TURKPULSE No:132..........DECEMBER 4th, 2004
TURKEY’S HAZY FUTURE DESPITE ITS CLEAR PLANNING
Turkey’s long term intentions and future plans are obvious: EU accession. Yet everyone, including the Turks, is curious about what the future holds. This is not because there is any doubt among the Turks about the sincere loyalty to this half-a-century-old plan, or that there is no alternative to that plan in case it falls through beyond Turkey’s control, but because everything depends on the future of the world which is indeed precarious due to the ambiguities of the superpower’s intentions for especially this region. For an attempt to bring some clarity to this precarious picture with Turkey’s place in it please read the article below.
The 17 December deadline for a decisive milestone in Turkey’s accession to the European Union is only days away, yet Turkish statesmen, in their last attempts to prevent a bad surprise, still face questions about what will happen if the European decision is not favourable. PM Tayyip Erdogan’s answer to that question is ready, but it is doubtful that the other side understands what it means. The answer is, “Then the Copenhagen criteria will become the Ankara criteria and we will proceed on our path.”
No one can go it alone in the globalization age, neither will Turkey
The answer is clear enough, but it satisfies no one because everybody rightly thinks that it is not realistic. Indeed, a couple of weeks after the 17 December deadline the new year arrives with its unfettered globalization destiny, as well as the precarious intentions of a new administration in the world’s superpower, the United States, which is in deep trouble over its economy and international policies. It is an undeniable fact that no country, not even a superpower, can go it alone in this new world. So how will Tayyip Erdogan manage going along with his “Ankara criteria,” all alone without European Integration?
Who says Turkey will go it alone on the path of the “Ankara criteria?” It is true that Ankara never envisaged quitting NATO or jumping into the Warsaw Pact or the Non-aligned Bloc, even when it was subjected to the most unfair treatment like the American arms embargo to an ally between 1974 and 1978, and it would never envisage a similar move today. However, Turkey is expanding its relations with the outside world as an alternative to the alliance in case it goes on too long with its unjust treatment and embargo. That is what happened after the American embargo which began de facto in July 1974 and de jure as from February 1975 with a congressional resolution and that is what will happen today if the European Integration repeats the American embargo mistake in a different way.
In fact, thanks to past experience Turkey has already begun to improve its relations with the outside world and Ankara knows that the top rulers of the EU as well as the governments of the 25 member States have a top secret report in their briefcases or safes warning them against the security dangers of excluding Turkey from the EU accession. Turkey’s cooperation, primarily with the Russian Federation, Iran, the Central Asian Republics most of which speak Turkic languages and the populous countries of Asia such as Indonesia, Pakistan and primarily China and India is already going on quite steadily, if not adequately rapidly, but it is not difficult for Turkey to give it a dynamic spur, if need be. For instance, for years India is ready to buy the Eregli steel plant and with American pressure Ankara does not accept this privatisation even though its privatisation program seriously lags behind due to the West’s cold shoulder. The latest example was the privatisation of TUPRAS, the oil refineries complex, Turkey’s biggest industrial venture. Tataristan, as an autonomous region of the Russian Federation, made the best offer and got the contract along with Turkey’s Zorlu Holding at a reasonable price for Turkey, but the usual external pressure went into operation once again and it was repealed by the Judiciary. This matter seems to be on the agenda during President Putin’s State visit, which starts tomorrow as the Tartar rulers are accompanying him.
Asked if the EU had a plan B for Turkey’s accession, Treasury Minister Ali Babacan said during his recent tour of the western countries that he did not think the EU had a plan B about Turkey, but Turkey had alternative plans about Europe. Of course that answer also comes back to the Prime Minister’s suggestion: the Ankara criteria, but it also shows that Turkey will not go it alone, but will have others implementing these criteria, whether they are called the Copenhagen or Ankara criteria.
It was former Secretary-General of the National Security Council, General Tuncer Kilinc, who first suggested before his retirement that close cooperation with the Russian Federation and Iran could be an alternative to EU accession. General Kilinc became the target of strong criticisms, indeed ridiculing, for his suggestion of cooperation with Russia and Iran with such questions if the Turkish people would tag after Iran’s mullahs, and if Turkish girls would wear headscarves and veils. Was Turkey envious of the Russian people’s economic hardships and problems, was another question in the Disinformation-Mechanism-guided Turkish media.
