Turkey's role in the region

[MJ]

MIDDLE EAST EXPERT DJEREJIAN:

-''TURKEY CAN MAKE IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS

TO MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS''

 

Anadolu News Agency

14 April, 2001

 

 

WASHINGTON D.C., April 13 (A.A) - Edward Djerejian, the director of the James Baker Institute of the American Rice University and expert on Middle East said on Friday that Turkey could make very important regional contributions in the Middle East peace process.

 

Djerejian assessed the developments in the Middle East in a press conference held for the foreign journalists in the U.S.

 

Upon a question, Djerejian said Turkey had an important role in the peace process, especially in the Arab-Israel process.

 

Noting that he thought that the biggest contribution of Turkey would be to

strengthen various elements of the regional peace, Djerejian said this could be done with the water issue which has a critical importance in the region, noting that Euphrates and Tigris rivers spring from Turkey.

 

Djerejian recalled that Turkish government had previously proposed to set up of a peace pipeline which would pass through Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine and which could be even extended to Saudi Arabia in the future, adding that Turkey could play an important role in the strengthening of peace in the region from this critical aspect.

[MJ]

Foreign Policy Research Institute

A Catalyst for Ideas

www.fpri.org

 

E-Notes

Distributed Exclusively via Fax & Email

 

THE TURKISH FACTOR IN THE GEOPOLITICS

OF THE POST-SOVIET SPACE

by Igor Torbakov

 

January 10, 2003

 

Igor Torbakov is an historian and visiting fellow at Harvard

University. Currently working with the Central Eurasia

Project, he holds degrees from Moscow University, the

Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Ukrainian Academy of

Sciences in Kiev. This paper draws from Dr. Torbakov's

November 20 presentation to FPRI's Interuniversity Study

Group on Russia, Europe, and the United States, which is

chaired by Vladislav Zubok and William Anthony Hay.

 

THE TURKISH FACTOR IN THE GEOPOLITICS

OF THE POST-SOVIET SPACE

 

by Igor Torbakov

 

As the U.S.-led war on terror gains momentum and the Bush

administration contemplates military operations against

Iraq, Turkey gains in geostrategic importance. America's

ally and a NATO member since 1953, Turkey's location, right

in the middle of the Southern Caucasus/Northern Mesopotamia

region, makes it a key player in several overlapping

regions: Western Europe, the Balkans, the Aegean and Eastern

Mediterranean, the Middle East, the Caucasus-Caspian

complex, Central Asia, and the Black Sea. In close proximity

to the major oil and gas deposits in the Caspian Sea and

northern Iraq, it is also a key player in the "Great Game"

of pipeline politics in the region.

 

The post-Soviet world is rife with threats to Turkey, but

presents opportunities as well: in economic relations with

Russia, as a hub for energy distribution, and in new

regional cooperation schemes. Despite its unusually active

foreign policy in post-Soviet Eurasia, Turkey has failed to

attain a leadership role in the former Soviet periphery.

This failure, exacerbated by Ankara's serious economic and

political problems, has led Russia and other countries in

the region to perceive Turkey in much more neutral terms

than they did in the early 1990s, when Ankara was seen as a

strategic competitor. Thus, the conventional picture of

Moscow and Ankara as uncompromising archrivals jockeying for

position in the former Soviet Union's southern periphery is

somewhat simplistic. The assumption that there are rigid,

opposing blocs of states (U.S.-Turkey-Azerbaijan-Georgia vs.

Russia-Iran-Armenia) does not correspond with the far more

complex reality. To be sure, the Great Game is taking place

in the post-Soviet space. However, it involves elements of

both competition and cooperation.

 

Turkey's November parliamentary elections introduced yet

more uncertainty into the picture. The Justice and

Development Party (AKP), a moderate Muslim party styled on

European Christian Democrats but with roots in Turkey's

political Islam, won the majority of seats in parliament.

AKP leaders claim that their primary goal is Turkey's

integration into the EU. However, Europe's mistrust of

Turkey and Turkey's own political and economic troubles may

well cause the AKP to shift its orientation.

 

TURKISH FOREIGN POLICY

The Turkish Republic built by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s and

1930s is very much a frontier state. From the outset Ankara

has been preoccupied with issues of national security and

territorial integrity. This necessarily dictated a

conservative approach to foreign policy, avoiding

extraterritorial interests or activities extending beyond

the country's borders. This was encapsulated in Ataturk's

famous dictum "Peace at home, peace in the world." Kemalism

and the character of the Turkish state have also isolated

Turkey in its relations with it neighbors in the Arab world

and Europe.

