Turkish Forum

Category: News

  • Turkish-Iranian energy ties deepen

    Turkish-Iranian energy ties deepen

    By JOHN C.K. DALY, UPI International Correspondent 

    Published: Aug. 21, 2008 at 5:52 PM

    WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 (UPI) — The repercussions of Russia’s reassertion of power within what it deems its “sphere of influence” in “the near abroad” continue to ripple throughout Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Caucasus. Washington’s increasingly strident rhetoric over the Russian-Georgian conflict over South Ossetia is having repercussions from Prague through Warsaw to Kiev, as governments scramble to assess the fallout from the dispute.

    Edging closer into Washington’s orbit, Poland has agreed to base 10 U.S. anti-ballistic interceptor missiles and the Czech Republic its complementary radar facility by 2011-2013 to complete a system with components already situated in the United States, Greenland and Britain. While the Bush administration avers that the system is designed to intercept rogue missile launches from renegade states such as Iran, the Kremlin fiercely maintains that geography alone plainly shows the system’s anti-Russian intent and that, along with incorporating former Eastern European and former Soviet republics within NATO, it is an American-led attempt to encircle Russia.

    Even more infuriating to Moscow, earlier this week Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, following Russia’s unilateral abrogation earlier this year of a 1992 agreement with Ukraine on the use of Ukraine’s two Soviet-era missile early warning system tracking stations, issued a decree ending Ukrainian participation in the accord and made an offer of the two stations for “active cooperation with European nations.”

    If Eastern Europe has been traumatized by the recent display of Russia’s military might, with Ukraine and Georgia seeing possible NATO membership as the surest guarantor of their security further east, another stalwart NATO member is carefully evaluating Russia’s other rising influence — energy. As Turkey re-evaluates Eurasia’s changing political and economic landscape, Washington in its eagerness to confront Russia may see another of its cherished foreign policy tenets, that of blockading Iran with sanctions, weakened, perhaps fatally.

    Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution overthrew the Shah, it has been a core tenet of U.S. foreign policy to contain the Islamic Republic of Iran, currently enshrined in the 1996 Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. Expanding Washington’s reach, ILSA threatened even non-U.S. countries and companies with possible sanctions if they invested more than $20 million in developing Iran’s energy resources.

    For Turkey, which imports 90 percent of its energy supply, the Washington dictum of “happiness is multiple pipelines” is a stark reality, however much Washington loathes the mullahcracy in Tehran. Turkey does not have the luxury of allowing “pipeline politics” to trump its national energy security policies, as its current choice of major natural gas suppliers is stark — Russia or Iran, while waiting for Azerbaijan to ramp up production. Highlighting the vulnerability of regional pipelines to conflict, the fighting in South Ossetia halted Azeri oil shipments through Georgia.

    Iran, which contains the world’s second-largest gas reserves, currently provides nearly one-third of Turkey ‘s domestic demand, while Russian energy giant Gazprom provides 63.7 percent of Turkey’s imports, primarily via the Black Sea undersea Blue Stream pipeline, with smaller volumes coming from Azerbaijan. Much to Washington’s annoyance, in 1996 Turkey signed a contract with Iran for natural gas deliveries, which began in December 2001 via a pipeline from Tabriz to Ankara. Five years later the South Caucasus pipeline, also known as the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum natural gas pipeline, opened; with an annual capacity of 8.8 billion cubic meters, BTE carries Azeri Caspian natural gas to Turkey via Georgia.

    In June Turkey’s Devlet Planlama Teskilati (State Planning Organization) prepared a comprehensive projection for Turkey’s economy covering 2009-2011, which included measures to ensure Turkey’s long-term energy supply security and accorded top priority to decreasing Turkey’s dependency on imported natural gas. In the interim, however, given the vulnerability of Azeri imports because of the unsettled nature of current Georgian-Russian relations and the apparent unpredictability of the Kremlin, Ankara is deepening its ties with Tehran, however much Washington disapproves. On July 29 Iranian Petroleum Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said in Tehran that Turkey and Iran are negotiating over Turkey being a transit corridor for Iranian natural gas exports to Europe and that Iran will provide increased amounts of natural gas to Turkey during the winter.

