Category: East Asia & Pacific

Turkey says returning to normal in ties with China

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu met with Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, in Urumqi on the first day of his visit to China.

Turkey’s willingness to build a strategic bilateral cooperation with China should not be regarded as an exceptional move, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has stated, arguing that, on the contrary, such a move is a sign of normalization. Davutoğlu departed Ankara on Wednesday for a six-day official visit to China, with Kashgar, where Muslim Uighurs make up the vast majority of the population, being his first stop during the visit.

Turkey already has exemplary relations with Western countries, and its bilateral relations with globally rising powers such as Brazil, China, India and Russia have been expanding recently, Davutoğlu said, while speaking to a group of journalists on board a plane en route to Kashgar from Ankara.

“The basis of our entire policy is the normalization of history. Our relations being good with China at the moment is not something abnormal; it was abnormal to have bad relations,” Davutoğlu was quoted as saying in apparent response to comments displaying developing ties between Turkey and China as proof of a so-called axis shift from the West to the East in Turkish foreign policy.

With his conception of the “normalization” of history, Davutoğlu underlines the importance of eliminating Cold War and colonial abnormalities. “[The] end of the Cold War — [Francis] Fukuyama claimed [it] was the end of history. I claimed history had begun because there was an abnormality [during] the Cold War and that history will try to normalize it,” Davutoğlu said at the time.

Turkey’s developing relations with these global powers are not emerging at the expense of neglecting its cooperation with the West, Davutoğlu said. “They should not consider these relations as an alternative [to existing relations with Western countries],” he stressed, while underlining that Turkey has been continuing its intense diplomatic contact with Western powers as well.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu met with Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, in Urumqi on the first day of his visit to China.

“My trip to Brussels is no longer news,” the minister said and added that US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were meeting six or seven times a year while the US and Turkish leaders met at most two times a year a decade ago.

Davutoğlu’s visit to China came weeks after Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to Turkey during which the two countries took a landmark step in developing their bilateral ties, which they have begun to define as a “strategic partnership.”

During the visit, China and Turkey agreed to use their own currencies, rather than dollars, in bilateral trade, while Wen and Erdoğan signed eight deals in areas including transportation and trade. In October 2009 Erdoğan announced that Turkey and Iran had prepared a legal framework to transition to agreements in national currencies. According to Davutoğlu, Ankara’s policy that insists on using diplomatic means to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program has increased China’s interest in developing bilateral relations with Turkey.

“They have noticed the big potential,” Davutoğlu said, arguing that maintaining stability in the Middle East would be highly beneficial, particularly for Turkey and China.

Ankara and Beijing have both increased their commercial ties with Iran, signing deals on oil and gas fields to the frustration of Western powers, who suspect the Islamic republic of seeking to build a secret nuclear weapons program, an allegation the latter denies. China reluctantly backed the last round of UN sanctions on Iran while Turkey, along with Brazil, voted against the sanctions. Both China and Turkey have defended their trade with Iran as legitimate.

Bilateral cooperation in the military field is a significant aspect of relations between Turkey and China. In September, they held joint aerial exercises at Turkey’s training range in the Central Anatolian town of Konya, where Anatolian Eagle exercises are taking place between NATO allies and friendly countries. Some eyebrows were raised following the exercises, with reports suggesting that the US and Israel were watching with concern the growing military cooperation among Turkey, China and Iran.

Increasing support to Xinjiang

Davutoğlu told reporters that his visit to China is part of an action plan jointly drawn up by Turkey and China following the violent clashes between local ethnic-Turkic Muslim Uighurs and the dominant Han Chinese community in June 2009. Calling the clashes, which came days after President Abdullah Gül’s landmark visit to this country last year, as a tough crisis, Davutoğlu said the crisis had now been overcome, with high-level visits taking place between the countries at a regular pace. The clashes that broke out in July in Urumqi left 197 dead and several hundred wounded, according to official Chinese numbers.

Davutoğlu, who proceeded to Urumqi following his visit to Kashgar, highlighted the symbolic importance of his itinerary. According to him, better relations between Turkey and the Chinese administration will help Turkey increase its contribution to people living in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, populated by ethnic Turkic Muslim Uighurs.

