IRAQ – A DETERMINING FACTOR FOR US-TURKISH RELATIONS

 

After so eager and persistent requests, indeed demands of Ankara, Washington is now surprisingly hesitating about inviting Turkish forces to Iraq despite the Turkish parliament’s permission to the Erdogan Government to deploy forces in that country. A close scrutiny of the whole story proves, however, that this development is not so surprising after all. It is only the proof of the fact that the United States has now finally realised that it is at a categorical crossroads in its relations with Turkey, on the one hand, and its intentions about the Gulf, on the other. That, for its part, induces the United States to seek other ways about Iraq than having Turkish forces there. Revising its draft resolution for Iraq at the UN Security Council to the point of acceptability for Paris, Berlin and Moscow is evidently one of these new ways sought. President Bush’s initiatives in his tour of the Far East last week and the current international donors conference in Spain for Iraq are others. As for why so much hesitation on the part of the USA about cooperation with Turkey and its consequences, please read the article below.

 

The hesitation for cooperation on Iraq is mutual between Turkey and the United States and the reason is obvious – conflicting vital interests and failure to coordinate them despite all efforts by both sides. The Americans have now understood that they cannot possibly pay lip service to coax the Turks and then sidestep the agreed upon principles, not too much or on vital issues, any way.

Ankara already has a long list of and decades of experience about Washington’s role in the PKK terrorism as well as the long term American intentions and plans to create an independent Kurdish State in northern Iraq to start with. Washington, on the other hand, hates to see the presence of 1500 Turkish soldiers in northern Iraq despite the Kurds’ objection and the Americans’ unprecedented way of sharing that objection by its scandalous raid on the Turkish liaison office in Suleymaniye last July.  

Will the USA be able to make the “de facto” Kurdish rule “de jure” with UDI?

The Super Power has already covered a long distance in materializing its ambition of creating a “de facto”  Kurdish State in northern Iraq and is now working on making it “de jure,” starting with a Kurdish-Arab federation in Iraq, if outright Kurdish UDI is impossible and it is indeed.

One of the main difficulties in advancing this plan to further stages is financial. Who will feed a few million Kurds in a rugged, underdeveloped region with no industry, no technology, no agriculture or access to the sea. For the last ten years, a sizable part  of Saddam’s oil revenue was forcefully allotted to the Kurds and that arrangement at the UN, by and large, solved this financial problem for the Americans. Another arrangement to ease the Kurds’ financial burden on the United States was Turkey’s trade with Iraq which had to pass through the Barzani territory in northern Iraq by paying handsome transit fees to the Kurds.

But now that potential constitutional provisions are creating a new Iraq which has to be democratic, unitary and secular, with treaty bond territorial integrity, Washington wants to ensure procuring and preserving its oil interests in that country in cooperation with the Kurds and Kirkuk is the key in this regard.

At that point the Turkey factor is the biggest stumbling block for the United States. Ankara has already announced that the natural resources of Iraq belongs to the Iraqi nation as a whole and that Kirkuk can never be the capital of Kurdistan with its Turkmen population which declined during the British rule and influence after 1920 and which was further weakened by Saddam and other Arab rulers. Despite these negative factors, the Turkmen population and influence is an undeniable reality of Iraq and Kirkuk today, especially after the Turkish military incursion with 35,000 soldiers in March and April 1995 and the current Turkish military presence there with 1-2 thousand soldiers and their Turkmen supporters, as the rear guards of the 1995 incursion.

It is obvious that a much stronger Turkish military presence in Iraq now will further obstruct the decades old colonialist ambitions of registering these Turkmens as Kurdish and that is the reason for Barzani’s and Talabani’s objections to Turkish troop deployment in Iraq today. The location of the potential regions to deploy the additional Turkish soldiers in Iraq, which have been officially announced by the TGS (Turkish General Staff), is proof enough for the intentions and plans of Turkey over Iraq – reinforcing and restructuring the Turkmen community as well as preservation of Iraq’s national and territorial integrity. Just as the Americans have covered a long distance in creating a “de facto” Kurdish State in northern Iraq, so has Turkey covered even a longer distance in revitalizing the Turkmen factor with Kirkuk its hub (if not the capital, as Turkey has no intention of having a Turkmen UDI) as a force (demographic and intellectual, rather than military), to obstruct the American plans about the potential Kurdish UDI.

Washington’s preference tips towards the Kurds. But can it in the long run?

Washington’s latest surprise support to the Kurdish objection to Turkish forces in Iraq is indicative of the fact that the United States is choosing the Kurdish UDI alternative rather than cooperating with Turkey for reconstructing Iraq as a democratic, unitary State with all communities as free and equal citizens within territorial integrity of the country.

