FRESH STEPS IN TURKEY’S EUROASIA POLICY

 

In the second half of the 20^th century, the civilised world found a remedy to “the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind,” as the UN Charter puts it in its preamble, and this remedy was European integration. One deviation from that principle in Europe during this period was Bosnia-Herzegovina where Milosevic and his cronies unwisely tried Hitler’s racial cleansing methods to purge Europe from Muslims. They ended up in their current plight when Turkey firmly put down it foot and when President Clinton’s United States wisely made a volte-face and left the Serbian adventurers alone with their human rights violations and war crimes.  Today Turkey’s European accession and Eurasia policies are undergoing a similar process in their attempts to save humanity from the scourge of war by using in its region the same methods as France and Germany are practicing in Europe. Hitherto it has not been able to forestall the war in Iraq, nor similar tragedies in the “Great Game” in Afghanistan, but there are significant indicators proving that the Bush team’s so-called “Greater Middle East ” policy will encounter even a much tougher resistance with Turkey’s active role if it is tried after the U.S. election in November. Please see the article below for details.

 

The admirable democratic systems of the United States and the UK and the common sense of their peoples are saving the world from the outbreak of a third world war because the Bush team in Washington could have been a worse adventurer than Hitler’s Nazi administration if it had not been for them. In the UK too, it takes millions of British people’s spontaneous street demonstrations against PM Blair’s participation in the war in Iraq that saves the country and the world from getting further stuck in the current quagmire.

Eurasia promises to be the 21^st century’s flash points after November    

Despite these healthy assurances for the world’s future, however, the indications are that this peace is mostly for Europe and that especially Asia is in for trouble with fresh wars and flash points as from the New Year, if the American presidential election brings the Bush team back into power after November. What will the probable Kerry Administration do is anyone’s guess, but it is certain that the change of presidency in November does not necessarily mean that the world will be saved from the danger of wars in Asia. Because the fire is sure to spill over to Europe, it becomes a Eurasian affair for especially countries like Turkey, Russia and most of the former Soviet Union ones.  

The centre of these potential disturbances will certainly be Iran, along with the already-war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan, but pending the final showdown for the Gulf and Caspian oil, the neighbouring countries, particularly the Caucasus, will see a power struggle between Washington and the forces that stand in its way.

On Monday (16^th) President Bush announced in Washington that they would make a reshuffle of their forces abroad, with particular attention to the Eurasian region. Before that his national security adviser Condoleezza Rice issued a warning indicating that the United States would strike Iran at an opportune moment to prevent its attempts to have nuclear weapons. On the same days Iran revealed the performance of a successful test of a long-range Iranian missile, the “Shahab 3”, and a counter threat from Tehran was not long in arriving. The assistant commander-in-chief of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier Mohammed Bakir Zulkadir, announced on Tuesday (17^th) in Tehran that an Israeli air strike on the Iranian nuclear reactor in Bushehr would not go unanswered. Iran, in retaliation, would strike Israel’s Dimona reactor with missiles. The following day the Iranian Defence Minister Ali Shamhani said that a pre-emptive strike was not an American monopoly. The American forces in Iraq could well be Iran’s targets and hostages if there was any danger to the Iranian nuclear energy installations.     

These developments coincided with the U.S. Defence Secretary Rumsfeld’s visits to the region. He was in the region stretching from Iraq and Afghanistan to Baku and Moscow. The Commander of the U.S. forces in Europe had already been to Baku to work on the plans for the military setup and political security of the Caspian basin, according to the relevant official statement. Rumsfeld called for deepening “strategic cooperation with Azerbaijan” and stressed the importance of that country’s participation in the “anti-terror coalition”.

Neighbouring Georgia was the scene of even more important events bringing Moscow and Tbilisi to the brink of skirmishes over South Ossetia, in addition to the power struggle over Georgia’s autonomous regions - Abkhazia and Ajaria, with of course the United States standing behind its new choice for the president of Georgia, Mikheil  Saakashvili.

