TURKEY-IRAN RELATIONSHIP BECOMES ‘MORE COMPETITIVE’
News.Az
Mon 05 March 2012 13:13 GMT | 13:13 Local Time
News.Az interviews Nigar Goksel, senior analyst at the European
Stability Initiative (ESI) and editor-in-chief of Turkish Policy
Quarterly.
What is Turkey’s attitude to the Iran issue?
It’s clear that Turkey and Iran have taken on a more competitive
relationship in the past year, let’s say, compared to the period
between 2005 and 2010. I would say a few years ago Iran and Turkey
seemed to be on the same page when it comes to certain issues in
the region, the larger region as well, ensuring that the West is not
too influential in their neighbourhood. Now we can see an increasing
conflict of interests, with regard to the NATO missile defence shield,
with regard to Syria, with regard to the nuclear program that Iran
is allegedly developing.
So the Turkish government that has been on the side of the Syrian
people, on the side of the NATO alliance and whatnot, I think has made
it very clear that it’s not a win-win relationship at certain levels
but a zero-sum relationship. That changes the nature of the way the
two countries relate to each other. That being said, publically both
countries are being very cautious about expressing any rivalry, let
alone antagonism. They are both containing the negative developments
and portraying relative collaboration. So it’s still rather behind
the scenes, let’s say. But certainly one can say that the last year
has put Turkey and Iran against each other on certain very concrete
points that are existential but quite important for both of them.
On 7 March, the foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran and Azerbaijan are
going to meet in Nakhchivan. This is the third meeting in this format.
What do you think about the prospects of this triangular format for
tackling regional problems?
Iran and Azerbaijan have their own challenges in their relationship,
Turkey and Iran likewise, as we just mentioned. I think it’s a good
thing that the three of them will sit together and talk about their
different approaches and the challenges in their relationship. I doubt
that too many ground-breaking new paradigms will come out of that kind
of a triangular discussion, but I think in terms of alleviating the
tensions, ensuring that a negative spiral doesn’t come about because
there have been tensions in recent days between Azerbaijan and Iran
as well over Israel. I think it’s good to sit together and talk, as
opposed to watching the public debates increasingly reflect a dramatic
tone. As I said, I wouldn’t expect an alliance of any kind to come
about, but it’s better to defuse tension in a joint discussion,
as opposed to exchanging harsh rhetoric about each other in the
press. So I think it’s probably a good thing that it is taking place,
though I don’t have very high expectations.
What should Turkey do to prevent the new French leadership, the one
voted in at the elections, adopting a new resolution on the so-called
genocide?
France already has a recognition law, but the risk now is that it
will have a resolution that criminalizes denial of the word genocide
to depict the 1915 events. I think Turkey has made it very clear how
critical this is for Turkey’s national interests and for French-Turkish
relations and, in fact, Turkey- EU relations. At the public level
particularly, the Turkish public, I think, lashes out. It doesn’t
really separate France from the EU at some level. It becomes more
anti-Western when these kinds of things are cooked up in any one of
the EU member states. It’s going to be tricky in that it really might
be rejuvenated, the same bill, so this relief that has now set in in
Turkey about averting this risk through the Constitutional Commission’s
cancellation of it, I think this relief might be short-lived.
I think Turkey has done a lot of positive, constructive, effective
lobbying: they used French universities based in Istanbul, French
business groups that were active in Turkey and a lot of different
levels of society to counter this bill.
In that sense, I think it’s been a success from Turkey’s point
of view. But instead of this crisis management and putting so
much attention and money into something when it flares up, what
Turkey of course needs to do is to have more consistent engagement
about this issue in France and in all other European countries as
well. It shouldn’t be an initiative only worked on when the risk is
at the doorstep. I think Turkey is laying down groundwork to do so,
particularly as 2015 approaches – I think there will be more effective
Turkish approaches that will be laid out.
Engaging the diaspora in France is also necessary, because at some
level, if you’re constantly in combat with each other, then one day
one will win and one day the other will win. We need a long-term
solution and that needs to involve both compromises from the Turkish
side, obviously, and hopefully the involvement of a more mainstream,
more constructive, group in the diaspora of Armenia as well. We hear
the most vocal, most negative diaspora quite loudly, but it’s also
important to realize that the entire Armenian diaspora doesn’t feel
the same way or doesn’t want the same aggressive ends. It’s important
to bring into the process more moderate voices from among the Armenian
diaspora as well.
Of course, Turkey needs to demonstrate that it’s allowing full freedom
of speech in Turkey for Turkey to be able to claim to France that
repression of freedom of speech on this issue is immoral or unethical
and wrong. Turkey has to make sure that there’s nobody in Turkey that’s
undergoing a court case for calling 1915 a genocide. There are actually
a couple of cases where that has taken place. So Turkey maybe should
set a very high standard and hope that France follows that standard.