SECURITY & ENERGY ASPECTS OF TURKEY’S EU ACCESSION

 

Both in Turkey and throughout the world, especially in Europe, much has been said about the Erdogan Government’s success in transcending the

3 October hurdle on its long path to EU accession, but little has been taken into account about the real reason for this achievement – the military and security aspects of this historic move, along with their indispensable part, the energy question. Below is an analysis of these ignored aspects of the EU accession story with their background.

 The 3 October achievement for the Turkish Government was hardly an occasion for any real festivities for the insiders because, in a way, they were all aware of the fact that the EU accession has never been so far off for Turkey in its half a century efforts for joining the European integration, unless some hardliner European rulers changed their minds about “the privileged partnership status to Turkey”. So long as this change of mind is not achieved, such developments as the 3 October hailed by the world media as a historic milestone are bound to remain as dead letters and a makeshift arrangement to prevent relations from rupturing, given the fact that Turkey is even more determined than these hardliners on rejecting anything less than full membership. That is why Turkey’s negotiating process for accession to the European integration which started on 3 October has continued with a struggle between Ankara and Brussels until the last minute. And Turkey knows that it will win this battle only if it makes the point to the hardliners that it is ready to go all the way, that is to say, parting ways with Europe rather than giving into the “privileged partnership status”.

Turkey rejects joining in the SE European Energy Community

In Athens last Tuesday (25^th) eight east European countries, none of which are EU members, signed with the EU a pact establishing the Southeast European Energy Community, but the initiator of the idea and the driving force behind the project, Turkey, was not among them. The signatories of the pact were Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania and Serbia-Montenegro. The pact was also signed by EU members, Austria, Greece, Hungary, Italy and Slovenia as well as the British Industry Minister Alan Johnson, representing the EU Commission. It aims at establishing a single regulatory framework for electricity and natural gas trade through an international grid and gas pipeline network in the region by 2008, with a Euro20.5 billion investment.

The Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler was present at the Athens signatory ceremony with the hope that the EU would drop at the last minute its intention of imposing the energy trade terms to Turkey without Ankara’s say. When it proved futile, however, he declined to sign the pact and returned home saying that Turkey had supported this project and played a key role in its implementation from the outset, but preferred not to be a party to this treaty at this stage.        

This pact, which Alan Johnson described as a “free energy market stretching from Portugal to Romania and from Finland to Greece”, is certainly very impressive on paper, but when a careful study is carried out on energy resources and their transmission or transport lines, it is clearly seen that the pact is stillborn unless Turkey’s participation is achieved or Russia’s cooperation secured.

Yet instead of joining the pact as is, Turkey was making more realistic and tangible energy arrangements with Russia and the other Caspian basin countries likely to radically change the world energy system and transport lines. Within a few days President Vladimir Putin will come to Samsun to give the finishing touches to the Blue Current pipeline network and other energy projects with Turkey.

Thus Turkey’s negotiation process for accession to the EU started with an ominous example of what to expect from the screening that has just started and the negotiation that will follow unless Europe’s hardliners are defeated.

Back in last March Turkey came to the conclusion that the Atlantic Community was bent on undermining Turkey’s relations with all its neighbours, especially the energy exporter ones like Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan and Iraq, by using its EU accession work. In December 2004 just before the 17 December summit, Energy Minister Hilmi Guler initialed the Memorandum of Understanding in Athens for the establishment of the Energy Community, but when its content came into the day light, full of pitfalls for depriving Turkey the freedom of establishing the terms and prices of energy supply, he refused to sign it on 22 March 2005, much to the surprise and shock of the Europeans and the force behind them, the Americans.

This determination of Turkey continued in Athens last week, despite relentless pressure on and threats to Ankara from both sides of the Atlantic. Now the EU is insisting that Turkey should sign the 25 October 2005 Pact by next June and Turkey prefers to remain loyal to PM Tayyip Erdogan’s promises to President Putin in Ankara at the beginning of last December. This firm stance of Ankara has also affected Germany which has signed a natural gas pipeline agreement with Russia from under the Baltic Sea (for the details please sea the last Pulse article). It is very doubtful that the new Chancellor Merkel will be able to nip this vitally important agreement in the bud, as the outgoing Chancellor Schroeder’s finger is very much in the pie in the new German coalition.

