TURKPULSE No:156..........MAY 30th, 2006
The successful Treasury Minister Ali Babacan and PM Tayyip Erdogan keep on assuring the nation that the fluctuations are no cause for a crisis, that they are prepared for the worst to prevent the recurrence of 2001 and that their measures would be put into force one by one as the external reasons for these developments appeared more in time. Far from being harmful, let alone disastrous, some of these developments may even yield healthy results by ending the over value of the YTL and thus narrowing the current accounts gap. Besides, these fluctuations are nothing special to Turkey, but global, with similar effects on the Indian, Brazilian, Russian and other big developing economies, they maintain, with considerable justification.
Washington’s exasperation with PM Erdogan heads for the limit
Washington’s latest big disappointment was the Turkish Parliament’s avoidance, on Friday (26th), of ratifying a bilateral treaty with the United States about non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. The Government was even reluctant to answer the opposition’s question about why they should conclude such a bilateral treaty with the United States when both countries are parties to the NPT (Non-proliferation Treaty). It is apparent that there is a catch in the bilateral treaty about Turkey’s according special facilities to the Americans concerning Iran’s nuclear energy activities. Such a clause, no matter how hidden and subtle it may have been worded, can never pass through the competent Turkish authorities- Parliament, the Presidency and the relevant security organizations.
Washington is apparently in utter confusion in view of these developments. It seems they do not know whom to provoke against whom in Turkey- the Erdogan Government against the institutions of the State ranging from the President, the TGS to the Judiciary and others or these institutions, primarily the military,
against the Erdogan Government? Consequently confusing acts of terrorism and subversion appear in Turkey with considerably difficult and contradictory explanations. The easiest explanation for them is the above analysis, i.e. the confusion of Washington’s pluralist democracy about whom to support and whom to oppose in Turkey.
The disgusting attack on the Danistay judges on 17 May in Ankara is a typical example of this fact. The outcome of the investigation shows that it was the work of a “band of treason” of some former officers, especially special force officers and their accomplices, similar to the 27 May 1960 coup in Turkey. This time, however, there is no high ranked general involvement on the part of the Turkish Armed Forces. The highest ranked suspect named by the media is a retired intelligence brigadier, Veli Kucuk, and some other adventurers linked with the CIA’s terrorism in Chechnya.
The attempt of the public prosecutor of Van, to get top level Turkish commanders such as General Buyukanit involved in these recent subversive activities recoiled on the plotters when the Judiciary dismissed the prosecutor’s far-fetched indictment after a meticulous investigation within due process of the Judicial mechanism.
Now the Bush Administration is wavering away about what answer to give to PM Erdogan concerning his application for visiting the United States. They believe that such a visit will serve to consolidate Erdogan’s position at home rather than provide the Americans with any opportunity to promote their positions in the world with Turkey’s support.
New “genocides” are being invented against Turkey
On 19 May while Turkey was celebrating the 87th anniversary of Mustafa Kemal’s landing in Samsun to start the independence war, the Greeks were burning the Turkish flag in front of the Turkish Embassy of Athens, with the claim of denouncing the Pontus Genocide.
Studies into what this mysterious new genocide claim against Turkey is all about show that “Pontus” means Sea in Greek, and “Euxinos Pontus” meaning “The Friendly Sea” is today’s Black Sea in Turkish and English. With or without any outside prodding (and most Turks always suspect a superpower finger in such unbelievable claims), some wise guys of the enormous Greek community of Australia decided in November 1997 to set up “The Pontian Genocide and Asia Minor Holocaust Studies Unit”. It began official operation in January 1998. Don’t ask “On what grounds?” It is not possible to find even a tangible event or a date for this mysterious genocide claim other than the Greek myths about “prehistoric ties to this region going back to the days of Jason and Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece.”
Last week Turkey made diplomatic representations to Greece, both in Athens and Ankara, about the harm that will be inflicted on the current dialogue atmosphere “by such allegations as the so-called Pontus genocide which has no grounds whatsoever.”