    Nor is Turkey limiting its interest in Iranian energy purely to transit policies: In July 2007 Ankara signed a deal with Iran to develop three gas projects in its giant South Pars offshore gas field in the Persian Gulf as well as to build two pipelines to transport an estimated 30 billion cubic meters of Iranian and Turkmen gas annually through Turkey for resale to Europe. The 3,745-square-mile Persian Gulf South Pars-North Dome gas condensate field, straddling Iranian and Qatari territorial waters, is the world’s largest gas field, containing an estimated 51 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, 50 billion barrels of condensate and reserves equivalent to 360 billion barrels of oil.

    The next result of such activity has been a rapid increase in bilateral trade; in 2007 bilateral Turkish-Iranian trade exceeded $8 billion, a 19.5-percent increase over 2006.

    In case Washington was inclined to shake its sanctions stick at Ankara in the wake of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s two-day visit to Turkey last week, Turkish President Abdullah Gul hailed the visit as “fruitful and helpful” and added, “Expansion of relations on a regional level seems quite natural for Turkey, and it is not important what other states think of it; Turkey cares for its own interests. Turkey will establish good ties with its neighbors with an aim of stability and security in the region.” Underlining Turkey’s commitment to improving its energy ties with Iran, Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler will pay a return visit to Iran within the next two weeks.

    Gul tersely summed up Ankara’s concerns in his closing remarks: “We are an independent country. Here we eye our country’s interests. … We have to make investments for the (energy) supply security of Turkey.” In the 21st century, keeping your electorate warm trumps alliance politics every time.

  • Turkey and the Caucasus Waiting and watching

    Turkey and the Caucasus Waiting and watching

    Aug 21st 2008 | ANKARA AND YEREVAN
    From The Economist print edition

     

     

    A large NATO country ponders a bigger role in the Caucasus

    AP
    Erdogan plays the Georgian flag

    AT THE Hrazdan stadium in Yerevan, workers are furiously preparing for a special visitor: Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul. Armenia’s president, Serzh Sarkisian, has invited Mr Gul to a football World Cup qualifier between Turkey and its traditional foe, Armenia, on September 6th.

    If he comes, Mr Gul may pave the way for a new era in the Caucasus. Turkey is the only NATO member in the area, and after the war in Georgia it would like a bigger role. It is the main outlet for westbound Azeri oil and gas and it controls the Bosporus and Dardanelles, through which Russia and other Black Sea countries ship most of their trade. And it has vocal if small minorities from all over the region, including Abkhaz and Ossetians.

    Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has just been to Moscow and Tbilisi to promote a “Caucasus Stability and Co-operation Platform”, a scheme that calls for new methods of crisis management and conflict resolution. The Russians and Georgians made a show of embracing the idea, as have Armenia and Azerbaijan, but few believe that it will go anywhere. That is chiefly because Turkey does not have formal ties with Armenia. In 1993 Turkey sealed its border (though not its air links) with its tiny neighbour after Armenia occupied a chunk of Azerbaijan in a war over Nagorno-Karabakh. But the war in Georgia raises new questions over the wisdom of maintaining a frozen border.

     

    Landlocked and poor, Armenia looks highly vulnerable. Most of its fuel and much of its grain comes through Georgia’s Black Sea ports, which have been paralysed by the war. Russia blew up a key rail bridge this week, wrecking Georgia’s main rail network that also runs to Armenia and Azerbaijan. This disrupted Azerbaijan’s oil exports, already hit by an explosion earlier this month in the Turkish part of the pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan, in Turkey.

    “All of this should point in one direction,” says a Western diplomat in Yerevan: “peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan.” Reconciliation with Armenia would give Azerbaijan an alternative export route for its oil and Armenia the promise of a new lifeline via Turkey. Some Armenians gloat that Russia’s invasion of Georgia kyboshes the chances of Azerbaijan ever retaking Nagorno-Karabakh by force, though others say the two cases are quite different. Russia is not contiguous with Nagorno-Karabakh, nor does it have “peacekeepers” or nationals there.

    Even before the Georgian war, Turkey seemed to understand that isolating Armenia is not making it give up the parts of Azerbaijan that it occupies outside Nagorno-Karabakh. But talking to it might. Indeed, that is what Turkish and Armenian diplomats have secretly done for some months, until news of the talks leaked (probably from an angry Azerbaijan).

