Category: Turkey

Deadly Precedents in Kabul

July 9, 2008
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

A July 7 attack on the Indian Embassy in the Afghan capital of Kabul that killed two high-level diplomats has all the signs of a targeted assassination versus a strike aimed at the building itself with the goal of incurring a high body count.

The morning of July 7, 2008, began normally enough at the Indian Embassy in Kabul. Afghan citizens began to queue up on the dusty street outside the fortified compound in hopes of obtaining a visa, while shopkeepers nearby offered refreshments, visa photos and other administrative services to the aspiring visa applicants. One by one, the Indian employees of the embassy began to arrive at work and pass through security checks at the gate.

At around 8:30 a.m, as two embassy vehicles were in the process of entering the compound, the stillness of the morning was shattered when a suicide operative rammed his Toyota Corolla into the second of the two embassy vehicles and then activated the powerful improvised explosive device (IED) concealed in his car. The powerful blast destroyed the two embassy vehicles and blew the gates off the embassy’s outer perimeter. The blast killed at least 58 people and injured more than 140. Among those killed in the attack were two high-level diplomats: Indian Defense Attache Brig. Gen. Ravi Dutt Mehta and the embassy’s Political and Information Counselor, Vadapalli Venkateswara Rao. The blast also killed two Indo-Tibetan Border Police security officers, a local Afghan employee of the embassy and some 10 local police officers assigned to guard the facility. Several other Indian employees were injured in the attack, as were two foreign diplomats and several security personnel as signed to the adjacent Indonesian Embassy. Among those hit the hardest were the people standing in the visa line.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied that the group was involved in the attack. However, it is not uncommon for the Taliban to deny responsibility for attacks that kill a large number of civilians, as they did in the Feb. 17, 2008, suicide attack in Kandahar that killed more than 100 people. The use of a suicide operative in the attack is a clear indication that it was conducted by the Taliban or their al Qaeda brethren, and the fact that the attack was conducted in Kabul — where a non-Afghan would stand out — would make the Taliban the most likely suspects, though it is quite possible they had assistance from al Qaeda or Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI).

The explosive device was powerful, but it was not the type of very large device one would use in an earnest attempt to destroy a building. Due to the size of the device and the identity of the victims, it is quite possible that this attack was a targeted assassination attempt and not an effort to destroy the embassy itself. The attack was well-executed and effective, and there are several lessons that can be drawn from it.

Target Selection

The Indian Embassy is a logical target for the Taliban to strike for variety of reasons. Perhaps the most significant reason is the history of India’s involvement in Afghanistan. New Delhi has long sought close relationships with the government of Afghanistan as a way to encircle and pressure India’s rival Pakistan. To this end, India has been one of the largest international supporters of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government. The government of India was also heavily involved in supporting the Northern Alliance as it fought against the government of the Taliban — which was very much a creature of the Pakistani ISI. The Indian government saw support of the Northern Alliance as a way to keep a check on Pakistani influence in the region.

While a number of Taliban attacks in recent years have killed or injured Indian engineers and workers involved in Indian-financed reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, this is the first time an Indian diplomatic post has been the target of a large-scale attack, even though India maintains consulates inside Afghanistan in locations such as Jalalabad, Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif and even Kandahar.

While Monday’s attack was the first attack of this scale against an Indian diplomatic target in Afghanistan, small-scale attacks have occurred before. In December 2007, the Indian Consulate in Jalalabad was targeted by a small-scale attack when two small explosive devices were hurled at the building during the night. The consulate in Kandahar was targeted by a similar attack in October 2006, when a man threw two hand grenades at the building from a motorbike.

Another reason for the Taliban to target the Indians is the Kashmir issue. The Pakistani ISI has long been supportive of Kashmiri militant groups, groups which have demonstrated links to al Qaeda and the global jihadist network. The Taliban government in Afghanistan was also supportive of Kashmiri militant groups. This support was clearly reflected in events such as the 1999 hijacking of Air India flight 814, in which Kashmiri militants landed the aircraft in Kandahar and held the passengers until the Indian government agreed to release a group of the militants’ imprisoned colleagues. The prisoners included a Pakistani cleric named Maulana Masood Azhar, founder of the militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), who had been arrested in Kashmir and imprisoned in India, and JeM operative Omar Saeed Sheik, who has been convicted in Pakistan and sentenced to death for his involvement in the murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl. The Indian government claims that Taliban fighters have fought alongside Kashmiri militant groups, and this long history means that there is absolutely no love lost between the Taliban and the Indian government. Of course, the ISI, al Qaeda, and Kashmiri militant groups also have strong motives for attacking Indian interests in Afghanistan, and it is possible they were somehow involved.

