Cyrus the Great liberated the Hebrew from the Babylonian captivity to resettle and rebuild Jerusalem, earning him an honoured place in Judaism. (Click to enlarge)
By Brokhim Davoudian from Tehran for CAIS
LONDON, (CAIS) — The Cyrus Cylinder loaned by the British Museum to Iran and currently on show at the National Museum in Tehran has attracted attention nationally and internationally and has excited all Iranians including the small community of the Iranian Jews.
The Cyrus Cylinder signifies humanity and kindness and it is considered by many scholars to be the world’s first declaration of human rights issued by the ancient Iranian emperor, Cyrus the Great in 6thcentury BCE.
Amongst Iranians the most excited for the return of the Cyrus Cylinder being home after forty years, is the small Jewish community. The Iranian Jewish population better known as ‘Persian Jews’, constitute the largest among the Islamic countries.
A Tehran Rabbi excitingly stating: “it is wonderful and I’m much exited to see that the Cylinder is home – in fact I am doubley exited, as an Iranian as well as a Jew.”
He continued: “the Cylinder is a Persian artefact, but its contents concerns the history of Jewish people as much as Iranians, which echoes the past and is the voice of our ancestors – it tells us about the history of my ancestors, the Hebrews who were liberated by the ‘anointed of God’ from Babylonian captivity and their return to the holy land. It is the history of my forefathers who stayed behind and who had chosen Iran as their home.”
Shahram, a young Persian Jew who travelled from the city of Shiraz to visit the Cylinder said: “when I laid my eyes on the Cylinder I start shaking and tears ran down my cheeks, which I had no control over. I felt a bit embarrassed but when I noticed that I am not the only one drowning in the tears of excitement I let my emotions to run.”
Maurice another teenager who was not lucky as Shahram to visit the Cylinder, said: “I am going to see it no matter how long it takes. From my childhood my family told me about Cyrus the Great and who he was. This artefact has importance for me for a number of reasons: first and foremost because I am an Iranian and second, this is a historical document that tells me how my ancestors were freed from captivity.”
Daniyal, a patriot Persian Jew from Esfahan and a veteran hero of Iran-Iraq war in moving words told me: “I defended my country during the sacred defence against the Arab aggressors and served in the frontline and I have a shattered leg to prove it. My feelings of knowing Cyrus’s Cylinder is home, is the exact feeling of joy and excitement that I had when I was ready to offer my life defending my country. If I have to sleep behind the doors of the National Museum, I will do it to see the Cylinder.”
According to Iran’s National Museum over 2,000 peoples are visiting the Cylinder everyday. The number could be have been three times but since the visitors are divided into groups of 20 to 25 individuals and at a time to be led to a special room where the priceless Persian artefact is kept, the numbers are currently limited to 2,000.
Some Iranians called for the museum to be open 24 hours before the return of the Cyrus Cylinder to England.
With regard to attacking Cyrus the Great in Western Media, such as a ‘Cyrus-bashing’ article published by Der Speigel in 2008 rabbi said: “We are appalled by those in West who are attacking the character of Cyrus the Great and calling his Cylinder as a hoax, especially that neo-Nazi who wrote the article in the Spiegel. We the Jewish community in Iran are deeply insulted and consider his attack as anti-Semitism, which is no better than those anti-Semitics who are denying the Holocaust from taking place.”
He added “Cyrus deserves better respect, and I’m pleading to my Jewish brothers and sisters outside Iran to stop these anti-Semitic-Nazis, attacking the man who loved and liberated us from captivity.”
A prominent Persian Rabbi back in 2008 also called the author of the De Spiegel article a neo-Nazi and an anti-Semitic.
The Persian Jews
The Persian Jews trace their ancestry to the Babylonian Exiles of the 6th century BCE and, and like the Armenians and the Assyrians living in modern Iran, have retained their ethnic, linguistic, and religious identity.
