Turkey entertained United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Istanbul at the weekend and basked in praise for its efforts, along with Brazil, in securing a nuclear fuel swap deal for Iran.
Ban told Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he welcomed Ankara’s diplomatic efforts since it improves the chances for a diplomatic solution to Iran’s standoff with Western nations over its nuclear program.
On Monday, Iran handed a letter to the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, in which it outlined the swap deal in which 1,200 kilograms of its low-enriched uranium would be handed to Turkey in exchange for nuclear fuel.
Turkey’s involvement in the Iran issue comes at a critical time. Tehran faces a fourth round of UN sanctions as well as sanctions from the United States over its uranium-enrichment program, which it insists is for peaceful purposes.
Turkey recently hosted a conference on ending the conflict in war-torn Somalia; Ban was also present at this event. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was also in the country recently to discuss energy routes and sign US$25 billion in agreements, including a $20 billion deal for a massive nuclear power plant to be built on Turkey’s southern Mediterranean coast.
These diplomatic efforts have been backed up by the travels of Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, whose visits to countless countries in the past few years have been a hallmark of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.
Davutoglu describes a “zero problem” foreign policy approach as the country’s driving force. This was outlined in his 2001 book Strategic Depth. The title alludes to Turkey’s distance from global players, its own neighbors, and the assets of both.
Believing Turkey to be centrally located, Davutoglu advocates the expansion of the country’s influence throughout the region, increasing ties with all willing countries, and becoming more of an independent power.
The “activist” foreign policy, coupled with Erdogan lashing out at Israel to cheers from Arab countries and continuing a friendly relationship with Iran, has prompted debate whether the mildly Islamist AKP is turning its back on the European Union (EU) and trying to create some kind of neo-Ottoman Islamic caliphate.
While Davutoglu is known to balk at the term neo-Ottoman, Turkey’s expansion of influence through a policy of engagement and commercial trade is beginning to have one of the largest effects on the region in recent years. The successes have been clear.
Turkey has aided talks between the US and insurgents in Iraq, brought together the prime ministers of Serbia and Bosnia, and mediated talks between Israel and Syria. The country has seen an expansion of visa-free travel and the number of flights from Turkey to Asia, Africa and the Middle East has increased.
In March, the country turned down a standby International Monetary Fund loan because it did not need the emergency funds and imports and exports have grown from the same period last year.
Though both countries refused to cut defense spending, inroads also have been made with Greece, Turkey’s historic rival.
This type of foreign policy has earned more raised eyebrows then applause, however, especially as the AKP tries to enact constitutional reforms aimed at curbing the judiciary and the military ahead of parliamentary elections next year.
Far less attention is being paid to the fact that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish republic, had a motto of “peace at home and peace in the world”. Turkey has long sought to secure good relations with other countries, especially its friends, who are defined by strategic support and mutual interests and, also, its neighbors who are potential customers for Turkey’s expanding markets.
This type of foreign policy, one of non-interference and cooperation, is a path Turkey has long tried to follow. Numerous agreements and non-aggression pacts have been signed, such as the Balkan Pact with Greece, Romania and Yugoslavia and the Treaty of Saadabad with Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran, a country that Turkey has not had problems with for more than 300 years, despite sharing a 499-kilometer border.
The Balkan Pact was meant to protect the participating countries from the rise of fascism in Europe and the Treaty of Saadabad was meant as a promise of non-aggression towards participating countries. Turkey knows it is a country at the crossroads. A policy of open relations is aimed at staving off conflict, which, along with being draining for Turkey, would also most likely provoke internal instability from the country’s Kurdish or other ethnic factions.
As Davutoglu recently wrote, “There are more Bosnians in Turkey than in Bosnia-Herzegovina, more Albanians than in Kosovo, more Chechens than in Chechnya …”.
The agreements also do not come without benefits for Turkey. For example, the Lausanne Strait Agreement, which settled boundaries contested after World War I, led to the Turkish republic being recognized as the successor to the Ottoman Empire.
