TURKEY ACTIVELY OPPOSES TALIBAN IN AFGHANISTAN

President Demirel sends special envoys to Central Asian republics about Afghan developments and works for the consolidation of secular, democratic rules in the region. Turkey’s exemplary relations with Pakistan are soured over the Taliban militia’s attacks and brutality. Turkey calls for negotiated compromise for Afghanistan and emphasizes that transitional military victories cannot solve the problem. Afghan developments are only a small part of the “great game” for central Asia.

The victory of the Taliban militia in Afghanistan in August brought Turkey closer to Iran, the Central Asian Turkic States and Russia in its Central Asian policies. But, it also meant the parting of ways with Turkey’s traditional friend Pakistan, not to count its ill effects on Ankara’s good relations with other States behind Taliban - Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Emirates and the United States.

The MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) issued several official warnings against the Taliban militia as from the beginning of August following the sweeping victory of this armed group towards the north in Afghanistan. The statement issued on August 31^st reads:

“Being exceedingly sensitive towards the undersirable negative consequences of the situation in Afghanistan, from the viewpoint of the balances and stability of the region, Turkey is closely following these developments. It is important that the situation in Afghanistan should not adversely affect the stability of the region.

Within this framework,Turkey believes that the continuation of the stability of the friendly and fraternal Central Asian Republics, which have secular and democratic regimes, is important for the peace of the region and it wishes that the peace and stability of these countries will not be impaired.”

President Demirel plays active role for Afghanistan

At the beginning of September President Demirel sent letters to his counterparts in the Central Asian Republics about the Afghan developments and the Taliban militia’s brutalities in that country. He confirmed Turkey’s solidarity with and support to these countries before Taliban’s offensive. Deputy Under-Secretary of the MFA, Ambassador Mehmet Ali Irtemçelik who visited these countries as President Demirel’s special envoy made extensive contacts with the Turkic Republics between September 1^st and 8^th. High on the agenda of Ambassador Irtemçelik’s contacts in the Central Asian republics were the measures to stop further expansion of the Taliban militia in Afghanistan from the viewpoint of stability of the region. Instead, Turkey is putting down its weight for a negotiated settlement among various groups in Afghanistan and of course the prevention of the spread of theocratic States in the Islamic world instead of democratic and secular regimes.

Turkey has, therefore, announced its support to the statement of the UN Security Council Chairmanship on August 6^th about the Afghan developments and affirmed that “The developments lived through hitherto in the Afghan civil war prove that occasional military victories of certain parties in Afghanistan are not lasting and that the problem cannot be solved militarily.”

Turkey has also appealed to all countries to refrain from interfering in Afghan clashes and from sending military personnel, arms and ammunition to any party. This move concerns primarily Pakistan, but Saudi Arabia is also involved because Saudi soldiers are spotted in Taliban forces’ northward push. The Saudis explain their military presence in the Afghan civil war as their activities to prevent Afghanistan from being the centre of drug trafficking in the world.

The Taliban militia’s offensive in the North and the capture of Mazar-i Sharif where a big number of Turks live were strongly objected to by Ankara. It called on all counties particularly Pakistan for using their influences on Taliban to deter it from committing cruelties and attrocities against civilians. “Turkey, which has deep-rooted ties with the people living in Afghanistan, expects the warring groups to respect the human rights of the civilian population and stresses the importance of refraining from acts harming civilians. The lasting peace in Afghanistan can only be achieved by peaceful ways and through negotiation,” announced the MFA.

Turkey is dismayed by Pakistan’s wrong course and the Afghans 

The most striking outcome of Turkey’s strong objections to Taliban was observed with Turkey and Pakistan publicly clashing over this issue. It was the first time in Pakistan’s half-a-century existence that this has happened between these two traditionally staunch friends.

Between September 5^th and 8^th the Under-Secretary of the MFA, Ambassador Korkmaz Haktanır, paid an official visit to Islamabad in an effort to bridge Turkey’s differences with Pakistan.

On August 31^st the MFA issued a statement rejecting the Pakistani press comments that Turkey had recently been competing with Pakistan over the pipeline projects from Central Asia and that this was the reason for recent sour relations between the two countries. The MFA statement reads:

“It has been obseved that invalid and untrue comments have recently appeared in the Pakistani press to the effect that Turkey is competing with Pakistan over oil and natural gas pipelines and for that reason Turkey did not want the establishment of stability in Afghanistan.

Turkey is deeply pained by the fratricide that has been going on in Afghanistan for years and sincerely wishes and works for the speedy restoration of peace and stability in that country. For that reason, it is exceedingly erroneous and unrealistic to associate Turkey’s Afghan policy with the oil and natural gas pipelines.”

The MFA statement also called for the formation of a “wide-base government representing all the groups in Afghanistan” for the restoration of lasting peace, instead of temporary military victories. It deplored violations of human rights and forceful population movements aimed at changing the demographic structure of the country.

Even more gruesome for the Turks was the influence of Afghan developments on Pakistan. Instead of taking its honourable place among the community of civilised nations in the world, Pakistan was becoming a theocratic State on the eve of the 21^st century.

While it is only up to the Pakistani people to decide their future political regime, Turks feel that it is their duty to prove to the world and the Muslim nations, including some misguided Turks, that Islam is not turning women into horrible ghosts in a black tent covering them from top to toe. Neither is Sheriat chopping off the hands and arms of alleged thieves in stadiums to a cheering crowd. Today even the Islamic Republic of Iran is horrified by the attrocities of the Islamic practices of Taliban in Afghanistan.