 

Turkey maintained a sometimes precarious neutrality during

World War II, in part as an extension of Ataturk's cautious

policy of limiting international contact. It was Stalin's

claims on northeastern Turkey and the Turkish Straits that

pushed Ankara into its Western alliance. The Cold War,

however, imposed a certain amount of order. Turkish foreign

policy vis-a-vis the Soviet Union was restricted to just a

few basic (if crucial) questions: how to ward off the Soviet

threat and how to maintain and strengthen ties with the

United States and NATO.

 

The collapse of the Soviet empire and the acceleration of

European integration challenged the very foundations of

Turkey's foreign policy. Turkey's geostrategic value to the

West was no longer clear-cut. The EU's rejection of Turkey's

bid to become a full member was widely interpreted by both

Turkey's political class and the broader public as exclusion

on explicitly cultural grounds, which bred a sense of

isolation and insecurity in Turkish elites. This

paradoxically led to a more activist and assertive foreign

policy in the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East, and

the Balkans.

 

Turkey's embrace of the Turkic republics of the former

Soviet Union, argues Prof. Ziya Onis of Koc University in

Istanbul, embodied an important psychological dimension. A

closer bond with people of common historical descent was a

means of overcoming Turkey's traditional fear of isolation.

This sense of isolation, Onis contends, is crucial in

understanding both the initial euphoria concerning the

Turkic republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia and the

subsequent development of close military and economic ties

with Israel. Ankara seemed to hope that its active

leadership in both regions would help revitalize Turkey's

strategic value to the West.

 

Significant changes in Turkey's domestic policy have

contributed to Ankara's external activism, particularly in

relation to the former Soviet republics. Where

traditionally, Turkey's foreign policy was shaped by a

narrow group of political figures, state bureaucrats, and

the military's upper echelon, the recent resurgence of Islam

and nationalism in Turkish politics has broadened the circle

of those concerned with foreign policy. A distinct emphasis

on non-European or non-Western dimensions of Turkish

identity became the hallmark of the Islamist and ultra-

nationalist parties, which have been gaining a voice over

the last decade in the highly fragmented party system. The

basic tenets of Turkish foreign policy remain pro-Western,

but Turkey's position at the edge of the Western world

requires it to maintain a separate identity with a definable

role in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Middle East.

 

ANKARA'S EFFORTS IN THE CAUCASUS AND CENTRAL ASIA:

A Failure of the "Turkic World" Model

 

With the relative weakening of Russia, many officials in

Ankara hoped to establish close ties with the newly-

independent states, making Turkey a leading actor in the

former Soviet southern periphery. It formed the Black Sea

Economic Cooperation Organization, Turkish Cooperation, and

Development Agency and set up annual "Turkic summits" of the

presidents of Turkey and the Turkic republics. Turgut Ozal,

prime minister and then president of Turkey from 1983 until

his death in 1993, entertained a sweeping project that

included a vibrant Turkic Common Market and a powerful

Turkic Trade and Development Bank. After Azerbaijan's

president Heydar Aliyev and Georgia's president Eduard

Shevardnadze called for a regional stability pact, Ankara

proposed the Caucasus Stability Pact as a means to settle

the region's conflicts and accommodate sometimes

contradictory interests. A "Turkish model," based on

Turkey's imperfect but seemingly workable market economy and

somewhat restrictive parliamentary democracy, was projected

to the post-Soviet states as a roadmap for their transition.

The Western governments encouraged this, since the

alternatives seemed to be either an Islamist-based Iranian

model or a return to Soviet domination. However, Turkey

failed to play a leadership role in the post-Soviet space.

Its recent activism in Eurasia is real but fragile, for

several reasons.

 

First, the post-Soviet states have been wary of Ankara's

acting as a new "big brother" when they just escaped the

clutches of another big brother. The Turkic states, in

particular, sought to develop their own national identities.

The Caucasus and Central Asian states obviously preferred

more limited and equal relations with Ankara. They were

unwilling to bind themselves exclusively to Turkey-dominated

organizations and eager to secure political and economic

support from other states, including Russia and Iran.

 

Second, Turkey is a relatively poor country recently in

severe economic crisis. Indeed, Turkey's more ambitious

regional schemes, including Black Sea cooperation and

efforts in Central Asia and the Caucasus, have been hindered

by Ankara's limited ability to fund sweeping geopolitical

projects.

 

Third, while Moscow lost direct control over its former

borderlands, its influence didn't disappear. The presence of

Russian troops in a number of countries (Georgia, Armenia,

Tajikistan), powerful economic levers (gas and electricity

deliveries), and its ability to manipulate regional ethnic

conflicts compel the local leaders to take heed of Russia's

wishes.

