Turkish Forum

Category: Egypt

  • Looking beyond the Golan Heights: Baku as a possible mediator in the Middle East

    Looking beyond the Golan Heights: Baku as a possible mediator in the Middle East

    Gulnara Inandzh
    Director
    International Online Information Analytic Center Ethnoglobus,

    related info www.turkishnews.com

    mete62@inbox.ru

    Syrian President Bashar Asad’s visit to Baku, which took place immediately after Israeli President Shimon Peres visited Azerbaijan and which Asad said bore a strategic character, points to a possible mediating role for Azerbaijan in negotiations between Syria and Israel. [1] That is all the more the case because over the last several years, both Israel and the United States have pushed for the strengthening of the position of Azerbaijan in the Middle East in order to have another partner there alongside Turkey.

    Indeed, now a suitable time has arisen as a result of that effort, and consequently, Tel Aviv and Washington have offered Azerbaijan a mediating mission in the Middle East and the role of a gas transit route to Europe bypassing Russia.  For the first role, Azerbaijan is a key to American and Israeli efforts to reduce Russian influence in Iran and Syria and more precisely to cut the tie among the members of this triangle.  And consequently, Israel and the US have offered concessions and attractive proposals.

    In the dialogue between Damascus and Jerusalem, the primary focus is on the return to Syria of the Golan Heights which have been under Israeli occupation since the Six day way in 1967.  During his visit to Baku, President Peres said that “Syrian President Bashar Asad must understand that he cannot  receive on a silver platter the Golan Heights if he continues his ties with Iran and his support of Hezbollah. [2] At the same time, he sent a message to Tehran with whom a discussion on the Syrian question appears to be in the offing.

    If it is able to achieve its goals, Israel may return the Golan Heights, but having given up these territories, Tel Aviv must receive a security guarantee for Israel.  However, Damascus cannot completely break its ties with Teheran and its satellite Hezbollah and give a full guarantee that after the return of the strategically important Heights, Iran will not terrorize Israel.  Only Tehran can give a guarantee of non-aggression against Israel whether or not the Golan Heights are returned. [3]

    The Golan Heights are only the visible part of a game behind which stand the economic security of the Middle East and the West.  After Peres and Asad visited Baku, US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg arrived, along with Philip Gordon, the assistant secretary for Europe and Eurasia.  During the visit, they discussed with Azerbaijan’s leadership the issue of US support for the diversification of energy supplies.  Stressing that the US is not seeking to exclude Russia from this process, he pointed to a variety of energy plans that would involve Azerbaijan with Syria and Iran.  At the same time, with this set of talks, conversations about the Nabucco gas pipeline, which would reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, took off.

    And at the same time, US President Barak Obama decided to reopen the American embassy in Damascus which had been closed four years ago.

    All these statements and actions help explain why Damascus has now declared its readiness to be part of the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline and to purchase oil from Iraq.

    Of course, the US and Israel, by attracting Syria to their side, intend to isolate Iran, but since all the major Iranian gas fields remain beyond the control of the West, it is hardly possible to gain the complete isolation of Iran.  Therefore, for the US and Israel, it is important to involve Iran in a dialogue through one or another third country, including among them Azerbaijan.  But the most important link in this chain is the freeing of Iran from Russian manipulation.  For that, Iran must become involved in one of the Western gas projects, otherwise the Iranian-Armenian gas pipeline through Georgia will become tied to Russia and Iranian gas will be under the control of the Kremlin.

    In addition to this, the time has come for the development of new gas fields in the Caspian, part of which are in disputed areas.  And here too it is necessary to free Iran from Russian influence since official Iranian circles consider that not Tehran but rather Russia is preventing the resolution of the status of the Caspian.  Therefore, a mediating role for Azerbaijan among the US, Israel and Syria will require the intensification of negotiations between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Iran.

    Notes

    [1] “Azerbaijan will reconcile Syria with Israel” [in Russian], 11 July, available at: (accessed 3 August 2009).
    [2] RosBalt (2009) “Israel: Syria will not be able to both get the Golan Heights and continue its friendship with Iran” [in Russian], RosBalt, 6 July, available at: (accessed 3 August 2009).