In any event, the targeting of Indian interests appears to be part of a concerted effort. On July 8, a remotely detonated IED was discovered on a bus carrying a group of Indian construction workers to a road construction site in Afghanistan’s Nimroz province. There have been several Taliban attacks on Indian construction crews working to build roads in Nimroz province since the efforts began in 2004. These attacks include two suicide attacks this year, one in April the other in June, that resulted in the deaths of three Indians.

Soft Target?

One final reason that might help explain the targeting of the Indian Embassy is that, by nature of its location and construction, it is more vulnerable to an attack than the embassies of high-profile coalition countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The embassy had very little standoff separating the building from the outer perimeter wall, and as we have previously discussed, the critical element in keeping a facility like an embassy safe from large vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) is standoff — keeping the device far from the building.

Of course, the Indians realized the vulnerability of their facility and were concerned about recent intelligence indicating a possible attack. On May 27, the Indian Embassy sent out a security advisory to Indian citizens warning of suicide attacks and compound invasions directed against high-profile facilities in Kabul. Ironically, the advisory was signed by Brig. Gen. R.D. Mehta, the defense attache killed in the attack. In June, the U.S. Embassy also issued a Warden Message noting a threat to Afghan officials and coalition personnel in the greater Kabul area, but it was not as specific as the Indian warning.

Within the last month, security at the Indian Embassy had been augmented with the addition of a substantial sand-filled outer layer to its perimeter fence. Judging from the photos of the scene, the augmented wall performed fairly well, with most of the damage occurring to the gate — which was literally blown away — and the portion of the building adjacent to the gate. This is where more than a few feet of standoff distance would have been very helpful.

Since the days of castles and knights, gates have always been the most vulnerable area of a wall and a natural place to target an attack. In more recent years, we have seen attacks directed at the gates of hardened diplomatic facilities, such as the VBIED attacks against the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, in 1998, and the armed assault on the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in December 2004.

Targeted Assassination?

In addition to being a target itself, the gate at a secure facility also serves as a choke point. Security procedures can also leave potential targets vulnerable to attack as the targets enter the facility, or as they wait outside for security to screen their vehicle prior to entry. Many larger facilities will have a secure sally port area inside the gate where vehicles are screened for explosive devices, but in a facility with very little standoff there is often not room for such an area, and vehicles are checked on the street prior to entering the gate.

During this time, the vehicles are vulnerable to attack. Because of this, motorcades transporting high-profile persons normally contact the facility by radio and ask to have the gate cleared so that they can enter quickly and avoid having to sit on the street where they are vulnerable. Such motorcades normally use vehicles that have been checked for explosive devices and then continuously watched to ensure no such device has been placed on or in the vehicle. This means that they do not need to stop to have their vehicles checked by security at the gate. That said, the gate is still a choke point along the route of the motorcade, and the vehicle is vulnerable to attack as it slows down to make the turn into the gate. This window of opportunity can be amplified if the gate personnel are not particularly on the ball and it takes them a bit of time to open the gate.

That the bombing occurred as a vehicle was entering the facility raises the possibility that the attack at the Indian Embassy was not directed at the facility in general, but was a specifically targeted assassination. Another factor that points in that direction is that the attack was conducted at 8:30 a.m. local time, when some of the first diplomats were arriving at the embassy, rather than later in the day when more of the embassy staff (including the ambassador) would have been present. Also, although the device was quite powerful, it was not really large enough to have taken down the embassy building. If the attackers were attempting to destroy the embassy, they would likely have planned to use a larger device like those used in VBIED attacks against similar targets in places like Iraq. And make no mistake, the Taliban has been consistently moving toward the al Qaeda in Iraq modus operandi over the past few years.

