IS THE “COMMON ENEMY” BECOMING THE “COMMON FRIEND”?

 

Turkey and China did not have a “common enemy” in 1974, but if the Taliban monster continues to further stir up the region there may inevitably appear a wider front of “common friends” against the monster and the forces behind it. For the details of this interesting diplomatic story see the article below especially now that the United States and China are heading for a showdown for economic supremacy in the world.

Twenty-seven years have gone by since the Turkish landing in Cyprus in July 1974 and still the upheavals caused by that operation in international relations, especially Turkey’s relations with the United States, have not totally settled down. Whoever attempts to dismiss it with the commonplace remark of today’s diplomacy, “conspiracy theory”, the truth is that the Sampson coup against Makarios and the subsequent inevitable Turkish landing on the island was all a carefully prepared American plan, which was fouled by the excellence of the Turkish soldier.

 

Who is Turkey and China’s “common enemy”?

The American plan was based on making Turkey dependent on the United States after an unsuccessful military landing in Cyprus (within a couple of days that could possibly be permitted in today’s UN security system), because Turkey did not permit American aircraft to use Incirlik during the Jordanian crisis a few months before, in September 1973, despite all the efforts of the then American Defence Secretary, Melvin R. Laird, who came to Ankara on an unsuccessful tour of persuasion.

One of the legs of this American plan for Cyprus in 1974 was to annoy Moscow against Turkey so that it would not gain time for Turkey at the UN Security Council by delaying the immediate cease-fire resolution. To this end, the American and western diplomats were whispering in their Soviet counterparts’ ears at Ankara’s daily cocktail parties that the Turkish Foreign Minister, Turan Gunes, was making arrangements in Beijing against the “common enemy”. Of course, the Disinformation Mechanism in the Turkish press was another instrument used at that time to explain to the Russians who is this “common enemy” of Turkey and China. The tiny Pulse was exerting efforts, apparently with some success, that it was all American disinformation and that Turkey had no such “common enemy policy” with China against the USSR.

Three decades after this incident, today, the problems of international relations are the same. The actors are no different, but the conditions have been changed considerably and in some cases diametrically opposed to the conditions of a few decades ago. 

At that time Turkey’s enemy was the Warsaw Pact’s giant war mechanism and the potential danger came from the Soviets.

Today the military blocs have disappeared. The nature of wars as well as that of the enemy has changed. Concepts such as “Partnership for Peace” have made the old enemies, friends and even allies today. But in reality the power struggle for especially economic supremacy is going on in all intensity within the realities of the present day. Instead of the potential invasions of giant war mechanisms, the danger comes from subversion and wars are fought through terrorist and secessionist activities. And what’s more, these activities may not directly concern a country, but is still very much an important security and foreign policy issue concerning national security. A terrorist administration in Afghanistan such as the Taliban should in theory be no direct threat to Turkey’s security, but unfortunately it is. Also, it is an important factor in shaping the “common friend” and naturally “common enemy” in today’s international relations.

It is a fact that Pakistan’s role in the Taliban affair has brought Turkey and Pakistan up against one another during the Nawaz Shariff time and General Musharraf’s take-over in Pakistan with his declared admiration of Ataturk has not changed anything in this regard, much to Ankara’s disappointment.

Changing concepts and fronts in determining friend and foe 

A survey of today’s conditions and preoccupation of Turkish diplomacy makes a political analyst wonder who are the common friend and common enemy for Turkey today.

Foreign Minister Ismail Cem paid a one-day visit to Kosovo and Macedonia on Thursday (10^th) to give a boost to the Turkish minorities there and to safeguard their Turkish identity and culture. He had dinner with the Turkish peacekeeping force in Kosovo. In Macedonia he continued with Turkey’s efforts to avoid the Albanian ethnic rebels from stirring up a major war in the region.

The fact is that for quite a while now, the monuments and mosques left in these places from Ottoman time are being systematically destroyed in an attempt to eradicate the Turks’ existence in the Balkans. Unbelievably, the Saudis pour their oil wealth into the Balkans for this purpose to replace Ottoman mosques with Arab style mosques. The historic Hasan Bey mosque in Pristina has been pulled down and rebuilt by the Saudi financed “Islamic Union” in Kosovo on the grounds that it was decrepit. Another historic Ottoman mosque, again in Pristina, the Ramazan Cavus mosque, shared the same fate, among several other smaller mosques, especially in the Djakovica region of Kosovo. 