    [3] IzRus (2009) “Azerbaijan is ready to mediate in reconciling Israel with Syria and Iran”, 19 July, available at: http://izrus.co.il/dvuhstoronka/article/2009-07-19/5372.html (accessed 3 August 2009).

  • U.S. Navy’s Secret Intelligence Service at the Bosphorus

    U.S. Navy’s Secret Intelligence Service at the Bosphorus

     big smoke2Big Smoke alongside a Soviet Warship in the Bosphorus

    Photo of Big Smoke, a motor yacht used by the U.S. Navy’s Task Force 157, for intelligence collection operations in the Mediterranean. Photo from Jeffrey Richelson, “Task Force 157: The U.S. Navy’s Secret Intelligence Service, 1966-77,” Intelligence and National Security 11 (1996), 118; used with permission of the author and the journal.

     Central Intelligence Agency (?), “Soviet Nuclear Weapons in Egypt?”, 30 October 1973, Top Secret, Excised copy
    Archival source: Nixon NSC, Henry A. Kissinger Office Files, box 132, Egypt-Ismail Vol. VII Oct. 1973

    In the weeks after the October War, U.S. government officials leaked to the media information about intelligence gleanings of possible shipments of Scud missiles and nuclear weapons to Soviet bases in Egypt during the conflict.  While officials were more certain about the deployment of the missiles, it was more debatable whether Moscow had actually deployed nuclear weapons to foreign territory because of the great risks involved.   According to the press reports, defense officials saw a “reasonable possibility” that nuclear weapons were shipped, but members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John C. Stennis and Stuart Symington, “said the evidence did not convince them.” (Note 8)

    For the first time, the U.S. government has released one of the intelligence reports that may have been the basis for the leaks.  While intelligence agencies exempted this document in its entirety after the first request to the Nixon Library and also after an appeal, ISCAP agreed to release much of it, suggesting that the much of the information had been overclassified.

    “Soviet Nuclear Weapons in Egypt?” draws back from definite conclusions, suggesting why some U.S. officials believed that the evidence was not good enough.  Interestingly, the report indicates which Soviet cargo ship—the Mezhdurechensk—was one of the objects of suspicion, and that U.S. intelligence photographed the ship at Alexandria on 25 October. 

    While much of the evidence concerning the alleged deployment has been redacted from the report, probably on sources and methods grounds, a prize-winning article by Archive senior research fellow, Jeffrey Richelson, “Task Force 157: The U.S. Navy’s Secret Intelligence Service, 1966-1977,” published in Intelligence and National Security, clarifies the issue. According to Richelson’s account, Task Force 157 included a yacht equipped with a special nuclear intelligence sensor that operated in the Bosphurus and shadowed Soviet ships. The problem was that the sensor was “prone to giving positive false alarms,” and could not determine whether the “type of radiation in question” indicated the presence of nuclear weapons.  This makes it all the more understandable why the authors of the 30 October report were unwilling to draw firm conclusions about the presence of nuclear weapons on the Mezhdurechensk: “The evidence should not yet be regarded as though it creates a strong presumption that the Soviets dispatched nuclear weapons to Egypt.” (Note 9)

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  • Obama’s link to the Muslim world: Turkey

    Obama’s link to the Muslim world: Turkey

    OPINION

    The West can learn a lot from Ankara’s perspective and democratic successes.

    By Helena Cobban

    re-engageAdana, Turkey – As President Obama looks for partners in the Muslim world, he should consider listening to the government of Turkey as much as he listens to Egypt’s president. He could learn a lot from Turkey about how a smart Islamist party can be a valued participant in a democracy.

    Turkey, a NATO ally, has been ruled since 2002 by a moderate Islamist party – the Justice and Development Party (AKP) – that has proved its commitment to democracy and pluralism at home and to an active, nearly always nonviolent, engagement in diplomacy abroad. And that’s why the record of the AKP in Turkey is so compelling.

    At home, after the party first won power, grass-roots supporters tried to leverage that victory to ban alcohol sales in some Turkish cities. The judiciary struck down those regulations – and the national government complied with the ruling.

