TURKISH-AMERICAN RELATIONS UNDER MAGNIFYING GLASS

Nearly one-year practice of 5-point action plan points to need for fresh arrangements. PM Mesut Yılmaz’s forthcoming visit to New York will provide opportunity to review shortcomings and to seek remedies. Preparatory consultations are promising, but benefits at stake being too great, give and take is not for granted. It concerns world balances in the new century and Turkey’s role and place in it.

Prime Minister Mesut Yılmaz will go to New York soon to address the UN General Assembly on September 24^th. Foreign Minister Ismail Cem who will accompany him will make contacts with over 20 countries’ foreign ministers, while the PM is preoccupied with US-Turkish relations. As President Clinton and PM Yılmaz laid the foundations of a very fruitful cooperation between the two countries during Yılmaz’s official visit to Washington last December, the shortcomings noticed in practice during the last one-year period will be the focus of attention at the New York talks.

A short analysis of the points reached on these five topics of cooperation will be a good indicator of what to expect at the forthcoming talks in New York.

1. Cooperation for energy was earmarked as the foremost topic in this mutual relationship. The two sides were fast in getting down to brass tacks on this issue and a flurry of mutual visits, consultations and conferences made headlong progress on the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. Just as this issue was about to be finalized on October 18^th, the latest, the American side sent a circular to the countries and companies concerned asking them to postpone these arrangements until the beginning of next year, because of the Russian crisis and falling oil prices. There was an utter disappointment and disenchantment on the Turkish side and the 17^th World Energy Council in Houston between September 13^th and 18^th gave the Turkish delegation an opportunity to have talks with the US about it. As reported by Pulse in its first issue and later on, the American reluctance was due to the failure to persuade Turkmenistan to pipe its natural gas to the West through the long and costly method of a pipeline under the Caspian Sea and along with the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline. (Issue No :44) It was hardly Turkey’s fault, but still Washington was putting a spoke in the wheel of finalizing the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline. It is doubtful that either the Energy Minister Cumhur Ersümer who headed the Turkish delegation to the Houston conference or PM Mesut Yılmaz will be able to find a solution to this problem. The Americans seem to be blaming Turkey’s arrangements to import 40 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia and Iran in the following years. Indeed, 14 billion m³ of natural gas is coming from Russia via Romania and Bulgaria and 16 billion m³ will come through the Blue Current pipeline under the Black Sea, in addition to the 10 billion m³ or more from Iran with a pipeline under construction. It was claimed that with its current economic crisis Russia would be unable to continue with the Blue Current project, but the new Russian Ambassador, Alexander Lebedev has denied this and said that they had already found the necessary financing for this $650 million investment and that the construction was going on. At the New York talks, therefore, this will be a hot issue between the two delegations. Turkey and the United States will most probably find a diplomatic way to avoid discarding the action plan in less than a year of practice, but it is sure to be for a makeshift diplomatic postponement of the problem, rather than for the final solution, as Ersümer’s Houston talks indicate.
2. The second item of the 5-point action plan is related with the above problem, but is more problematic, especially for Turkey. It concerns Turkish-American cooperation on trade, investment and economic reform. In the last 9-10 month period since the plan went into action, the Turkish economy made magnificent achievements. The foreign exchange reserves of the Central Bank went up to a record level of $26.7 billion, plus $10 billion in the banking system. The Stock Exchange index soared from 1800 when the Yılmaz government came to power to a record high of 4700 only two months ago. The inflation was coming down slowly, but steadily, and the economic stability program was purring, with compound interest rates having been reduced to 70%. Due to a lack of knowledge, little credit was being given to the fact that it was thanks to the enforcement of the second item of the Turkish-American plan. These realities began to be understood following the outbreak of the Russian crisis. Along with Russian markets, Turkey’s markets also began to bump into serious problems. The compound interest rates for domestic borrowing went up to 130%, the Central Bank reserves declined to below $22 billion and both stabilized at these points, but the bleeding of IMKB (the Istanbul Stock Exchange) is continuing. >From 4700 it fell to below 2000, heading for 1700 or so, ie below the level when the Yılmaz Government took over. More than $5 billion left the stock exchange and bond markets of Turkey and the bleeding is continuing. Turkey is still much better off than Russia or the Asian tigers, but it is not certain whether this is due to the strength of the Turkish economy or if the Americans have stopped the beating up after having “shown a club under the cloak”, as the Turkish saying goes. In any case, this issue will probably be the most important and toughest item on the agenda of Turkish-American relations, not only in the forthcoming New York talks, but in future too.
3. The other three items in the action plan are working satisfactorily. There has never been any problem on security matters between Turkey and the United States other than when the Americans attempted to use them for embargo purposes over unrelated issues. At the moment, there is no indication that they are doing it today.
4. There is every reason for Washington to be satisfied with the Middle East questions, given the remarkable progress in Turkish-Israeli relations in recent years, especially under the current Yılmaz Government. The Iranian and Iraqi side of this cooperation is not that palatable for the Americans, but they realize that they have to take into account Turkey’s special position as a country of this region and they make the necessary arrangements in their foreign policy in this regard.
5. Neither is the fifth item of the Action Plan, the Cyprus and the Aegean problems any bother for Washington. Denktaş’s latest proposals for a confederation on the island suit the American plans perfectly. If London and Washington are raising objections today, it is only to increase their bargaining power on matters of concern with Turkey, rather than any serious objections. Time will show much more distinctly how right these analyses of Pulse are on the last three items. The real problem at the forthcoming Turkish-American summit in New York will be over the first two issues. In fact, they merit a more detailed scrutiny than just flipping over these five points in passing.