The possibility of a targeted attack is also raised when one considers that the individuals killed in the attack were two senior embassy officers — the defense attache, who by his very job is an intelligence officer, and the political counselor — a position often used as cover for a senior intelligence officer. Even if the political counselor in this case was not an intelligence officer, he might have been mistaken for one by the attackers. If the two regularly rode together to work on a predictable schedule (for a 9 a.m. Monday staff meeting, for example), they could have posed a very tempting target for a potential attacker.

Of course this could all be coincidence. The two senior diplomats killed could simply have been at the wrong place at the wrong time. The timing of the attack could have been because the morning rush hour provided the attackers an opportunity to get their VBIED past the roadblocks and to the target site. Also, the attackers could have chosen to attack a building with a smaller rather than a larger device to ensure they made it to the particular target since they were more concerned about symbolism than destruction. However, that seems to be a lot of chance, and an intentional assassination would seem to be more probable at this point.

Disturbing precedent

If the attack was a targeted assassination and not a series of coincidental events (or erroneous reports), it sets a dangerous precedent. First, the attack was very well-orchestrated. The plotters conducted their preoperational surveillance and planned their attack without detection (though the warning issued by the Indian Embassy last month could be evidence of an operational security leak). However, in spite of the warning, the attack team was able to gain the element of tactical surprise. They were also able to amass explosives, construct the VBIED and deliver it to the attack site on time and without detection. The device also functioned as intended, and the operative did not get cold feet and bail out on the operation. These steps are not as easy to successfully execute as they might seem, especially when one considers that the Indian Embassy is located in the heart of Kabul just down the street from, and in sight of, the Afghan Interior Ministry. Operating in the hea rt of Kabul is a far cry from pulling off an attack in a location such as Kandahar, where the population is either sympathetic to or afraid of the Taliban.

But by its very nature, the Indian Embassy would be an easy site to conduct surveillance on. In addition to the aforementioned merchants in the vicinity (a perennial favorite cover for surveillance operatives), there was also the visa line itself. Standing in a visa line provides a wonderful opportunity to loiter in front of an embassy for a prolonged period of time — perhaps hours — in order to observe security, monitor the arrivals of VIPs and generally watch what happens there.

Unfortunately, in spite of the warning of a potential attack and the increased physical security at the embassy, it is unlikely that the Indian government employed countersurveillance teams around their embassy.

While physical security upgrades are important and necessary, they can result in a false sense of security. The bottom line is that if potential attackers are permitted to conduct surveillance, they will be able to find vulnerabilities in security measures and procedures. With the Taliban demonstrating the ability to conduct sophisticated attacks in Kabul, perhaps with al Qaeda or ISI assistance in this case, other potential targets would be well advised to implement robust countersurveillance programs and deny the Taliban operatives carte blanche to conduct surveillance.

www.stratfor.com

July 11, 2008
The New Era

July 9, 2008
By Peter Zeihan

As students of geopolitics, we at Stratfor tend not to get overexcited when this or that plan for regional peace is tabled. Many of the world’s conflicts are geographic in nature, and changes in government or policy only rarely supersede the hard topography that we see as the dominant sculptor of the international system. Island states tend to exist in tension with their continental neighbors. Two countries linked by flat arable land will struggle until one emerges dominant. Land-based empires will clash with maritime cultures, and so on.

Petit vs. Grand Geopolitic

But the grand geopolitic — the framework which rules the interactions of regions with one another — is not the only rule in play. There is also the petit geopolitic that occurs among minor players within a region. Think of the grand geopolitic as the rise and fall of massive powers — the onslaught of the Golden Horde, the imperial clash between England and France, the U.S.-Soviet Cold War. By contrast, think of the petit geopolitic as the smaller powers that swim alongside or within the larger trends — Serbia versus Croatia, Vietnam versus Cambodia, Nicaragua versus Honduras. The same geographic rules apply, just on a smaller scale, with the added complexity of the grand geopolitic as backdrop.

