TURKPULSE No:131..........NOVEMBER 9th, 2004
TURKISH-AMERICAN RELATIONS WITH THE SECOND BUSH TEAM
Turkish-American relations under the new Bush Administration is not expected to change considerably because the main flash points concerned with security questions had already been determined before the 2 November elections. The question now is how far the new American Administration will press to change the determined points in its favour and Turkey’s reaction. For an analysis of the economic and strategic aspects of these questions please see the article below.
The future of Turkish-American relations during the Second Bush Administration in the United States depends, above all, on the new Administration’s world policy. This was best described by an American professor who spoke as the UN consultant and spokesman on BBC World on the election day. He said, “The United States spends $450 billion a year on armament and only $15 billion on economic aid to the underdeveloped world. Will this merely military outlook to world affairs continue under the new Bush Administration?”
The statement by PM Tony Blair, the USA’s bosom friend on the Iraq expedition, straight after President Bush’s re-election, was quite a good answer to that question. PM Blair said, “To fight this global terrorism in all its forms and to recognise that it will not be defeated by military might alone, but also by demonstrating the supremacy of our common values...” He has thus indicated that in the new era, the United Kingdom will press for changing this American imbalance between spending $450 billion on armament and one-thirtieth of it on economic development.
Washington was not late in trying to address the British PM’s call and sent Iraq’s interim PM, Iyad Allawi, to the EU Summit in Brussels on Thursday (4th) to ask for money for Iraq’s economic development from what he called “the European spectator nations”. Of course, this definition of Iraq’s unelected, but hand-picked leader did not go down well with France and most others and even though there was talk of $300 million aid to Iraq from the EU it was doubtful that any of the “spectator nations” will really become the donors. Also, PM Blair’s call for the defeat of global terrorism with means other than military might apparently concerns the rectification of the above imbalance in American finances rather than Europe’s contributions to economic efforts. Yet the USA’s public finance situation, with a budget deficit of $500 billion dollars a year and an equal amount of foreign trade gap, is hardly suitable to contribute to Iraq’s economic development.
So we’ll see how these events will evolve in the following weeks. It is possible to predict now, however, that the one-to-thirty balance (or rather the huge imbalance) between the armament expenditure and economic aid in the American public finances will not possibly be rectified considerably in any foreseeable future, given the unexpected economic and military shocks President Bush had to face in the Iraq war in his first term. It is quite realistic to expect that the new Bush Administration will continue to press for military solutions to its problems, rather than complying with PM Blair’s and the UN Chief Kofi Annan’s call for political solutions in Fellujah and other areas of Iraq. This, for its part, unavoidably brings Turkey and Turkish-American relations into the picture.
Washington has got conditional military transit passages through Turkey
In the post WW II period, the biggest interest in and the most persistent demand of the United States from Turkey has always been to have a free hand in the Incirlik airbase or unlimited and uninterrupted military transit passages through Anatolia in order to reach the Gulf, Iran, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
After the 3 November 2002 general elections in Turkey, Washington thought it had attained this goal with Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP having two-thirds majority in parliament and Deniz Baykal’s CHP the remaining one-third, all the problematic politicians for the United States such as President Demirel, prime ministers Bulent Ecevit, Mesut Yilmaz, Necmettin Erbakan and Deputy PM Devlet Bahceli having been purged from Parliament along with their political parties.
With the military arrangements they thought they had made with the newly founded AKP’s Chairman, Tayyip Erdogan, the Americans were really on the brink of materialising their dream. Without waiting for the final agreement they sent to Turkey the front guards of 60,000 American soldiers who would be stationed at several military bases in Turkey as a springboard to Iraq, Iran, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Yet there was neither unanimity on the final text of the agreement nor on its scope, i.e. extent. Were these American soldiers in Turkey for Iraq alone or could they be used for Iran and the Caucasus, nobody knew. The TGS (Turkish General Staff) and the Pentagon had different interpretations of the vague terms they had discussed.
The result is common knowledge. On 1 March 2003 the Turkish Parliament took up the draft agreement for ratification and turned it down with a small margin of 2-3 votes even before Tayyip Erdogan became an MP, which would open the path to premiership for him. Thus the Americans lost the opportunity of having a Koizumi for Prime Minister in Turkey even though they had paved the way as far as the composition of Parliament goes. In other words, the artificially created two dreadful earthquakes, in Kobe and Golcuk, yielded diametrically opposed results for the Americans at both ends of Asia - Turkey and Japan. US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz accused the TGS of failing to show the necessary leadership at this voting in the Turkish Parliament, but the reality was the exact opposite. It was that very leadership that saved Turkey from falling into a terrible position in Iraq and other parts of the region with Parliament’s timely and appropriate rebuttal of the agreement under the silent watch of the military.
