TURKPULSE No:87..........JANUARY 18th, 2003
Realities and Balderdash have, nowadays, been intermingled in Turkey’s foreign policy and national security questions such as the imminent war in Iraq and the Cyprus problem. This confusion is mostly due to the fact that some retired top bureaucrats; Turkish diplomats, commanders and politicians of the cold war period are making assessments on the basis of the realities of their time and arrive at directly the opposite results of Ankara’s intentions and policies about these hot issues of today. For a more realistic and objective appraisal of Turkey’s current policies on the Iraq crisis and the Cyprus problem please see the article below.
A case in
point is a televised discussion that was held on Monday evening (6th)
between the Prime Minister and the Chief of the TGS of the Gulf War period,
Yildirim Akbulut and General Dogan Gures, on the expected American attack on
Iraq today. They related their memoirs of President Ozal’s attempts to
accord bases in Turkey to the American forces during the Gulf War in 1990-91
and their refusal to comply unless there was a resolution of the TGNA (Turkish
Grand National Assembly) under Article 92 of the Turkish Constitution. Both
Akbulut and General Gures, as well as the Foreign and Economy Ministers of
that period, Kurtcebe Alptemocin and Isin Celebi, who took part in the
discussion by phone, made grossly mistaken assessments of the similar
situation today.
That
period’s top military ruler of Turkey, General Gures, was especially
mistaken in his appraisals of today when he said that the AKP Government would
sooner or later give into American pressure and seductive offers and take part
in the prospective war against Iraq from the north. His belief was that the
Turkish forces would remain behind the 80-90 thousand American soldiers
fighting Saddam’s forces from the north while the main U.S. military
operation would be carried out from the Gulf in the south.
A few
hours before this balderdash prophesy was uttered over the TV, PM Abdullah Gul
said at a press conference in Ankara about the first leg of his tour of
neighbouring countries (Syria, Egypt and Jordan) that Ankara was bridging its
differences with Washington about the prospective American technical surveys
of the Turkish airbases and military ports. (It is to be noted that the
American press used to use the word inspection
for similar missions in Turkey, but Turkish authorities never did
even in the past as inspection
in Turkish has the idea of the actions of the superior and it has never been
the case about American bases here as far as Turkey’s understanding goes.)
On Friday (10th) the PM revealed that he had signed the relevant
agreement (modus operandi) that
had nothing to do with American forces allegedly to be deployed in Turkey for
a military operation on Iraq from the north.
Before
these clarifications, a good foreign policy columnist of the daily Radical,
retired ambassador Gunduz Aktan said about PM Gul’s tour of the
five Islamic countries of the region, including Saudi Arabia and Iran in
addition to the above three countries, that the Prime Minister would face
during this tour the criticism
that Turkey was according bases to the American forces for these military
operations against Iraq while PM Gul was describing his contacts as “a
peace mission to forestall war”.
There
are bases and bases. These are, if ever, for PfP
These
statements are totally incorrect mostly because they are appraisals based on
the conventional meaning of military bases and this meaning is no longer
holding good since the end of the cold war with the downfall of the Warsaw
Pact and disintegration of the USSR in the early nineties.
Instead,
in the last decade or so, a number of new concepts have been introduced in
international relations and security issues such as the PfP (Partnership for
Peace), the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe), the
ESDI/P (European Security and Defence Identity/Policy) and so on. They are
mostly for regulating relations between NATO and the East European countries.
There is little cognisance of these concepts because there has not been much
implementation of them in the world.
With a
gentlemen’s agreement with the Russian Federation, Turkey is now working on
giving force to these principles in international security operations such as
the former Yugoslav Federation, Afghanistan and now the Gulf and the Middle
East. Ankara is also striving to win the United States and other NATO allies
to these principles, which are basically for Europe, but which can, in
practice, be universal as they all stem from the UN Charter’s principles to
preserve peace in the world.
Will Turkey eventually give into American pressure about Iraq?
Today the
150 American technicians and military staff that are allowed to make site
surveys at Turkish military installations, ports and airfields under the
latest modus operandi are
working on a bilateral basis for a short time, a couple of weeks. It has
nothing to do with the deployment of American forces in Turkey or passage
through into Iraq. That is a totally different question and as it stands there
is no question of granting these facilities to the Americans for Iraq unless
there is a UN Security Council resolution. Americans, for their part, not only
take “No” for an answer, but are also campaigning in the Turkish and world
media that the Ankara Government is hesitating about what to do. People like
General Dogan Gures are influenced by this disinformation campaign and believe
that Ankara will in time come around to Washington’s way of thinking about a
military operation in Iraq as it did on several occasions in the past.
Indeed, in
the latter years of the seventies Israel was about to invade southern Lebanon.
