‘RAPPROCHEMENT WITH ARMENIA IS NOT TURKEY’S PRIORITY RIGHT NOW’
news.az, Azerbaijan
Nov 15 2011
News.Az interviews H. Akın Unver, Ertegun Lecturer of Near Eastern
Studies, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University.
Turkey is a new leader of the Muslim world in the Middle East. Are
you satisfied with the Turkish policy in the region in this regard?
I think we have to define what we really mean by ‘leadership’. If
we are talking about Turkey becoming the primary foreign policy
anchor, according to which the countries of the Middle East shape
their domestic and/or foreign policies, it is difficult to talk
about a Turkish leadership in that regard. A waning United States,
an ambivalent Europe; China and Russia – who are recently entering
to the Middle Eastern system of affairs – still have no less weight
over these affairs than a rising Turkey.
I believe the Western media likes to sensationalize world affairs
and definitely the affairs of the Middle East, which is why ‘the
return of the Ottoman Empire’ or ‘neo-Ottomanism in the Middle East’
themed analyses receive so much attention. Although Turkey’s current
government, Justice and Development Party (AKP) strongly refutes such
‘Ottomanist’ claims, they nonetheless benefit from such advertising
as it gives them political capital domestically and internationally.
In many ways, I see that Turkey’s ‘leadership’ in the Middle East
is a hype created by the global media. It certainly is influential,
but being influential doesn’t imply leadership. Countries of the
Middle East may see Turkey as an inspiration as long as it manages
to balance its Muslim identity with a secular state structure and a
progressive-modernist political goal, but few – if any – of these
countries actually desire a Turkish leadership. Memories of the
late-Ottoman Empire and the 1916 Arab Revolt are still not forgotten.
Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East is exhibits characteristics
of a Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT – an international
relations theory introduced by the British School), which stipulates
that in the post-post-Cold War international system in which the United
States is losing its hegemony in world affairs and is challenged
by newly emerging global powers, security and economic cooperation
in regions like the Middle East will be determined by cultural,
historical ties and identity politics.
In that regard, as the United States is withdrawing from the
Middle East following two unsuccessful wars, a financial crisis of
great proportions and an Arab Spring that shakes Western influence
in the region, politics of the Middle East will be determined by
cultural-religious ties and historical roots. In that sense, Turkey
filled the vacuum being left by the United States and Europe very
well, by emphasizing its historical ties in the region and arguably
handling an uncertain Arab Spring better than any other global power;
at least certainly better than the United States or Europe.
What may Turkey do in regard of situation in Syria?
Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) invested a lot of
political capital on legitimizing the Assad regime. Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan was friends with Bashar Assad at the family
level and Turkish-Syrian relations have long been the shining example
of the AKP’s ‘zero-problems policy’. Western critics of Turkey’s
relations with Syria would get a response from Turkish diplomats who
indicated that Turkey was trying to bring Syria to cooperate with
the international community of states. Since 2003, Turkey has been
Syria’s bridge to the western world and certainly to Washington DC.
However, Assad’s response to the spread of the Arab Spring ideals to
Syria shook its relations with Turkey from its foundations. Assad’s
suppression methods created a refugee problem in northern Syria
and many of these refugees were offered asylum in Turkey. However,
Turkey made it clear to Damascus that a similar refugee crisis
will be unacceptable and that the Assad regime should immediately
stop attacks against his own people. Both Prime Minister Erdogan and
Foreign Minister Davutoglu conveyed this message to Assad repeatedly,
but as time went on with continued attacks against the civilians,
Turkey changed its tone against Syria.
Last month Foreign Minister Davutoglu implied a possibility of armed
conflict and Prime Minister Erdogan officially told the press that
Turkey’s patience was waning. In early October, Turkey carried out a
military exercise on the Syrian border and shortly afterwards Bashar
Assad threatened Turkey that if NATO attacked Syria, he would launch
rockets to Tel Aviv and Iran would target American and European
interests in the Gulf.
