ARMENIA, ISRAEL AND WILD TURKEY
BY LAURENT LEYLEKIAN
Asbarez
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
The dramatic deterioration of the Turkish-Israeli alliance after the
publication of the UN report on the flotilla incident displays some
quite interesting features both from an Armenian standpoint and from
a more comprehensive one. We are not dealing here with Turkey’s usual
blackmail policy toward anyone who dares to thwart its will but with
the difference between Armenia and Israel regarding these blackmails
and with the present prospect of Turkey’s foreign policy.
Yet, from a geopolitical point of view, Israel and Armenia seem to
share some common characteristics: they are small countries with few
natural resources and with reduced populations located in a globally
hostile and complex environment. Accordingly, they are forced to stand
by global players if not superpowers. In this comprehensive framework,
Armenia had to put aside the genocide issue, to downplay its reluctance
toward Turkey and was pushed by a conjunction of interests to embark
upon a gesture of goodwill which led to the so-called “football
diplomacy” and eventually to the protocol agreement signed in October
2009 under the patronage of usual worldwide overlords.
Starting from a far different history, Israel used to consider
Turkey as a factor of moderation, secularity and stability in the
Muslim world. This fantasy was supported by the strong Turkish
communication policy which permanently recalled advantageous events
such as its welcome of fleeing European Jews during WWII1 while it
kept silent about opposite signals, for instance how it looted and
penned its domestic Jews and Armenians in concentration camps during
the same period under the notorious Varlık Vergisi regime2. Therefore,
starting from mere commercial agreements, Israel progressively reached
tactical and military agreements which finally led to a strategic
partnership, mainly directed toward their supposed common foes,
Iran and Syria. Obviously, this partnership was consolidated under
the favorable aegis of the United States from the 90s to the 2000s.
For both Armenia and Israel however, the honeymoon period has come to
an end. Regarding Armenia, the process was quite mild: using various
alibis – such as the opposition of the CHP and other nationalistic
factions, the Artsakh3 conflict with Azerbaijan – the Turkish
Parliament refused to ratify the protocols with Armenia.
These protocols were eventually removed from the agenda of the
Parliament, thus ending this controversial episode. In order to
distract the International community from this setback, but also to
control the possible damage of some recent US Court decisions about
the looted Armenian assets4, the Turkish government spread around that
it will return a minor fraction of these assets5 to its religious
minorities, a decision that was critically assessed by the supposed
heirs of this restitution6.
Regarding Israel, the visible beginning of the end of the “strategic
partnership” may be dated back to the famous Davos summit, in January
2009, when Recep Erdogan publicly insulted Shimon Peres, calling him a
child-murderer in reference to the Palestinian conflict. The situation
clearly aggravated in May 2010 when Israel blocked the Mavi Marmara,
a Turkish ship, allegedly sent to deliver some “humanitarian” aid to
the Gaza strip but actually operated by Turkish Islamists and maybe
by their secret services too.
In this operation, Israeli forces injudiciously killed nine Turkish
citizens, triggering Turkey’s hysteria. Since then, the Turkish
triumvirate – Gul, Erdogan, Davutoglu – endlessly demands apologies
from Israel, something that Tel-Aviv cannot and will not accept. These
last days, the UN report on the Mavi Marmara incident just strengthened
Turkey’s intransigence and Ankara eventually expelled the Israeli
ambassador and cut any political, military or commercial relations with
the Jewish State. Some Israeli passengers transiting by Istanbul were
even briefly retained and Turkey even alluded to a possible military
intervention when it mentioned that its future “humanitarian” ships
toward Gaza would be escorted by some military vessels.
Armenia forced to play politics, not Israel In this succession of
events both the form and the substance are interesting. Let us start
with the form: Actually, a first point which is worth examining is
the comparative responses of Armenia and Israel when faced with
the very same and authentic Turkish brutality and arrogance. The
contrast between the Armenian moderation and the Israeli anger is
really striking. Since the signature of the protocols Armenia, upon
which the agreement had been forced, has played it quite cleverly,
using both political and juridical arguments. On the one hand, it
constantly said that it would place the protocols on the Parliament’s
agenda as soon as they were ratified by Turkey. On the other hand,
the Armenian government seized the Constitutional Court which
confirmed the protocols’ validity but which denied any strong impact
of these protocols on both the Artsakh conflict and the Armenia-Turkey
border7. The apparent Armenian goodwill put the pressure from the
International community on Turkey and Ankara finally but discretely
dismissed the protocols which were once signed in style.