    Turkey’s ethnic and religious ties with its Azeri cousins have long weighed heavily in its Caucasus policy. But there is a new worry that a resolution calling the mass slaughter of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in the 1915 genocide may be passed by America’s Congress after this November’s American elections. This would wreck Turkey’s relations with the United States. If Turkey and Armenia could only become friendlier beforehand, the resolution might then be struck down for good.

    In exchange for better relations, Turkey wants Armenia to stop backing a campaign by its diaspora for genocide recognition and allow a commission of historians to establish “the truth”. Mr Sarkisian has hinted that he is open to this idea, triggering howls of treason from the opposition. The biggest obstacle remains Azerbaijan and its allies in the Turkish army. Mr Erdogan was expected to try to square Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliev, in a visit to Baku this week. Should he fail, Mr Gul may not attend the football match—and a chance for reconciliation may be lost.

  • CONF.- Azerbaijan-Turkey-US Relationship in Eurasia, Baku, Sept. 17-18

    CONF.- Azerbaijan-Turkey-US Relationship in Eurasia, Baku, Sept. 17-18

    Posted by: Louette Ragusa <atib_projectsadvisor@mac.com>

    Azerbaijan-Turkey-US Relationship in Eurasia: Georgia from the Caucasus,
    Kazakhstan from Central Asia

    Baku, Azerbaijan, September 17-18, 2008

    Azerbaijan Turkey Business Association (ATIB) is one of the most active Business
    Associations in the Region dedicated to furthering economic, social and cultural
    relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey and then between Azerbaijan and other
    countries. ATIB organized the first of its kind trilateral international
    conference entitled “The Azerbaijan-Turkey-US relationship and its Importance
    for Eurasia” in Washington, D.C. December 10, 2007.

    The 2nd Annual International Conference “Azerbaijan-Turkey-US Relationship in
    Eurasia, Georgia from the Caucasus, Kazakhstan from Central Asia,” will be held
    on September 17-18, 2007, we will discuss the cooperative roles of all fives
    countries in furthering the development of Eurasia.

    The conference will bring together representatives from policy realms, academic
    fields, the business community, civil society and members from the government
    of all five countries in an effort to continue to define the importance of the
    trilateral relationship of the initial three countries and the two other
    important players in the region. The conference will discuss:

    Day One:
    * Eurasian Geopolitics: Regional Security
    * Eurasian Geo-economic: Regional Economic Development and Cooperation

    Day Two:
    * Eurasian Geopolitics: Energy Security and
    * Eurasian Geo-economics: Entrepreneurship & Innovation

    The conference is extended to two days so that the panels may be able to
    elaborate on each area of discussion with an extended Q & A Session. These
    panels are intended to be highly interactive where panelists and moderators
    will not deliver speeches from a podium, but will instead be seated around a
    discussion table. This is designed to stimulate open and honest discussion with
    all participants.

    For more information please visit: www.atus.az

    Email: office@atib.az / atib_projectsadvisor@mac.com

    Louette Ragusa
    International Project Advisor
    Azerbaycan-Türkiye Business Association
    Istiglaliyat St. 21 5th Floor Baku AZ 1066 Azerbaijan
    Tel 994 12 449 8882
    Fax 994 12 449 8884
    Cell 994 50 255 0535
    email atib_projectsadvisor@mac.com; lragusa67@mac.com

    US Cell number: 985 869 3012

  • PUBL.- Ismail Gasprali, French and African Letters, Edition by A.-A. Rorlich

    PUBL.- Ismail Gasprali, French and African Letters, Edition by A.-A. Rorlich

    PUBL.- Ismail Gasprali, French and African Letters, Edition by A.-A. Rorlich

    Posted by: Azade-Ayse Rorlich <arorlich@college.usc.edu>

    Ismail Gasprali
    French and African Letters

    Azade-Ayse Rorlich, transl., ed., and Introduction

    Isis Press, Istanbul, 2008

    For information: isis@tnn.net

    The present book provides scholars as well as students access to
    primary sources critical to understanding the intellectual life of
    Russia’s Muslims in the last decades of the nineteenth century.
    Through Ismail Gasprali’s French and African Letters Professor Rorlich
    offers evidence regarding the scope of Muslim modernism in late
    imperial Russia contributing at the same time to a better
    understanding of the debates on gender issues that shaped the
    modernist discourse.