With Ankara and Beijing planning to have at least one leader-level visit per year, Erdoğan will pay an official visit to this country next year, Davutoğlu announced.

29 October 2010, Friday

SERVET YANATMA/OSMAN EROL KASHGAR/URUMQI

October 30, 2010
Teens dip their lids to war hero

Two young Gallipoli descendants are among the first Victorians in decades to touch the helmet that once protected our greatest military mind.

Mitchell Hutchinson, 15, and Ekrem Eren, 16, ( son of John H. Eren MLA ) were invited to the Shrine of Remembrance, where Sir John Monash’s tin hat will go on public display for the first time before Anzac Day. They held in their hands, just as the great commander Monash held in his hands the lives of their great-grandfathers–and many others–from 1915 to 1918. Ninety years ago the fore fathers of the two Aussie teens were enemies on the Turkish battle field where Monash was a colonel under that helmet.

Mitchell’s great-grandfather, William Paul McKenzie, was a Digger in Monash’s 14th Battalion, while Ekrem’s great-grandfather, Hamdi Isteni, was a Turkish officer. (under the command of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk..)

The Herald Sun, Tuesday, April 12 2005

October 26, 2010
One-sided thinking on Gallipoli an injustice

Martin Flanagan

LEGENDS are like earthquakes. They happen. Afterwards, we try to understand the forces that created them. Anzac is an Australian legend that has a roughly analogous place to the Civil War in the American psyche. Both are stories of young nations encountering the horrors of modern warfare for the first time – that is, wars fought with repeating rifles and machineguns and appalling casualty rates. Both conflicts represent massive and unprecedented change.

As popular culture, however, what the Civil War has that Anzac doesn’t is the view of both sides. In 1983, when his yacht, Australia 2, won the America’s Cup, owner Alan Bond acknowledged that at one stage his crew had been losing but added “it was just like Gallipoli, and we won that one”.

It would be interesting to know exactly how that comment was received in lounge rooms across Australia. Did it feel “right” to most who heard it? My guess is that it did.

Gallipoli was a military disaster. We should note that in justice to the young men who died there. Do we owe them less than we owe those who die in bushfires like Black Saturday? We should also note it in justice to future generations. The voices that urged Australia into the invasion of Iraq were of the same character as those that propelled Australia to Gallipoli in 1914. In the context of Anzac, we also need to note the extent of the debacle to appreciate the stature of the major Australian characters who emerged from it – like, for example, General Sir John Monash.

The planning at Gallipoli was a farce. Six weeks before the landing, by way of military intelligence, the British officer commanding the operation, General Sir Ian Hamilton, was equipped with two small guidebooks on Turkey and a text book on the Turkish army. Ellis Ashmead Bartlett, an English journalist covering the campaign who correctly foresaw from the outset that it was doomed, said intelligence would be acquired “at the point of a bayonet”. And it was.

Monash was an engineer. Born in West Melbourne to Jewish German immigrants, Monash was of the century just beginning, a man who understood steel and concrete and modern automation. His battles were meticulously planned. The British prime minister Lloyd George described Monash “as the most resourceful general in the whole of the British Army”. Monash is a giant figure in Australian history.

Propaganda was involved in shaping the popular view of Gallipoli from the start. Take the case of John Simpson Kirkpatrick, the man with the donkey. Within six weeks of his death, he had been conscripted into the propaganda war, a newspaper report describing him as ”a six-foot Australian” with ”a woman’s hands” who said in a British-Australian accent, ”I’ll take this fellow next.”

Simmo was a five-foot-eight Geordie with a stoker’s hands who spoke in dialect and had fierce Labor politics. His first biographer, a fan of Churchill and acquaintance of Sir Robert Menzies, stripped him of his politics. There was no mention of boozing or fighting. The real Simmo was left in a grave at Gallipoli.

What the Australians won at Gallipoli was huge respect, including from their enemy. It really is time we started making clear to young Australians that the Anzacs didn’t die protecting Australia from being invaded. Rather, we were invading a country on the other side of the world – to wit, Turkey – with whom we had no difference as a people outside the larger politics of the day.