Good luck to these desperate genocide inventor Greeks, who have time to waste with such ridiculous, far-fetched claims. But Turks do not help underlining that these strange developments are coinciding with other claims in the West about inventing a criminal offence in rejecting the Armenian genocide claims or Georgian claims of the same regions, the Trabzon area of the eastern Black Sea, under its new leader President Mikheil Saakashvili with his undeniable American ties.
Pres. Saakashvili’s anti-Turkish campaign shortens his rule’s lifespan
The northeastern Turkish lands, stretching from Kars and Ardahan to Trabzon, are called the Pontus Empire by the Greeks and Tao Klarjet by the Georgians. Since Saakashvili came to power in January 2004, Georgian TV stations began to send out interviewer teams to this region to make broadcasts, at their busiest hours, with maps showing the Trabzon area as Georgian lands. These broadcasts also claim that the Laz people who live in the Trabzon area are historically of Georgian origin. They were forcibly converted to Islam by the Ottoman Empire and their churches are left in ruins in Turkey today, they claim. The Georgian Patriarch Ilia II, Catolicos and Patriarch of the All Georgia, plays an active role in these expansionist broadcasts and Saakashvili’s two-and-a-half-year rule has given a momentum to this subversive propaganda.
President Saakashvili’s mother, Prof. G. Alasania, personally joins in the activities of certain foundations set up “to promote Georgian nationalism” with demands of opening special schools to teach in the Georgian language and alphabet in Turkey, especially in “Tao Klarjet”. Needless to say, the superpower wind, reinforced by EU norms and standards in Turkey’s search for accession, is behind them filling their sails in this adventurous journey of the Georgian leadership.
In return, the Turkish side fishes out 14-year old documents from their archives to understand and explain Saakashvili’s plans and intentions for Turkey dating back to 1992. Here is an excerpt:
“The 1921 Treaty of Kars that determines the Turkish-Georgian frontier, along with the Turkish-Georgian Friendship and Cooperation agreement of 1992, is not just. They both are against the national interests of Georgia. They relinquish certain Georgian lands to Turkey. The Treaty should be abolished because it was concluded between the Turks and Russians when Georgia was under Soviet invasion. Again the 1992 Agreement is tantamount to the reiteration of the Treaty of Kars under heavy duress. There is a provision in the Treaty of Kars to the effect that Ajaria will have independence and this means that under certain conditions Turkey will have to reinstate to Georgia this place along with other lands it grasped from Georgia. The Turkish Army is also keeping Cyprus under occupation.
“The Georgian minority of Turkey is deprived of all rights. Indeed, Turkey is far away from international norms about the rights of the minorities that live there.”
And all these allegations totally against Turkey’s national interests and territorial integrity are not the delirium of a petty politician irresponsibly uttered in his opposition days, but they are part of the innumerable tangible proofs of the plans and intentions of the political force that brought him to that position.
It is evident that the long term American plans, which managed to disintegrate Yugoslavia, the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, also foresee detaching lands from eastern and southeastern Turkey for Kurdistan, Armenia, Georgia, the Greek Pontus and what not. President Saakashvili is only one of the small, dispensable screws in this nearly a century old global mechanism of a superpower since Wilson’s Fourteen Points.
The Saakashvili Administration’s future today is simply bleak, despite all the financial and all sorts of support poured upon it from beyond the Atlantic? Reliable and objective reports indicate that there has been no improvement in Georgia’s economic and social conditions in his time. The country has become the centre of drug addiction and illicit trade, under the mounting economic problems now that Russia is cutting off its subsidized energy and wine and other imports. In short, the Saakashvili rule’s days are numbered without any steps taken by Turkey to retort these subversive views.
What is more important from Ankara’s angle is what will be the end of Washington’s colourful “democracy” adventures, not only in Georgia and Ukraine but in almost all Turkey’s neighbours from north to south and from east to west. PM Blair seems to be unique in the world about admiring the “parliamentary democracy” government which set out to rule Iraq last week.
Because the challenge to Turkey’s national integrity is not local or as negligible as a petty politician’s irresponsible political words, but global and enormous, so are Turkey’s remedies.