The Middle East is a region rife with petit geopolitics. Since the failure of the Ottoman Empire, the region has not hosted an indigenous grand player. Instead, the region serves as a battleground for extra-regional grand powers, all attempting to grind down the local (petit) players to better achieve their own aims. Normally, Stratfor looks at the region in that light: an endless parade of small players and local noise in an environment where most trends worth watching are those implanted and shaped by outside forces. No peace deals are easy, but in the Middle East they require agreement not just from local powers, but also from those grand players beyond the region. The result is, well, the Middle East we all know.

All the more notable, then, that a peace deal — and a locally crafted one at that — has moved from the realm of the improbable to not merely the possible, but perhaps even the imminent.

Israel and Syria are looking to bury the hatchet, somewhere in the Golan Heights most likely, and they are doing so for their own reasons. Israel has secured deals with Egypt and Jordan already, and the Palestinians — by splitting internally — have defeated themselves as a strategic threat. A deal with Syria would make Israel the most secure it has been in millennia.

Syria, poor and ruled by its insecure Alawite minority, needs a basis of legitimacy that resonates with the dominant Sunni population better than its current game plan: issuing a shrill shriek whenever the name “Israel” is mentioned. The Alawites believe there is no guarantee of support better than cash, and their largest and most reliable source of cash is in Lebanon. Getting Lebanon requires an end to Damascus’ regional isolation, and the agreement of Israel.

The outline of the deal, then, is surprisingly simple: Israel gains military security from a peace deal in exchange for supporting Syrian primacy in Lebanon. The only local loser would be the entity that poses an economic challenge (in Lebanon) to Syria, and a military challenge (in Lebanon) to Israel — to wit, Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, understandably, is more than a little perturbed by the prospect of this tightening noose. Syria is redirecting the flow of Sunni militants from Iraq to Lebanon, likely for use against Hezbollah. Damascus also is working with the exiled leadership of the Palestinian group Hamas as a gesture of goodwill to Israel. The French — looking for a post-de Gaulle diplomatic victory — are re-engaging the Syrians and, to get Damascus on board, are dangling everything from aid and trade deals with Europe to that long-sought stamp of international approval. Oil-rich Sunni Arab states, sensing an opportunity to weaken Shiite Hezbollah, are flooding petrodollars in bribes — that is, investments — into Syria to underwrite a deal with Israel.

While the deal is not yet a fait accompli, the pieces are falling into place quite rapidly. Normally we would not be so optimistic, but the hard decisions — on Israel surrendering the Golan Heights and Syria laying preparations for cutting Hezbollah down to size — have already been made. On July 11 the leaders of Israel and Syria will be attending the same event in Paris, and if the French know anything about flair, a handshake may well be on the agenda.

It isn’t exactly pretty — and certainly isn’t tidy — but peace really does appear to be breaking out in the Middle East.

A Spoiler-Free Environment

Remember, the deal must please not just the petit players, but the grand ones as well. At this point, those with any interest in disrupting the flow of events normally would step in and do what they could to rock the boat. That, however, is not happening this time around. All of the normal cast members in the Middle Eastern drama are either unwilling to play that game at present, or are otherwise occupied.

The country with the most to lose is Iran. A Syria at formal peace with Israel is a Syria that has minimal need for an alliance with Iran, as well as a Syria that has every interest in destroying Hezbollah’s military capabilities. (Never forget that while Hezbollah is Syrian-operated, it is Iranian-founded and -funded.) But using Hezbollah to scupper the Israeli-Syrian talks would come with a cost, and we are not simply highlighting a possible military confrontation between Israel and Iran.

Iran is involved in negotiations far more complex and profound than anything that currently occupies Israel and Syria. Tehran and Washington are attempting to forge an understanding about the future of Iraq. The United States wants an Iraq sufficiently strong to restore the balance of power in the Persian Gulf and thus prevent any Iranian military incursion into the oil fields of the Arabian Peninsula. Iran wants an Iraq that is sufficiently weak that it will never again be able to launch an attack on Persia. Such unflinching national interests are proving difficult to reconcile, but do not confuse “difficult” with “impossible” — the positions are not mutually exclusive. After all, while both want influence, neither demands domination.

