AMERICAN OUTLOOK OF TURKEY’S IRAQ POLICY

 

Misjudgements and mismanagement of Washington’s Iraq policy especially in respect of where Turkey stands in all this has brought Turkish-American relations to a critical point, paradoxically more critical for the United States than for Turkey, which clearly has the tremendous advantages of location that outweigh the trump cards of a superpower. Current world balances have provided Turkey unforeseen advantages over this incident by opening up the gates of accession to the European Union because of its 1 March rebuff to President Bush’s Iraq policy based on flouting international law rules which alarmed the whole world especially the “Old Europe”. For an objective analysis of where Turkish-American relations are standing today in the aftermath of the mistakes Washington has made in its Iraq policy in regard to Turkey’s role and place, please read the article below.

 

Before his departure for Damascus on Tuesday (29^th), shortly after the Iranian Vice-President Muhammad Riza Arif’s official visit to Ankara, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul was most emphatic about stating that Turkey was neither ganging up against any one (the United States) with Iran, Syria and other countries of the region nor was it seeking a new place for itself in the world outside NATO and the EU. He was speaking the truth when he said it, but it did not change the fact that like most countries now Turkey is also seeking an answer to the questions that arose about the highhanded American military action against Iraq and the possibility of its recurrence in the future especially in this region, the Middle East, the Gulf and Eurasia in general. The surprise improvement of relations between two warring nations of Asia in recent days, India and Pakistan, is a good example of this trend and surely Turkey, who played a healthy role in the Iraq war much to Washington’s disenchanted surprise, is not indifferent to it all.

Turkey’s traditional peace policy finally at work

This fact has already induced Turkey to take energetic steps about foreign policy questions that it has been facing for decades. Naturally Cyprus tops this list, along with the difficulties it entails for other issues such as the EU accession, the European defence arrangements and Turkey’s place in the world in all spheres, especially the economy. But the impact of the Iraq war on Turkey’s foreign policy goes much deeper than these individual cases and concerns a basic instrument in implementing the tenets of the foreign policy.

Since the foundation of the Republic 80 years ago Turkey’s foreign policy has been based on a very simple principle described in Ataturk’s words, “Peace at home, peace in the world.”  Even though this simple sentence has been the sincere guideline in Turkish diplomacy its manifestation in especially the last 50 odd years after WW II has been diametrically opposed to it. A glance at Turkey’s international relations in this period, especially during the cold war years, shows that the country was encircled with hostile neighbours. Starting from the north, there was Turkey’s archenemy, the Soviet Union. Moving towards south and south west, hostile countries paying lip service to the worlds “friend and ally”  - the Shah’s Iran, Saddam’s or other Iraqi leaders’ Iraq, the Assads’ Syria harbouring the PKK. Further west, Makarios in Cyprus, turning towards the north, Greece labelled as a friend and ally, but a traditional enemy in practice. Further north, Bulgaria and Romania, equipped with heavy Soviet arms merely against Turkey as two frontier Warsaw countries.

Over the decades Turkey made serious attempts to change this state of affairs and make its frontiers “a chain of friendship” and these efforts went as far as PM Ecevit’s signing the “Political Cooperation Agreement” with the Soviets in Moscow on June 23^rd, 1978. Its inevitable result was the downfall of the Shah within six months, as it called for making the common frontier “a frontier of friendship and cooperation of countries based on the people.”  Nevertheless, these attempts on the part of Turkey never made much difference to its relations with the neighbouring countries because each time the so called “Turkish-American Strategic Cooperation” stood in the way with Washington’s “dual confinement” policies against Iran and Iraq and similar policies against Syria, the former Soviet and Warsaw Pact countries.

Only last week in Ankara the co-chairman of the US-Turkish friendship Group, Congressman Robert Wexler queried Turkey’s recent contacts with Iran and Syria, “What message will Foreign Minister Gul take to Damascus? I wonder if Turkey is changing fronts.”  FM Abdullah Gul’s answer was to hand to Washington the confidential minutes of the Damascus talks and it entailed Colin Powell’s current visit to Syria in an attempt to ease the US-Syrian tension at Turkey’s initiative.

Even though these developments seemingly allayed Washington’s disenchantment of Turkey over its efforts to induce Syria to better relations with the United States, it is almost certain that this will not be long lasting as the Bush Administration’s “new direction for the Middle East” goes against such regional peace and security arrangements. The Turkish Parliament’s 1 March rebuff to the American forces’ invading Iraq and the other parts of the region from military bases in eastern Turkey was a categorical rejection of this policy of tuning Turkey’s foreign policy to American designs in every field. This may be a turning point in reshaping Turkish-American relations on more independent principles for Turkey. While it may cause some minor difficulties for Turkish diplomacy in future it is already opening up new vistas, especially in relations with the EU, ESDI/P (European Security and Defence Identity/Policy) and countries of the region ranging from Russia to the Gulf  and Middle East neighbours. It is also inducing Ankara to replace the United States with the European Union in solving its foreign policy problems like Cyprus.

