In Turkey’s footsteps

The AK Party model of governance is a model for countries like Egypt where religious norms are in conflict with civil liberties

• By George S. Hishmeh, Special to Gulf News

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The rise of Islamists in some Arab countries, particularly Tunisia and Egypt, that have undergone significant political change in the course of landmark elections, has appeared to have somewhat alarmed leading western governments, who did not anticipate these results.

Whether these results are final is too early to tell. Needless to say, the West is partly responsible for this surprise turnaround.

In 1977, US president Jimmy Carter revealed to an audience at the University of Notre Dame as he was spelling out his new “human rights” policy, that “an inordinate fear of Communism … once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear”.

Speaking at the American University in Cairo six years ago, Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state during president George W. Bush’s tenure, seemingly apologised that “for 60 years my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East — and we achieved neither”.

Disappointingly, the US did not adopt a new or different line thereafter, still feeling comfortable with autocrats in the Arab world.

But last week, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, until recently the director of the CIA, went on to urge Israel to “reach out and mend fences” with its neighbours, particularly Turkey and Egypt, underlining his concern about Israel’s growing isolation in the volatile Middle East.

“I believe security is dependent on a strong military, but it is also dependent on strong diplomacy,” Panetta said in remarks at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “And unfortunately, over the past year, we have seen Israel’s isolation from its traditional security partners in the region grow, and the pursuit of a comprehensive Middle East peace has effectively been put on hold.”

A day later, US Vice-President, Joseph R. Biden Jr, seemed to echo the new Obama administration line during a stopover in Istanbul on his way home from Iraq.

During a lengthy meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Biden was reported to have urged the prime minister to repair Turkey’s “badly frayed” relations with Israel following Turkey’s attempt, aborted by the Israeli navy, to offer humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

There were no public disclosures about any specific suggestions, now that Turkey has become a key American ally since its long-desired membership in the European Union has been shelved. Turkey is slowly emerging as a respected pace-setter for many neighbouring Arab states.

Turkey’s involvement, seen as a step to assert its leadership in the Arab world, will open the way for Arab governments to follow the footsteps of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party), a centre-right political group which holds a majority of the seats in the non-sectarian Turkish parliament.

Since it shares a long border with neighbouring Syria, Turkey has joined the ranks of the 22-member Arab League in combating the Bashar Al Assad regime.

European, American and Turkish officials were reported to be confident that “Syria’s economic troubles could prove the undoing” of the Syrian regime, “which to date has managed to maintain the allegiance of the business elite”. Syria is known to be “heavily reliant on Turkey for trade, which more than tripled between the two countries to $2.5 billion in 2009, from $795 million in 2006,” reported the New York Times. “Before the recent souring of relations, it was forecast to reach $5 billion by 2013.”

It is very likely the Turkish model would be an attractive one to follow in the Arab world, as seems likely in Egypt. Ahmad Tharwat, a professor at the University of St Thomas in Minneapolis and host in a local Arab-American community television programme BelAhdan told Suzanne Manneh on New America Media that religious differences have always been an issue in Egypt, “but always in a civil liberties context”.

Furthermore, he said, the religious conflict perceived in Egypt today is less a product of the current revolution than it is “a remnant of the Mubarak regime”.

George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com

via gulfnews : In Turkey’s footsteps.