OP-ED ON "THE NEW YORK TIMES APPEASEMENT OF TURKEY"
By Gene Rossides
Hellenic News of America
Oct 4 2006
The New York Times Appeasement of Turkey
Washington, DC – The following Op-Ed appeared in the September
23, 2006 issue of The National Herald, page 11, the September 25,
2006 issue of Greek News, page 48, the October 3, 2006 issue of the
Hellenic News of America, page 3 and it will appear in the October 11,
2006 issue of The Hellenic Voice on page 5.
The New York Times editorial of September 10, 2006, reprinted in the
National Herald in its September 16, 2006 issue, is a prime example of
the New York Times appeasement of Turkey for decades to the detriment
of U.S. interests and to the detriment of Greece and Cyprus.
The editorial contains misstatements of fact, misleading statements
and serious omissions of facts and issues.
The editorial commends the U.S. for appointing retired Air Force
General and former NATO Commander Joseph Ralston "to work with
Turkish authorities.
General Ralston will be responsible for coordinating American
antiterrorist efforts with Iraq and Turkey, both of which have sizable
Kurdish minorities and minorities within those minorities who have
resorted to terror."
The New York Times editorial fails to state that the Turkish
government and military have from 1984 through 1998 resorted to
massive state terror against its 15 million Kurdish minority which
has been characterized as genocide by many observers including the
late respected Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island. During that
time the Turkish military killed 35,000 Kurds, 30,000 of whom were
innocent civilians and 5,000 were PKK rebels.
During that time the Turkish military burned and destroyed 3,000
Kurdish villages creating three million Kurdish refugees in their
own country.
During that time the Turkish paramilitary under the direction of the
Turkish military assassinated 17,500 Kurds as stated by Eric Rouleau,
former French Ambassador to Turkey in his article "Turkey?s Dream
of Democracy" in Foreign Affairs, November/December 2000, pp. 100 to
114 at 112.
Instead the New York Times editorial refers to the Turkish Foreign
Ministry?s hailing "the appointment as a ?new opportunity? for
cooperation between the United States and Turkey"…and says the
U.S. "would be wise to create many more and varied opportunities to
engage with Turkey, a longtime ally, and a uniquely important one."
I strongly disagree that Turkey is "a longtime ally and a uniquely
important one." Let?s look at the record for the 20th century and
the opening years of the 21st century.
The record clearly shows that in the 20th century Turkey fought against
the U.S. in World War I; that in World War II Turkey broke its treaty
with Britain and France to enter the war; stated its neutrality;
profited from both sides; and actually aided Nazi Germany by providing
Hitler with chromium, a vital resource to Nazi Germany?s armaments
industry and war effort. (See F. Weber, The Evasive Neutral 44 (1979).
Hitler?s armaments chief, Albert Speer, provided Hitler a memorandum in
November 1943 on "Alloys in Armaments Productions and the Importance
of Chromium Imports from the Balkans and Turkey," which stated that
the loss of chromium supplies from Turkey would end the war in about 10
months. A. Speer, Inside the Third Reich 316-17, 405, 550 n. 10 (1970).
The allies finally halted chromium exports to Nazi Germany. However
the net effect of Turkey supplying Hitler with chromium was that
Turkey prolonged WW II in Europe by seven months.
Let?s look at the record since 1947 when the U.S. started ait to
Turkey at the beginning of the Cold War. How many readers are aware
that since that date, and while being a NATO member since 1952,
there are several instances where Turkey actively aided the Soviet
military to the detriment of the U.S. and NATO! The facts are well
known yet the New York Times editorial board simply ignores them and
calls Turkey "a staunch NATO member since 1952."
As long ago as 1974, Edward Luttwak, the noted strategic analyst,
discussed Turkey?s cooperation with the Soviet military during the
Cold War. He wrote the following:
"No longer presenting a direct threat to the integrity of Turkish
national territory, and no longer demanding formal revision of
the Straits navigation regime, the Soviet Union has nevertheless
successfully exercised armed suasion over Turkey, even while
maintaining a fairly benevolent stance, which includes significant aid
flows. Faced with a sharp relative increase in Russian strategic and
naval power, and eager to normalize relations with their formidable
neighbor, the Turks have chosen to conciliate the Russians, and have
been able to do so at little or no direct cost to themselves. It
is only in respect to strategic transit that Turkey is of primary
importance to the Soviet Union, and this is the area where the
concessions have been made.
Examples of such deflection, where the Russians are conciliated at
the expense of western rather than specifically Turkish interests,
include the overland traffic agreement (unimpeded Russian transit
to Iraq and Syria by road), the generous Turkish interpretation
of the Montreux Convention, which regulates ship movements in the
Straits, and above all, the overflight permissions accorded to Russian
civilian and military aircraft across Turkish air space. The alliance
relationship in NATO and with the United States no doubt retains
a measure of validity in Turkish eyes, but it is apparent that
its supportive effect is not enough to counteract Russian suasion,
especially since the coercion is latent and packaged in a benevolent,
diplomatic stance." (Luttwak, The Political Uses of Sea Power, Johns
Hopkins Press, 1974, pp. 60-61.)
Examples of Turkey?s disloyalty and unreliability over the past
decades as a NATO ally for U.S. strategic purposes include:
1. During the 1973 Mid-East War, predating the Turkish invasion
of Cyprus by one year, Turkey refused the United States military
overflight rights to resupply Israel and granted the U.S.S.R. overland
military convoy rights to resupply Syria and Iraq, and military
overflight permission to resupply Egypt. (See Karaosmanoglu, "Turkey?s
Security and the Middle East," 52 Foreign Affairs 157, 163, Fall 1983.)