As a matter of fact, PM Erdogan’s talk of the Copenhagen criteria becoming the Ankara criteria is quite a good answer to these questions. Whoever Turkey will cooperate with in case the EU accession falls through, the Copenhagen criteria will be the guideline. In other words, Turkey’s potential partners will also adopt European standards before any kind of alliance or union can take place between Turkey and Eurasia or any other partners.
As for the realistic criticism of this policy that it is impossible to enforce European standards in most of these countries, the answer is that the former Soviet countries are rapidly adapting themselves to democracy and free market rules as evidenced by the great improvement in the Russian economy in recent years. Also the current Ukrainian events are an excellent example of the functioning of democracy in these newcomer countries with externally engineered plots failing to create a blood bath in a nation split right down the middle at its democratic elections. The EU’s “multi speed” policy is a good example for coordinating varied cultures and different economies within a mould and Turkey’s potential cooperation within its Eurasia policy will be based on that pattern. In other words, whoever is capable of enforcing these democratic rules fully will proceed at rapid speed along with Turkey and whoever remains behind drops out or tags along at a slower pace after “the inner circle,” just as the Schengen Countries and the Euro currency bloc are doing in the EU against the UK-led slower pace countries.
Washington’s ambiguous plans are emerging from the fog
Everything about these imminent international developments, however, depends on Washington’s Broader Middle East policy plans above and beyond any individual regional country’s intentions and plans. And of course it is also true for Turkey. As for what these American plans involve, it is becoming clearer with each passing day, amidst speculation that Iran is the first target of the American war mechanism after Iraq.
According to this gradual clarity, an outright military aggression against a country as has been done in Iraq is not the first priority for Washington in its Broader Middle East Plans. Doing it through subversion with the pretext of bringing democracy to the country in question comes before a direct invasion.
Washington has successfully achieved this plan in the former Yugoslavia, Georgia including its autonomous regions Ajaria and Abkhazia and now it is staging it full swing in Ukraine.
The same tactics and instruments have been used in all these “civilian coup d’états”. Big crowds, rightly or wrongly called “the people”, march against and occupy the parliament and government offices with young activists playing a dynamic role and using catch phrases, causing the incumbent government to fall. In Serbia the core of this movement that occupied government buildings was called “Otpor” (Resistance), in Georgia the catch phrase was “kmara” (enough is enough), in Ukraine it was “Pora” (It’s time). Of course coaches full of young activists are brought into the capital from all over the country and even from abroad as was the case in Ukraine where Otpor from Belgrade was supporting Pora in Kiev. A former Indian ambassador to Ankara, K Gajendra Singh, has interesting and detailed information about the Ukraine affair, Another Franchised Revolution,” in his webpage, accessible from kgsingh@yahoo.com .
It is believed that these American-engineered “Franchised Civilian Revolutions” will recur in the relatively newly independent ex-Soviet countries, starting with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan as soon as the Ukraine attempt ends one way or the other. So far bloodshed has been miraculously avoided in Ukraine thanks to the patience manifested by government forces and supporters. There are too many examples of American planning, support in all fields mainly in the media and financing of these civilian coups of recent years, but I will skip these details and go on to the enforcement of these American plans and tactics in Turkey.
Deniz Baykal is currently the target of these American tactics
The present two-party system in the Turkish parliament is also a successful implementation of the American plans after years of toil, though the result has so far been disastrous for them. Will they be able to reverse their fortune in future remains to be seen, but considering Turkey’s 60 years of experience with the United States, it is not very likely, no matter how hard they are working for it today, especially with the official opposition party, the CHP and its chairman.
Besides, Turkey’s millenniums of State experience enable it to sense and learn for sure of the plots in the pipeline and render them ineffective with counter moves quite frequently, if not always.
Ankara learned back in January 2001 that what the Americans called “democracy” and are trying to introduce in, indeed dictate to, Afghanistan, Iraq and other Broader Middle East countries, is a bipartisan election system as exists in the USA and the UK.
