The International Herald Tribune, France
December 24, 2011 Saturday
Turkey tries to balance influence and confidence
With region in crisis, even some at home fear Ankara is a bit too brash
BY: DAN BILEFSKY
ISTANBUL
As many praise Turkey’s newly assertive leadership, there are concerns
that its self-confidence could tip into arrogance and aggravate allies
and foes at a critical time.
It is a sign of the euphoric mood in this newly confident nation that
Turks of all ages are dressing up as Ottoman sultans and noblewomen,
harking back to an era when Turkey ruled an empire stretching from the
Balkans to the Indian Ocean.
”This is Turkey’s moment,” said Esra Poroy, a 39-year-old housewife,
admiring a photo of herself adorned in the sumptuous silks and jewels
of a sultan’s wife. ”We feel a strong pride in our strength and
influence, much as we did during the Ottoman days.”
Yet, even as many in Washington and Europe praise Turkey’s newly
assertive leadership, such brashness is prompting some concerns both
at home and abroad that the nation’s giddy sense of self-confidence
could tip into arrogance and aggravate allies and foes at a critical
time.
Ankara faces a raft of foreign policy challenges on its doorstep, any
one of which could derail its long-term goal of obtaining regional
power status. An increasingly outsized national ego, analysts say, has
already frayed ties with Europe. On Thursday, Ankara recalled its
ambassador from Paris after France voted to criminalize the denial of
the genocide of up to 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1918 by
the Ottoman Turks.
And with talks to join the European Union hopelessly stalled, many
Turks have greeted the euro crisis with barely concealed glee, saying
Europe has rejected them because they are Muslim.
Closer to home, three of the most volatile states in the world –
Syria, Iraq and Iran – are lined up along Turkey’s southern and
eastern borders. Syria is already in a state of civil war and Iraq
seems to be flirting once again with sectarian strife and dissolution.
Throw in the longstanding Kurdish problem and an Iran that erupted in
2009 and now may be descending into economic chaos, and the
possibilities of regional destabilization, mass refugee flows and even
war do not seem terribly remote.
Facing such threats, analysts and diplomats say, Turkey needs to
resist the temptation to gloat and swagger. Soli Ozel, professor of
international relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, said that
the European and American economic decline, coupled with the Arab
Spring, was emboldening Turkey as it evolves into the model of
democracy for the Arab world.
”Turks are saying, ‘We are now on the rise, you are running out of
steam and we don’t have to take any stuff from Westerners,”’ he said.
But he added: ”There is a fine line between self-confidence and
hubris.”
Turkey and its charismatic prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, could
be forgiven for displaying some vanity. He has overhauled a country
once haunted by military coups into a regional democratic powerhouse.
He is so popular in the Arab world that there has been a surge in
babies named Tayyip.
While Turkey’s economy surges – growing by 8.2 percent in the third
quarter, second only to China in the world – Europe is sputtering;
Greece, a long-time rival, has been flattened by the sovereign debt
crisis. With its new clout as a leader in a region long dominated by
the United States, this large Muslim country of 79 million people has
also been basking in its role as the voice of regional indignation
against Syria and chastising Israel.
Earlier this month a deputy prime minister boldly lectured Vice
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. that it was Turkey, and not the
struggling economies of the United States and Europe, that would win
the 21st century.
”The fast fish, not the big fish, eats the small fish,” said the
official, Ali Babacan, who oversees the economy. Challenging his
host’s boastful tone, Mr. Biden reminded the audience that in a sea of
young sharks, the United States was still the whale.
Six years ago, Burak Turna, a Turkish writer, was mocked here as a
literary shock jock after he wrote a futuristic novel in which Turkish
commandos besiege Berlin, obliterate Europe and take control of the
Continent. Now, he says the same people who once dismissed him are
celebrating him. ”There is a new air being pumped into the Turkish
consciousness,” he said. But, he warned, ”We shouldn’t be too brave
or overconfident.”
Indeed, for all of Turkey’s recent achievements, its aim of having
”zero problems” with its neighbors has shown few successes.
Turkish officials tried in vain for months to persuade President
Bashar al-Assad of Syria to halt his violent crackdown against
civilians, before finally turning against him. Turkey has been unable
to resolve conflicts with Cyprus and Armenia. Its recent decision to
host a NATO radar installation has rankled Iran. Relations with Israel
collapsed after Israeli troops killed nine people aboard a Turkish
flotilla trying to break the blockade of Gaza.
In September, the limits of Turkey’s appeal as a political model were
laid bare when Mr. Erdogan told the Egyptian satellite channel Dream
TV that secularism was not the enemy of religion and Egypt should
embrace a secular constitution. A spokesman in Egypt for the Muslim
Brotherhood party, which won first-round parliamentary elections
there, told the Egyptian daily Al Ahram that Mr. Erdogan was
interfering in Egyptian affairs. (Mr. Erdogan’s aides said the term
secularism had been mistranslated as atheism.)
Nor were many Kosovar Albanians amused in August when Turkey’s
minister of education, Omer Dincer, asked his Kosovo counterpart to
remove offending paragraphs from history textbooks, which he said
insulted the Ottoman Turks. Local historians protested that Turkey was
trying to whitewash centuries of Ottoman subjugation.
The perils of standing in Turkey’s way became abundantly clear at the
United Nations during the annual General Assembly meeting of world
leaders this autumn.
Mr. Erdogan was on the fourth floor of the general assembly hall when
he learned that the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, whom he
ardently supports, was making his address demanding full U.N.
membership for Palestine. When Mr. Erdogan rushed to the nearest
entrance to take Turkey’s seat on the main floor, a security guard
refused to let him pass. When Mr. Erdogan pressed forward, a loud
scuffle erupted that was audible four floors below.
One Western diplomat noted that ”the Turks were literally throwing
their weight around.”
Yet Turkey’s many defenders say the West cannot expect the country to
play regional leader and then criticize it when it flexes its muscles.
Moreover, they note, the country is entitled to defend its dignity.
At the Cannes summit meeting of the G-20 major economies in November,
cameras showed Mr. Erdogan suddenly kneeling down when he noticed a
sticker of the Turkish flag on the floor to mark the position where he
was supposed to stand for a group photo, near President Barack Obama.
He gently folded it and put it in his pocket.