood up and passionately defended his country’s position,
strongly supporting the link between the two conflicts.
Of course, the possibility of the U.S. Congress adopting a resolution
recognizing claims that the massacres of hundred of thousands of
Armenians in 1915 should be labeled as "genocide" was raised as well.
Interestingly, several speakers made another link and stated, apart
from ratification of the protocols, the upcoming Turkish vote in the
Security Council on sanctions on Iran, would strongly influence the
debate on the genocide resolution and the wording of President Barack
Obama’s speech on April 24.
The biggest surprise came when, after the panel, it turned out
Washington last week was full of Turks and foreign Turkey specialists.
Soli Ozel (Bilgi University, Haberturk) was there, strongly opinionated
as ever. Ahmet Evin (Sabanci University) and Kemal Kirisci (Bosphorus
University) are spending a whole year in Washington with the German
Marshall Fund, preparing a book together with Italian Turkey specialist
Nathali Tocsi. Others were around as well to write a paper or cooperate
on a common project.
In contacts with their American hosts and colleagues, all were
confronted with the same questions. What to think of the Ergenekon
investigations? What was the role of the Gulen movement in all of
this? And the one million dollar question: in which direction was the
AKP taking Turkey? You won’t be surprised if I tell you the answers to
all these questions differed substantially, reflecting the differences
of opinion among the Turks in town and fuelling the curiosity of the
locals. Talking Turkey in D.C., it made sense and it was fun.