This power struggle over Eurasia between Washington and Moscow stretches as far as China covering especially Uzbekistan and other central Asian Turkic republics as well as Afghanistan, with the former Shanghai Five arrangements taking root as a new security and cooperation organisation for Eurasia against the Washington-guided “Coalition forces”,  which are an obscure and loose arrangement waiting for November to gain clarity under the new American Administration. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation stressed on Thursday (19^th) that it is not a military alliance, but an economic integration movement like the EU.

Turkey’s place in the future power struggle for Eurasia

Fully aware of the fact (which has been persistently reflected by Pulse) that there is no chance of winning Turkey over to its front today or after November, Washington seems to have resigned itself to accepting Turkey’s absence from the Coalition as long as Ankara refrains from making this fact known. Turkey naturally tries to comply, but not very successfully, as was the case in PM Erdogan’s definition of Israel’s activities in Palestine - “State terrorism”, his official visit to Tehran only a few weeks ago, President Putin’s forthcoming State visit to Ankara within ten days, and various official visits to and from Turkey as well as recent relevant developments. Neither do the political and international developments of the Eurasia region help Ankara and Washington for covering up their underhanded strife. For instance, Afghanistan will have presidential elections in October. A former Turkish Foreign Minister, Hikmet Cetin, with his well known pro-American feelings and pro-Israel background is heading the NATO organisation helping that country’s transition to a more democratic political system. But does Hikmet Cetin’s presence in Kabul mean that Turkey is sharing and assisting the American activities to bring to power the incumbent Hamid Karzai or does Ankara’s heart rest with the Uzbek General Abdul Rashjid Dostum who is one of the 18 candidates for presidency? Because Washington knows the answer very well it has done everything in its power to postpone the Turkish Armed Forces’ presence in Afghanistan till after the elections, by refraining from deploying them in the places of Turkish speaking inhabitants, as Turkey was insisting. The American media claims that victory for Karzai in the October election is a foregone conclusion, but Washington is very aware of the danger of Dostum’s possible victory if Turkey and Iran join hands with the new EU of Eurasia, the Shanghai organisation.

That is why the CIA’s mouthpiece Radio Liberty in particular and the American worldwide subversion mechanism in general are preoccupied with stirring up communal uprisings against Russia and China in the Caucasus, Xinjiang and Eurasia, using Turkish nationals and resources, if possible.

PM Tayyip Erdogan’s official visit to Tbilisi on 10-11 August coincided with disturbances over South Ossetia between Georgia and Russia. The main topic for Turkey was the new Georgian Government’s suspending for two weeks the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline with the pretext of spoiling the environment of Borjomi valley. It was bound to delay and even hamper Turkey’s plans to import Azeri natural gas with a similar pipeline to Erzurum from the Shah Sea in the Caspian. President Saakashvili did not only promise to reactivate the BTC pipeline construction but also agreed to let Turkish trucks pass unmolested through the Sarp frontier gate without a visa. As for the security angle of the visit, it was a shock for the U.S. trained young president. It had already been known that Turkey would not go any further than training Georgian officers within the mutual military cooperation agreement. That, for its part, is a common practice Turkey does with nearly 60 countries, including Russia. Washington had already ceased hope of having Turkey on its side to establish military bases in Georgia. That is why the United States has decided to use, instead of Turkey, the former Soviet Baltic States, which are now NATO and EU members, for training, logistics and military support to its military presence in Georgia and other South Caucasus countries – Lithuania for Azerbaijan with German support, Estonia for Georgia with US and UK support and Letonia for Armenia. Even though PM Erdogan repeated in Tbilisi Turkey’s policy to support Georgia’s territorial integrity, he advised President Saakashvili to refrain from provoking Moscow with such statements that he had made in Washington about Moscow finding itself up against the United States over South Ossetia.

After Iraq and Afghanistan where the United States has done everything in its power to prevent the Turkish Army from seeing to the development and security of the Turkish speaking local communities, it is now actively working to weaken the Turkish speaking peoples in Georgia, Crimea and Eurasia in general, while the relevant regional powers such as Russia, Ukraine and even China do not object to rectifying the past injustices meted out to these Turks. The latest example concerns the Ahiska (Meshketi) Turks who were victimised after World War II under Stalin’s brutal dictatorship. ( turkpulse 121, page 3 of May 23^rd, 2004 “Towards Cold War Days and Turkey’s Place Therein”).