World balances for the new century and Turkey’s place in it

A prominent ANAP parliamentarian İlhan Kesici said in a televised interview at the beginning of this year that he had just been to some international seminars and conferences in Brussels and Washington and observed what calculations and preparations were being made for the new century. He explained that it was now a single superpower world and that new balances were appearing in international relations. Kesici said the USA is a superpower both militarily and economically, and there is not another country like it. The EU is an economic superpower, but not so much militarily and besides its integration is incomplete. Russia is a superpower militarily, but not economically. It is the reverse for Japan. China may be a superpower in the year 2010 and India a few decades later.

Turkey is a superpower neither economically nor militarily and will not be one in any foreseeable future. Yet it is located in such a place that it directly affects future developments of this world reshaping, maintains İlhan Kesici, and he advocates that the Government should make the most of this advantageous location.

It seems that Turkish-American talks in future will revolve around this point brought up by İlhan Kesici at the beginning of the Turkish-American Action Plan 9-10 months ago, rather than around mutual relations. In other words, the role Turkey will play in Washington’s designs for the world order in the new century will determine the course of mutual relations.

Yet Washington is not the only power that has appreciated Turkey’s key role and importance in the future world order. Moscow has also understood it duly and has been acting accordingly.

The Russians say that they have special relations with three countries: India, China and Iran. They do not name Turkey in this group because Ankara does not want to appear too close to Moscow, but it is apparent that Turkey can figure at the head of this list if it wants to. Within this policy of low profile, Turkey and Russia have been forging a very strong and mutually advantageous cooperation in recent years. The secret of the current economic crisis in Russia and Turkey rests on this point. With Russia being such a giant and Turkey the 16^th biggest economic power of the world, the waves of this economic storm are also rocking certain other economies, especially the Latin American ones and adversely affect the United States too.

Americans may seek Turkey to dissociate itself from Russia

Washington has already begun to advise Ankara, through its usual indirect and subtle methods, that Turkey should disassociate itself from the Russian Federation at the current economic crisis. It has not yet reached the point of overtly talking of the stick and carrot in Turkish-American relations, but it should be no surprise if that point is also reached before long.

So the question is what will Turkey’s attitude be if a showdown becomes unavoidable.

Above all, even George Soros, the American speculator who is accused of stirring up the economic crises in the Far East, Russia and Turkey, has urged a congressional committee to support and finance the IMF to enable it to extend economic relief to the bedevilled economies. He warned that the global economic order advocated by the United States would otherwise collapse and the Americans would suffer the most from it, “because we are in the centre of it,” he recalled.

Indeed, the practice of this globalization of the world economy has so far been an unfair economic performance. It is a boxing match between a flyweight and a heavyweight. The so-called American capital comes into the country not for reliable investments, but for stock exchange gambling, and the moment it leaves the country at no notice stock exchanges, bond markets and the economy in general turn topsy-turvy. And the well-known tool of this game, George Soros, is not impressed with what is going on and he appreciates that it is not sustainable.

So, if Turkey is going to dissociate itself from something what is it going to be – a reliable business associate in deep trouble due to a lack of experience in handling sharks like Soros or the mechanism behind this diabolic system called globalization?

The fact that American democracy has screened Soros’s complaints and pleas on the TV is an assurance that Washington will find the best path out of the current crisis and that the New York talks ahead will not be prejudicial to Turkish-American relations.

Turkish economists have already carried out detailed surveys into the harm and defects of the new economic system advocated by the Americans. There are similar surveys in several other parts of the world. Pulse will try to sum up these surveys in its next article. There is no doubt that the Americans are carrying out their own surveys to eliminate these setbacks. Let us hope that Mesut Yılmaz’s forthcoming talks with the United States will contribute to the solution of these problems and to basing mutual relations on sound, sustainable and mutually beneficial grounds.  uras@ada.net.tr September 18^th, 1998