    Later, the national government tried to lift the country’s longstanding ban on admitting scarf-wearing women to universities or to jobs in government. Once again, the courts struck down the proposal. And once again, the government complied without a protest. (That, though the wives of both the prime minister and the president always wear head scarves in public.)

    In 10 days of travel, in three Turkish cities and vast swaths of countryside, I saw Turkish women wearing clothes that ranged from skimpy Western dress topped by tumbling – sometimes bleached-blond – hairdos, to a stylish version of Muslim hijab that involves an elegantly tied head scarf over a mid-thigh tunic and jeans, to the baggy black coverup of the ultrapious.

    Most Turkish women are near the middle of that spectrum, and in many places young women with and without head scarves mingle easily, chatting and laughing together.

    Regarding domestic affairs, one professor in Istanbul told me, “If you’re a politically liberal Turk who cares about women’s rights, the rights of the Kurdish minority, and religious minorities here, you couldn’t find a better party than the AKP.” I heard versions of that voiced by several other strongly secular Turks.

    Back in early April, Mr. Obama came to Turkey and delivered a first important address to the Muslim world. Turks seemed delighted that he had included their country on his first trip abroad as president, and nearly all appreciated the respectful way he addressed the concerns of Turks and other Muslims.

    On June 4, he gave another major address to the Muslim world in Cairo. Egypt, like Turkey, is a historic center of Muslim life. But the Turkish government follows policies that are much more in line with Obama’s inclusive, diplomacy-focused approach to international affairs.

    Turkey’s two AKP governments have maintained good ties with Europe and with all Turkey’s neighbors – including Greece, Iran, Georgia, Iraq, and Syria. In 2007-08, Ankara also undertook an important mediation effort between Israel and Syria.

    But Ankara fell afoul of the Bush administration in Washington for a number of reasons. Most significantly, in 2003, Ankara – like many other NATO allies – strongly opposed the US invasion of Iraq, and it refused to allow Washington to launch part of the invasion from Turkey.

    The Bush administration also objected to the good ties the AKP maintained with Syria and – after the hard-line faction won the Palestinian elections in 2006 – with Hamas.

    While George W. Bush was president, he seemed to ascribe little value to the inclusive and generally de-escalatory policies the AKP government has pursued at home and in the broader Middle East. He preferred instead an approach to the Middle East that sharpened divisions between the two groups he defined as “moderates” and “extremists.”

    In the former group were the notoriously anti-democratic governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In the latter, any government or party that seemed to support Iran, regardless of whether – like Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah – they might have proved their popular support in democratic elections.

    Indeed, in the Bush years, Washington worked actively to overthrow both Hamas and Hezbollah, and maintained what one Bush White House official has described as “a state of quasi-war” with Syria.

    Several Bush-era officials openly questioned whether the electoral victories of Hamas and Hezbollah actually “proved” that a party could be both dedicated to Islamist principles and democratic rule over the longer term. Turkey’s experience provides intriguing evidence that it can.

    Obama should value Turkey’s views on regional affairs. He may not be ready yet to go along with all the advice he receives from the AKP government in Ankara. But Ankara has much valuable experience that it can share with its NATO ally.

    Helena Cobban is a former Monitor correspondent. Her latest book is “Re-engage! America and the World after Bush.”

    Source:  www.csmonitor.com, June 12, 2009

  • Will there be a new Camp David of Turkey?

    Will there be a new Camp David of Turkey?

    Armenian problem of Turkey took an important dimension while regional balances are changing regional nations’ characteristics in this time section. Armenia that have seen double reaction by two countries since invasion on Karabakh region has an inevitable chance. Two brother countries’ opposition conducts because of dilemmas by foreign affairs gave some advantages for Armenia and their diaspora.

    Although Turkey’s demand about giving up by Armenian insistences on Karabakh, genocide lie and new territory of east Anatolia points, this country didn’t improve relations. Additionally Armenia’s desires about their unreal pronunciations had grew up in period of Sarkisyan. Turkey and other states can not understand different thoughts of an irredentist state.