Surely it is time we owed Turkey, and Turkish Australians, that respect. Look at the respect Turkey shows our dead.

I ask this question most seriously. Does any country in the world – other than Turkey – permit a people who tried to invade it to commemorate the fact of that attempted invasion on their shores each year? I know of not a single one. Imagine if the descendants of the Japanese pilots who bombed Darwin held an emotional service beneath the Japanese flag on the shores of Darwin Harbour each year.

My impression is that within Turkey the legend of Anzac got absorbed into the legend of Ataturk, the so-called father of modern Turkey, who, as a young man, championed the Turkish defence at Gallipoli.

It was Ataturk who declared to the mothers of Australia that their sons lay in friendly soil. A group of about 80 Turkish Australians march each year in Melbourne on Anzac Day. Anzac Day would not be the same without them.

Martin Flanagan is a senior writer.

, April 24, 2010

October 26, 2010
Turkey Analysis: Is Ankara Now in a “Radical Axis of Evil”? (No.)

Ali Yenidunya in EA Middle East and Turkey

Our question for today: is Turkey still a pro-Western country looking forward to entering the European Union. Or has Ankara, “unfortunately, joined the radical axis formed led by Iran and supported by Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah”.

Let’s start with a statement by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on 11 October:

We also had wonderful, friendly relations with another country, with military cooperation, with full diplomatic relations, with visits by heads of state, with 400,000 Israeli visitors to that country. That country is called Turkey.

What prompts Netanyahu to use the past tense? Is it because Turkey ejected Israel from a planned international air force exercise or because Turkey and Syria held joint military exercises in late April? Is it because Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told off Israeli Prseident Shimon Peres over Israel’s bloody war in Gaza in World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2009 or because Turkey did not stop the Freedom Flotilla which tried to break the Gaza siege?

Is it because Turkey conditionally accepted NATO’s planned anti-missile system, saying that it should not be presented as a defence against Iran? (On Friday, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said: “We do not perceive any threat from any neighbour countries and we do not think ouur neighbors form a threat to NATO.”) Or is it because of a joint Turkish-Chinese air-force exercise held two weeks ago?

If I may offer an alternative to the “radical axis” thesis at this point….

Ankara’s new foreign policy under the Justice and Development Party is not a revisionist manoeuvre but a reflection of its rising autonomy due amidst Washington’s decreasing power — from Afghanistan to Pakistan to Iraq to the rest of the Middle East — coupled with regional powers taking more initiative, economically and politically. Ankara, like its regional neighbours, wants to get benefit from this international conjuncture.

And in order to become a stronger regional power, Ankara had to give up its discourse based on antagonism towards its neighbours (no need even to mention the need to solve its Armenian, Kurdish and ecumenical Greek Orthodox problems). The next step was to increase trade, boost bilateral relationships, build trust with old enemies, and raise your credibility with statements showing you are standing with the “weak”. Erdogan did this for Gazans and for Uighur Turks in northwest China. (How fast do we forget that Erdogan blamed a Chinese official of committing a “a near genocide” after the killing of 184 people last year in the conflict?)

Some other facts: Turkey signed eight new trade agreements with China in early October, bypassing the US dollar for direct business between the Turkish Lira and Yuan. The goal is to achieve a trade volume of $100 billion in ten years from the current amount of $17 billion. As for the “existential threat” of Iran, the trade volume between Iran and Turkey was $1.4 billion in 2000 but it was $8 billion in 2008. (And of this, only $236 million in 2000 were Turkish exports; by 2007, the figure was $1.3 billion.) Turkey is now carrying out around 14 to 15% of its trade with its neighbours as opposed to 3 to 4% in the previous decade.

As a champion of privatisation, Turkey is still a relatively “liberal” — perhaps neo-liberal — country, both economically and politically. This is still the same Ankara trying to be a part of European Union, following the adjustment of domestic law to the harmonization code of the EU in 2001 and in 2004. That is not to say Ankara is doing a great job fulfilling all of the democratic criteria to become a member state of the EU, but it has a pro-Western identity.