Turkey’s Caucasus policy is based on EU type integration
As explained in several previous Pulse issues, the first international treaties signed by the Ankara Government during the independence war were the Treaties of Moscow in March 1921 and Kars eight months later, in November 1921. They foresee prototype integration similar to the European one after World War II. It has hitherto been unsuccessful in view of the West’s strong objections and this failure is continuing even today with the same undermining.
President Saakashvili’s above views are only a small part of this undermining of the multilateral cooperation, let alone integration, of the regional countries.
Nevertheless, starting with the conclusion of the “Action Plan for Cooperation Between Turkey and Russia in Eurasia” in New York on 16 November 2001 and especially during the Erdogan Government as from the end of 2002, a productive cooperation started for the Caucasus and beyond, especially with the mutual understanding worked out between President Putin and PM Erdogan.
The Black Sea Chapter as well as the Southern Caucasus and the Central Asian Cooperation Initiatives Chapter of this cooperation have been particularly successful. This cooperation is based on reinforcing cultural ties among the local peoples. Everyone was surprised when at the latest Eurovision Competition in Athens last week the Turkish people gave the highest mark of 10 points to the Armenians, after the 12 points to Bosnia Herzegovina. It was because the Armenian song was ornate with rhythms from traditional Turkish music and behind it there rested a huge cultural effort by the local peoples of the Caucasus.
The Mayor of Kars, Naif Alibeyoglu, who has been in office since 1999, first from ANAP and since November 2002 from the AKP, is playing a key role in bringing to life these cultural activities in the Caucasus region.
With the cooperation of the Vienna based Bruno Kreisky Forum, he held the Second Caucasus Convention in Kars between 24 and 27 September 2005. With his initial American ties and inclinations, PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan seemed to be rather reserved about it, but especially the Education and Interior Ministers, Huseyin Celik and Abdulkadir Aksu, gave their all-out support and brought it to life with a rather low profile, as the Disinformation Mechanism of the Turkish media was under the same influence as Erdogan.
The superb cultural activities at the Kafkas (Caucasus) University of Kars, (in cooperation with participants from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Naxcivan, Russia and Turkey, as well as observers from the Czech Republic, France, Norway and the United States) included the singing of Armenian, Georgian, Kurdish and Turkish “fraternal songs” and they culminated to a peak with the “Concert of the Millennium” at the historic Ancient Armenian ruins, performed by Borusan Holding’s 65-strong orchestra under the internationally renowned maestro, Gurel Aryal.
Mayor Alibeyoglu voiced diametrically opposed views to President Saakashvili in his introduction of the Caucasus Convention, “The 1921 Treaty of Kars had brought peace to this region. Why shouldn’t we materialize a new peace initiative again in Kars?” He noted that these activities had suddenly brought forth Kars as an “open city” of cultures, arts, science, trade, security and freedoms in this region.
This second Caucasus Convention, (the first one was tentatively held again at the Caucasus University on 30 October 1999 upon Alibeyoglu’s election as mayor) resolved to institutionalize these conventions on a three yearly basis “in order to reinforce peace, friendship and cooperation locally by being motivated by the common characteristics of the region, without getting involved in political disputes.”
The Caucasus University of Kars will run the pioneering mission of “integration” of the region and, to this end, it will establish a Caucasus languages department, a Caucasus music conservatory, a Caucasus cultural institute and a Caucasus stone masonry and architecture higher school. It will also expand the existing Research Centre for Caucasus and Central Asia with the cooperation of all Caucasus universities and UNDP’s offices in the regional countries. It will try to get the Turkish-Armenian common frontier reopened and the local communication and transport promoted with the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi Railway and the Kars-Artvin-Hopa highway so that the crops of GAP (Southern Anatolia Irrigation Project) can be transported to the Caucasus.
Needless to say, all these efforts are of limited good, because the achievement of these goals depends on the support of the central government in Ankara, yet Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul preferred a low profile and sent a Turkish Ambassador to conduct these activities instead of chairing the sessions himself. The negative impact of the obstructions in the way by the Saakashvili mentality, especially with superpower backing behind it, should never be underestimated. uras@adanet.tr – May 30th, 2006