The then Chief of the TGS, General Semih Sancar, said that Turkey would not
remain indifferent to such a military aggression 400 km away from its national
frontiers. This statement ensued an open strife between Turkey and Israel, as
well as between Ankara and Washington. The semi official Israeli newspaper Maarif
said that Israel had long-range aircraft capable of bombing the
Keban dam or Ankara and returning home safely. How could Turkey respond with
its short-range aircraft? Turkey’s indirect answer was to organise air
manoeuvres whereby Turkish jets taking off from Eskisehir “bombed” the
Besparmak Mountains in northern Cyprus and landed at the Bogazkale military
airport on the island. The message was that if Turkish aircraft were too short
ranged to return home after flying to Israel they could land in the TRNC on
their way back. It was effective enough to persuade Israel and the United
States to postpone the invasion of Southern Lebanon for a year. In the
meantime, Secretary of State Alexander Haig visited Ankara in the early
eighties and persuaded the new Turkish Administration, which incidentally had
been changed with a military coup on September 12th, 1980.
This time,
Washington managed to get rid of the Ecevit coalition not with a coup d’état
but through manipulations of medical teams trained in the United States and
their men like Kemal Dervis inserted in the Cabinet as a result of the
financial crises in November 2000 and February 2001. So will history repeat
itself and the new Tayyip Erdogan team in power in Turkey now make a similar
turnabout in favour of the United States in its Iraq policy?
The lessons gained from the first Gulf War are a stumbling block for USA
Washington’s
hopes are waning rapidly. In the last two months since the Abdullah Gul
Government has taken office, it is becoming clearer each day that the AKP
single party rule is even less favourable to Washington in its Iraq and Cyprus
policies than the previous Ecevit Government has ever been. The foreign policy
of the AKP is exactly as Pulse has
been writing about for years that Turkey will have a kind of cooperation in
its region patterned after the EEC in Europe in the post war period. It means
having a circle of sincere friendship and cooperation in ever field with its
immediate neighbours by the wide opening up roads and communication lines from
east to west, from north to south. It goes diametrically opposed to
Washington’s designs for the region and its dual, triple confinement
policies. And this cooperation extends as far as Siberia in the north and
China and Japan in the east.
Furthermore,
PM Gul is coming to Iraq’s aid against the prospective American invasion,
not only with Turkish soldiers, but also with the support of five other
Islamic countries, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Islamic
Turkish parties’ previous leader, Necmettin Erbakan’s Islamic Common
Market idea was a wild dream impossible to materialise. The present Turkish
Government’s activities in the same direction also involving security and
defence aspects, however, are very down to earth and based on past experience.
Turkey’s
bitter experience of the Gulf War is that the all out pro-American policy of
President Ozal in 1990-91 yielded disaster for Turkey. Hundreds of thousands
of refugees flooded into southeastern Turkey from northern Iraq. They did not
only bring along economic and social havoc for Turkey, but also smuggled in
all the heavy weapons of the Iraqi Army confiscated by the Americans in the
war. That event, for its part, climaxed the PKK uprising that was going on
since August 1985 into civil war dimensions.
The
economic result of the Gulf War for Turkey was its elimination from the Gulf
markets with the economic embargo on Iraq. While the Americans channelled this
trade towards Jordan, Israel and themselves from Turkey, they did not allow
Article 51 of the UN Charter to be used by Turkey for trade with Iraq and the
Gulf. Now they say that it was Ankara’s fault because Turkey could not
defend its case with good arguments and documents at the Security Council. The
Turkish Permanent Delegate to the UN at that time was Ambassador Inal Batu. He
is now the Deputy Chairman of the parliamentary opposition party, the CHP, and
categorically dismisses the claim as more “balderdash”.
With this
ruling power and opposition commanding Turkey’s foreign policy and security
issues and the Turkish Armed Forces with long enough memories to remember what
the British forces did to the Turkish soldiers in Iraq and Kirkuk in and after
World War one, what chance do the Anglo-Americans have in persuading Ankara
for a change of policy in Iraq? Which Turkish parliament and government can
possibly permit the American forces to pass through the country to attack
Baghdad from the north, much less to be deployed here with long term
aggressive intentions for the entire region by creating an independent
Kurdistan as another Israel in the region? At least there is a good side to
Israel with its modern industry, technology and advanced civilisation. The
Kurdish State in Washington’s plans does not have these either. It is
evidently designed, as a mere airbase in the region for the energy needs of
the Americans, in Washington’s plans for the new millennium. It is a pipe
dream as far as its aspects go concerning eventually making Turkey toe the
American line. No matter who is in power
in Ankara, Turkey’s State policies based on long-term calculations,
experience and expertise will carry the day whatever the foreign planners do
and their extensions in Turkey say in the media with generous financing from
abroad. uras@ada.net.tr
- January 18th, 2003