TURKPULSE No:138..........APRIL 16th, 2005
TURKISH DIPLOMACY WILL ENERGIZE AFTER JULY FOR EU
It is claimed that the Erdogan Government has slowed down, even lost heart, in its EU accession policy after a feverish work tempo last year until it received, on December 17th, the date for full membership negotiations. It is dragging its feet even for assigning a chief negotiator for the accession talks ahead, go these claims, which, in fact, stem from Washington’s disenchantment of Turkey’s equally energetic activities in the first half of the year for expansion towards Eurasia and Africa. There is no truth in slacking on the part of Turkey about the EU accession, a number one target for all Turkish governments, today or in the past. The temporary switch away from the EU in the first half was planned in view of the realities of the world, as there are, in the meantime, elections in the Turkish part of Cyprus and in the UK who will take over the reins in the EU as from July, as well as a referendum for the new European constitution in France. To see what Turkey is doing pending EU accession activities as from July please read the article below.
Turkey’s unflinching EU accession policy has a very wise alternative just in case and that is the Eurasian policy which also covers the entire world outside the Atlantic Alliance, i.e. the U.S.-EU partnership. Pending the EU talks ahead, this second leg of Turkish diplomacy has been at the forefront in the first half of 2005 and it annoyed Washington greatly, evoking questions in American political quarters and the media, “What is the present Turkish Government heading for?”
“The Africa Year” for Turkish diplomacy “before others settle there”
Actually it far exceeds the Erdogan Government and concerns Turkey’s State policy, but the religious ruling party, the AKP, occasionally gives it some Islamic twinges which are tolerated by the security forces just as Mrs Erdogan’s headscarf is disliked, indeed hated, but tolerated within limits for the sake of democracy.
The basic foreign policy principle of Turkey: making its frontiers “boundaries of peace and economic cooperation” has been stretched by the Erdogan Government to Africa which it declared 2005 “The Africa Year”. Starting with Palestine, which inevitably included Israel, PM Erdogan or his fully authorized deputy Abdullah Gul have first visited Ethiopia and South Africa and last week the North African former French colonies, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. Naturally the agenda includes Egypt, Libya and especially Nigeria. Expanding mutual trade, undertaking $16 billion contracting work and making bigger Turkish investments in African countries are the basic targets of this drive, but Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul expects that Turkey will be elected to the UN Security Council thanks to these activities. However, they annoy Washington so much that the Bush Administration has singled Turkey out from its international conference for the “Middle East Road Map”, between Israel and the new Palestinian Administration after Arafat, yet it was PM Erdogan and FM Gul who brought PM Sharon to the point of evacuating some of the occupied lands in Palestine within the Road Map.
Exports Minister Kursad Tuzman says that there have been considerable increases in Turkey’s exports to African countries thanks to these activities and contacts which include opening trade fairs and exhibitions there.
“Last week (during PM Tayyip Erdogan’s official visit) we opened a trade fair in Morocco with 130 businessmen from 50 companies. Moroccan ministers also participated. They complain that their exports have dropped by 40% because they were caught unawares by the Far East’s competition in this globalization that started this year. Tunisian exports declined by 30 percent. Egypt has also suffered, but because we had been prepared, our exports are rising. In 2004 our exports to African countries went up by 40% on a year before. All that did not, of course, happen easily,” says Kursad Tuzmen.
He says that before they worked out this strategy against the competition of the Far East in the new globalization age, Turkey’s trade potential with Africa was minimal. Within the new strategy they formed joint economic committees, held fairs and exhibitions in these countries. Soon they would visit Egypt. Previously Turkey’s trade with Africa did not even account for one per cent of the total. Today it reached 5%. It amounts to $3 billion now and will reach the $4.5 billion point by the end of the year. Also, $16 billion contracting work is underway in Africa, Libya being in the spotlight once again in this regard. During the Prime Minister’s visit last week $1.5 billion contracting business was signed with Morocco, says Tuzmen. Free economic zone arrangements are especially considered with Nigeria and Ethiopia. Turkish businessmen are planning to make investments in Africa in the automotive, textiles/clothing, glassware, ceramics and petrochemical industries.
Economic expansion far exceeds Africa; Turkey also aims for nonaligned giants
Actually Africa is only a small part of the expansion work in the world, excluding the Atlantic Community, in Turkey’s economic cooperation activities. Eurasia with Russia at its hub, the nonaligned world with giants such as the Subcontinent, Indonesia, Brazil, and the Far East with other giants such as China, Japan and South Korea and the Islamic world with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf as juicy targets are all on the agenda with ambitious projects for expansion.
The importance of the African market for Turkey is that it gives a boost to “KOBI”s, the small- and medium-size enterprises, while big corporations and holdings focus on the Atlantic community, the USA and the EU, as well as the Eurasian and nonaligned world’s big economies. There is a five-year preparatory work in Turkey’s expansion to Africa as from this year. According to the Strategy drawn up by the Foreign Trade Department in 2003, KOBIs will step up their exports to Africa in exchange for the direct imports of semi-manufactured goods from these underdeveloped countries. In 2004 Turkey’s overall exports rose by 32%. Exports to Africa increased even more than this impressive rate and reached 39%.
The main reason for Turkey’s enormous imports in the last couple of years was manufactured goods imports for the development of capital intensive industries rather than cheaper labour intensive industries. That is also the reason for the non-solution of the unemployment problem in Turkey even though the economy grew to a record level of 9.9% last year. As against considerable setbacks such as the growing current accounts deficits and pestering unemployment problems, the advantage of this policy is that it enables Turkey to resist the competition of the Far East, especially China, where cheap labour provides enormous export potentials. Through automation Turkey can offset this cheap labour advantage of India and China.