The State Planning Organisation headed by the MHP-wing of the Ecevit Government has prepared a project to restore and upkeep Turkey’s historic monuments, mosques and heritage in old Turkish lands, primarily the Balkans, but financial difficulties put Turkey at a great disadvantage in this competition with Saudi Arabia’s oil dollars. There is a similar situation in Turkey’s competition with Greece in investments in these lands.

There is a certain suspicion and uneasiness in Ankara that Washington may be behind these activities to eradicate Turkish influence and heritage abroad, but there is definitely no concrete evidence. Ismail Cem’s visit to Kosovo and Macedonia last week was a tour for boosting the Turkish minority’s moral and encouraging the Turkish unit in its cultural and construction activities for the Turks in Kosovo.

 

 Taliban creates common enemies as well as common friends

The evidence of CIA involvement in religious fundamentalism in Central Asia is, however, much more distinct.

A leading US expert on Central and South Asia, Salig Harrison, told an international conference on “Terrorism and Regional Security: Managing the Challenges in Asia” in London on March 6^th, 2001 that the CIA worked in tandem with Pakistan to create Taliban, the monstrous ruling power in Afghanistan today. “The CIA”, he said, “provided $3 billion for building up these fundamentalist Islamic groups and it accepted Pakistan’s demand that they should decide how this money should be spent.” Harrison testified that he held meetings with CIA leaders at that time to warn them against the “monster” they were creating. “They told me these people were fanatical, and the more fierce they were the more fiercely they would fight the Soviets,” he said.

Harrison was a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace between 1974 and 1996. He is today Senior Fellow with the Century Foundation. At the London conference last March he recalled a conversation he had had with President Zia-ul Haq of Pakistan. “Gen. Zia spoke to me about expanding Pakistan’s sphere of influence to control Afghanistan, then Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and then Iran and Turkey.”  

According to Harrison, the CIA has close links with the Pakistani Intelligence Service ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) and the Taliban are on ISI’s payroll. In other words, the CIA is financing via ISI Afghan rulers “making a living out of terrorism”.

In essence, Harrison’s statement is a replicate of what Pulse wrote three years ago (Issue No:56, Turkey Actively Opposes Taliban in Afghanistan.)

Today, three neighbours of Afghanistan with common frontiers, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan and Tajikistan, have formed an alliance with their two giant neighbours, the Russian Federation and China, against this Islamic fundamentalist terrorism stemming from Afghanistan’s Taliban with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States behind them. It is unnecessary to say who is Turkey’s common friend and common enemy in this struggle, especially given the fact that the Hizbullah terrorist organisation has replaced the defeated PKK in Turkey, which for its part had replaced Asala, the Armenian terrorist organisation which killed nearly 40 top Turkish diplomats abroad in the Seventies and first half of Eighties.

Minister of the Interior Sadettin Tantan was in Tehran last week to make effective arrangements with Iran against the Taliban, Hizbullah and the PKK. In other words, the common enemies of these monsters are increasing in number in this region, ranging from Turkey to China,  the Russian Federation, Iran, and the Turkish speaking young Central Asian republics. India is not indifferent to these security arrangements either, while even the creators of the monsters do not openly and publicly side with them.

There is a wide belief in the world that the next major confrontation in the world will be between Washington and Beijing in a big showdown within a decade or so. As a nuclear hot war cannot be imagined by any sane ruler it is not known exactly in what form this showdown will take place. The latest aircraft incident in the China Sea between an American intelligence aircraft and a Chinese fighter was a small rehearsal in this way.

While Turkey’s common enemy is Taliban in this struggle, Ankara still sides with Washington, more so than several European allies such as Germany and France, on its official defence plans such as the recent Star Wars project of the Bush Administration and holds back military arrangements with China.  It is the secret of getting western financing for the Turkish economy in the current financial crisis, despite the reactivated train services with Iraq and Iran. uras@ada.net.tr, May 13^th, 2001