 

Fourth, a Turkish model appears to have lost much of its

appeal both for the post-Soviet states and the West. The

democratic component in the Turkish system proved not so

attractive to the authoritarian leaders in the Caucasus and

Central Asia, who had little interest in fostering broader

political participation and pluralism. The newly independent

republics' rulers styled their regimes more on the old

Soviet system than on Turkey's. For its part, the West

realized that its initial fears concerning Iran's influence

had been exaggerated.

 

Nor did Turkey's identity-based foreign policy appear to

help settle the South Caucasus conflicts, most notably the

one between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Artsax.

Turkey actively supported Baku on the grounds of common

ethnicity and culture. However, even some Turkish

commentators suggest a more far-sighted policy would have

developed closer links with both countries, thus possibly

reducing the efforts of Yerevan and the Armenian lobby in

the West to wage a hate campaign against Turkey.

 

Finally, Eurasia's energy riches prompted the West, and the

U.S. in particular, to opt for more direct involvement

rather than relying on regional proxies like Turkey. The

deployment of American troops in Central Asia and the

Caucasus within the framework of the war on terror

underscored its strategic decision to engage the region more

actively, which had been taken even prior to 9/11/01

attacks.

 

RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA: COMPETITION AND COOPERATION

Ankara's relations with Moscow exhibit marked dualism.

Historically, and perhaps in the longer-term, managing

relations with Russia is Turkey's leading security issue.

But the magnitude of Turkish-Russian trade (including large-

scale energy imports) and the need for coexistence at the

political level work against more competitive policies.

 

For the first time in centuries, since the end of the Cold

War, Turkey and Russia no longer share a border. However,

since the Turkish and Russian "near abroads" overlap in the

Caucasus and Central Asia, some degree of competition is

inevitable. In the early 1990s, almost everyone predicted

intense rivalry between Moscow and Ankara in Eurasia. This

has ultimately not been realized: as discussed above, Turkey

has been unsuccessful in gaining a leadership role in the

region. Besides, Ankara has focused on Turkey's own internal

problems and other foreign policy priorities in Europe and

the Middle East. Like Turkey, Russia has been troubled by

its own economic weakness and was diverted in the 1990s by

competing foreign policy priorities, especially by its post-

Cold War relationship with the United States.

 

Yet in the mid-1990s Russia appeared to perceive Turkey as a

massive security challenge. For instance, The White Book of

Russian Special Services (Moscow: O***revatel, 1996)

described Turkey as an aspiring regional power that

supported Muslim movements and cherished pan-Turkic ideas.

It argued that Turkey might move into the geostrategic niche

in the Caucasus created by Russia's weakening state. Moscow

repeatedly accused Ankara of supporting the Chechen

separatists during the first Chechen war.

 

>From the end of the 1990s, Moscow fundamentally revised its

perception of Turkey's role in Eurasia. Pavel Baev of the

International Peace Research Institute in Oslo argues that

Moscow now views Turkey primarily as a partner rather than a

threat, with one important reason being gas. Turkey and

Europe compose Russia's major market for gas. Some of the

largest energy business deals in Russia have been signed

with Turkey. The recent completion of the Blue Stream gas

pipeline under the Black Sea will increase Turkey's

dependence on Russian natural gas, and Russia is beginning

to see Turkey as a transit country for its energy resources

rather than simply an export market.

 

Moscow also reevaluated Turkey's strategic potential. By

2000-01, Turkey came to be typically portrayed not as a

geopolitical challenger but as a weakening competitor,

preoccupied with internal troubles. The Russian Security

Council now perceives Turkey's penetration into the Caucasus

as a low-intensity risk, and the sharp political and

economic crisis in Turkey in early 2001 only confirmed these

assessments. Thus, issues such as the export of Russian gas

to Turkey, tanker traffic through the Straits, and the

regulation of the "shuttle" trade dominate the agendas of

intensive bilateral contacts at various levels. Strategic

alliance with Armenia notwithstanding, Russia has stayed

clear of the international controversy around the genocide

of 1915-18, in contrast to the proactive stance taken, say,

by France. And Ankara has neither provided support to the

rebels in the second Chechen war nor shown any softness

toward the Chechens inside Turkey.

 

With respect to the EU, Turkey and Russia are basically on

the same page. Both countries have complex negotiations with

the EU, not only for the development of their economies but

for their future political and cultural identities as

European countries. Russia and Turkey also share similar

views with respect to Iran and Iraq, which differ from those

of the U.S. Both countries have improved their relationships

with Israel. Further improvements in U.S.-Russian relations

as well as in Turkish-Russian relations and the United

States' willingness to consult both countries on potentially

contentious U.S. policies in the broader region could help

foster a real Russo-Turkish relationship, ultimately

transforming the politics of the Southern Caucasus even more

than any dramatic change in U.S.-Russian relations.