I call my closing witness. Who would like to see a stronger Turkey (with reduced tension with Israel, of course) that has close relationships and is diplomatically and economically capable of holding negotiations with Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan?

Talking to BBC’s “Record Europe”, US Foreign Secretary Hillary Clinton said: “Turkey is becoming a greater global and regional power. Its economy is growing dramatically. They are extending to countries and try to be effective on their own as well as with us.”

Increasingly autonomous? Yes. Radically evil? No.

Article originally appeared on EA WorldView (http://www.enduringamerica.com/).

October 21, 2010
Chinese, Turkish scholars discuss bilateral cooperation

ANKARA, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) — Chinese and Turkish scholars gathered at a political forum in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Monday to discuss their economic ties, cooperation in the Middle East and coordination within the Group of 20 (G20).

Wang Zhongwei, deputy director of China’s State Council Information Office which sponsors the forum, said China and Turkey, both G20 members and emerging economies, share interests in such major issues as reforming international financial system and tackling climate change.

“We should further coordinate and cooperate in those issues. That’s in the interests of the two countries’ people and benefits regional and world peace and stability,” Wang said in an opening speech.

Fatih Ceylan, deputy undersecretariat of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, said China and Turkey hold similar views on many regional and international issues and have great potential for better cooperation.

As a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, Turkey has worked together with China very well in issues related to Afghanistan, the Palestinians and Iran, he said.

Wang Zhongwei (2nd R), deputy director of China's State Council Information Office, Chinese Middle East envoy Wu Sike (1st L), Fatih Ceylan (2nd L), deputy undersecretariat of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, attend a political forum, a part of a large-scale cultural event termed "Experience China in Turkey", in Ankara, Turkey, Oct. 18, 2010. (Xinhua/Zheng Jinfa)

Zhang Yuyan, a scholar with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, suggested China and Turkey uphold the principle of ” common but differentiated responsibility” on climate change and strive to increase the representation and voice of developing countries in international institutions.

Kamer Kasim, vice president of Turkey’s International Strategic Research Organization, said it’s good for both China and Turkey to increase cooperation in security, energy, tourism and other areas.

The forum was a part of a large-scale cultural event termed ” Experience China in Turkey”, which was held in Ankara and the Turkish city of Istanbul.

The event, starting on Sunday and to last till the end of the month, covers nine major activities, including Chinese-Turkish political and economic forums, Chinese movie and television weeks, Chinese cuisine festival and exchanges between journalists and writers.

October 19, 2010
China Courts Turkey

China, whose relations with Turkey went through a period of tension last year following the Turkish condemnation of the atrocities allegedly perpetrated by the Chinese on the Uighurs in Chinese-controlled Xinjiang in July , has undertaken measures to repair the relations and seek Turkey’s support for the pacification of Xinjiang. The Munich-based World Uighur Congress (WUC), headed by its President Mrs. Rebiya Kadeer, enjoys some support in the political class and the public in Turkey. It calls for independence for Xinjiang under the name Eastern Turkestan. It is not a fundamentalist organisation and does not suppoprt the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan , which is an associate of Al Qaeda and the Pakistani and Afghan Talibans.

Even before tension and misunderstanding arose in the relations between China and Turkey following the alleged suppression of pro-WUC demonstrators by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in Urumqi in July last year, the two countries had been negotiating for a joint air exercise by their air forces in the Turkish air space. They did not allow the misunderstanding and tension over the alleged suppression of the Uighurs to disrupt these negotiations.

The return of normalcy in the bilateral relations was marked by two significant events in September and October, 2010. The first was the holding of the joint air exercise by the Air Forces of the two countries. According to Turkish press reports, the joint air exercise took place between September 20 and October 4 from the Konya air base in Turkey’s central Anatolia region.T he Turkish Air Force flew F-4 Phantom fighters, used by the US during the Vietnam war, while China flew Russian-built SU-27s. The Chinese planes refueled in Pakistan and Iran while on their way to Turkey and in Iran on their way back to China. The Turkish media reports also spoke of the joint development of a surface-to-surface missile by China and Turkey.