    Of course absolute definitons like “Can be a country collapsed with historical confession which is combining many words?” of some liberal and global defenders in Turkey created this period. It doesn’t matter to interpret these responsible groups which formed new critical relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey. For example: “Azerbaijan didn’t recognize Turkish Cyprus, so this is unnecessary to defend their self interests, Karabakh conflict is an internal problem of them and Turkish foreign policy can not depend on it, Azerbaijan reailty finishes western support to Turkey while guarantees of the USA are enough for us…” To understand truth reality you can search all documents about these subjects.

    Today public opinion of Azerbaijan feels unwell about last news. All messages are followed and columnists debate possible circumstances. Additionally to political dimension, economical and energical subjects are different debate areas. Unfortunately some alternative energy line projects are debated today. About border opening effects and reaction of public opinion of Azerbaijan circumstances, we ask to Araz Aslanli who is an academic person in Khazar University and president of Caucasus Research Center for International Relations and Strategic Analysis :

    “ I don’t expect that borders will be opened. If actors look at the local and regional dynamics and Turkey want to stiff its position here, it shouldn’t be opened. But if they say that we have some guarantees of our position as regional power, no issues can influence this reality, and Turkey is only interested about global issues, they can open as minimum concession about this problem.

    Border problem is strategical but it has psychological among relations with Azerbaijan. It is important for two countries. Example; Turkey is a single country which had been sponsored and protected by Azerbaijan if we compare global powers. It is originally psychological that is shored up ethnic, religious and cultural connections. Commonlu this question can collapse “trustworthy brother” image of Turkey in Turkish world and Azerbaijan. I think that it is another target of groups which are desire border opening idea. Public opinion is very sensitive in Azerbaijan about this question. Reaction of government can be limited but it can put a psychological mine because of sensitivity of public.”

    Another symbol of public sensitive representation is a media organ that is Turkistan Newspaper. We ask this question to Aqil Camal who is a head director of Turkistan Newspaper. According to him, this case can end Turkish image in this geography:

    “We are unwell as Turkish nationalists. There are some pressures as “Is it your defensivity?”
    Some pro-Russian groups are working to create bad image about Turkey in public opinion. We should look at a point. If Turkey will open borders and Azerbaijani government agree this reality, all of the works about Turkish union will die. Because Azerbaijan is a bridge between Turkey and Central Asia because of Central Asian countries were near us. If Azerbaijan give up these works, Turkey can not be successful. This is a great problem all of us who are working to create Turkish union.

    Sometimes politicians talk about state interests. But states are existing to serve nation. Who wants a state that is not interested about demands of nation? If there will be a cold time with Turkey, Azerbaijan consider relations with Russia, like Central Asian bandwagoning.

    Mr. Öztarsu, you know that I said these sentences as a Turkish idealist on Turkish union way, not as an angry person on ordinary public sphere. At least Turkey shouldn’t open borders in this period. Chances shouldn’t be given to defeatists of our brotherhood. Punishment should be given when necessary, not serve them. As like as Çanakkale War…”

    There is a long time period to open borders and debate its historical and political subjects as like speeches of Armenian president. But only beaten side will be conscience and thought of Turkish nation in this psychological war. Defenses of opposition groups from the likes of economic development, brotherhood of Armenians for Turkey, independent situation of Turkish foreign policy thoughts will be main actors in this process. We know that Turkish bureaucrats don’t want a new Camp David of Turkish world and be remembered a new Anwar Sadat.

    Mehmet Fatih ÖZTARSU
    Baku Qafqaz University
    International Research Club

  • 2009 ANNUAL DUES, DONATIONS and Book Sales

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  • Turkey’s New Mission

    Turkey’s New Mission

    Shlomo Ben-Ami

    TEL AVIV – Ever since Turkey’s establishment as a republic, the country has oscillated between the Western-oriented heritage of its founder, Kemal Ataturk, and its eastern, Ottoman legacy. Never resolved, modern Turkey’s deep identity complex is now shaking its strategic alliances and recasting its regional and global role. Indeed, Turkey’s changing perception of itself has shaped its so-far frustrated drive to serve as a peace broker between Israel and its Arab enemies, Syria and Hamas.