 

Moscow appears particularly keen these days to send friendly

signals to Turkey. In a recent interview with the Turkish

Daily News, Aleksandr Lebedev, Russia's ambassador to

Ankara, stressed the unique Eurasian nature of both

countries. Lebedev has also tried hard to prove the historic

stereotypes wrong. The common impression that the Russian

and Ottoman empires have been in a state of war most of the

time is absolutely untrue, said the ambassador. He referred

to a study conducted by Russian and Turkish historians that

concludes that over 500 years, the tsars and sultans were

engaged in direct conflict for only 25 years, and noted the

past alliances against the British and the French.

 

There have also been remarkable shifts in the Great Game

over the Caspian oil export pipeline routes. Until recently,

Russia and Turkey have been rivals in the transportation of

Caspian oil to lucrative Western markets. Unlike the case

with gas, Turkey is not seen as an important market for

Russian crude oil. Turkish and Russian policy-makers

competed for a main export oil pipeline across their

territory to carry Azerbaijani and possibly Kazak crude to

the European market. Ankara (together with Washington) has

pushed for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan main export pipeline

project that would bypass both Russia and Iran, while Moscow

backed the "northern route" to Novorossiisk. By mid-2001,

however, the Russian government--to the surprise of some

observers--had dropped its opposition to the BTC project.

Instead, Russia has taken steps toward finishing the

construction of the high-capacity Tengiz-Novorossiisk

pipeline (built by the Caspian Pipeline Consortium),

cautiously but shrewdly playing Kazak oil against

Azerbaijani oil on the world markets. With the CPC pipeline

becoming operational it seems that officials in Moscow have

come to believe that a BTC pipeline will not run counter to

Russia's interests. Thus, despite occasional over-heated

statements, Moscow clearly prefers to present this issue in

geoeconomic rather than geopolitical terms, putting cost

efficiency ahead of balance of power and emphasizing

competition between economic actors rather than struggle for

spheres of influence with Ankara or Washington.

 

Of course, the potential for competition between Moscow and

Ankara remains. A fundamental objective underlying Russia's

policies in Eurasia is to keep "outsiders" like Turkey and

Iran from interfering in its sphere of influence, while

Ankara's primary objectives in Eurasia are consolidating the

independence of former Soviet states and promoting

"strategic pluralism" across the region. Thus Ankara is wary

about the operation of Russian military bases in Georgia and

Armenia. Turkey would also like to see the CIS peacekeeping

forces in the South Caucasus conflict zones (primarily in

Abkhazia) replaced by international forces. For its part,

Russia is obviously displeased with Turkish military and

security officials' cooperation with their counterparts in

Georgia and Azerbaijan. In January 2002, Azerbaijan,

Georgia, and Turkey concluded an agreement on regional

security. Given Georgia's strategic location and the steady

deterioration of relations between the Putin and

Shevardnadze governments, Turkey's lively contacts with

Tbilisi cause concern in Moscow. As Zeyno Baran, director of

the Caucasus Project at the Center for Strategic and

International Studies, recently pointed out, "in the past,

Georgia had asked the Russians for help against the

Ottomans, but today Georgia receives military, economic, and

political assistance from Turkey." In 2000 Turkey even

surpassed Russia as Georgia's largest trading partner.

Georgia's military contacts with Turkey make Moscow

especially unhappy. A particular irritant is Turkey's

assistance in modernizing the Marneuli airbase near Tbilisi.

 

This seemingly confrontational trend, however, is

counterbalanced by continuing Russo-Turkish cooperation.

Turkey was the first NATO member to start purchasing Russian

arms in the 1990s: helicopters and armored personnel

carriers for use against the PKK. Military ties continue to

develop as evidenced by the visit to Ankara of Russia's

Chief of General Staff Anatolii Kvashnin in January 2002.

Also, in November 2001 the Turkish and Russian foreign

ministers signed a memorandum promising to coordinate their

policies in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Thus, despite

Russia's and Turkey's longer-term competing agendas, Moscow

is now more open to cooperation with Turkey in the Caucasus,

and Turkey is becoming more adept at framing its involvement

in the region in a way that does not offend other countries'

sensibilities.

