WHERE DOES TURKEY STAND AT THE EU DOORSTEP?

 

Before the 1 March rebuff, President Bush reportedly told the then Turkish Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis in answer to his query about what the EU would say to Turkey’s joining the war against Iraq, “What EU? I split it into three – the French-German front, the majority around the UK and the former Soviet Bloc countries in the EU today like Poland. The majority is in the anti-Iraq Coalition.” These words which were seemingly true at that time have totally lost their validity within the 8-9 months that have since gone by. Time has proved that rather than Spain and the Spanish people, it was PM Aznar, rather than Italy and the Italian people it was PM Berlisconi who were supporting the Anti-Iraq Coalition led by President Bush’s hardliners. And unrolling events have proved that neither this backing nor that of the former Soviet Bloc ones are really reliable support for the American occupation forces to lean against in Iraq. Given the millions of Brits who joined the antiwar demonstrations in London and other cities, it is even the case for the UK, but its conservative opposition is even less in tune with the wishes of the majority of the British people than PM Blair is and that fact provides President Bush the biggest boost in its Baghdad campaign. And where does Turkey stand in this jungle of unpredictable diplomatic riddles? Please read the article below for an attempt to analyse facts.

 

The 2-day Lake Gerda meeting in Italy of the EU foreign ministers and other related conferences on 5-6 September received top-level response from Turkey with PM Tayyip Erdogan and FM Abdullah Gul carrying out extensive contacts with the EU leaders and this in itself was, from Turkey’s angle, proof of the mistake in President Bush’s forecast of a triple split in the European Union.

Turkey gets rid of France’s and Germany’s  suspicion of a “Trojan horse”

France, especially, has always viewed UK participation in the European integration as a “Trojan horse” for Europe in favour of the United States, but neither that suspicion nor the British actions within the EU or its forerunners have prevented the European integration from going from strength to strength in its half a century existence.

Last week’s EU foreign ministers’ meetings in Italy discussed Iraq among a number of other vitally important issues such as establishing a new EU military headquarters independent of NATO and the Italian initiative of finalizing the new European constitution for the Union by mid-December before Italy hands over the presidency to Ireland. Top Turkish rulers, Erdogan and Gul, were amidst these discussions with a most welcome warning from the Romanian Foreign Minister that it was impossible to discuss the Iraq question in Turkey’s absence.

President Bush’s three factions of the EU were unanimous that Turkey could not be ignored, not only in the Middle East and the Gulf but in world politics in general. In view of Ankara’s 1 March rebuff to the United States and present slow motion in deciding about force deployment in Iraq, the French and German backbone of the EU definitely viewed Turkey with a much more favourable eye than their previous suspicion of “another Trojan horse of Washington” and that changed outlook opened new vistas for the Turkish rulers in the EU accession and integration. FM Abdullah Gul says that according to reliable gallop polls in France only 18% of the French people used to favour Turkey’s accession to the EU and it rose to 35% after 1 March. “This is a big increase in our favour,” he stresses.

Despite these favourable developments, undesirable factors were not missing at last week’s contacts for the Turkish rulers and they did their best to allay them. They focused attention on making the EU an important world centre for cohesion of religions, instead of the outlook of clashes of religions especially between Christendom and the Islamic world. About the new European constitution they exerted efforts to prevent a provision to the effect that “The religion of the European Union is Christianity.” Some maintain in Turkey that such a provision would be the end of Turkey’s accession, but it is not true. The NATO Charter and principles also call for “defending the contemporary Christian civilization against Godless communism.” And it did not prevent Turkey from becoming one of the staunchest members of the alliance for over half a century now. The President of Portugal who paid a State visit to Ankara last week confirmed this view in so many words and promised his country’s all out support for Turkey’s accession.

In addition to the Vatican’s and some other conservative European quarters’ efforts to make EU a Christen union by the constitution there were some other unpalatable developments for Turkey in Europe. The German official opposition leader Angela Merkel said in answer to PM Erdogan’s appeal against making that issue a domestic policy question for Germany or Europeans, “The EU’s conditions are not suitable for Turkey’s accession.”   The President of the European Convention which prepared the new constitution, President Giscard d’Estaing, repeated his well known opposition to Turkey’s accession by saying that it was impossible to wind up these efforts constructively. Even the German Minister of the Interior Otto Schily is on record for saying, “To be honest Turkey’s accession will take a long time.”  Again Schily was in Ankara on Tuesday (16^th) as an important EU government member and his talks with his Turkish counterpart concerned extremist religious fanatic Metin Kaplan’s extradition to Turkey for his religious fundamentalism. It can be another step in EU’s giving up its support to Turkish separatists or religious fundamentalists.

The impact on Turkey of Europe’s changed outlook

All the participants and observers of last week’s EU meetings in Italy are unanimous that there was a radical change in the EU’s behaviour and outlook towards Turkey for the better. France and Germany are no longer seeing Turkey as another potential Trojan horse, but a great Islamic nation that will contribute to the European integration at least as much as the difficulties it will cause. The main difficulty about Turkey’s accession is the Europeans’ unanimous fear that within a decade or two Turkey will be the biggest European country with a population of nearly 100 million young dynamic people upsetting the Union’s industrial and unemployment plans.

PM Tayyip Erdogan was prepared to counter that argument and readily offered a concession to the EU, “We can suspend our free movement and labour rights for a while if we are admitted in as a full member.” He could give such a one-sided juicy concession to the Union because it had already become Turkey’s State policy even before the AKP came to power with such a comfortable majority in Parliament which provides it a great advantage in its moves for EU membership.