Could the Turkish envoys explain these realities to Islamabad is not yet known. One thing is certain, however, that neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan can go a long way with these archaic practices for long. That is why Turkey is seeking solutions to this problem within the UN Security Council debates on August 6^th and trying to win over Washington, Islamabad and Riyad. This cooperation being very unlikely, Ankara and Moscow are now cooperating to make the August 6^th statement a Security Council resolution before long.

Washington’s dilemma over Taliban

It is no secret that the United States is behind the whole Taliban adventure and the reason is the current bargainings over the energy routes from the Caspian. The Clinton Administration is fully aware, however, that the American people can never accept such a system like in Afghanistan. That is why it finds itself in a dilemma of engineering the whole affair and trying to dissociate itself from Taliban. The American missiles fired on a camp in Afghanistan with the claim of punishing the terrorist leader Usame Bin Ladin was one of these acts of “dissociation.”

According to Turkish sources, on the evening the Americans fired a missile on Taliban, Gary Brishinsky, the Vice President of the American telecommunication company TSI, was signing a 15-year contract with Taliban representatives for building a telephone network worth $240 million throughout Afghanistan.

It was only one of the American projects to link Turkmenistan to the Indian Ocean with pipelines, roads and telecommunication systems. The American oil company, UNOCAL and the Saudi Delta Oil are showering money on Taliban via Pakistan for the settlement of this archaic regime in the country. The device of Taliban for this domination in the country is “ignorance and poverty,” as an American journalist, Pamela Constable, has recently reported in The Washington Post after a painful visit to Afghanistan.

Is Ankara helping Washington in these long-term plans?

The answer is obvious and it is one of the main reasons for the flop of the 5-point Turkish-American Action Plan in less than a year. Not only is Turkey not helping Washington on Taliban, but it is also engaging in multilateral arrangements for the overall failure of the schemes based on such a primitive system for Central Asia, as is seen from Demirel’s messages to these republics.

It is because, above and beyond short-term calculations over oil and gas pipeline routes,Taliban hurts Turkey’s intentions on one of its most sensitive points and basic plans for the next century. This plan can be summed up as “Making the 21^st century the century of the Turks” through cultural and economic cooperation with the Central Asian Republics.

And what are the Taliban-centred plans and intentions preparing for this region? Again to put it briefly, “The crusade of the Wahhabis to return back, in step together, to the 13^th century.”

Wahhabism is the puritanical Islamic creed of Saudi Arabia, to terminate all those who oppose the strict controls it is placing on Islam. It was launched in the 1770s by M Abdelwahab who had special relations with the British Colonial Office. The Ottoman Empire saw the danger emanating from this movement and excuted its leaders in 1819. At the beginning of the 1900s Abdelaziz İbnSuud revived this movement with the encouragement of Great Britain and it is this movement that is now stirring up Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Tajikistan, upon attaining independence from the ex-USSR, lived through a tough civil war with the Islamist fanatics for six years. An agreement reached last year promises free elections which the Islamist parties may well win in that country.

Other Central Asian republics with common borders with Afghanistan, primarily Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, face a similar threat. The more vulnerable Turkmenistan with its enormous oil and natural gas reserves seems to be a later target. That is why Uzbekistan is now disturbed the worst by this “fundamentalist revolution exports” by Taliban from Pakistan and Afghanistan, with Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabies behind them.

President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan told Parliament last June about the Wahhabis, “Such people should be shot in their foreheads. If necessary, I’ll shoot them myself.”

President Karimov first blamed the Russians for these fundamentalist activities as did most other newly independent countries for similar unrest. But last May he signed a pact with the Russian and Tajik presidents to counter religious fundamentalism. Also his foreign minister has publicly accused Pakistan of harbouring Islamic militants dedicated to overthrowing the Uzbek State. They believe that Pakistan is fuelling unrest in Uzbekistan, especially in the volatile Fergana region. Uzbek students who go to Pakistan are trained as fundamentalist militants who are used in Afghanistan and other central Asian countries for Islamic revolutions. Uzbekistan and its neighbours have joined hands to campaign against the Wahhabis and Turkey is also in these activities with its remedy against fundamentalism - secularism.

The Wahhabi movement recently attempted to kill the Chechen leader, Arslan Mashadov, and there were signs of the FSB’s (the KGB’s successor) involvement in the plot. It was later found out though that the FSB Chief, Nikolai Kovalyo, was acting for another foreign intelligence service. President Yeltsin’s dismissal of Kovalyo and Mashadov’s contacts in Turkey brought to daylight the real nature of the Wahhabi movement in both Central Asia and the Caucasus.

At the moment Iran has concentrated a 270,000-strong force on the Afghan border and is holding military exercises. Ankara is telling Tehran as a friend that any military action on Afghanistan would be a costly adventure for Iran even though it may temporarily succeed against the weaker Taliban forces. Iran is currently prefering to support the Shiat group, Hizb-i Wahdet, in Afghanistan. Likewise, Russia has also stepped up its arms supplies to anti-Taliban groups to prevent its advance further North.

Ankara, for its part, is displeased with the fall of Mazar-I Sharif where there were a large number of secular Turks, but in oil and natural gas rich Sheberghan, 100 km from Mazar-ı Sharif, the Uzbek General Rashid Dostum is holding on with the help of Turkey and the Central Asian republics. Meanwhile, Turkey’s big allies are curious to know where Ankara gets this strength of influencing so crucially the Central Asian and Caucasus developments with the current financial crisis it is living through.

Despite Washington’s absence, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia will sign the agreement on October 9^th for the realisation of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline and it was the greatest achievement of Turkish diplomacy in recent weeks.  uras@ada.net.tr, September 29^th, 1998