As for Turkey, it is working hard to adapt itself to the EU acqi communotaire as it stands, but it will definitely reject, as it has done so far, to accept the European extremists’ dictation of “do as you are told,”  by constantly making additions to the acqi. What if it eventually results in the rupture of relations between Turkey and the EU? Ankara does not believe that it will be the case so long as its “balancing policies” continue in foreign relations and security questions and the Prime Minister’s answer is ready for such eventuality: “Then the Copenhagen criteria becomes the Ankara criteria and we proceed with on our path of democracy.”  

He doesn’t say it in so many words, but this path on “democracy in the world and harmony, instead of clash, of civilizations” will not be a lonely journey for Turkey.

Former National Security Council Chief’s prophesy at work

Washington was shocked to hear on 7 March 2002 a top Turkish commander, General Tuncer Kilinc, saying at a panel discussion in Ankara, in his capacity as the Secretary General of the National Security Council, that Turkey could balance out its security arrangements by cooperating with Russia and Iran if its western partners, the United States and the EU, continued with supporting the PKK terrorism and excluding Turkey from their security arrangements. The American Disinformation Mechanism immediately launched a broadside campaign against General Kilinc. “Will the Turkish Armed Forces tag after the Mullahs of Iran or share the poverty of disintegrating Russia, after the Soviet Union,” they demanded.

The three and a half years that have since gone by proves that the two words, “Russia and Iran,” calmly uttered by the NSC Chief General Kilinc from where he was sitting at the panel discussion seeking alternatives for security cooperation for Turkey in view of the decades old treason through the PKK  of its partners, the USA and the EU, were neither a bluff, nor a flimsily launched threat said on the spur of the moment, but rather the outcome of meticulous calculations made by the Turkish security forces for years. Indeed, two months before that event, on 14 January 2002 the Chiefs of General Staffs of Turkey and Russia had signed a frame agreement opening the gates for Turkey’s “balanced policies for national security.”

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul’s still continuing “The neighbouring countries’ conferences” with Iran, Iraq, Syria and the other neighbours of Iraq including far off Egypt about the Iraq war and its aftermath is the Iranian leg of that policy. After the 15 December general elections for “democracy to Iraq” Washington will see how much it is mistaken in its policies of creating an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq with Kirkuk its capital. Last week’s achievement of the American policy about passing the referendum for the Iraqi constitution with all its pitfalls and defects was also a part of that low profile Turkish-Iranian cooperation so that the American occupation forces could withdraw from Iraq. With last minute alterations before the referendum, the door was opened to eliminate these pitfalls from the constitution after the American evacuation, again as part of Turkey’s “balanced policies” for its foreign policy and national security strategies.

And what are these “balanced policies” in security questions?  

Let us listen to one of the architects, General Tuncer Kilinc, of this edifice that is rapidly shaping in Turkey’s slow motion foreign policy and security arrangements.

The Strategic Research Centre of Istanbul University called a panel discussion in Istanbul on 3 September 2004 entitled, “Turkish, Russian, Chinese and Iranian Relations within the Eurasian Axis.”  Retired General Tuncer Kilinc was one of the presenters of papers to the panel along with the Iranian Ambassador Firouz Devletadabi, Ambassador Albert Chernishev of Federal Russia, Deputy Chairman of the CHP Onur Oymen, and Chairman of the “Maoist” Workers Party Dogu Perincek.

Gen. Kilinc believes that the BME (Broader Middle East) policy of the United States aims at establishing American hegemony in this region “which covers the Middle East, the Caspian basin, the Caucasus and Central Asia with their natural resources which account for three-quarters of the world’s total energy resources.” He says, “Even though Russia and China have, by and large, eliminated the mutual distrust within SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), they have not yet materialized an effective cooperation in the economic and political domains. Yet this region with its rich energy resources constitutes one of the main targets of the superpowers. The USA’s target is the heart of Eurasia.”

According to General Kilinc, the United States, “the sole superpower of the world in the last 15 years since the downfall of the Soviet Union”, started its world hegemony initiative before the expected time, with the pretext provided by nine/eleven about eradicating terrorism and the threat against the Americans. The United States has created “an exceedingly dangerous situation” with its activities in Afghanistan and Iraq and everyone has begun to speculate about which Eurasian country’s turn it is now for the American aggressions. “The United States is moving for this hegemony step by step by getting bases in some countries of the region and by creating situations to have pro-American ruling powers in the others.”   

General Kilinc says that SCO did cover a long distance in creating an atmosphere of security in Eurasia, but it should enlarge itself further in the economic and political fields and “must definitely become a centre of an effective deterrent force.” He goes on, “While this is the situation, the high potential countries of the region such as Russia, China, Turkey and Iran are not in solidarity worthy of putting an end to these developments, even though they see through this fact.”