    This volume represents the first annotated English translation of
    Ismail Gasprali’s fictional travelogue, first serialized in his
    newspaper Terjuman between 1887 and 1891. Providing a window into the
    diversity of the issues that shaped the Muslim modernist discourse in
    Russia, this publication offers one of the few opportunities to
    examine primary source material in a field still marked by the paucity
    of such materials available in English translation. This annotated
    translation makes an important contribution to the field of Eurasian
    scholarship not only for bringing to the students of Muslim modernism
    and gender studies an important work of Ismail Gasprali — one of the
    leading Muslim reformers of the Russian empire, but also for offering
    an Introduction that places the French and African Letters in the
    broader context of his work.

  • Turkey Plays Increasingly Active Role in Middle East Diplomacy

    Turkey Plays Increasingly Active Role in Middle East Diplomacy

    By Dorian Jones
    Istanbul
    20 August 2008

    Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad (L) and his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul in Istanbul, 14 Aug 2008

    Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Istanbul last week is seen as part of Ankara’s increasingly active role in the Middle East, after decades of passivity in the region. At the same time, some analysts say, Turkey’s ties to the West are deteriorating as its path to European Union membership continues to run into roadblocks. For VOA, Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.

    Turkey is now emerging as an important diplomatic actor in the Middle East. Over the past few years, Ankara has established close ties with Iran and Syria, with which it had tense relations during the 1980s and 1990s; adopted a more active approach toward the Palestinians’ grievances; and improved relations with the Arab world more broadly.
    Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad (L) and his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul in Istanbul, 14 Aug 2008
    Analysts are saying Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Turkey further proves the ties between the two countries and the region are getting warmer.

    But Gokhan Cetinsaya, a professor of international relations at Istanbul Technical University, says there is more behind the warming of relations. Ankara’s agenda, he says, is being dictated by the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and development party, the AKP.

    “According to AKP foreign policy doctrine, Turkey with it strategic depth, Turkey with its geographic depth, Turkey’s with its economic power, military power … should certainly play a leading role in the region including the Middle East. Turkey should play a part in Africa and should play a part in central Asia, the Balkans, etc. Turkey should become a global power in the long run,” Cetinsaya said.

    The AKP’s agenda is in sharp contrast to recent administrations whose sole priority was joining the European Union. The founder of the secular Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk pushed a policy of turning his country’s back on the east and orientating it towards Europe in his bid modernize Turkey.

    Critics argue that Turkish officials’ frequent visits to Arab and African nations has given them little time to court Europe’s leaders in Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. In addition, Turkey’s relations with the United States have become increasingly strained, largely because of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

    As a result, Turkey is now in the unprecedented situation of having poor relations with the EU and the United States simultaneously – a position seen by some analysts as turning their backs on the West.

    But, Akif Emre a columnist for the pro Islamic daily Yeni Safak, disagrees.

    “Given a choice, Turkey would be more close with Russia, India and China. Even the Islamic world,” Emre said. “That doesn’t mean Turkey would break all relationships with the West. They are looking for some new power to balance [its] European Union relationship.”

    The current holder of the EU presidency, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, was elected on a platform of opposing Turkey’s bid for EU membership. Such opposition has taken it toll on the Turkish public’s attitude toward Europe.

    On the streets of Istanbul, this woman’s view is typical.

    “They don’t want us, because [of] culture, religion, living style. It is all about us,” she said. “This shows prejudice to our country but I believe Turkey does not need the European Union to be a powerful or strong country.”
    Recep Tayyip Erdogan (file)
    Also contributing to the waning public support of EU membership are important domestic changes in Turkish society. The pro-Western elite that has shaped Turkish foreign policy since the end of World War II is gradually being replaced by a more conservative, more religious, and more nationalist elite that is suspicious of the West. This group has a more positive attitude toward Turkey’s Ottoman past. The ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party, or AKP, headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has managed to tap into rising popular nationalism by fusing it with Islam.