Remarkable progress has been made during the past six months. The two sides have cooperated in bringing down violence in Iraq, now at its lowest level since the aftermath of the 2003 invasion itself. Washington and Tehran also have attacked the problems of rogue Shiite militias from both ends, most notably with the neutering of Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia, the Medhi Army. Meanwhile, that ever-enlarging pot of Sunni Arab oil money has been just as active in Baghdad in drawing various groups to the table as it has been in Damascus. Thus, while the U.S.-Iranian understanding is not final, formal or imminent, it is taking shape with remarkable speed. There are many ways it still could be derailed, but none would be so effective as Iran using Hezbollah to launch another war with Israel.

China and Russia both would like to see the Middle East off balance — if not on fire in the case of Russia — although it is hardly because they enjoy the bloodshed. Currently, the United States has the bulk of its ground forces loaded down with Afghan and Iraqi operations. So long as that remains the case — so long as Iran and the United States do not have a meeting of the minds — the United States lacks the military capability to deploy any large-scale ground forces anywhere else in the world. In the past, Moscow and Beijing have used weapons sales or energy deals to bolster Iran’s position, thus delaying any embryonic deal with Washington.

But such impediments are not being seeded now.

Rising inflation in China has turned the traditional question of the country’s shaky financial system on its head. Mass employment in China is made possible not by a sound economic structure, but by de facto subsidization via ultra-cheap loans. But such massive availability of credit has artificially spiked demand, for 1.3 billion people no less, creating an inflation nightmare that is difficult to solve. Cut the loans to rein in demand and inflation, and you cut business and with it employment. Chinese governments have been toppled by less. Beijing is desperate to keep one step ahead of either an inflationary spiral or a credit meltdown — and wants nothing more than for the Olympics to go off as hitch-free as possible. Tinkering with the Middle East is the furthest thing from Beijing’s preoccupied mind.

Meanwhile, Russia is still growing through its leadership “transition,” with the Kremlin power clans still going for each other’s throats. Their war for control of the defense and energy industries still rages, their war for control of the justice and legal systems is only now beginning to rage, and their efforts to curtail the powers of some of Russia’s more independent-minded republics such as Tatarstan has not yet begun to rage. Between a much-needed resettling, and some smacking of out-of-control egos, Russia still needs weeks (or months?) to get its own house in order. The Kremlin can still make small gestures — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin chatted briefly by phone July 7 with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the topic of the nuclear power plant that Russia is building for Iran at Bushehr — but for the most part, the Middle East will have to wait for another day.

But by the time Beijing or Moscow have the freedom of movement to do anything, the Middle East may well be as “solved” as it can be.

The New Era

For those of us at Stratfor who have become rather inured to the agonies of the Middle East, such a sustained stream of constructive, positive news is somewhat unnerving. One gets the feeling that if the progress could hold up for just a touch longer, not only would there be an Israeli-Syrian deal and a U.S.-Iranian understanding, the world itself would change. Those of us here who are old enough to remember haven’t sensed such a fateful moment since the weeks before the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989. And — odd though it may sound — we have been waiting for just such a moment for some time. Certainly since before 9/11.

Stratfor views the world as working in cycles. Powers or coalitions of powers form and do battle across the world. Their struggles define the eras through which humanity evolves, and those struggles tend to end in a military conflict that lays the groundwork for the next era. The Germans defeated Imperial France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, giving rise to the German era. That era lasted until a coalition of powers crushed Germany in World Wars I and II. That victorious coalition split into the two sides of the Cold War until the West triumphed in 1989.

New eras do not form spontaneously. There is a brief — historically speaking — period between the sweeping away of the rules of the old era and the installation of the rules of the new. These interregnums tend to be very dangerous affairs, as the victorious powers attempt to entrench their victory as new powers rise to the fore — and as many petit powers, suddenly out from under the thumb of any grand power, try to carve out a niche for themselves.

The post-World War I interregnum witnessed the complete upending of Asian and European security structures. The post-World War II interregnum brought about the Korean War as China’s rise slammed into America’s efforts to entrench its power. The post-Cold War interregnum produced Yugoslav wars, a variety of conflicts in the former Soviet Union (most notably in Chechnya), the rise of al Qaeda, the jihadist conflict and the Iraq war.