The beginnings of Jewish history in Iran dates back to late biblical times. The biblical books of Isaiah, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, and Esther contains references to the life and experiences of Jews in Persia. In the book of Ezra, the Persian kings are credited with permitting and enabling the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple; its reconstruction was ordered “according to the decree of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia” (Ezra 6:14). As the result, sixth century BCE is considered as one of the greatest events in the Jewish history.
Scholars believe that during the peak of the Persian Empire, Jews may have comprised as much as 20% of the Iranian population.
Jews continued living in various part of the empire including Babylon during and after the fall of Achaemenids. Under the succeeding Iranian dynasties of Parthians and Sasanian, Jews lived freely and practised their religion until the 7th century and invasion of Iran by Arabs, the majority of which along with other Iranians faced execution or were forced to accept Islam.
The reaming which could afford to pay the Jizyya (poll tax) for not being Muslim to the Arab invaders chose to remain or emigrated to concentrated Jewish areas such as in Assuristan and Khvarvaran (nowadays Iraq), Khuzestan, Fars and Esfahan provinces. As the result the central Iranian city of Esfahan become one of the main hubs for the Persian Jews. Esfahan then divided into two major settlements of Yahudiyeh (the Jewish Quarter) and Shahrestan or Gey (the Zoroastrian Quarter).
The second major blow to the Jewish community after the Arab invasion of Iran was under the Mongol Ghazan Khan. In 13th century, he ordered a large number of synagogues to be destroyed and forced many to accept Islam. The policy continued under the Tamburlaine’s rule which resulted in more Jews converting to Islam and their resettlement in the north-eastern Iranian city of Samaqand (in modern Uzbekistan) to promote the textile industry.
The Jewish community however survived in large numbers until the reign of Shah Soltan Hossein (r. 1694–1722) when they forced the majority to convert to Islam once again. Their numbers were estimated in the Safavid capital, Esfahan around 3,000,000 (including the Zoroastrians). As the result Jewish scholars believe a large portion of modern Esfahani ancestry is of Jewish origin.
Some of the Jewish communities in Iran have been isolated from others, to the extent that their classification as “Persian Jews” is a matter of linguistic or geographical convenience rather than actual historical relationship with one another.
Persian Jews until the 19th to mid-20th century were still extant communities in the mainland-Iran and the Greater Iran (once were part of Iran) including the present-day Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Eastern Turkey, Georgia, Northern-Iraq, Kirgizstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.
Before the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948, there was an estimated 140,000-150,000 remaining Jews living in Iran, the historical centre of Persian Jewry, the number were expected to be well over 500,000 by early 2000. Over 85% have since left Iran either for Israel or the United States.
Since the 1979 Revolution in Iran, the Jewish population of Iran dramatically decreased from 80,000 to less than 40,000 today, with around 25,000 residing in Tehran, and the remaining mainly living in the cities of Esfahan and Shiraz, the historical cities of Persian Jewry.
Modern Israelis of Iranian origin are referred to as Parsim meaning “Persians”.
It is widely believed the President Mahmood Ahmadinejad is of a Jewish origin who turned against his own people. His surname before conversion of his parents to Islam was Saburjian, meaning ‘cloth weaver’, a traditional Jewish family- name in Iran. Ahmadinejad rejected the claim.
, 24 September 2010
[2]
Falling for Ancient Propaganda
UN Treasure Honors Persian Despot
By Matthias Schulz
A 2,500-year-old cuneiform document ceremoniously displayed in a glass case at the United Nations in New York is revered as an “ancient declaration of human rights.” But in fact, argue researchers, the document was the work of a despot who had his enemies tortured.
Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi was planning a record-breaking gala. First he proclaimed the “White Revolution,” a land reform program, and then declared himself the “Light of the Aryans.” Finally, in October of 1971, he had taken it upon himself to celebrate “2,500 years of the Iranian monarchy.” The organizers of the celebration had promised to deliver “the greatest show on earth.”
The Shah had 50 opulent tents set up amid the ruins of Persepolis. Invited dignitaries included 69 heads of state and crowned monarchs. The guests consumed 20,000 liters of wine, ate quail eggs with pheasant and gilded caviar. Magnum bottles of Château Lafite circled the tables.
