Journal of Turkish Daily
Nov 7 2009
Intervew with Dr. Sedat Laciner on the Changing Dynamics of Turkey’s
Foreign Policy
Saturday, 7 November 2009
Dr. Sedat Laciner, Head of the International Strategic Research
Organization (ISRO/USAK), offers insight into claims within the
international community that a shift in Turkish foreign policy has
occurred. It is argued that Turkey is diverging from a secularist,
modern, western country to an Islamic state and Laciner addresses the
argument in the following interview.
There are some that accuse Turkey of deviating from its Western
foreign policy to that of the East. What do you think of these
assumptions and accusations?
First of all, as President Gul said in his speech at USAK this week,
we should not look at Turkey’s trade relations or official visits to
understand Turkey’s direction. We have to look at the values of Turkey
to assess whether there has been a change in direction. In the last
seven years Turkey has made great reforms and transformations. For
example, the Kurdish policy of the Turkish State has changed
dramatically, even mentioning the term Kurd in Turkey was taboo in the
1990s, but now there is a Kurdish State TV channel, TRT 7. These
developments have not only been in Kurdish broadcasting, but many
other fundamental rights have been given to the Kurdish people as
well.
With matters concerning Armenia, Cyprus, relations with Greece, and
many other problematic issues, Turkey has changed its policies and
Turkish laws have been liberated and made more democratic. Turkey’s
economic relations with neighboring countries, specifically western
countries, have increased as well. After Turkey’s application to the
EU for full membership, much progress has been made and the EU
countries have confirmed Turkey’s progress from a backward country to
one that has begun to comply with EU standards. It is clear that
Turkey is not leaving the West; they have developed much more due to a
desire to join the West, the EU. Turkey is increasing its economic
relations; it is not trading in its Western values for those of its
Middle Eastern neighbors.
What are the main objectives and lasting effects of the Zero Problem
with Neighbors policy in the region?
Davutoglu and the current government’s policy of zero problem with
neighbors aims to foster cooperation with the region: the Balkans,
Caucasus and the Middle East. Following cooperation, its next
objective is integration of the region, but when we say integration we
mean economic integration not political. Some argue that since Turkey
is improving its relations with Iran, Syria and Iraq, it means they
are shifting their direction towards the east, but this is not true,
Turkey wants cooperation and economic integration, it does not desire
to turn away from the EU or the West in general.
People are asking Turkey why it is developing its relations with Syria
and Iran, but before questioning Turkey’s relations with these
countries we should understand that Turkey is not a lucky country. Our
neighbors are Syria, Iraq and Iran. If Turkey was France, which has
neighbors like Spain and Germany, its foreign relations could be
easier but our neighbors are maybe the most problematic countries in
the world. We have to tame them and change them, and of course
Turkey’s direction is not towards Iran. If we look at Turkey’s values
like liberal democracy, transparency, free liberal economic market,
human rights and all other western values that the current and
previous government focused on and accepted, we can see that Turkey is
trying to reach the standards of the EU and the West, not the Iranian
understanding of values.
Turkey’s policies are quite different than the Iranian understanding
and approach, these two countries have always been competitor
countries in the region, but we have to have cooperation with Iran; it
is not the neighbor of the United States or Germany, Iran is our
neighbor. Thanks to the new Turkish neighbor policies, millions of
Iranian tourists come to Turkey every year; they travel and absorb and
see the Turkish way of life. They are changing and influenced by the
Turkish model, and not just because of travel, but due to exposure to
Turkish broadcasting as well. Arabs and Iranians watch Turkish soap
operas, they are learning Turkish so that they can understand these
soaps and the most popular soaps are Turkish. The influence is
apparent because in Saudi Arabia, some men applied to the courts to
ban Turkish series’ because they argue that these programs are
influencing society.
Turkish culture, tourism, and economic relations between these
countries, all social and economic relations are changing the society
in Iran and Arab countries. We say it is the soft power of Turkey; it
is perhaps the only country that can change the Middle Eastern
societies because Turkey was the governor of this region for
centuries. Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Algeria, and Iraq were
all under Ottoman rule and there are many Turkish people amongst the
people of the Middle East and both sides are Muslim and know each
others culture very well. I think the U.S and EU countries cannot
understand the Middle Eastern culture or politics, but Turkey can. For
instance, during the Bush era in the United States, they thought that
if you change leaders, you can change the regime, change the borders
and create a new democratic Middle East but it did not work. Saddam is
gone but terror came to replace him. There was not terror under
Saddam; Iraq was a terror free state during his time. The 9/11 attacks
were not carried out by citizens of Iraq, most were Saudi Arabian but
the U.S. still attacked Iraq and nothing has changed, maybe it has put
Iraq in a much worse situation.
Turkey is against military attacks against any Middle Eastern
countries, including Iran, because Turkey argues that we need soft
power, we need to gain the hearts and minds of the people. Any attacks
in the Middle East will also harm the Turkish economy and our
interests. This is why we are trying to solve the conflicts and
problems in the region. Turkey was the moderator or facilitator
between Israel and Syria, between Afghanistan and Pakistan, between
the various sects in Iraq and even between the United States and Iran.