All these conflicts are now well past their critical phases, and in most cases are already sewn up. All of the pieces of Yugoslavia are on the road to EU membership. Russia’s borderlands — while hardly bastions of glee — have settled. Terrorism may be very much alive, but al Qaeda as a strategic threat is very much not. Even the Iraq war is winding to a conclusion. Put simply, the Cold War interregnum is coming to a close and a new era is dawning.

www.stratfor.com

July 11, 2008
Saving Turkey’s democracy

In a fierce legal battle, Islamists and secularists are undermining the very system that can help them.

from the July 11, 2008 edition

Think of Turkey and the lively Grand Bazaar of Istanbul comes to mind, or the massive dome of Hagia Sophia. But its political fame is as the world’s longest-lived democracy in a Muslim country – an example that Islam and civil liberties can coexist. Now that democracy faces a severe test.

Turkey’s two most powerful political forces – Islamists, who head the government, and secularists, who run the military, courts, and bureaucracy – are engaged in a fierce battle for dominance in this NATO country. Their arena is the highly politicized legal system.

A judicial duel may not sound very dangerous. But to the degree that this duel harms the very democratic principles that allow both groups to thrive in the first place, the consequences could be grave.

Completely ignoring last year’s elections that returned the mildly Islamist ruling party, the AKP, to power with more popular support than ever, secularists are trying to overthrow the AKP in a constitutional court whose judges sympathize with the secularist cause.

Last week, the state’s chief prosecutor argued that the AKP should be outlawed because it violates the constitution’s strict separation of mosque and state – the legacy of modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The trigger for the case was the AKP’s recent lifting of the ban on women’s Islamic head scarves at universities. It was a small but hugely symbolic attempt at greater religious freedom, but last month, the constitutional court rejected it.

The AKP’s general counter-strategy is to arrest alleged secular supporters of a suspected coup plot. At least 20 people were detained last week, including two retired generals. There is some evidence for the alleged plot, but some of these arrests look indiscriminate, involving journalists, for instance. The tactics mirror an AKP tendency toward intimidation, in which critics are jailed for months without charge.

Not just Turkey’s political and economic stability are at stake here. So are its membership talks with the European Union, its critical relations with neighbor Iraq (itself a fledgeling democracy), and its role-model status for Islam.

The underlying tension comes from fear of extremism – fear on one side that the AKP’s modest steps toward greater religious expression will morph into sharia law; on the other side, fear of secularists suppressing an increasingly devout population.

Both groups are at rough parity in the influence game. They need a trustworthy way to work out an acceptable balance for the role of religion in the Turkish public sphere.

A strong democracy can provide that “safe” way – but not if it’s subverted, as it is being now.

Given the high court’s track record, it’s likely to ban the AKP. A period of uncertainty will follow as the party tries to regroup, probably under a different name.

Even with this murky outlook, the onus is on the governing party to take every possible step to reassure Turks that it indeed supports a secular, rule-based democracy – as it’s said all along.

But if the undermining continues, and if Turkey’s leaders fail not only to respect the democracy they have but to improve it through eventual constitutional and judicial reform, they will simply drag their country down in a war of wills.

Source :

July 11, 2008
United Nations Security Council condemns reprehensible terrorist attack in Istanbul

Security Council President Le Luong Minh10 July 2008 – The Security Council has strongly condemned yesterdays terrorist attack on Turkish police protecting the United States Consulate General in Istanbul, which caused death and injury to Turkish police personnel.

While no staff inside the Consulate sustained injuries, three policemen and three of the attackers were killed in Wednesdays incident.

The members of the Security Council expressed their condolences to the families of the victims, as well as to the people and the Governments of ^Turkey and the United States, Ambassador Le Luong Minh of Viet Nam, which holds the Councils rotating presidency for July, said in a statement read out to the press.

The Council also underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism to justice, and urged all States to cooperate actively with the Turkish authorities to this end.

All acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, the statement added.

News Tracker: past stories on this issue

Security Council sounds alarm on recent terrorist attacks in Pakistan

July 11, 2008
Turkey at the Crossroads: No Passport Required

By Patrick J. McGinnis

Article Date: Thursday, July 10, 2008

Patrick McGinnis

Over the last year, Turkey has been in the news with some frequency. From mammoth street protests against the perceived deterioration of societal secularism to the Parliament’s approval of Islamic headscarves in universities, Turkey is passing through a time of profound internal discussion. Since I’ve been to Turkey almost 20 times in the last two and half years, I’ve had a front-row seat to this process. In fact, I was in Istanbul a few weeks ago when the court system overturned the headscarf law and banned them once again.

Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, is a timeless city that has been populated for over 6,000 years. It is typically referred to as the crossroads between East and West as it sits on the two shores of the Bosphorus, which is the narrow body of water that separates Europe and Asia. Thus, in a typical day, one can wake up in Europe, cross a bridge to have lunch in Asia, and take a cab back to Europe by early afternoon.

The first time that I visited Turkey, in late 2005, I had no idea what to expect given the fact that Turkey is a Muslim nation. Somehow, I expected Istanbul to feel very Middle Eastern, conservative, and Islamic. Like many visitors, I found something quite different from what I had imagined. Istanbul is a highly cosmopolitan city with an energetic nightlife, and citizens that look and dress like their neighbors in Europe. In fact, most visitors to Turkey would find Istanbul to have plenty in common with the other great cities of Europe. As any Turkish person will remind you, while they are largely Muslim, the Turks are not part of the Arab world, but rather have their own distinct culture that is quite different from the Middle East.

Scratching below the surface, one quickly learns that Turkey is a complex place. First of all, it’s in a tough neighborhood. With neighbors like Iran, Iraq, and Syria, things don’t stay quiet for too long in the region. Second, Turkey is a country that is constantly wrestling with the interaction between religion, secularism, democracy, and modernity. While many Turks in Istanbul and the western part of Turkey consider themselves European and secular, the heartland and eastern section of the country are far more conservative, religious, and traditional. It’s not unlike the red state/blue state divide that we see in the United States.

The pull between East and West is a fundamental element of life in Istanbul. For example, my company’s office is located in a part of the city that would fit in well in Vienna or Prague. The streets are lined with luxury goods stores and girls in the latest Parisian fashions cautiously navigate their way across the streets in high heels. At the same time, directly across the street is a large and historic mosque that broadcasts the Muslim call to prayer five times per day. Yet in the mosque’s courtyard there is an über-trendy cafe where Istanbul hipsters dressed in jeans and t-shirts drink lattes, oblivious to the religious programming going on next door. Still, at the same time, in another part of the city, visitors will see women wearing headscarves shopping at local markets. In sum, Istanbul, much like Turkey itself, won’t — or can’t — allow itself to be easily classified.

My experiences in Turkey have taught me that the line between a religious and secular society can be very blurry. Take the example of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month during which observant Muslims are required to abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset. First of all, let me note that Ramadan is one of my favorite times of year. As a non-Muslim, I’m not required to fast during Ramadan, although I try not to eat of drink in front of those who are fasting. The payoff comes at sunset when the massive meal to break the fast, or ifthar, is served. Although I’ve made none of the sacrifices entailed in fasting, I get to take part in a veritable feast. It’s sort of like having Thanksgiving every day for a month.

In any case, while in some nations like Kuwait, Muslims and non-Muslims alike are forbidden by law from eating or drinking in public during the season, Turkey is quite the opposite. Fasting is an individual choice and in cities like Istanbul, as many citizens choose to fast as those who do not. In that way, Turkey does not fit the traditional perception that most Westerners have about Muslim nations. Instead, in its approach to religion, Turkey, at least in cities like Istanbul, reminds me much more of a nation in Europe or even the United States. Of course, I haven’t yet been to the rural east of Turkey — but then again, I haven’t been to rural Alabama either.

Source :

July 10, 2008
TURKEY PUSHES FOR D-8 LEADING ROLE

By Gareth Jenkins

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 Published by jamestown Foundation

On July 6 Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan announced that Istanbul had been chosen as the site for the permanent secretariat of the Developing Eight (D-8) organization.Speaking after the Eleventh D-8 Foreign Ministers’ Council Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Babacan declared, “Until now there was a temporary secretariat in Istanbul, which we have now decided to make permanent” (Dunya, July 7).

