TURKISH FOREIGN POLICY IN THE NEW ERA
Sedat Laciner
Journal of Turkish Weekly
Nov 9 2009
There are some that accuse Turkey of deviating from its Western foreign
policy to that of the East. First of all, as President Abdullah Gul
said in his speech at International Strategic Research Organization
(USAK) this week, we should not look at Turkey’s current 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 the 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 (TRT Ses). 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 regional and neighboring 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 relatively backward country to one
that has begun to comply with EU standards. It is clear that Turkey
is not leaving the West; Turks 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.
The Main Objectives and Lasting Effects of the Zero Problem with
Neighbors Policy
Foreign Minister Ahmet 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, Iran, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria
and Greece. 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 even change them, and of course Turkey’s direction is not
towards Iran or Syria. 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;
Turkey is not the neighbor of the United States or Germany, Iran is our
neighbor, Syria and Iraq are our neihbours. Thanks to the new Turkish
neighbor policies, millions of Iranian tourists come to Turkey every
year. Similarly millions of Arabs and about 500.000 Israelis come to
Turkish resorts every year. All these Middle Eastern people 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
in the region. The influence is apparent because in Saudi Arabia
for example, 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 the region. 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 ruler of this region for centuries, and the Turks
unlike the Americans and othe outsiders can understand these peoples.
Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Algeria, and Iraq were all under
Ottoman rule and there are many Turkish people amongst the peoples
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, 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 the Turks 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 the Turkish leaders know
that if Turkey cannot, those problems will overflow into Turkey,
like the Kurdish problem; Northern Iraq has become a base for the PKK
terrorists 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. 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.
Neo-Ottomanism?
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 in the region 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, Turkey needs to solve the problems and then
it should make cooperation and integrate, this ensures equal relations.
This understanding can be named ‘Neo-European Unionist policy’
because this is the EU spirit. Turkey is following the EU experience,
not the Ottoman experience.
Relations with Israel under the AKP
There are some Israelis and Jewish people that have thought the
AKP (AK Party) 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 the 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.
The Neo-Cons, some of the Jewish organizations, some of the pro-Israeli
think tanks in the US, 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 the Gaza conflicts, Turkey harshly criticized
Israel because in both cases more than 1.400 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 Turkey like the whole
of the region is paying the cost. It is ironic that some Israeli
experts are now accusing Turkey of being anti-Semitic although 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.