The situation is clearly different for Israel on which Ankara’s
demands for apologies and compensation progressively became an
ultimatum. Recently, Ahmet Davutoglu even dared to reject the US
mediation in this dispute. Facing this intransigence, Netanyahu’s
government didn’t try at all to mitigate its position or to play
smart politics. It just launched communication campaigns, mainly
toward the United States’ decision-makers, through the pro-Israeli
Medias and its usual AIPAC-like lobbies. In an unprecedented move,
Avigdor Liebermann, the hardliner Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
even mentioned that its country could help the passage of the Armenian
Genocide resolution in the US Senate and could even “be supporting
Armenia in its dispute with Turkey over control of Mount Ararat”, an
alleged demand that official Armenia itself has refused to formulate
up to now.
Military capability determines political attitude Clearly, the
Israeli stance is backed by its actual military capability and its
technological advance, even more than by its strong leverage on
the US policy. Its nuclear weapons aside, Israel has developed an
impressive military industry which has produced high-tech weapons
and equipped even some Western powers. With companies such as Elbit,
TAT Technologies, IWI or IMI, Israel is able to provide its army with
light weapons but also with Merkavas tanks, F-16-like aircrafts or
even advanced missiles or drones. Thanks to its electronic industries,
it is also regularly selected to reengineer military equipments,
including in Arabic countries or …
in Turkey. Israel is now the fourth international weapons provider and
its exports amounted to 5.7 billion dollars in 2007. Obviously this
capability is built upon a strong scientific community which places the
country at the topmost level of relevant rankings8. In this context,
an unlikely clash in the Eastern Mediterranean See between Israel
and Turkish vessels would probably prove disastrous for the latter,
providing the fact that some of the Turkish warfare technologies were
bought in Israel.
In contrast, Armenia which shares a ground border with Turkey is far
from having the same assets as Israel. Since the fall of the USSR,
Armenia started a reconversion of its economy which was then mainly
based on heavy industry. If Yerevan made some barely disputable
choices – such as reviving agriculture – it largely neglected its
scientific and technological potential to base its growth on real
estate construction and on trade. As a result, Armenia’s military and
technological capability is quite substantial but strongly dependent
on its big Russian supplier, not to mention the Russian units which
protect the Armenia-Turkey border. The recent announcement by Armenia
than it operates S-300 missile9 and that it could even purchase S-400
missiles exemplifies this dependence10.
Therefore, though Israel also depends on foreign suppliers for its
security, Armenia is by far more dependent and accordingly needs to
play politics more than the Jewish State. However, this constraint can
turn out to be an advantage: with its quite smart position, Armenia
succeeded to appear as the Good and to hinder Turkey’s regional
schemes. On the contrary, Israel with all its military assets is now
seen as the Villain by most of the players, however Ugly Armenia’
and Israel’ common foe – Turkey – may seem.
Erratic Turkey partly reflects its internal struggle Actually, if the
goal pursued by Turkey might have been rather clear when the AKP first
took over the power, the discrepancies within the Turkish government
gradually made it quite puzzling. Since Ahmet Davutoglu started
shaping his country’s foreign policy, he has claimed to implement a
neo-Ottoman vision. Basically, this renewed imperialism considers that
any area that was once encompassed by the Ottoman Empire must “enjoy”
a privileged relationship with Turkey11. Therefore, Turkey tried to
appease the problems it has with most of its neighbors – the tentative
improvement of its relation with Armenia having been a kind of failed
litmus test – and even to intervene as an “honest broker” aiming at
solving regional disputes through its supposed Ottoman-old regional
knowledge. Turkey actually and successively – if not successfully –
imagined mediating Israel and the Palestinian authority, Israel and
Syria, Armenia and Azerbaijan or even Lybia and the West.
However, Islamism is another deep trend of the new Turkish regime
when compared to the old Kemalist elite. In this regard, since 2002,
the AKP government has progressively radicalized its positions. If
it tried to put forward the misleading wording of “moderate Islamism”
at the beginning, it increasingly proved to be more and more radical,
a tendency that was fostered both by its failure to access to the
EU and by the intrinsic social evolution of Turkey’s population, two
processes that fed each other. Thus the Davos episode, the Mavi Marmara
operation, the strengthening of its relation with the Hamas or, more
globally, Israeli-bashing are policies implemented by Erdogan both to
change Turkey’s image in the predominantly-Muslim Arabic world and to
please its home constituency. In this respect, the recent advocacy by
Mahmud Abbas for the recognition of the Palestinian State by the UN
is one of the landmarks targeted by this policy and actually, Erdogan
is seen as a heroic and charismatic leader by a large fraction of
the Arabic peoples.