“Other than the United States, countries of the world wish no war today,” says Kilinc and suggests “A union in Eurasia similar to the European integration which is trying to put a check on these American expansionist activities.”  He concludes his exposé by saying:

“In view of these facts, it is now a must for world peace and the national interests of the Eurasian countries to establish a centre of power by engaging in a close cooperation in all fields. It is exceedingly useful for the high potential countries like India and Pakistan to take part, in addition to the Central Asian and the Black Sea riparian countries, primarily Russia, China, Turkey and Iran.

“If we do not act fast enough, we would have ignored the fact that it will be Iran’s turn to be attacked next in the Middle East and such an eventuality is of a nature to cause untold disasters for the world. It is a historic responsibility for the countries of this sensitive part of the world to quickly solve their problems between themselves so that they can engage in solidarity. Otherwise, all the responsibilities for the sufferings that are in store for humanity will rest with these high potential countries.”

Developments of the year unroll in conformity with Gen. Kilinc’s warnings

The steps taken for rapprochement in the subcontinent during the last one year period and especially its gaining momentum after the recent weeks’ earthquake disaster in Kashmir, as well as the international energy developments of particular interest to Turkey in this period, are all significant developments confirming the soundness of the former NSC Chief’s observations and forecasts.

In this regard, PM Erdogan’s close cooperation with President Putin since the Russian leader’s State visit to Turkey on 6 December 2004 and PM Erdogan’s return visit to Moscow in five weeks, on 12 January 2005, opened new vistas in  the energy sector for both Turkey and Russia, but its scope far exceeded bilateral dimensions.

Turkey’s international energy expert, Necdet Pamir, who accompanied Erdogan in his above contacts with Putin told Serpil Yilmaz of Milliyet (20 January 2005,):

“It was noteworthy that before he came to Turkey on 6 December (2004), Russian President Putin visited India on 3 December and Pakistan on 4 December and received the Greek PM Karamanlis straight after his State visit to Turkey. Energy was the centre of all these contacts.”

Serpil Yilmaz underlines that the highlight of Putin’s 6 December visit was the “Good Will Protocol” signed by BOTAS (Turkey’s pipeline enterprise) and the Russian energy giant Gazprom. It includes “storing natural gas under the Salt Lake (Tuz Golu),building an LPG installation in Ceyhan, making additional investments to the Blue Stream project for transporting the Russian gas to the Mediterranean and then onto Israel and transferring (to Russia) a part of the gas import licences of BOTAS.”

On the Agenda of PM Erdogan’s visit to Moscow on 12 January was importing electricity from Russia with a transmission line under the Black Sea. Pamir says, “Energy policies have become one of the pillars of Russia’s foreign policy and national strategies.” Pamir believes that Russia’s support to Turkey’s foreign policy is no coincidence and makes the following assessment about Moscow’s energy balances:

“Russia, which lost ground first in Georgia and then in Ukraine, is seriously disturbed by the American operations in its back garden exceeding its initial estimates. That is why it is elaborating upon cooperation with the powers of the region including Turkey, India and Pakistan. Georgia and Azerbaijan are in need of Russian natural gas. Turkmenistan has committed its 80 billion cubic meters of gas to Russia until 2024. Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are also committing their varied amounts of gas to Russia. In a way, Russia has already set up a ‘de facto gas OPEC’ and Turkey secures 63% of its natural gas consumption from Russia. For the security of their energy supplies, the countries of the world feel the need of getting Russian gas equal to Saudi Arabia’s oil exports (9.5 million barrels a day).

“It is noteworthy that while Russia suffers loss of influence with the American military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, it has concluded energy production and distribution agreements with multinational companies like Exxon and BP. Blinded by greed, the United States is increasing step by step its activities for hegemony of the Gulf, starting with Kissinger’s period. These activities which were enlarged by the establishment of the Central Command in Reagan’s time have now become all the more dangerous with the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Necdet Pamir stresses that Turkey suffered from tens of billions of dollars of loss from the power plant constructions dictated by the World Bank. Cooperation arrangements on the basis of self interests necessitate Turkey’s work with Russia against the American activities in this region, concludes Serpil Yilmaz.

The above expert opinion speaks for itself about the accuracy of Pulse’s views on these topics. uras@adanet.tr or vuras@ttnet, October 31^st, 2005