(Reuters) – A U.S.-led plan to build a missile defense shield against Iran will test Turkey’s conflicting allegiances, forcing it to find a way to satisfy NATO allies without alienating new partners to the East.
Frustrated at “waiting at the gates” of the European Union, and out of step with long time ally the United States on some key foreign policy issues — notably regarding Iran — Muslim Turkey has charted an increasingly independent course.
NATO member states will discuss at a summit in Lisbon on November 19-20 whether to build the shield, aimed at countering ballistic threats from the Middle East, in particular Iran.
Turkey, the only Muslim state in NATO, doesn’t want any NATO agreement on the shield to identify as potential enemies either fellow Muslim states Iran and Syria, or Russia. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan also wants the shield to cover all Turkish territory and seeks guarantees command would stay within NATO.
Though Turkey is committed to NATO missions such as Afghanistan, it is no longer the compliant partner that it was during the Cold War and cannot be taken for granted by the West.
“Five years ago Ankara’s choice would have been predictable,” said Semih Idiz, a Turkish foreign policy analyst.
“It no longer is so and this carries the seeds of another crisis with the U.S. and the EU along the ideological divide.”
Turkey seeks stable relations with close neighbors which in past decades have proved troublesome. It has an $11 billion trade with major gas supplier Iran, has become a friend of Syria, and it recently signed a “strategic partnership” with traditional foe Russia.
Turkey’s transformation from a virtual bankrupt shackled by military coups into a stable democracy with one of the world’s fastest growing economies has imbued it with confidence.
Erdogan, whose core constituency lies among religious Turks knows his assertiveness goes down well with voters who have as little trust in Washington as an average Egyptian or Pakistani.
DISSONANCE
Idiz says Erdogan, who has called Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a good friend, has become a “wild card” — a valued ally of the West whose maverick streak can prove awkward.
Turkey’s estrangement from Israel added to complications.
Strategically, Turkey straddles energy corridors to Central Asia and the Middle East, with Iraq, Iran, Syria, and the volatile South Caucasus states on its eastern borders, Russia to the north, and the Balkans to the southwest.
The United States sees Turkey, a moderate Muslim state with a secular constitution and strengthening democracy, as a bulwark of stability in the conflict-ridden Eurasian region.
via Analysis: NATO shield to test Turkey’s allegiances | Reuters.