In this two party-system, which seems to work in the world’s two richest nations and oldest democracies, the two parties that alternatively come to power (the Conservatives and Labour in the UK and the Republican and Democratic Parties in the United States) defend almost identical economic and national security policies with a bit right of the centre or left of the centre outlooks. So nothing much changed in the US foreign policy by Bush’s replacement of Clinton and nothing much would have changed if Kerry had won the election last month. The same is the case in the UK today with PM Blair following a foreign policy admired and supported by the Conservatives more than the radicals of the Labour Party. What if a real radical comes to power and drags the country to a different foreign policy in this system? What happened to President Kennedy and to his brother Robert Kennedy heading for power would then happen. In the UK the radical prime minister is rendered passive and ineffective with charges of being a KGB agent, as was the case with PM Harold Wilson. So with minor changes in the system with the change of power, this democracy works in the Anglo-American world and the media owned by a few billionaires guides the large masses in that direction. Significantly, at the referendum in Australia a few years ago about proclaiming a republic, the monarchists campaigned with posters, “We want the Queen instead of a president elected by Murdoch.”
The present government system in Turkey with the elimination of all the political parties in Parliament at the 3 November 2002 general elections and their replacement by two parties from outside the Legislature, Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP and Deniz Baykal’s CHP, was therefore a victory for the American subversion and machination, but as Pulse challenged straight after “this American victory”, we will be able to see before long who the real victor is in the end - the Turkish democracy and nation.
Ankara knew for sure two years before that Washington was doing its best to bring to power today’s two-party system in Turkey. That is why the then PM Bulent Ecevit was shocked when his deputy Devlet Bahceli suddenly announced that his party, the MHP, would work for early elections on 3 November 2002. What went on behind the scenes that induced Bahceli to suddenly take that unwise decision for all is not common knowledge, but the outcome of the early election was obvious, today’s bipartisan parliament.
In January 2001 Muhsin Yazicioglu, Chairman of the small nationalist party BBP, visited a Jewish business tycoon in Istanbul and learnt from him that the Speaker of the US Senate had told him that Washington would bring to power a two-party system in Turkey and that it would be the AKP and the CHP. This valuable information reached the Turkish Intelligence Service, MIT, and the CIA was instantly aware of it, as evidenced by the “mysterious” assassination of the business tycoon, Uzeyir Garih, at the Eyup cemetery on August 25th, 2001. He was brutally stabbed to death eight times by a drug addict for no apparent reason as his bulky wallet was left untouched.
This and other leakages to the CIA must have led MIT to investigate the matter and take the necessary steps and now a former top MIT chief, Mehmet Eymur, is delivering a broadside on MIT from his webpage in America generously financed by American advertisements.
As for the American dissatisfaction of Turkey’s current bipartisan Parliament, they know only too well PM Erdogan’s problems and of his pledge to have dropped his former ideas before he could be Turkey’s prime minister. Probably for that reason they have been showing him tolerance about his “disloyalty” to his previously announced ideas for the time being. Instead, they focus their attention on the “disloyalty” of the second leg of this “seesaw democracy”, the opposition leader, Deniz Baykal, who was subjected to blackmail about the secret of his daughter’s American nationality. Baykal wisely revealed it himself with no public reaction or popular loss much to the Americans’ surprise, because another Turkish woman with secret American nationality, Merve Kavakci, managed to enter Parliament as an MP but because she refused to take off her headscarf she did not only lose her parliamentary seat, but also her Turkish nationality when she admitted at a press conference that she had taken the American oath to be loyal to no one else but the United States. President Demirel had already labelled her an “agent provocateur”. There was no such situation for Baykal’s daughter who is teaching at Antalya University and no problem for the CHP chairman.
Having failed to get anywhere with Baykal’s daughter’s American nationality, they are now trying to topple him and replace him with the CHP Mayor of Sisli, Mustafa Sarigul, campaigning in Turkey with the same methods as Otmar, Kmara, Pora and the unsuccessful Zubr in Belarus.
To avoid the ever-ready Conspiracy-Theory-Chorus’ attacks, I leave it to the reader’s discretion to judge what chance of success these tactics have in Turkey and even elsewhere. uras@ada.net.tr – December 4th, 2004