Meanwhile, efforts are made to have effective trade relations with both these over one billion population countries. Turkey, along with South Africa, is the only country that imports Tata cars from India, to enable it to expand to the outside world. With China, Turkish corporations have already been working patiently for the last few years to open up export markets for Turkey. The all important defence industry is also a part of this economic cooperation with China as evidenced by the Air Force Commander General, Ibrahim Firtina’s official visit to Beijing in the first week of April. He told the press during the visit that Turkey was interested in China’s medium-range air defence missiles. They were also ready for cooperation with China on space activities in such fields as establishing ground stations, satellite launching and reconnaissance. “Our doors are open all the way; we are ready and willing,” was General Firtina’s answer to his counterpart General Xiao Xingchen’s suggestion to speed up cooperation with Turkey on air and space activities. Milliyet (5) reports that in the Nineties, Turkey concluded a secret agreement with China for a WS-1 battery of 19 units and technology transfer. This cooperation ended up in Turkey’s procurement of 70-100 km range ground-to-ground Toros missiles.
A phenomenal breakthrough as it was, it is doubtful that this Turkish-Chinese cooperation was not much more comprehensive than that. Last week Washington was shocked by the announcement from China and India that the two giants had concluded a strategic cooperation agreement. Did Turkey play any role in this development as well as in the recent improvement of Indian-Pakistani relations over Kashmir, is anyone’s guest, but all these developments were certainly totally in accord with Turkey’s Eurasian policy.
Turkey will not be a figurant (extra) in other’s scenarios, says the PM
At a time when the United States (mainly through its outgoing and outspoken spokesmen such as Deputy Defence Secretary Wolfowitz and Ambassador Edelman) was warning Turkey against the above policy, PM Tayyip Erdogan became as outspoken as them and said to a loud applause at his address to the AKP parliamentary caucus on Tuesday (12th), “We will be a figurant (extra) in no one’s scenarios on the international arena, but be a leader in our own scenarios.”
This challenge coincided with a number of vital international contacts and security operations in and concerning Turkey.
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer was paying a State visit to Damascus despite Ambassador Edelman’s public statement against it. Turkey’s Africa year was in full swing with FM Gul fulfilling its Algerian leg. The President of South Korea was paying a State visit to Turkey for the first time in history, following General Firtina’s above visit to China. The Greek Foreign Minister, Moliviatis, was making confidence building arrangements in Ankara where he was a keen Pulse reader 30 years ago and true to Pulse editor’s expectation of this excellent Greek diplomat was trying to avert a crisis over some uninhabited rock formations off the Turkish mainland and thus facing an unfair campaign from the Greek media and opposition. PM Erdogan was expressing dissatisfaction with the Norwegian policemen’s standing by and watching the PKK throwing eggs at him during his visit to Oslo. Turkey’s top diplomat Ali Toygan was paying an official visit to Washington futilely trying to gain some significance to PM Erdogan’s forthcoming visit to the United States for his daughter’s graduation from university. Tuygan said in Washington that Turkey had answered Wolfowitz’s appeal before his departure for the position of World Bank Director about consolidating the Bush Administration’s hand against the 24 April dilemma in Congress over the 90th anniversary of the “Armenian genocide” claims. It concerned the letter PM Erdogan sent to President Kocharian of Armenia for forming a joint committee of historians to look into the tragedies of 1915. The letter was certainly the last thing either Washington or Yerevan wanted to see, as Wolfowitz was express enough to cite Incirlik as a target and call for a free hand to the Americans in that airbase.
Last, but certainly not least, was the military operation against the PKK terrorists in eastern Turkey over the last two weeks. Before this operation the Ground Forces Commander, General Buyukanit, complained to the press that Turkey had no policy over Iraq or against the PKK which had regained its strength in the mountainous regions of eastern Anatolia with infiltrations from the American controlled northern Iraq. It was obvious that with this pressure from top military sources and with the intelligence reports that the PKK was preparing to launch a “spring offensive”, the Turkish Armed Forces have started a new operation against PKK terrorism to nip it in the bud.
Turkey’s experience with the West is helping the avoidance of bloodshed
Meanwhile, the Washington guided coups d’états are continuing in the Broader Middle East region of the Bush Administration. Kyrgyzstan is the latest country to face such a coup, following the bloodless revolutions in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine. Bloodshed was avoided in these countries when government departments were occupied as security forces did not put up any resistance. There is reason to believe that Turkey’s enormous experience in democracy has played an important part in inducing the Russian leader, President Putin, to this wise policy of “retaining the ruling power is not worth a drop of an innocent citizen’s blood.”
Thus while the United States is causing enormous sufferings for itself as well as others in its policy of breaking Iraq’s doors to “democracy” with the kicks of military boots, the Eurasian countries are handing over power to the opposition peacefully as an important stride towards democracy in this part of the world. The outcome of this wise policy is obvious; the new rulers of Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan will not be able to overcome economic problems or accord Washington facilities as a spring-board to Russia and will be forced to hand back power after a few years. That was President Sezer’s recommendation to Syria last week about the American call for democracy in the world. In a nutshell, Turkey’s Eurasia policy will continue with or without EU accession and utmost care will be paid within this policy not to provoke Washington in refusing its base demands of Turkey. Last week saw a major breakthrough in the world’s diplomatic activities to offset the Superpower’s hegemony efforts with Turkey’s considerable contributions. uras@ada.net.tr – April 16th, 2005