2. In the 1977-78 conflict in Ethiopia, Turkey granted the Soviets
military overflight rights to support the pro-Soviet minority of
Ethiopian communist insurgents, led by Colonel Mengistu, who eventually
prevailed and established a Marxist dictatorship directly dependent
upon the Soviet Union.
(C. Meyer, Facing Reality- From World Federalism to the CIA 276-80,
1980.)
3. Over NATO objections, Turkey allowed three Soviet aircraft carriers,
the Kiev on July 18, 1976, the Minsk on February 25, 1979 and the
Novorosiisk on May 16, 1983, passage rights through the Bosphorous
and Dardanelles Straits into the Mediterranean in violation of the
Montreux Convention of 1936. The Soviet ships posed a formidable
threat to the U.S. Sixth Fleet.
4. In 1979 Turkey refused to allow the U.S. to send 69 U.S. marines
and six helicopters to American military facilities at Incirlik
in Turkey for possible use in evacuating Americans from Iran and
protecting the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
5. Again in 1979 Turkey refused the U.S. request to allow U-2
intelligence flights (for Salt II verification) over Turkish airspace
"unless Moscow agreed." (N.Y. Times, May 15, 1979, at A1, col. 3.) This
position was voiced over a period of months by Turkish officials, the
opposition party and the military Chief of Staff, General Kenan Evren,
(See, Washington Post and New York Times, April-September 1979).
6. In January of 1981, President Carter tried to obtain a commitment
from Turkey for the use of Turkish territory for operations in cases
of conflict in the Middle East. The January 20, 1981, New York Times
reported that Turkey was not in favor of "the United States using
Turkish bases for conflicts not affecting Turkey." In the spring,
1983, issue of Foreign Policy magazine, Harry Shaw pointed out that
Turkey is unlikely to become involved in, or allow U.S. forces to
use Turkish territory in a Middle East war that does not threaten
her territory directly.
7. As an example of the above, in 1980, Turkey refused to permit the
U.S. to use the NATO base at Diyarbakir in eastern Turkey as a transit
point for the purpose of conducting a rescue mission into Tehran,
Iran, to free the American hostages held in that city. The distance
from Diyarbakir to Tehran is 450 miles as opposed to the actual route
taken, which was over 900 miles.
8. In May, 1989, Turkey rejected an American request to inspect an
advanced MIG-29 Soviet fighter plane, flown by a Soviet defector to
Turkey. (New York Times, May 28, 1989, at A12, col.1.)
9. The Turkish government refused repeated American requests for the
installation of antennas in Turkey concerning eleven transmitters
whose broadcasts would have been directed primarily at the Soviet
Union and its eastern European satellites. (Newsweek, July 22, 1983)
10. Turkey further damaged NATO by vetoing NATO?s effort to put
military bases on various Greek islands in the Aegean for defensive
purposes against the Soviet navy.
Most readers are aware of the latest failure of Turkey as an "ally"
to assist the U.S., namely, the Turkish Parliament?s refusal on March
1, 2003 to allow U.S. troops to use bases in Turkey to open a northern
front against Saddam Hussein?s dictatorship when it counted most.
The reason for the refusal was Turkey?s efforts to get more
money. Prime Minister Erdogan stated that he wanted $6 billion more
for Turkey?s cooperation over the $26 billion irresponsibly offered by
the then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz! A U.S. negotiator
called it "extortion in the name of alliance."
The Times states erroneously that Turkey is a "secular democracy
situated between Europe and the Middle East." Freedom House points out
that Turkey is a "partial democracy" because, among other things, the
military is not under civilian control and there is a lack of freedom
of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion. Further
Turkey is 95% in the Middle East and 5% is Europe.
The public opinion surveys in Turkey referred to by the Times
editorial can and should be cited to demonstrate that Turkey, a 99%
Muslim nation, cannot be relied upon by the U.S., NATO and the West.
The Times editorial?s serious omissions of issues and facts are
three-fold: Cyprus, the Aegean and Armenia. How could an editorial on
Turkey not include a discussion of Turkey?s invasion of Cyprus in 1974
and its occupation of 37.3% of northern Cyprus since 1974 with 35,000
illegal occupation troops, and 120,000 illegal colonists/settlers
in violation of the Geneva Convention of 1949 and the Turkish barbed
wire fence across the face of Cyprus?
How could it not refer to the report of the UN Commission of Human
Rights condemning Turkey for the killings and rapes of innocent
civilians and looting by its army in 1974 and thereafter?
How could it not refer to the Turkish Air Forces illegal flights in the
Aegean in violation of the International Civil Aviation Organization
(ICAO) rules?
How could such an editorial not discuss the illegal economic blockade
of Armenia which prevents U.S. humanitarian supplies to Armenia?
Frankly, the editorial should have asked:
What is the U.S. State Department doing to advance full human and
political rights for Turkey?s Kurds?
When is the State Department going to apply the Bush doctrine of
democracy to Turkey?
What is the State Department doing to remove the Turkish occupation
troops and settlers from Cyprus and getting rid of the Turkish barbed
wire fence?
What is the State Department doing to halt the illegal Turkish Air
Force flights in the Aegean in violation of ICAO rules? General Ralston
should have been appointed to halt Turkey?s illegal Air Force flights
in the Aegean.
What is the State Department doing to lift Turkey?s economic blockade
of Armenia?
I urge my readers to write and call the New York Times to protest
its appeasement of Turkey. Your letters and calls can definitely help.
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