The second significant event was the official visit of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to Turkey while on his way back to China after official bilateral visits to Greece, Belgium and Italy and after attending the Asia-Europe summit at Brussels. Wen arrived in Ankara on October 7 — three days after the joint air exercise was over — and stayed for three days. His visit was marked by anti-China demonstrations by Uighurs and their local supporters. While the demonstrations were allowed by the Turkish authorities, they reportedly rejected a request from Mrs.Kadeer to visit Turkey on October 8 to participate in the demonstrations against China. She has been quoted by media reports as saying that the WUC would have no objection to Turkey improving its relations with China, provided the objective was to make Beijing recognise and respect the human rights of the Uighurs. She cautioned against any action which could facilitate the Chinese suppression of the Uighurs.

In an interview with the Anatolia news agency, she said:”I have been disappointed over the fact that Turkey would receive Chinese Premier Jiabao on October 8.Following the incidents of July 5, 2009, thousands of Uighurs have been arrested (by Chinese officials) and we have not heard from them since then. After July 5, the Chinese Government has been exercising great pressure on the Uighurs and land belonging to the Uighurs has been taken away from them by the Chinese authorities. Premier Jiabao’s visit to Turkey would provide an opportunity to Turkey to ask about the Chinese pressure put on the Uighurs and encourage the Chinese to end the pressure. The Uighurs are in a battle of death and survival. We are concerned with the efforts of the Chinese Government to change the views of the Turkish people.
I am seeking for ways to be able to visit Turkey on October 8, the day when Chinese Premier Jiabao will be in Turkey. I will try to convey, with the Turkish people, our demands from the Chinese Premier Jiabao. I expect the Turkish Government to provide me the same privilege that they have granted to the Chinese Premier Jiabao. I wish to be in Turkey in order to tell the realities to the Turkish people.”

6. This was the first visit by a Chinese Prime Minister to Turkey in eight years. In a despatch dated October 9 from Ankara, the Chinese Government controlled Xinhua news agency reported that Wen and the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had agreed to upgrade their bilateral ties to the level of a strategic relationship of cooperation.Wen said he and Erdogan reached broad consensus during the talks and added that the decision to set up the strategic cooperative relationship would have an important effect on world peace and development. Wen pointed out at a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart that China and Turkey both faced the threat of the three evil forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism and shared common interests in safeguarding the integrity of territory and sovereignty. He said China would continue to deepen mutual political trust and take active measures to promote trade with Turkey. China attached great importance to Turkey’s influence in regional and international affairs. China would encourage investment by Chinese enterprises in Turkey and facilitate cooperation in various economic fields, such as power projects, bridge construction and the financial sector, Wen said.

The Chinese have been providing many lollipops to Turkey in order to dissuade it from supporting the Uighurs. Among these lollipops are:
A proposal for the joint construction of 4,500kms of railway in Turkey and for the construction of an oil pipeline to Turkey from Iran. Chinese companies are already involved in the construction of railroads for two high-speed train links.

The value of the bilateral trade during 2009 amounted US $14.2bn – $12.6bn of which consisted of Chinese exports. Thus, China has been the major beneficiary of the trade. The two Prime Ministers agreed to raise the value to US $50 billion by 2015 and US $100 billion by 2020. They also agreed to use the national currencies to carry out the trade. Turkey has now similar arrangements with Russia and Iran.

Though promotion of economic relations and a strategic partnership were projected as the main objective of the visit of Wen to Turkey, the Uighurs believed that an important purpose was to seek the support of Turkey for the pacification of Chinese-controlled Xinjiang and for the political neutralisation of the WUC. According to Uighur sources, Pakistan had played an active role in bringing Turkey and China together despite the protests in Turkey last year over the suppression of the Uighurs. While the Uighurs are even prepared to understand the measures for the promotion of economic relations, they are surprised by Turkey’s agreeing to a joint air exercise with the PLA (Air Force) despite the role of the PLA (Army) in the suppression of the Uighurs.

October 19, 2010