| As a matter of fact, the address in itself can be read as a message of support and respect for Turkey’s parliamentary democracy, not to mention Obama’s planned tête-à-tête meetings with leaders of the opposition parties represented in Parliament, the members of which were elected in July 2007 through fully democratic means and thus are fully representative. Recalling May 2003 remarks by then-US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz may be more helpful in comprehending the significance of Obama’s choice to address Turkey’s democratically elected deputies.
In a May 5 Pentagon interview with CNN-Türk, Wolfowitz told two Turkish journalists, Cengiz Çandar and Mehmet Ali Birand, that he was disappointed with the Turkish government’s actions. Wolfowitz told them he was less than thrilled with the performance of Turkey’s powerful military establishment during their discussions of whether to allow US troops into the country. The Turkish military “for whatever reason, did not play the strong leadership role in that issue that we would have expected,” he said.
“Obama’s choice to address Parliament is in the best tradition of American democracy,” asserted Özdem Sanberk, a former Foreign Ministry undersecretary and an esteemed foreign policy analyst.
Obama’s protocol counterpart, President Abdullah Gül, was appointed as the foreign minister of the 59th government only days after the March motion was rejected during his term in office as prime minister of the 58th government.
Requirements of a strategic partnership
For any two allies, having a strategic consensus on various issues that are subject to common interest is one thing, but calling their bilateral relationship a strategic partnership is another thing entirely.
Actually, it has been almost a decade since the Turkish-US relationship was defined as a “strategic partnership” in September 1999 by then-President Bill Clinton, who also became the first ever US president to give a speech in Parliament in November 1999.
At the end of 2004, many analysts said 2005 was the year during which bilateral relations between Turkey and the US needed to be redefined as to whether they were really as strategically beneficial as officials from both sides kept saying they were.
It took longer than predicted for relations to reach a point befitting a strategic alliance in the eyes of the public, although in July 2006 the two countries signed a “Shared Vision and Structured Dialogue” document, which they said would boost what they described as the two nations’ “strategic partnership.”
A Nov. 5, 2007 meeting between then-President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan apparently was a turning point in US-Turkish relations which, until then, had been plagued by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) problem.
In December 2007, actionable intelligence provided by the US for Turkey’s ongoing air strikes against PKK locations in northern Iraq was warmly appreciated in Turkey at the highest level, with Gül paying an official visit to the US in early January 2008.
It was asked at the time whether seeds for a new spring in the relations between Ankara and Washington had been sown and, if so, whether this spring would be a long one.
Respectability and the Falklands
In early March, visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, in a joint statement, “reaffirmed the strong bonds of alliance, solidarity and strategic partnership between the two countries.”
“The commitment of both countries to the principles of peace, democracy, freedom and prosperity enshrined in the Shared Vision and Structured Dialogue document agreed to in July 2006,” was equally highlighted in the statement as well.
According to Sanberk, with Turkey assuming a multidimensional foreign policy approach, actual global challenges in the world render such a strategic partnership between the two key allies disadvantageous and risky.
“Being a prestigious and respectable partner of the US is a much healthier position. We have a sufficient wealth of friendship for maintaining a healthy relationship, but if we ignore this wealth and resort to sumptuous definitions, we will burden each side’s shoulders with heavy responsibilities,” Sanberk told Sunday’s Zaman, adding that fulfilling such responsibilities might lead to high costs.
The 1982 Falklands War is a good example for better understanding what Sanberk meant. During the brief, undeclared war fought between Argentina and Great Britain in 1982 over control of the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) and associated island dependencies, Argentine military planners had trusted that the US would remain neutral in the conflict, but, following unsuccessful mediation attempts, the US offered its full support to Great Britain, allowing its NATO ally to use its air-to-air missiles, communications equipment, aviation fuel and other military stockpiles on British-held Ascension Island, as well as cooperating with military intelligence.
The Reagan administration then in effect trampled all over the Monroe Doctrine — James Monroe’s declaration of 1823 that the Western hemisphere was now closed to re-colonization by Europeans — as originally conceived, when it cheered for Britain rather than Argentina in the Falklands War.
What led the US to such a position was its strategic partnership with Britain, Sanberk said, adding that neither Turkey nor the US would like to get dragged into such a position because of their relationship.
“It is time for being realistic, and the time is also ripe for enjoying the benefits and virtues of frank speaking between the two ally countries, Turkey and the United States,” he said, stressing that Turkey and the US have the potential for maintaining “a very important relationship based on mutual respect,” without necessarily having a new joint driving concept for describing the nature of the relationship.
“Respectability comes with democratic and economic success. The way for Turkey to gain respectability in Washington or other capitals doesn’t necessarily come from having strategic relations with America. However, it comes from Turkey becoming a country that is in constant development; that is able to protect the fragile segments of our society; that is respectful of freedom of expression, gender equality, minority rights and the environment; and that is a secular and democratic country with an open society,” Sanberk said, in remarks, again highlighting of the principles of peace, democracy, freedom and prosperity mentioned in the joint statement by Babacan and Clinton, as well as to Obama’s choice to address Turkey’s democratically elected deputies.
Spring and soul
Since the government faced the military’s “e-memorandum” on April 27, 2007, which opposed the presidential candidacy of then-Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül by arguing that he was an Islamist, numerous articles in both the Turkish and foreign media have labeled the ongoing polarization and tension in the country as a battle for Turkey’s soul. Recently, they tend to label the current moves in Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy arena as “soul-searching.”
Speaking of seeds for a new spring in relations between Ankara and Washington, Obama’s calendar wise timing for visiting Turkey is prosperous.
For some, April is the most beautiful of months, and for some, it is May. But certainly April is “the cruelest month” for many, like poet T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), who described it at such in his famous poem “The Waste Land.”
Turkey is surely not a “wasteland,” and the venue of Obama’s address in Ankara and his choice to address representatives of the will of Turkey’s peoples also shows where Turkey’s soul is. |
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