Turkey wishes to end all hostilities in Syria even if this implies
military intervention, but such intervention must be carried out by
NATO, instead of a unilateral Turkish action. With a limited military
success in Libya, NATO involvement seems more desirable at this point,
but we also have to understand that such an intervention will be
costlier and longer than the Libyan case. At a time when Europe is
dealing with military budget cuts because of the financial crisis,
(British RAF recently announced that it is planning to cut 17,000
jobs by 2015 and the French Armed Forces announced that it would
cut 4.8 billion US dollars in the next 3 years) whether NATO is
financially capable of carrying out a difficult military operation
against the Assad regime, with a possible spill-over involving Iran
is questionable.
If the NATO decides to intervene in Syria despite these budget
cuts, then Turkey is likely to join with limited air support and
base allocation. However such an action needs to be very quick and
properly planned; Assad, knowing that he will eventually lose against
NATO will do everything he can to slow down NATO progress and stretch
NATO presence there with the aim of running its finances low. Iran
would most certainly join the fight in the background, using its
intelligence and secret services to slow down Assad’s fall and fight
a war of attrition that will wear NATO’s capabilities down and force
an early withdrawal from Syria.
And what about situation in Iran? May Turkey somehow reduce tension
around Iranian nuclear program and prevent Western military invasion
to this country?
At a time when we are debating whether NATO can succeed in Syria, I am
not sure if a military intervention can do anything in Iran. Turkey
repeatedly declared its opposition against Iranian nuclear program,
but also indicated that Iran has the right to pursue a nuclear path
in energy production. I think after the most recent IAEA report,
there is little doubt in Ankara regarding what Iran intends to do. In
the Uranium enrichment scale, up to 3-5% enriched Uranium can be
used in energy production, while up to 20% enriched Uranium is used
for research purposes. While Iran can produce energy with up to 20%
enriched Uranium, according to IAEA findings, its current Uranium
enrichment levels reach close to 85%, which is weapons-grade. More
worrisome perhaps, is that Iran recently moved large batches or
Uranium Hexaflouride Gas (UF6) to the new reactor in the Holy city
of Qom in preparation for launching enrichment work here.
I believe Iran will use the facility in Qom for higher enrichment work,
while allocating lower-level enrichment to other facilities. In that
way, Iran will be burying its weapons-grade Uranium under the holiest
city for the Shias. In case of an aerial attack, you can’t destroy the
Qom reactor without damaging the holy city and predictably, damaging
the holy city will be a declaration of war against all the Shias –
it is not much different than bombing Mecca.
Therefore Iranian nuclear program remains a huge problem for the west,
and that includes Turkey. It is very difficult to launch an air raid
against all Iranian nuclear targets without starting an all-out Middle
Eastern war and thus, the focus should instead be on sophisticated
cyber warfare, which can disrupt the computer network which controls
each nuclear facility.
However, Turkey’s relationship with Tehran has another dimension:
Kurdish separatist PKK. After the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, Bush
government restricted Turkey’s access to northern Iraq and thus, to
the PKK positions there, as a response to Turkey’s refusal to allow US
troops to station in Turkey. Under the protection of American radar
jammers, the PKK managed to resurrect itself from the interregnum
caused by the capture of its leader, Abdullah Ocalan in 1999. Turkey’s
repeated warnings to the Bush government that it was involuntarily
protecting a terrorist organization while trying to punish Turkey
fell on deaf ears until 2007.
Between 2003 and 2007 Iran realized that the Bush government had left
a massive political vacuum that Iran could fill and began shelling
PKK positions in Iraq from its artillery positions east of the Qandil
mountain. Thus, Iran replaced the United States as the main ally of
Turkey’s war against the PKK, while Turkey’s main ally United States
put up radar jammers that restricted Turkish war planes’ access
to northern Iraqi PKK bases. Even today, Iran periodically attacks
PKK positions in Qandil, which blunts Turkey’s rhetoric against the
Iranian nuclear programme.
Yet, Turkey did and still does try to play as an intermediary between
NATO and Iran. The most important step in this direction came in May
2010 when Iran and Turkey signed a nuclear fuel swap deal which Tehran
agreed to send about 1200kg low-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange
for fuel for a research reactor. By this, Turkey wanted to make sure
that Iran got only the amount of uranium, enriched to a level that
can only be used as fuel and not in weapons. Yet, as I mentioned,
the reactor in Qom changes this entire picture and it is not certain
what Turkey (or the west) can do at a time when Iran already has a
reactor which is practically untouchable to bombers, an escalating
conflict in Syria and Assad’s subsequent threat to Tel Aviv.