The idea of the D-8 was first discussed in October 1996 by the then Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, the chairman of the Islamist Welfare Party (RP), who was eager to create a Muslim alternative to the EU and what was then the G-7. The organization was formally established on June 15, 1997, in Istanbul. The eight member countries that give the organization its name are Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey.

After Erbakan and the RP had been forced from office in Turkey by a campaign of pressure coordinated by the staunchly secularist Turkish military, subsequent Turkish governments paid little attention to the D-8, although they were also reluctant to withdraw from the organization. Despite its name, the defining characteristic of the D-8 has always been religion rather than the relative level of development of the member states’ economies.

Since first taking office in November 2002, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has sought to strengthen the country’s relations with predominantly Muslim countries in fulfillment of what the party’s leadership regards as Turkey’s natural role as one of the leaders of the Islamic world. It has intensified contacts with other members of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and lobbied vigorously to ensure that, in January 2005, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu became the first Turk ever to serve as Secretary General of the organization, a position he still holds.

The chairmanship of the D-8 is held for two years on a rotating basis by one of its members. The Foreign Ministers’ Council Meeting preceded the meeting of the biennial D-8 Summit, which opened in Kuala Lumpur on July 7 and at which the chairmanship of the D-8 was transferred from Indonesia to Malaysia (D-8 official website, www.developing8.org). The summit is expected to approve the decision to base the organization’s permanent secretariat in Istanbul and to discuss the implementation of a Preferential Tariff Agreement (PTA) on selected goods traded among member countries. Although all eight members have agreed to the PTA in principle, only two, Malaysia and Iran, have ratified it to date and it needs four ratifications before it can come into force (D-8 official website, www.developing8.org).

The framework for the D-8 temporary secretariat was agreed upon at the previous D-8 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, in May 2006. The current secretary general is Dipo Alam from Indonesia. Speaking in Kuala Lumpur, Babacan announced that Alam would remain in office for another four years following the upgrading of the temporary secretariat in Istanbul to permanent status.

“After that, the member states will choose a secretary general for a four-year term in alphabetical order. According to this system, the next secretary will be chosen by Iran, then by Nigeria,” said Babacan (Anadolu Ajansi, July 6).

Babacan also predicted that the subsequent summit meeting would finalize a proposed visa agreement to facilitate closer economic ties among member states.

“The only state not to have signed the treaty regarding visas was Malaysia but it has agreed to sign the document during this meeting,” said Babacan. “Thus the treaty allowing businessmen from the eight states to meet and visit each other easily is now complete” (Anadolu Ajansi, July 6).

On July 3 a D-8 Business Forum was held in Kuala Lumpur to discuss biotechnology, renewable energy and the development and regulation of the halal industry, which ensures that activities, particularly the production and processing of food, comply with Islamic precepts.

Alam admitted, however, that such meetings had so far failed to have a significant impact on economic relations among D-8 member states. “The total trade of D-8 nations to the world reached $1 trillion last year, while among member states was only $60 billion. This accounts for only five percent of our trade to the world,” he said. “Our combined population is 930 million, so the market is there” (D-8 official website, www.developing8.org).

However, whatever the Turkish government’s religious reflexes, the simple reality is that for the foreseeable future, the D-8 cannot represent a viable alternative, or even a substantial supplement, to its trade with the West, particularly with the EU, which currently accounts for around half of all of the country’s foreign trade. Perhaps more importantly, Turkey’s 1995 Customs Union agreement with the EU requires Turkey to ensure that any tariff agreements with third countries are in harmony with those of the EU.

Nevertheless, Babacan is likely to regard ensuring that the D-8 secretariat is based in Istanbul as a personal coup. Since taking over from Abdullah Gul as Turkish Foreign Minister in August 2007, Babacan has appeared out of his depth and, particularly in terms of Turkey’s stalled EU accession process, frequently invisible. He has often been mocked by his political opponents as having ambitions that outstrip his ability. They have also noted that whenever a particularly important foreign policy issue is involved, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ensures that he handles it himself rather than entrusting it to Babacan. In this context, any success that Babacan can claim, however minor, is likely to be welcome, particularly as the leading members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) begin to position themselves for the inevitable changes in cabinet posts if, as appears likely, the party is closed in late summer or early fall.

July 10, 2008