Now the second Bush Administration is bound to stage the remaining parts of its Expanded Middle East policy with Iran and the Caucasus appearing as the first targets. The potential role Washington is expecting of Ankara in these future actions is evident, but Ankara’s acceptance of this role of being a springboard against its neighbours is clearly nowhere in sight.
At the end of last August, the MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) did issue a regulation concerning military facilities for the American military passages through Turkey, but it is nothing new and far from satisfying Washington. Under this new regulation, the American “support cargo” will be able to pass through seven sea ports (Istanbul, Izmir, Iskenderun, Yumurtalik, Antalya, Aksaz/Karaagac and Agalar) and six airports (Esenboga/Ankara, Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, Cigli/Izmir, Incirlik/Adana, Antalya, Aksaz/Dalaman) in Turkey without a permit from the Turkish Parliament, but with the Turkish Government’s “pre-permit”. Turkish laws and NATO/SOFA (The “Agreement Between the Parties to the North Atlantic Treaty Regarding the Status of Their Forces”) dated June 19, 1951, shall apply to the American forces.
Everything will be within ACDE (Agreement for Cooperation on Defence and Economy between Turkey and the United States) dated March 29, 1980 and consequently within the NATO framework. “The extent of the defence cooperation envisaged in this Agreement shall be limited to obligations arising out of the North Atlantic Treaty,” according to Article V, paragraph 4 of ACDE, which has already been greatly altered in practice in the 25 years it has been in force. But despite these big changes in ACDE, its basic provisions and the principle of having NATO as its basis still hold good, much to Washington’s disenchantment.
Will NATO join US ventures in the second Bush period?
Turkey’s involvement in Washington’s new ventures exclusively depends on NATO’s green light. Starting with Afghanistan, the United States has been trying to get Turkey into its Expanded Middle East policy. A former Turkish Foreign Minister, Hikmet Cetin, became NATO representative in Afghanistan for six months last February and his term was renewed for another six-month period without even consulting him. Now that the Afghan and American elections are over, Turkish commanders may take charge of the NATO forces in that country with a new contingent from Turkey.
The Americans are training the new Afghan Army that will be 70,000 strong, 15,000 having already been trained. The Germans are in charge of training a 30-35 thousand strong police force. The Japanese are leading the activities for the disarmament of the tribes in Afghanistan so that the national military and police forces can provide the country’s national security. The new legal system will be based on the Italian judicial system. Quite some distance has already been covered in all these fields, but the economy is still in a shambles. Poppy growing and opium smuggling to western markets is the main preoccupation and livelihood of the Afghan people. The United Kingdom is in charge of this problem, but this trafficking has been greatly increased in the last two years under President Karzai instead of being checked. Will the United States now devote bigger funds to the economic development of this poverty stricken country as a remedy to the world’s drug trafficking problem? Given the enormous financial problems it is facing and considering the Iraq example, it is very doubtful. In Iraq the United States channelled the funds originally allotted by Congress for economic development to military activities.
There is no sign that the new Bush Administration will be more generous in improving economic aid activities at the expense of the 30 times heavier military expenditure. Besides, the future targets of the Expanded Middle East policy - Iran, the Caucasus and Central Asia, including even China, are bound to be much tougher ventures involving much more armament expenditure than Iraq. As for NATO’s participation in these military operations, the Iraq experience shows that it is not at all likely, despite some modest contributions in Afghanistan.
China is among Washington’s targets in the second Bush period
Leaving aside the more distant North Korea, China seems to have become one of Washington’s targets in the new Bush period. Last August PM Yu Shyi-kun of Taiwan said that China was preparing an underwater map of the Pacific with an eye to keeping the United States away from the Far East and the Pacific by cutting off its links with Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan. China had already deployed its submarines for this purpose, he claimed.
Evidently Taipei’s claim confirmed the American Intelligence’s secret data that Washington was not late in responding. The American preparations to use against Beijing the Muslim population of China, especially the Turkic-speaking, predominantly Muslim people of the Xinjiang province, i.e. the Uygur ethnical minority in northwest China, were no secret, but no one expected that they would proclaim an East Turkistan Government in exile before 2010. This was done on 14 September 2004 in Washington and without any effort to hide the American Government’s direct involvement in this separatist movement aimed at splitting up China’s national entity. The financing of the entire operation was overtly done by American officials such as retired Ambassador Nelson Ledsky representing an official American organisation NED (the National Endowment for Democracy). Also, a former American ambassador to Ankara, Morton Abramowitz, a former senior CIA officer, Graham Fuller, and other American officials and institutions played active roles in proclaiming the government in exile within 4-5 months, starting in May and completing the proclamation in mid- September. The ceremony was held at Capitol Hill under American flags in Washington.