But this preference which is still not final is tantamount to the Americans’ working for an Iraq without any Turkish influence or the Turkmen community and it is clearly unwise and simply unenforceable. The financial burdens of the Iraq adventure has become telling even for the Super Power and it cannot possibly effort undertaking the additional and sustained financial burdens of the Barzani and Talabani tribes. The current Madrid conference has ostensibly been promising for the Americans in spreading this burden to the main economic powers of the world, but a scrutiny of the outcome shows that it was disappointing for the Bush Administration. As against the $36 billion dollar grant sought for the next three years and a further $20 billion in the fourth year, the United States has got $19 billion commitment at Madrid donors conference. Adding to it the $20 billion grant pledged by the United States, the $39 billion commitment was not too bad. But the structure of the committed sums was a real disappointment and clearly inadequate. Of the $19 billion donations $5 billion came from Japan, $9 billion from the World Bank and the IMF, $1 billion each from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and the remaining $3 billion from the rest of the world. Contrary to Washington’s pressure for grants, the two finance corporations’ donations are loans, as is the most of the rest.  Especially the “Old Europe” led by France, Germany and Russia flatly rejected any sizable contributions from the outset with the Americans warnings that they would not forget it.

Far from significantly contributing to these donations other than the symbolic $50 million between 2004 and 2007, Turkey, for its part, is claiming and receiving $8.5 billion financial loans for its cooperation with the United States on Iraq. The Americans attempted to tie this loan to the condition of the disappearance of the Turkish military presence in northern Iraq, but it was flatly rejected by the Turkish State even though the Erdogan Government wavered and tended to accept it. The victory was bound to be on the side that works with scientific criteria and standards rather than the political self-interest calculations or lack of knowledge and experience of the politicians. This was the case for both the trends and strives within the Turkish Republic and in Washington’s miscalculations in its preferences between Turkey, a modern western democracy, and the upstart Kurdish “de facto” State with tribal traditions.

That is why after a brief strife between Washington and Ankara on especially the economic field, the wisdom got the upper hand and things began to improve towards the end of the week with the United States declaring that the first instalment of $2.1 billion of the $8.5 billion loan is ready for Turkey to draw whenever it wants.

Summary of the economic strife over Iraq between Turkey and the USA

A similar improvement is bound to follow on the trade field in regard to Iraq. The CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) announced last week that it was not possible to take more than $10,000 out of Iraq without its permission. It was a deadly blow to Turkey’s trade with Iraq and the Exports’ Minister Kursat Tuzmen was prompt to react by expressing his believe in Ankara that the Americans would change that rule. But will they really? The answer rests in the background of the current Turkish-Iraqi trade and its stages.

At the end of the war in Iraq, the American authority ruling in that country with the title CPA made arrangements with Turkey about massive oil sales to the world through the Kirkuk-Iskenderun pipeline, but they have so far failed in operating their part of the pipeline due to repeated sabotages. Still 50 000 Turkish trucks and trailers began to shuttle back and forth to bring black products, mainly diesel from Iraq in exchange for white products and other amenities such as bottled LPG and foodstuffs from Turkey. The diesel partially paid for these massive Turkish exports which eased the Americans’ problems in Iraq, but it was not enough. The Americans offered other handsome items to Turkey in repayment of the trade gap and scrapped iron from the destroyed Iraqi weapons was the main item. Ankara welcomed these imports at suitable prices as the Turkish defence industry does need the special steel of the destroyed tanks, guns and other war materials.

This happy give-and take did not, however, last long. Turkey found out after a while that the beautiful bride, i.e. the scraped iron from Iraq, was not after all so attractive. “The beautiful bride was not an untouched virgin, but six months pregnant with HIV viruses” as the Turkish expression goes. The realisation of these facts beyond doubt induced Turkey to ban the imports of 36 items from Iraq, scrapped iron leading the list, along with wheat, cereals and pulses.

The CPA’s reaction was prompt - the deadly blow to Turkish exports to Iraq by limiting money transfers beyond $10,000. The Disinformation Mechanism also pushed to the Turkish press the news that the $8.5 billion American loans with soft terms had fallen through. The second part of these American steps was later changed and Kursat Tuzmen is confident that the first step will also be revised. The Americans have already begun to say that the $10,000 limit was not their doing, but that of the Iraqi Governing Council.

Turkey’s steps on Iraq are too well calculated and documented to be dismissed as a “conspiracy theory” and the American Governor General of Iraq, Bremer, (whatever his official title is that is what he is) is doomed to eat the humble pie in this strife. As for the deployment of Turkish troops in Iraq, the later or never it is the better for Turkey. uras@ada.net.tr – October 25^th, 2003