Promising signs for Cyprus

Starting with a letter to his Greek Cypriot counterpart, Papadopuolos, on April 2^nd, President Denktas set in motion a historic turning point in the 40-year old Cyprus problem with much more radical and decisive prospects than anyone thought at that time. Papadopoulos was prompt to reject this 6-point Turkish proposal calling for relinquishing part or the whole of Varosha in exchange for relaxing the bans and division on the island. Instead the Greeks, under the pressure of the “Old Europe” (Rumsfeld’s definition of the French-German teaming-up with Russian blessing),  were preparing a number of facilities for the Turkish Cypriots with the belief that they would eventually “demolish the last wall in the world” just as similar liberalisations pulled down the Berlin wall in 1989.

On April 23^rd, President Denktas stole a march on the Greek preparations in the pipeline and unilaterally announced to open up the “Green Line”. The consequences were enormous as it proved the fallacy that the Turkish Cypriots “starving under Turkish military occupation” would rush to “freedom” in developed Europe and evacuate the Turkish sector. The exact opposite happened, and as against 40,000 Turkish Cypriots who went to the south in a week only to rush back home under the threat of exorbitant Greek prices, 110,000 Greeks went to the north to reluctantly return to the south with loads of Turkish goods with unbelievably cheap prices for goods and services. This unexpected development was because the economic facts and figures about the two sides of the island were all wrong and not only the Greek Cypriots, but Turkish Cypriots also believed these nonsensical figures. The whole world believed for the last three decades that the Turks with their 2-3 thousand dollar per capital income was suffering bitterly while the Greek Cypriots were rolling in wealth with $14,000 per capita income. The truth is, like in Turkey, in the TRNC too the official national revenue figures are most misleading because they do not include the unregistered economy which is equal, if not more, to the official figures. That is why the CIA does not use Turkey’s official figures of around $200 billion GDP for Turkey, but puts it at around $450 billion on PPP (purchasing power parity) basis. On that calculation the per capita income in the TRNC was not $2-3 thousand, but $10,000 or so and the Greek Cypriots are now realising these facts after having seen the north to realise that it is not a huge prison for the Turkish Cypriots as the Disinformation Mechanism had made it out to be within the West’s plans to use the Greek Cypriot accession to the EU as a weapon against the Turks. Paradoxically it is now helping both the solution of the Cyprus problem and Turkey’s and the Turkish Cypriots’ accession to Europe.

Now if the final agreement can be reached the European Human Rights Tribunal will rule over the Greek Cypriots’ indemnity claims for the Turkish Cypriots taking over their homes in the north after July 1974 military intervention. It may well result in Denktas’s argument for payment to the Greeks for their properties in the north instead of another massive population exchange in Cyprus. The EU is preparing to pay the Turkish Cypriots Euro15 million to facilitate these transactions and help the sale of Turkish Cypriot goods in Europe with the prospective ease of the economic embargo on the Turks. PM Tayyip Erdogan is going to Cyprus before long and it may be an occasion for fresh steps for the solution of the problem by reducing Turkish forces on the island or opening up Varosha to the Greek side.

In other words, the Cyprus problem is now on the path of a lasting solution within the EU framework and it may also result in Turkey’s eventual accession and participation in the European security arrangements within ESDI. The mini summit in Brussels last week of four anti-Iraq coalition countries (France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg) took seven important decisions about bringing ESDI/P to life for the defence of Europe, independent from NATO. Needless to say, to make it a significant force there is a need for Turkey, and the “Old Europe” is very much aware of it, as was proved by the excellent results obtained from the French Foreign Minister’s official visit to Turkey last week.

The Coalition’s serious headaches stem mostly from its citizens’ consciences

All these promising developments of direct concern to Turkish diplomacy are taking place in the light of the apprehension felt worldwide that a Super Power armed to the teeth with the most modern technologies may one day arbitrarily attack and occupy an independent country with certain pretexts in total disregard of international law. This globally felt anxiety is, paradoxically, inducing nations to make collective defence arrangements by solving their relative minor disputes.

The pleasing aspect of the whole aggression against Iraq has been that the aggressors have been unable to partially justify their action by finding WMD (weapons of mass destruction.) Neither have they been able to find Iraqis responsible for war crimes other than the 15-20 year old cases such as the Haleptce atrocities by the Saddam regime against the Kurds who were their own citizens.

President Bush complained on Saturday (3^rd) that Tarik Aziz was not cooperating with his captors and not admitting to the WMD much less showing their places. The same is the case with other Iraqi rulers in custody. Instead of conceding to the fact that there are no WMD in Iraq the Bush Administration is insisting on having more time to find them.

Great frustrations are certainly in store with them in this intransigence because after the failure to find WMD in Iraq the Bush Administration is now facing the resistance of the former American POWs about rejecting to claim torture to them in Baghdad detention.

There were press reports that Hollywood was excited by the “rescue” of Jessica Lynch from her detention in an Iraqi military hospital in Baghdad. The American Disinformation Mechanism was ready to make a heroine out of Lynch who allegedly withstood untold tortures by the Iraqis in Baghdad, but alas, the girl soldier is not cooperating with them and rejecting the torture claims. The latest invention of the Disinformation Mechanism is that she is undergoing a severe case of amnesia. And what about the other 4-5 American soldiers, one being a black girl with an injured foot who were all brought before the TV cameras to talk by their Iraqi captors during the early days of the war? They have no complaints of torture or even maltreatment in detention either.

While the Americans are facing serious difficulties in finding justification of the Iraq war, the rest of the world is busy making preparations to prevent its recurrence elsewhere. uras@ada.net.tr – May 4^th, 2003