The Ahiska Turks should now return to Georgia near the Turkish frontier, but to help Saakashvili in his policy of doing away with the Turkish existence in Georgia, the United States is now according them migrant status and resettling some 7,000 Ahiska Turks to Philadelphia. In a way it is a humanitarian move as after so much hardship and suffering these people will finally be able to enjoy the taste of American wealth. Nevertheless, Washington’s political motives about weakening the Turkish influence and existence in Eurasia does not escape notice.

China is on Washington’s agenda for separatist agitation

This underhanded strife over Eurasia between Ankara and Washington stretches as far as the China Wall with XUAR (Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region) where some 8.4 million Uygur Turks live with another 600,000 abroad. (The spelling in English of the word Uygur  varies considerably - Uighur, Uyghur, Uygur, but we will stick to Turkey’s phonetic spelling.) Leaving aside the long history of the Silk Road and the Turks’ role in it, the Uygur Turks gained independence twice in the Nationalist China period (1911-1949) and founded the “Islamic Republic of East Turkistan” first between 1933 and 1936 and then between 1944 and 1949. Erkin Alptekin, the son of the last president of this defunct Turkic republic, the late Isa Yusuf Alptekin, is now a German citizen who worked for the CIA’s Radio Liberty for long years. They are now stepping up their subversive broadcasts and activities towards China. Indeed, this year seems to be the beginning of the Washington-led activities to stir up trouble for Beijing by inducing the Uygurs to “activism,” (not to say “terrorism”) for independence. It started with the “World Uygur Congress” in Munich last April when Erkin Alptekin was elected president and continued with his visit to Washington between 27 May and 3 June. He talked at the House International Relations Committee on the human-rights situation in Xinjiang and, by and large, called for the Uygurs to refrain from terrorism in China. He said in Washington that during his father’s and his own lobbying on behalf of the Uygurs they had trouble getting anywhere to be listened until the world’s attention was drawn to the terrorist activities in Xinjiang. In other words, Washington has begun staging its all familiar “run-with-the-hare-catch-with-the-hound”  policy with China and the Uygurs.

And where does Turkey stand in this new American policy for Eurasia and China? Even though father and son Alptekins’ names are totally Turkey Turkish and they both have had very close relations and contacts in this country, Ankara has nothing to do with all this activism against China. On the contrary on 22 September 2004 Turkey’s “Silk Road Train” will leave Istanbul with 15 exhibition containers full of Turkish exports and cultural materials to be displayed in Ankara, Tabriz, Tehran, Meshhed, Ashkabad, Turkmenabad, Dushambe, Bukhara, Semerkant, Tashkent, Bishkek, Almati and Astana. In other words it will visit Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.      

“Closely related to the Uygur is Uzbek,” says Erkin Alptekin, but he does not go into the details of how certain CIA agents have managed to undermine Turkey’s economic and cultural expansion towards Uzbekistan, along with other Turkish speaking republics of the former Soviet Union after their independences as from 1990.

At the moment, the Turkish media is full of press reports about the Turkish Chief Justice, Eraslan Ozkaya, and the top Turkish intelligence chiefs such as the Under- Secretary of MIT, Senkal Atasagun, and External Operations Chief, Kasif Kozinoglu. The centre of this disgusting subversion against an ally, Turkey, is of course the CIA using a former MIT chief, Mehmet Eymur, a defector who is running a campaign against the Atasagun team of MIT revealing Turkey’s intelligence secrets in his webpage, Atin, with generous American advertisements and financing. This in itself is enough to show where Turkey is standing in President Bush’s “Greater Middle East” policies and its future implementations.  

As for President Putin’s forthcoming State visit to Ankara, it promises to mark a historic turning point in not only the mutual relations of the two countries, but for the establishment of the European integration philosophy in Eurasia also including China and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation which is sure to clash with President Bush’s Greater Middle East plans for this region after the American election in November. uras@ada.net.tr – 22 August 2004