Clearly, both visions stem from the usual strong Turkish nationalism,
as was the case for Kemalism, and they are both supported by Turkey’s
impressive economic record however fragile the ground of this economic
growth may be12. Nevertheless, Erdogan’s and Davutoglu’s Ottoman
daydreams for Turkey are probably quite different: the former –
sometime nicknamed the Caliph of Istanbul or the Padishah – probably
imagines a kind of Islamic empire centered on and ruled by Turkey
whereas the latter rather thinks of Turkey as a mini-superpower with
its feudal influence zone13.
Many problems with all neighbors The net result of these competing
visions is the apparent inconsistency of Turkey’s foreign policy,
and more than this supposed inconsistency, its limits. From 2002 to
now, Turkey successively turned its attention to the EU, Russia and
Eurasia in the aftermath of the Georgian conflict and to the Middle
East since the Davos row.
Actually, as relations with the West were cooling down because of
the EU prospect’s fading away and of the renewed Islamic trend of its
society, Turkey embarked upon a kind of energetic flirt with Russia
before realizing that, while Moscow could clearly take advantage from
this momentum, it was mainly a trap regarding its own emancipation
dream: Ankara depends already on Russia for most of its gas and for
a sizeable part of its oil. Moreover, incentives of a role in South
Caucasus or of a path through Central Asia though South Caucasus
appeared to be mainly illusive given the Russian control on these
areas.
Therefore, Turkey started to heat up its relationships with the
Muslim world, notably with Syria, with the Hamas and with their
common suzerain Iran with which it boosted its economic exchanges and,
as a side effect, a renewed collaboration against PKK/PJAK14.
The degradation of its “strategic partnership” with Israel naturally
comes along with this new orientation. However, the initial support
given to Gaddafi and Assad, respectively in Libya and Syria,
the subsequent about-faces in these two countries after a very
opportunistic feeling of wind change, just cast a serious shadow on
the Turkish commitment toward the Islamic-tinted revolutions. Some
other signals seem to indicate that the so-called realignment of Turkey
may just be a posture: for instance Ankara’s recent agreement to host
anti-missile radars on the eastern part of its territory, i.e. directly
against Iran, strongly displeased Tehran but also Moscow. Likewise
Erdogan’s recent speech in Cairo was quite ambiguous as, on the
one hand, he implicitly reiterated his threats against Israel and
his Islamist orientation, mentioning “when we look at the region,
we will find that Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and Turkey are the most
important countries. For this reason, there has to be some sort of
cooperation among these nations”; but on the other hand, he recommended
“a secular constitution for Egypt”, saying “do not fear secularism
because it does not mean being an enemy of religion. I hope the new
regime in Egypt will be secular. I hope that after these remarks of
mine the way the Egyptian people look at secularism will change”.
Those who admire Erdogan will probably term this borderline posture as
clever whereas the others will find it confusing. Whatever its intent,
the actual outcome of this diplomacy is the increased mistrust with
which various players – from the US to the Hamas, from Iran to the EU
and Russia – are now considering Turkey. The mere fact that Davutoglu
had recently to hammer home that the “no problem with neighbors”
policy is successful demonstrates how dubious this affirmation is15.
Turkey part of the problem, not of the solution However, if we put
aside both Erdogan’s gesticulations and the apparent contradictions
of Ankara’s diplomacy, we must recognize that Turkey succeeded in
reaching the “strategic depth” aimed by Davutoglu.
His country is no more under US dominance and it is actually
uncontrolled and uncontrollable. As a crazy weathercock, this
Turkey could be equally a threat for Iran, for Israel, for Syria,
for Armenia and for Europe, as shown by the recent menaces sent to
Cyprus over the Mediterranean drills. Therefore, in this inflammable
region, Western leaders would be well-advised to avoid conferring
any mediation role to Turkey because it could be both ineffective
– Turkey is not necessarily seen anymore as a reliable partner by
other Muslim countries – and dangerous as it would benefit only to
the reinforcement of this changeable country.