The Americans exerted special efforts to get Turkey involved in this secessionist move against China, with claims by the American disinformation mechanism that PM Tayyip Erdogan, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, State Minister for Overseas Turks Mehmet Aydin and even the Turkish Intelligence Service, MIT, have approved of this quasi UDI for the Uygur Turks. They note that the TRT (the Turkish State Broadcasting Corporation) broadcast this proclamation from Washington on 22 September. Yet it is against Turkey’s basic foreign policy principles to provoke or get involved in such separatist movements of other countries and the prime minister and other government members cannot take any such steps even if they personally wish it, unless the National Security Council recommends it to the Government and Parliament and the required resolution is taken by them.
A case in point is PM Tansu Ciller’s attempted plot against President Haydar Aliyev with the secret activities of a Minister of State and some MIT officials in Azerbaijan ten years ago. In cooperation with the Azeri police chief’s forces they would kill Aliyev and make a pro-American coup in that country in March 1994. Neither President Demirel nor the Turkish security organisations such as TGS, MIT, the MFA knew of the plot. Luckily the MIT chief in Azerbaijan felt the necessity of informing MIT of the imminent plot, deviating from the special channel of communication PM Chiller had set up between them and herself. The news exploded like a bomb in Ankara and at the relevant Turkish State organs’ recommendation President Demirel informed President Aliyev at an international conference in Copenhagen of the coup. Thus the uprising was nipped in the bud.
This is a good example of how even the prime minister of Turkey may not represent his or her own country, but acts in treason for another power if he or she attempts such adventures abroad. In the case of the separatist moves over Xinjiang, Turkey’s State policy is obvious and it categorically rejects such subversive actions.
One of the main tools Washington is using in this affair in order to get Turkey involved in the Xinjiang affair is some Turkish Americans, primarily the Fetullah Gulen team who are prosecuted in absentia in Turkey for trying to found a theocratic State order in this country because he runs his activities from the United States, his protégé. Another Turk used in this affair is Enver Yusuf Turani, who is the self styled Foreign and Prime Minister of the East Turkistan Government in exile. He has been an American citizen since 1998. Enver Yusuf is in close cooperation with Fetullah Gulen, and another Turkish American Rustu Kalyoncu helps them. Kalyoncu arranged Gulen’s meeting with the Pope in Rome in the late nineties and acted as interpreter at the Pope’s audience to Gulen. Their activities for the government in exile are based on a report entitled “the Xinjiang Project” drafted by Graham Fuller in 1998 for the Rand Corporation and revised in 2003 under the title “the Xinjiang Problem.” It emphasises the importance of the Xinjiang Autonomous region in encircling China and provides a strategy for it. Within a week or two, the government in exile will announce its new program in Washington and may make changes in the members of the self styled government.
Noteworthy in this affair is the absence of the key man in East Turkmenistan affairs, President Isa Yusuf Alptekin’s son Erkin Alptekin, who is now a German citizen. He found the new government in exile too US dependent and objected to the timing of the proclamation as too early. Alptekin’s absence from this move has greatly weakened it. Between 20 and 25 November there will be another meeting in Washington and Americans are exerting efforts to make up with this weakness and other problems of this anti-Chinese initiative.
It is not certain if the new Bush Administration will energize its Expanded Middle East policy with a military action against Iran, Syria or China. Neither is there any clarity about the form of the prospective US actions in Eurasia. Americans’ bombing Iran’s nuclear energy installations with a claim to Tehran’s violating the TNP (Treaty of non-proliferation) is frequently speculated about, but no one knows much about Washington’s real plans. Iran warns that it can retaliate with its long range missiles against Israel and American installation and forces in the region if such an aggression is attempted.
To engage in subversive activities against China is even a bigger problem for any country, no matter what a super power it may be. Besides the newly founded SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) tends to be another Super Power in the world with Russian-Chinese cooperation as well as four other central Asian Turkic republics.
President Putin’s State visit to Turkey on 12 December will certainly bring a lot of clarity into Turkey’s final stance in these future world development of strategic nature. uras@ada.net.tr – November 9th, 2004