Iran managed to lock itself into an immovable position and remains
as a massive problem not just to Turkey, but to all NATO countries.
How deep is a crisis between Turkey and Israel and do you believe in
soon normalization of bilateral relations?
It is no secret that some leading figures of the AKP come from an
Islamist background and some of those do subscribe to an anti-Semitic
thought. But I think both Israeli and some US decision-makers
misinterpret this as the whole party being anti-Semitic and think
that Turkish foreign policy is becoming ideologically anti-Israeli.
One must understand that although a number of the leading party
figures sympathize with varying degrees of anti-Semitism, Turkish
foreign policy-making goes through a complex network of processes
that also include secular, pro-Western bureaucrats who also served
in the 1990s and supported Turkish-Israeli cooperation.
While the AKP indeed is partly responsible for the deterioration
of Turkish-Israeli relations, we can’t get the whole picture without
looking at how Olmert and Netenyahu governments also contributed to the
deterioration in relations. It was during Olmert’s tenure that Turkey
headed the Israeli-Palestinian-Syrian peace talks and Turkish secular
diplomats are still furious with the Olmert government because of his
decision to invade Gaza in 2008 two days after he agreed to sign the
final version of the peace treaty. That is when Israel lost Turkey’s
secular diplomats. And of course the killing of 9 Turkish activists
in the flotilla incident marked the lowest point in relations.
I personally do not think Turkish foreign policy is anti-Israeli or
even ideological per se. The depth of Turkish foreign policy thinking
is certainly frustrating the Israelis and some American foreign policy
observers who look at world affairs through a rigidly Cartesian model
of rationality, which is inherently cultural and doesn’t take into
account other cultural understandings of rationality.
Turkish-Israeli relations can improve quickly if both sides take
the right steps. But currently, Israel’s relations with pretty much
every country in the region are deteriorating. It doesn’t have good
relations with any country in the Middle East, and is frequently
attracting criticism from the European Union, Russia, China and most
recently the United States (Obama was overheard agreeing with the
French Prime Minster Sarkozy, who called Netenyahu a ‘liar’). In a
regional setting where Israel has no allies and Turkey emerging as
perhaps the most popular country in the region, it is a bit weird
to ask Turkey to change its stance against Israel. You can’t sell
it to anyone, politically. Israeli government must change first and
the next government has to apologize from Turkey regarding the death
of 9 activists. This is not my personal view, but is a reflection of
Ankara’s prerequisites for normalization. In fact, current tensions
with Syria, together with a nuclear Iran may soon pit Turkey and
Israel into the same front as allies once again.
What do you think about normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations and
the Karabakh settlement? Which of these problems may be resolved first?
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan explicitly stated in April 2010, that
the ratification of the Turkish-Armenian 2009 Accord depends upon the
peaceful resolution of the Karabakh issue. At least from the Turkish
perspective, there has to be a Karabakh settlement first, and then
an Armenian-Turkish normalization. Yet, Turkey also makes some small
gestures to the Armenian public opinion, such as the reconsecration
of the Surp Agop Church in Diyarbakır. However, a rapprochement with
Armenia, although desirable, is not Turkey’s priority right now with
more fundamental issues arising with the Arab Spring, its relations
with Syria, Israel and Iran. Certainly all Turkish decision-makers will
want to take credit for the improvement of relations with Armenia,
but the prevailing sense in Ankara is that the Armenian leadership
is acting as impediment.
While Armenia asks Turkey not to use the Karabakh issue as a
precondition for talks, Turkey also asks Armenia to drop genocide
charges and to recognize the Turkish-Armenian border established by the
Treaty of Kars in 1922. Besides, Turkey’s actions towards Armenia also
affect its relations with Azerbaijan; Turkey wishes not to alienate
the Azeris, primarily because of cultural-historical ties, but more
practically, because of the future of the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
The current deadlock will be addressed when the fundamental shift
in the Middle East settles once again and Turkey can re-allocate
its diplomatic efforts and capabilities to the Armenian issue,
or alternatively if Russia’s gas transportation deal with Ukraine
arrives at an impasse and the alternative Caucasus energy transit
route regains its critical importance once again.