By contrast, we should work to directly appease the Middle-East
by enforcing a true democratization in Arabic countries and,
eventually, by endowing Palestinians with a true State whatever
Israel’s apprehension. After all, Turkey’s regional strength mainly
results from the absence of a true democratic Arab leadership and
from the unacceptable nature of the current Iranian regime. And the
way Turkey is challenging the West is bolder, deeper and smarter than
Iran’s one. In the event of Ahmadinejad’s fall, the West could even
advantageously envisage swapping Iran and Turkey in its strategic
game. This may sound like science-fiction. It is not: A few years
ago, Ralph Peters, a retired US officer close to the Intelligence
services, published an article entitled “Blood borders: How a better
Middle East would look.” In this much commented paper, he made a
hypothetical redrawing of the Middle-East’s boundaries. With no
surprise, he granted Palestine and the Kurds with a State and he
partially granted back Armenia with its Western territories thus
limiting Turkey’s harmful influence.
Apparently, from now on, we must make a habit of not thinking of
Turkey in terms of solution but in terms of problems.
Laurent Leylekian is the former Director of the European Armenian
Federation and an independent analyst on Eurotopie
NOTES:
1. A fact which is now seriously questioned by Turkish scholars. See
for instance Ayse Hur in Taraf, December 2007, “Turk Schindleri
Efsaneleri” (in Turkish, “The Turkish Schindlers Myth”). Another
strong opposite signal never mentioned by Turkey’s communication
policy is the strong anti-Semitic mood of its population. Thus,
Mein Kampf is known to have been a bestseller for years. It is sold
in cheap paperback editions.
2. It is a remarkable evidence of continuity that the deportees were
sent to AÅ~_kale (Armenian plateau), i.e. exactly where the Armenian
intellectuals had been sent and killed at the beginning of the Armenian
Genocide 27 years earlier.
3. Formerly termed Nagorno-Karabakh under the Soviet period.
4. In December 2010, Armenian Americans filed a suit against two
Turkish banks and the Republic of Turkey for the alleged seizure of
their ancestors’ properties, located on the present US military base
of Incirlik. After having been noticed twice, including through the
US Department of State, Turkey and the banks refused the service of
the lawsuit (06/20/2011). They were thus given granted two months by
the Court to answer the complaint, but they did not, risking to be
ruled against it in absentia. The Court granted them an extension
to September 19 to prepare for court proceedings and they finally
replied these last days.
5. Only those stolen after 1936, i.e. during the Varlık Vergisi
period, are encompassed by this measure. The gigantic spoliation during
the Genocide and before is of course not addressed by this decision.
6. Aram I, the Armenian Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia issued
a critical open letter to Erdogan. Check Armenian Weekly.
7. For a more detailed analysis, check “Constitutional Court Limits
Protocols’ Damage to Armenian National Interests,” Harut Sassounian,
Asbarez, January 2010.
8. The Scientific Wealth of Nations
9. Armenia confirms possession of S-300 missiles, Trdefence.com,
December 2010.
10. An opinion which is altered neither by the notable shot down of an
Azeri drone by the Armenian forces in Artsakh, neither by the marginal
display of first-ever Armenia-made drones during the military parade
that came with the 20th anniversary of independence.
11. A “privilege” which is variously felt by its recipients.
According to cable ANKARA 00000087 005 OF 006 disclosed by Wikileaks,
Ambassador Jeffrey noted that “Finally, not all of the ex-Ottomans
look with fondness on their past under the Pashas, or yearn for
Turkey’s return”. For a quite comprehensive analysis of the first
cables series disclosed by Wikileaks on Turkey, read (in French) “les
fuites américaines mouillent la Turquie”, Eurotopie, January 2011.
12. The fundamentals of Turkey’s economy are variously appraised.
See for instance “Instant obsolescence of the Turkish model”, Asia
Times, August 2011.
13. Not to speak about the difference of personality. Read “les fuites
américaines mouillent la Turquie”, Eurotopie, 2011.
14. A position than has just been restated by Turkey despite the recent
cold with Iran. Read “Erdogan Reiterates Turkey-Iran Cooperation in
War on Terrorism”, Fars News Agency, 09/27/2011.
15. “Turkey’s Davutoglu says zero problems foreign policy successful”,
Today’s Zaman, 09/18/2011.