    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s missionary zeal to replace Egypt as the essential regional mediator, and his violent tirades against Israel’s behavior in Gaza, looks to many people like an attempt to recover Turkey’s Ottoman-era role as the guarantor of regional peace and security. Its credentials for this role in the Middle East are by no means negligible.

    Turkey is a true regional superpower, with one of the largest armies in the world. At the same time, it is the only Muslim country that, while no less worried than Israel about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, can maintain excellent economic and political relations with Iran, regardless of American displeasure. Of course, Syria is Iran’s ally, too, but no country in the region has the leverage with it that Turkey possesses. And Turkey’s diplomatic reach in the region is also reflected in its recent signing of a friendship treaty with Saudi Arabia, while maintaining excellent relations with Pakistan and Iraq.

    Europe’s persistence in snubbing Turkey’s attempts to join the European Union, the rise of violent anti-Western popular sentiment in the wake of the Iraq war, and strained relations with the US – owing in part to the forthcoming Armenian Genocide Act – are major factors in Turkey’s change of direction. The civilizing efforts that Ataturk’s revolution directed inward and in favor of disengagement from the Arab and Muslim worlds are now being revisited. The Turkey of Erdogan’s dominant Justice and Development Party (AKP) appears to be seeking a new mission civilisatrice , with the Middle East and the former Soviet republics as its alternative horizons.

    The uneasy challenge for Turkey is to secure its newfound regional role without betraying Ataturk’s democratic legacy. Turkish democracy and secular values have been greatly enhanced by the country’s dialogue with Europe and its American ties. Turkey can be a model for Middle Eastern countries if, while promoting its regional strategic and economic interests, it resists the authoritarian temptation and continues to show that Islam and democracy are fully compatible.

    For Israel, the long overdue message is that its future in the Middle East does not lie in strategic alliances with the region’s non-Arab powers, but in reconciling itself with the Arab world. In the 1960’s, David Ben-Gurion’s fatalistic pessimism about the possibility of ever reaching a peace settlement with the Arab countries led him to forge an “Alliance of the Periphery” with the non-Arab countries in the outer circle of the Middle East – Iran, Ethiopia, and Turkey (he also dreamed of having Lebanon’s Maronite community as part of that alliance).

    All of these countries did not have any particular dispute with Israel, and all, to varying degrees, had tense relations with their Arab neighbors. The myth of Israel’s military power, resourcefulness in economic and agricultural matters, and an exaggerated perception of its unique capacity to lobby and influence American policy combined to make the Israeli connection especially attractive to these countries.

    The “Alliance of the Periphery” was a creative attempt to escape the consequences of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It reflected the yearning of the Jewish state to unleash its creative energies in economic and social matters, as it created space for an independent, imaginative foreign policy that was not linked to, or conditioned by, the paralyzing constraints of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

    Shlomo Ben Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister who now serves as vice-president of the Toledo International Centre for Peace, is the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy.

    But the security that this scheme was supposed to produce could never really be achieved; the centrality of the Arab-Israeli conflict could not be attenuated. The Arabs’ capacity to maintain their pressure on Israel and to keep world opinion focused on the Palestinians’ plight made Israel’s quest for evading the consequences of the conflict, either through periodic wars or by forging alternative regional alliances, a futile exercise.

    The Islamic revolution in Iran, the changes in Ethiopia following the end of Haile Selassie’s rule, the collapse of Maronite Lebanon, and Hezbollah’s takeover of that country left Turkey as the last remaining member of Israel’s Alliance of the Periphery. Turkey’s powerful military establishment may want to maintain close relations with Israel, but the widely popular change in Turkey’s foreign policy priorities, and the serious identity dilemmas facing the nation, send an unequivocal message that the alliance can no longer serve as an alternative to peace with the Arab world. From now on, it can only be complementary to such a peace.

    Shlomo Ben-Ami is a former Israeli foreign minister who now serves as the vice-president of the Toledo International Center for Peace. He is the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy.

    © Project Syndicate 1995-2009

    Source:  www.guatemala-times.com, 03 March 2009