    But the AKP party has run into problems recently when it narrowly escaped being shut down by the country’s constitutional court last month on the charge of undermining the secular state. Since then, there has been a marked change in government policy towards the EU membership process. According to Sabiha Senyucel of the Turkish political think tank Tesev.

    “If you want to save your self in the country then the EU is your only guarantee for you,” Senyucel said. “The AKP knows very well that, If they don’t get back track with the EU process, if they don’t continue their commitment with the EU process, they are going to lose their support from the intellectuals circles and from the business circles.”

    Recent opinion poll numbers show there has been an upsurge in support of EU membership especially amongst government supporters. International relations expert Mensor Akgun says there is now understanding within the government that the process of EU membership is more important than the outcome.

    “They may not want us , but that does not matter as long as we fulfill the necessary requirements,” Akgun said. “As long as we become a fully democratic country with all the human rights observed, then I don’t think it matters lot, whether EU accepts or not.”

    Prime Minister Erdogan has pledged that he will re-energize his government’s efforts to join the EU. Honoring that promise is seen by critics as a crucial test of the government’s commitment to protect the secular state. Another test, analysts say, will be whether the AKP will again make Europe its diplomatic priority.

    Source : Voice of America

  • The Comeback of Extremists in Turkey

    The Comeback of Extremists in Turkey

    PoliGazette’s Michael van der Galiën reports from Istanbul, Turkey.ISTANBUL, TURKEY – When I visited the former capital of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul, last year, I noticed more women wear a headscarf here than in Turkey’s second city, Izmir.

    Additionally, I was greatly impressed by the size of Istanbul. For Dutch standards, Izmir is gigantic with its four million inhabitants. Istanbul, however, is so big that the Dutch nor English language have words to describe the feeling a Dutchman gets when he walks in Istanbul for the first time. The amount of people – from all races, classes, religions, backgrounds – is breathtaking. People and cars are everywhere. Crossing the street is an adventure; it could literally be your death if you do not run. One gets the impression that all 15 million inhabitants of the city want to get to work at the same time.

    As said, that was not the only difference I noticed between the two cities. Izmir is truly a secular city. One sees almost no women wearing a headscarf. The women in Izmir are emancipated and modern.

    In Istanbul the situation was different back in 2007. One did, of course, not see any burqas, for Turks tend to greatly dislike those customs, but headscarves were everywhere. Where only 5% or so of the female population of Izmir covers her head, it is not hard to imagine this number to be somewhere around 50% in Istanbul.

    This year the situation in Istanbul has become worse. The step from a secular (Baku, Azerbaijan) city in a Moslem country to a religious city in a different Moslem country was gigantic. In Baku, like in Izmir, you can see just about no woman cover herself. In Istanbul, however, the situation has not merely remained the same, it has become worse.

    One gets the impression that the political power of the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, is transforming this city in rather rapidly. Whenever I walk to a shop, even if it is only 500 meters (yards) away I can see at least one, mostly more, women completely dressed in black (something I did not see – often – last year). All too often the only thing you see is the women’s eyes. The rest is covered.

    Many of these women are not Turks. They are mostly from Iran. Television in Iran is strictly censured. There is no chance whatsoever of Iranian women seeing things the religious leaders of that country do not want them to see. They mostly do not import TV shows. Many of the shows they do import, however, are from fellow Moslem countries. Especially Turkish TV shows are, I have been told, fairly popular in Iran.

    Since Iranian men have to work and women often stay at home, or at least enjoy watching said shows, they get acquainted with Turkey, and especially with Istanbul. Most Turkish TV shows take place in this major city. They become curious and want to see it with their own eyes.

    So, they convince their husband to book a trip to Istanbul, put their burqas in their suitcases, get in a plane and… before you know, you see them walking here.

    Those women are not, however, the only ones dressed completely in black. Increasingly more Turkish women cover themselves completely as well. They talk like Turks, they walk like Turks… but they are dressed like Iranians and Saudis. They radically change the landscape; unlike the other Turkish women they are not laughing, nor talking loudly with each other. They are silent and follow their husband. They look at women who do not dress like them with an arrogance hard to imagine; one has to see the look to understand just how ‘dirty’ it is.

    And so, the landscape in Istanbul is changing. One wonders whether it has reached an extreme and will become less in the coming years, whether it will remain the same or, and this is what I fear, it will become worse.