 

IN THE AFTERMATH OF ELECTIONS: A PERIOD OF UNCERTAINTY

At present, it would seem that Turkey's relations with the

EU have eclipsed whatever ambitions Ankara might still have

in the post-Soviet Eurasia. Ankara is pushing hard to obtain

from the EU at its summit in Copenhagen in December a

precise date for the beginning of the accession talks. EU

members appear to be split on the issue. Turkey is entering

a potentially turbulent period fraught with many

uncertainties. If Ankara encounters new obstacles and snubs

in its EU conquest, its inherent fear of being isolated and

marginalized could reemerge. This might well strengthen the

non-European elements in the peculiar Turkish dichotomy and

bring about changes in policy orientation, as has happened

in the past. For instance, in 1994, then foreign minister

Mumtaz Soysal called for Third Worldism, nationalism, and

anti-Westernism in contrast to Turkey's traditional Western-

oriented policy. And while then Prime Minister Necmettin

Erbakan finally dropped the rhetoric about Turkey

spearheading a new Islamic NATO or Common Market, in 1996-97

he promoted the establishment of a development group, the D-

8, consisting of Turkey, Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran,

Malaysia, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Initially it was even

called the M-8 (M stands for Muslim). The Turkish military

took care of Erbakan in the "post-modern coup" of 1997.

However, in spring 2002, a top Turkish commander, National

Security Council Secretary-General Tuncer Kilinc, apparently

frustrated with the discriminatory attitude of what he

called a "Christian Club," suggested that stronger relations

with Russia and Iran could be considered a viable

alternative to EU membership.

 

In the November 3 parliamentary election, the AKP won a

landslide victory and secured almost two thirds of the

parliament seats. Its strong showing at the polls gives it a

rare opportunity to form a stable one-party government. The

party's leader, Tayyip Erdogan, and top officials wasted no

time confirming their pro-European orientation and their

eagerness for EU membership. It is not yet clear how the

party will behave under the pressure from its grass-roots,

not all of whom share this enthusiasm, if their Europe-

oriented policy is given a cold shoulder by Europe. The

first test occurred on November 8, when Turkey's bid to join

the EU was condemned by former French president Valery

Giscard d'Estaing, chairman of the EU's constitution

committee. He bluntly said that Turkey "is not a European

country" and that its membership would represent the end of

the EU. The European Commission swiftly disassociated itself

from Giscard's comments, but he was probably not far from

the truth when he claimed that most EU members are privately

against admitting Turkey.

 

A number of Western analysts argue that the EU is playing a

dangerous game treating Turkey in this way: Ankara is well

aware that the EU is not its only option. One analyst, Simon

Allison, comments that the EU might regret its current

stance vis-a-vis Ankara. The position of the West with

regard to the war on terror and Iraq would become a lot more

difficult without Turkish support and cooperation.

 

----------------------------------------------------------

You may forward this email as you like provided that you

send it in its entirety and attribute it to the Foreign

Policy Research Institute. If you post it on a mailing

list, please contact FPRI with the name, location, purpose,

and number of recipients of the mailing list.

 

If you receive this as a forward and would like to be placed

directly on our mailing lists, send email to

FPRI@fpri.org. Include your name, address, and affiliation.

For further information, contact Alan Luxenberg at (215)

732-3774 x105.

----------------------------------------------------------

 

FPRI, 1528 Walnut Street, Suite 610, Philadelphia, PA 19102-

3684.

For information, contact Alan Luxenberg at 215-732-3774,

ext. 105 or email fpri@fpri.org or visit us at www.fpri.org

[THOTH]

Thanks MJ - the second article is facsinating and right on in its analysis IMO. Well worth the read and something for everyone (who cares) to think on. The first article (and position of Mr Djerejian is a joke. I hope that this isn't a serios position for your Republican "Dream team" - as that is just what they would be. No Arab state wants any part of turkish involvement in their affairs - far from it. And they view any Turkish act or interest with incredible suspicion - and rightly so. This peace pipeline concept would be correctly percieved as an attempt to provide a stranglehold on the region - much as the dam/water projects currently underway in Southeastern Turkey are (correctly) percieved. Mr Djerejian - get real!

[MJ]

My Republican "Dream Team" would like to know whether you have received the information on Arab states' lack of desire "to see Turkish involvement in their affairs" from "reliable sources" or it is resulted from your expert "analysis."

 

Furthermore, let's assume that the "peace pipeline is an attempt to provide a stranglehold on the region." Isn't the region strangled by Turkey (as far as the water resources go) without the proposed pipeline, currently?

 

I also wonder why every time there is a mention of religion or Republicans, your feathers get raffled? Is there something hidden in your childhood, which comes up to the surface at the mere mention of such words?