Turkey is trying to solve all the regional problems because we know
that if Turkey cannot, those problems will overflow into Turkey, like
the Kurdish problem; Northern Iraq has become a base for the PKK who
are attacking Turkish targets. So Turkey is not changing its direction
but perhaps discovering the region and trying to further its good
relations with the region. I think Turkey is improving relations with
the Middle East, Caucasia and the Balkans but not at the expense of
boosting its relations with the West, because a stronger partner is
better than a weaker partner for the United States and the EU.
There are academics that label Turkey’s current policies
Neo-Ottomanist, would you agree with this classification?
I think Neo-Ottomanism is not possible because the world is a
different place and if any resemblance of Ottoman Policy were
initiated then all the former states would be against Turkey. Turkey
should unite the regional countries and change the surrounding region;
it should democratize and liberalize the region, especially the Muslim
countries. Some of them are so backward in education and in where they
position women in society, their economic development and so forth.
Turkey has to change these societies and not by imposing something as
the empire did. First we need to solve the problems and then we should
make cooperation and integrate, this ensures equal relations. We can
name this understanding Neo-European Unionist policy because this is
the EU spirit. Turkey is following the EU experience, not the Ottoman
experience.
How would you characterize relations with Israel under the AKP?
There are some Israelis and Jewish people that have thought the AKP
was an Islamist party and that they were against relations with
Israel, but this is not the case. The previous Israeli ambassador to
Turkey gave a lecture at USAK a few years ago and he argued that
Turkey’s relations with Israel peaked during the AKP administration.
Economic relations reached over 10 billion dollars, and tourism,
direct investments and trade have developed further and those cannot
be compared to past relations between Turkey and Israel. The AKP is
not against Israel, or against the West, they have complied to EU
regulations in almost all dimensions with Israel, but at the same
time, Turkey has decided to solve its problems with its neighbors.
What do you attribute to the flare up in accusations that Turkey’s
policies towards Israel are anti-Semitic?
The Neo-Cons and Neo-Jewish organizations and think tanks, pro Israel
and right wing extremists in Israel have accused Turkey of being
anti-Israeli in the last 3 or 4 years. After the Lebanon war and Gaza
conflicts, Turkey harshly criticized Israel because in both cases more
than 1400 people were killed by Israeli forces and many were women and
children. Perhaps 100-150 were militant while the rest were civilians.
Turkey harshly criticized Israel and said their way of combating
Palestinians is not effective and their efforts are only creating more
terrorists but terrorizing the region. Israel creates these problems
and we are paying the cost. It is ironic that some Israeli experts are
now accusing Turkey of being anti-Semitic because Turkey is maybe the
best country in terms of anti-Semitism records. During Ottoman times,
Jewish people took shelter here, Sephardic Jews came to the Ottoman
State, they were a main component of the empire and when the empire
was collapsing Turkey and it’s minorities cooperated together. There
were some Jews who were against having a Jewish State because they had
the protection under the Empire, a safe haven. They declared that they
had a Jewish state and a country that protected them and during the
20th century, you cannot see any anti-Semitic political current in
Turkey. Israel accuses all critics of being anti-Semitic but this is
not good for Israeli interests. Turkey believes that friends need to
criticize each other sometimes in order to maintain both parties
interests. We are not enemies.
We also see some extremist groups in Israel organizing campaigns
against the AKP. They organize secret reports and secret gatherings
that argue the U.S. should support a military coup in Turkey because
they claim the current political party here cannot develop strong
Turkey-Israeli or Turkey-U.S. relations. They have waged a dirty
campaign in Washington to create a gap between the Turkish and U.S.
administrations and the Turkish State is well aware of these dirty
campaigns. For example, the Jewish group MEMRI is translating Turkish
speeches and Presidential reports in order to manipulate American
society. They translate words with a quite different spirit. If the
Prime Minister says we are friends of Israel that is why we are
criticizing them, they translate it into we are criticizing Israel
because Israel deserves that. They apply dirty tricks to manipulate
American politics.
Last year, after the Davos crisis, a high ranking Israeli general
accused Turkey in all policy areas, including our policies with the
Kurds, Armenians and Greeks, all issues that Israel supported during
the 70’s 80’s and 90’s so what happened in 2009? Nothing has changed
but the problem in Israel is that some politicians and military
personnel are very emotional. I understand they are under fire, they
are surrounded by some hostile Muslim countries and since the 1920s,
they have been in hot conflicts; this environment has had negative
effects for them and maybe they cannot think with a healthy mind
frame, but if they continue to behave towards Turkey in this way, and
undermine Turkish-United States, EU and Israeli relations, this
behavior will cause long lasting damage in relations.
Interview was conducted by Stacy Maruskin, a researcher at the
International Strategic Research Organization (USAK).
Saturday, 7 November 2009
Journal of Turkish Weekly
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