Another thorny issue for Turkey at the conference was certainly Iraq. Ankara’s intention and preparations for sending forces to Iraq was falling at odds with the French and German bloc’s policies. In return, Turkish rulers had the advantage of pointing to the EU members like the UK, Poland and others who are already there as part of the “occupation forces” of the US-led Coalition. They assured the EU that Turkey would go to Iraq as an effective military force, not for occupation, but for reconstruction of the country as well as a source of security and stability. Turkey could not remain indifferent to a next door neighbour’s problems, Abdullah Gul stressed. The German Foreign Minister Fischer received it with understanding and a consensus appeared that Turkey should not be rush about moving into Iraq militarily until the UN stepped in as the major authority in reshaping Iraq. The subsequent contacts in the UN, however, were not of a nature to facilitate Turkey’s task as it was not possible to bridge the gap between the American and French draft resolutions for Iraq.

That is why Ankara is now in a position to decide about moving into Iraq militarily under the frowning eyes of Paris and Berlin without rupturing relations with them or doing the opposite and trying to avoid annoying the Americans too much by keeping away. At the moment of the drafting of this article Ankara had not yet taken its final decision, but the developments in Iraq and the Middle East were certainly not of a nature to take a decision in favour of the United States, even though Colin Powell who was in Iraq after the UN debates is apparently becoming more and more impatient about Turkey’s hesitation.        

High technology is paradoxically the Americans’ problem in winning peace in Iraq

The assassination of Ayatollah al-Hakim along with more than 100 others in the Shiite community in Najaf and the murder by American soldiers of eight Iraqi security people trained by the Americans themselves for local security force in Fallujah and similar events do not help Washington in winning peace in Iraq. Rather they make the US forces out to be more ruthless than Saddam himself in the eyes of the Iraqi majority.

An analysis of the events show that with the daily murder of an American soldier or two and the wounding of several others by a well organized international guerrilla force, indeed terrorists, the American soldiers in Iraq have now been carried away by a kind of paranoia and they irresponsibly shoot about causing the death of innocent people, including their own men. Is it because the American soldiers are trigger happy blood thirsty monsters? Definitely not. They are acting in such an irresponsible way because high technology products like powerful missiles and rockets which enabled them to win an easy military victory in three weeks are now in their way in winning the peace.

There is a golden rule in war, IFF (Identify, friend or foe), for an unknown aircraft in the air or a vehicle or people in the field. Experience shows that neither during the war nor after its end on 1 May, the American forces have used this device in Iraq to prevent casualties from their own ranks. Instead they fired and killed the other side indiscriminately at the slightest suspicion or movement, giving way to these unnecessary casualties. It is apparently because the weapons are now so powerful that the shelter, trenches or the armoured vehicle no longer protect you against an enemy pulling the trigger before you. That is why they no longer use IFF arrangements and rush to shoot first. By doing so they inadvertently become a totally unreliable, trigger happy occupation force.

The Turkish military is now working hard on prevention of an unfortunate clash with the American soldiers in  Iraq because of misunderstanding or paranoia. What if the Americans received what they thought a reliable intelligence report that Saddam is hiding in the Turkish sector? Will they carry out a surprise attack on Turkish soldiers as they did in Suleymania on 4 July? These questions are being put to the Americans in Ankara and no action will be taken about force deployment in Iraq before full satisfaction is obtained by Turkey. This, for itself, is the main problem for Turkish troop deployment in Iraq as it is impossible to have such assurance.

Into the bargain, the French and German front is also becoming as impatient as the Americans in the opposite direction and pressing Turkey to keep its soldiers away from Iraq. They have the perfect trump card of the Turkish accession to the EU, while the Americans are using their much weaker cards to persuade Ankara. The weak American cards are the PKK/KADEK terrorists and the $8.5 billion loan arrangements. They are dragging their feet on both cases apparently with the intention of not fulfilling either commitment unless Turkey sends troops to Iraq. Yet it is not wise to tie these two issues to Iraq because they are both tied to other issues. How can Washington possibly keep the PKK terrorists in northern Iraq while they call the Iraq war “war on terrorism” and they have the PKK/KADEK in their official terrorist organisations list? As for the $1 billion grant or $8.5 billion loan facility it is linked to the Incirlik base and other logistics activities from Turkey, rather than to force deployment there. Even the American Ambassador confirms this point though the American Treasury Chief Taylor attempted to establish a link between the American aid to Turkey and Turkish force deployment in Iraq.

Al in all, both the United States and the hard core of the EU, France and Germany, are more and more putting pressure on Turkey in the opposite directions and the situation in Ankara last week was far from President Bush’s definition of weakling European Union split into three. The Swedish rebuff to join Euro hardly weaken the European front because there are several other powerful countries like Turkey who are ready to jump into Euro if the UK, Sweden and Denmark are staying out. The three dissidents also know that they cannot possibly be both in the EU but out of Euro. President  Prodi said it in so many words after the Swedish referendum.

Even the non-EU countries like Norway and Iceland, plus Switzerland to a lesser extend, cannot remain indifferent to the European integration and join in the Schengen arrangements, along with the reluctant UK group. The triple division in the EU is a wishful dream of some that has no validity as far as Turkey goes.      uras@ada.net.tr – September 16^th, 2003