During the Cold War, Turkey sided with the West against the threat of communism, something which Ataturk had deemed incapable with modern Turkey. It also joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1952, serving as the alliance’s eastern flank.
Unhappy with the term neo-Ottoman, Davutoglu has done his best to steer comparisons of Turkey’s modern foreign policy to the “Ostpolitik” of West Germany in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Ostpolitik, a policy of change through rapprochement, saw communication, agreements and commercial relations better the relations between West Germany and East Germany, Russia, and other Soviet satellite states. While the incremental improvements in relations did not change certain fundamental demands, such as West Germany’s demand for reunification, the two Germany’s eventually recognized each other and were both admitted to the UN.
Similar policies of detente were carried out by the Vatican towards the Soviet Union and by South Korea towards North Korea from 1998-2008.
Today, Turkey’s foreign policy is emblematic of an again powerful country defining itself in the post-Cold War era. However, though it is expanding its influence in the region, Turkey does not see itself as turning its back on the EU. Rather, Turkey sees itself as extending the EU’s transformative power while at the same time finding new markets for its own growing production.
“If you look at the situation 20 years ago when Turkey had tension with Greece, tension with Bulgaria, tension with Russia, active hostility towards Syria, the situation has eased,” says Andrew Finkel, a British journalist who has worked in Turkey for 20 years. “Of course one of the main objectives of the foreign policy is to ease the wheels of commerce.”
Turkey may be frustrated with the slowness of its EU accession process, but half its trade is still with the EU and the number of European businesses in Turkey are growing. The US has remained Turkey’s chief arms supplier for decades.
One of the most obvious ways Turkey has shown its ability to win hearts and minds is its famous soap operas, which have become popular with millions of viewers in the Middle East. “My impression is that these people are hooked not because Turkey is a moderate Islamic country,” says Ayhan Kaya, a professor of International Relations at Istanbul’s Bilgi University.
“People are hooked by the soap operas because they give a rather European perspective of Turkey to Middle Eastern countries. This is why Turkey is becoming so magnetic.”
The soap operas raise issues such as premarital sex, children born out of wedlock, spousal abuse, romance and love. These are issues not openly talked about in the majority of the Arab world, yet Turkey is bringing them out in the open and forcing them into the discourse of family life.
While Turkey tries to foster good relations and serve as a negotiator, the limits of its “zero problem” foreign policy are at the same time being tested. Despite the Iran swap deal, Western countries are pressing ahead with sanctions for the regime. With more than $10 billion in trade and Turkey’s second-biggest energy supplier, Ankara has long tried to serve as a negotiator in the conflict between Iran and the West, despite being accused of stalling sanctions.
However, when faced with having to make a final decision on how to vote, Turkey is expected to side with its NATO allies in the West and vote for sanctions, creating another fissure in the region.
Turkey also made strides with its nemesis Armenia this past year, only to see the efforts collapse in March. The failure to open the border with Armenia and move towards some type of rapprochement was likely linked with Azerbaijan’s dissatisfaction with the lack of resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and Russian pressure, according to Stratfor, an intelligence company.
Turkey has been impeded by Russia in the past. After the end of the Cold War, Turkey tried opening up to Central Asia, feeling it had a mission and ethnic affinity there. However, it found itself in territory where Russia also believed it had a natural right to influence and retreated from the region.
“If you raise your profile you are going to attract competitors. People will try to undermine you,” says Finkel. Now Russia and Turkey are becoming closer. The agreements the two countries signed recently perhaps not only acknowledge Turkey’s growing regional power, but also highlight how unacceptable Russia finds Turkey hosting the Western backed Nabucco natural gas pipeline.
Currently, it appears that Nabucco, despite years of doubt, will be built, undermining Europe’s reliance on Russian energy. At the same time, Turkey is also set to host Russia’s South Stream pipeline, which is supposed to transport energy to Europe and is preparing to enter into several different energy ventures with its northern neighbor. It is unsure if Turkey will be able to host the two competing pipelines or will bow to Russia pressure and shelve Nabucco. The question persists: Does Turkey truly need the West?
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