SEARCHING FOR THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS IN IRAQ

 

Chief, TGS, General Hilmi Ozkok’s definition of the first voting in Parliament about joining the United States in war against Iraq still holds good. As General Ozkok said about the 1 March rebuff to the United States, “the choice for Turkey was not between the good and the bad, but  between the bad and the worse.” Indeed, call it “the lesser of two evils” as the good old English expression goes or the American equivalent “catch 22,” for Turkey it is still “the stick both ends covered with sh..” as the more expressive, but more vulgar Turkish saying goes. Ankara is still undecided about which end of the stick to hold in regard to American pressure to send a Turkish division to Iraq. The Government rightly inclines to favour force deployment in Iraq after taking several measures to avoid appearing as a part of the American occupation forces, but cannot risk it on the eve of the AKP’s national convention in mid-October, though PM Tayyip Erdogan’s chairmanship is not at risk. Please see the article below about what is in store for Turkish rulers in this thorny issue.

 The effort of President Bush and Secretary of State Powell at the UN General Assembly and PM Blair’s direct talks with President Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder for Iraq have somewhat eased the Turkish Government’s problems about taking a decision for troop deployment in Iraq. Germany, Russia and to a lesser extent France have adopted more conciliatory policies towards the occupation of the Coalition forces there. Even though it was a relief for the Erdogan Government as far as the EU opposition went, the domestic policy aspect of the difficulties still continue. President Musharraf’s statement about sending Pakistani forces to Iraq hold good for PM Tayyip Erdogan too for his ultra conservative supporters. President Musharraf said the Pakistani people would see him as an enemy if he sent Pakistani soldiers to Iraq.

As the AKP will hold its national convention within a fortnight PM Erdogan wants to leave it behind before taking the matter up with Parliament where he knows he will face very tough opposition from the CHP and some of his party members.

It was noteworthy that the Turkish media suddenly learnt and reported for the attention of the public that the CHP chairman Deniz Baykal’s daughter, who is a professor in Antalya University, is a “secret American citizen”. It is believed that to ease Baykal’s very effective opposition in Parliament to troop deployment in Iraq some shady sources attempted to blackmail him and thereupon he chose to get his daughter registered as an American national in the Turkish birth records lest she faced a shock as Merve Kavakci when she and the forces behind her attempted to exploit headscarf wearing in Parliament at the previous parliamentary term.

Economic cards are at work on both sides

Also the Old Europe’s ostensibly eased opposition to the US in Iraq or to Turkey’s troop deployment in that country has not been reflected on the activities of the fighting fronts’ side forces. For the last few weeks the Americans have been busy selling dollars and buying Turkish equities and bonds with Turkish Liras, thus appreciating the TL considerably and indirectly helping Turkey’s fight against inflation. Last Monday (22^nd) the European banks also joined in these activities. The share of foreigners in ISE (Istanbul Stock Exchange) has risen to 41% with American and European purchases of Turkish shares. Turkish bonds, especially the 30-year Eurobonds have also been the target of these foreign purchases and their value rose from $112.250 for $100 bonds on September 16^th to $117.500 on September 22^nd. The rise continued and Turkish Eurobonds went up to $119 on the following days.

To prevent the excessive appreciation of the TL, the Central Bank purchased a record level of nearly $1.5 billion dollars on Thursday (25^th) when the dollar parity went down to TL1,350,000. Since May the Central Bank has bought $7 billion in an attempt to stabilise the TL and its reserves have gone up to nearly $33 billion.

It is suspected that both the United States and Europe are racing to buy Turkish equities and bonds so that they can have some financial leverages in hand to influence Turkey’s Iraq policy and to punish it by massively selling them if Turkey’s decision does not please them.

In other words, even though the flow of hot money in the last 6-7 weeks has made a boom in the Turkish economy, it is claimed that foreigners may massively sell their Turkish equities and bonds within a few days, thus triggering off another financial crisis like those of November 2000 and February 2001 should Turkey fail to satisfy them in its Iraq policy. The economy minister of the Ecevit Government after the February 2001 financial crisis, Kemal Dervis (CHP-Istanbul) has been warning the government against hot money and calling for taxing these foreign purchases in ISE and the bond markets. Both the Central Bank chief Sureyya Serdengecti and the government have so far rejected Dervis’s suggestions and said that the economy was strong enough to withstand any foreign speculative movement.

The Government believes that a joint American-European speculative operation on Turkey may be quite effective, but in the case of Iraq these two economic superpowers are acting in the opposite directions and the move of one may be, by and large, countered with the help of the other.

A noteworthy manifestation of these American and European economic manoeuvres over Turkey was the declaration of the TUSIAD Chief, Tuncay Ozilhan. Contrary to the stand of this biggest association of Turkish industrialists and businessmen at the first voting for troop deployment in Iraq, Ozilhan said last week that Turkey should refrain from sending forces to Iraq unless the United Nations takes a resolution about it. Even though PM Erdogan and Foreign Minister Gul exerted efforts to have TUSIAD change its policy they were unsuccessful. Abdullah Gul said in New York where he was for the UN debates last week that they knew who was behind TUSIAD in this change of heart about troop deployment in Iraq. He would not dwell on it, but it was taken as the influence of the EU on Turkish business quarters.

Milliyet reveals the “historic agreement” between Turkey and the USA

The secret MOU (Memorandum of Understanding), worked out by Turkish and American diplomats after long negotiations before the 1 March rebuff, reached the reliable journalist of Milliyet, Fikret Bila, and was serialised in full throughout last week. This document, which remained as a dead letter from the outset, is made out with far fetched interpretations to be the answer to all Turkey’s present foreign policy questions from Iraq to Cyprus, from the Kurdish issue to terrorism, from airspace questions to the chain-of-command and logistics issues with the Americans and just about anything else. “Should MOU have gone into force, the American soldiers, who were received with ovation in Iraq after Saddam’s downfall, would have consulted us for every step they should take,” claim these stupidly far-fetched interpretations. That is why rather than any value to reflect the true picture about Turkish-American relations over Iraq, the whole publication for over a week was a masterpiece in showing how far the Disinformation Mechanism goes in its daring attempts, indeed audacity, in using a reputable publication like Milliyet and a good, responsible journalist like Fikret Bila, when it is as an important issue for Washington as the Iraq question is today. Such disinformation may well yield the exact opposite result for the disinformation pushers from beyond the Atlantic, but sending Turkish soldiers to Iraq today is a much more important issue than letting it be influenced by such relatively trifling matters. For that reason, the pendulum in Ankara is still swinging in favour of taking that step for the national interests of Turkey. uras@ada.net.tr – September 27^th, 2003