SNUBBED BY EUROPE, NOW TURKEY LOOKS TO THE EAST
Emile Hokayem, political editor
The National
Oct 21 2009
UAE
GMT For a country that turned its back on its southern and eastern
flanks for decades, Turkey is proving that little in Middle Eastern
geopolitics is permanent. Indeed, Turkish diplomacy is on a roll,
and its recent ventures are all about turning its neighbours, once
bitter rivals, into allies.
As a former imperialist power, Turkey carries baggage that has been
difficult to overcome. In his state-building endeavour, Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk, the founding father of the Turkish republic, decided to ignore
previous Ottoman imperial possessions and their political legacy. He
and his successors saw the Arab East as essentially backward and
conflict-prone, with little to contribute to Turkey, while the West
was offering a model of development, capital and technology to build
a modern state. The Middle East was relevant to the republic in only
two regards: the territorial threat of Kurdish nationalism and power
politics during the Cold War.
For decades Turkey managed to defy the weight of history and the
constraints of geography, but this posture could not survive the
regional consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the
rise of a US-designed but wobbly regional order, or stay confined
to countering the Kurdish separatist movement and its terrorist arm,
the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Ankara thought its future lay squarely in the West, but its hopes of
joining the European Union have been frustrated by EU member states
who fear that Turkish accession would overextend the Union and dilute
European identity, not to mention the enduring dispute over Cyprus.
Turkey had to look elsewhere, and almost reluctantly came the
realisation that its immediate neighbourhood could generate economic
returns and strengthen its geopolitical weight.
The accession to power of the Justice and Development Party (AKP),
a moderate Islamist organisation, provided the domestic impulse to
redefine the country’s approach to the Middle East. Under the AKP,
Turkey is rediscovering its eastern identity, combining it with
moderate Islamist ideology into what is known as a neo-Ottoman
outlook. This seeks to anchor Turkey as a pivotal Asian actor whose
economic wellbeing depends on a stable environment: something it
does not have yet. So a confident Turkey is going about shaping that
environment with an ambitious "zero problems, zero enemy" policy,
the brainchild of the foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu.
This strategic reorientation has been obvious in the intense
diplomatic activity of recent weeks. The most striking achievement
is the establishment of diplomatic ties with Armenia, a country
in dire need of regional integration, and the re-opening of the
Armenian-Turkish border after 16 years. Conveniently, an "impartial
scientific examination" will determine how to define the killing of
more than a million Armenians during and just after the First World
War. This arrangement may be scuttled by the rage of many in both
countries, but a longstanding taboo has vanished.
Then there was the first meeting of the Turkey-Syria High Level
Strategic Cooperation Council in Aleppo, crowning a decade-long
rapprochement between the two countries. Of course, this would not
have been possible without Turkish bullying and Syrian capitulation.
In 1998 the Turkish army threatened to "enter Syria by one side
and exit by another" unless Syria ended its support for the PKK. The
Syrian president, Hafez al Assad, caved in and expelled the PKK leader,
Abdullah Ocalan, from Damascus. Syria also had to accept the loss of
the province of Hatay, also known as Alexandretta.
Obviously it is easier to conduct a zero-problem policy when the
opposite side surrenders, but the Syrian-Turkish rapprochement is now
irreversible, motivated primarily by economic factors, although common
political interests exist, including mutual concern about Kurdish
minorities and distrust of US policy. Syria will have to accept junior
status in the relationship but the strategic benefits to being attached
to the world’s 17th largest economy and the vague possibility that
Turkey could eventually displace Iran as Syria’s patron are palatable.
Turkey cannot build the same rapport with Iran, a traditional rival
that compares in history, size and influence, and with a revolutionary
and Islamist outlook that contrasts with Turkey’s secular and
status-quo preferences. But the two countries have no territorial
dispute, and as long as Iran underperforms because of its isolation
and does not interfere, Turkey can afford cordial relations. Should
Iran become a nuclear power, though, pride and standing may well
force Turkey to match it.
Even on Iraq, Turkey is measured. It launched a few attacks on
Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq and watches with concern the
tension between federalism and central authority, but as long as Iraq
denies sanctuary to the PKK and territorial integrity is preserved,
Turkey has no interest in meddling in Baghdad.
Its ambitions go beyond good neighbourly relations. Turkey also seeks
to become a regional mediator. It has peacekeeping troops in Lebanon
and Afghanistan and is building relations with Gulf states who see
this Sunni giant as a possible counter-balance to Iran.
There are limits to Turkish appeal, though. By drawing closer to
Armenia, Turkey is antagonising Azerbaijan. And when Ankara mediated
between Israel and Syria, it failed because it lacks leverage and
gravitas. In fact, Turkey may no longer be able to play that role in
the Arab-Israeli conflict because of rising anti-Israeli sentiments
in Turkey, illustrated by the outburst of the prime minister,
Recep Erdogan, in Davos, and more recently by the withdrawal of an
invitation to Israel to join an important military exercise. The Arab
world may cheer, but not everyone in Ankara is convinced of the wisdom
of sacrificing good ties with Israel and jeopardising relations with
the West in the process.
But however bumpy Turkey’s reorientation may be, it is likely to
endure.