At the high point of the festival, the Shah walked to the grave of Cyrus II who, in the 6th century B.C., had conquered more than 5 million square kilometers (1.9 million square miles) of land in a long and bloody war.
Critics at the time complained that $100 million (€63 million) was a lot of money to spend celebrating the ancient Persian king. “Should I serve heads of state bread and radishes instead?” was the Shah’s brusque rejoinder.
Religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini, still in exile at the time, was also quick to issue his scathing criticism: “The crimes committed by Iranian kings have blackened the pages of history books.”
But the Shah knew better. Cyrus, he announced, was a very special man: noble and filled with love and kindness. The Shah insisted that Cyrus was the first to establish a right to “freedom of opinion.”
‘Ancient Declaration of Human Rights’
Pahlevi also ensured that his view of history would be taken to the United Nations. On Oct. 14, just as the party in Persepolis was in full swing, his twin sister walked into the United Nations building in New York, where she handed a copy of a cuneiform document, about the size of a rolling pin, to then Secretary General Sithu U Thant. Thant thanked her for the “historic gift” and promptly praised it as an “ancient declaration of human rights.”
Suddenly even the UN secretary-general was insisting that Cyrus “wanted peace,” and that the Persian king had “shown the wisdom to respect other civilizations.”
Then Thant had the clay cylinder (which contains a supposedly particularly humane decree by Cyrus II dated 539 B.C.) displayed in a glass case in the main UN building. And there it continues to lie today, directly adjacent to a copy of the world’s oldest peace treaty.
Those were grand gestures and grand words, but in the end it was nothing but a hoax that the UN had fallen for. Contrary to the Shah’s claims, the cuneiform degree was “propaganda,” explains Josef Wiesehöfer, a scholar of ancient history at the University of Kiel in the northern Germany. “The notion that Cyrus introduced concepts of human rights is nonsense.”
Hanspeter Schaudig, an Assyriologist at the University of Heidelberg in the southwestern Germany, says that he too would be hard-pressed to see the ancient king as a pioneer when it comes to equality and human dignity. Indeed, Cyrus demanded that his subjects kiss his feet.
The ruler was responsible for a 30-year war that consumed the Orient and forced millions to pay heavy taxes. Anyone who refused stood to have his nose and ears cut off. Those sentenced to death were buried up to their heads in sand, left to be finished off by the sun.
Did the UN simply believe this historical lie — concocted by the Shah — without any further examination?
‘The UN Made a Serious Mistake’
Art historian Klaus Gallas, who is preparing a German-Iranian cultural festival to take place in Weimar next summer, has now brought the matter to the public’s attention. During his preparations for the festival he discovered the inconsistencies between the Shah’s claims and the Cyrus decree. “The UN made a serious mistake,” says Gallas.
The limestone tomb at Pasargadae of King Cyrus the Great.
Despite having been contacted by SPIEGEL several times, the organization has declined to comment on the incident. Indeed, the UN Information Service in Vienna continues to insist that many still consider the cuneiform cylinder from the Orient to be the “first human rights document.”
The aftermath of the hoax has been disastrous. Even German schoolbooks describe the ancient Persian king as a pioneer of humane policies. According to a forged translation on the Internet, Cyrus even supported a minimum wage and right to asylum.
“Slavery must be abolished throughout the world,” the fake translation reads. “Every country shall decide for itself whether or not it wants my leadership.”
Even Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, was taken in by the hoax. “I am an Iranian. A descendant of Cyrus the Great,” she said in her speech in Oslo. “The very emperor who proclaimed at the pinnacle of power 2,500 years ago that … he would not reign over the people if they did not wish it.”
The experts are now stunned at this example of a rumor gone wild.
If one thing is clear, it is that the figure at the center of this hoax radically shook the ancient Orient like no other ruler. With what German scholar Wiesehöfer calls “military strokes of genius,” Cyrus advanced with his armies to India and to the Egyptian border. He is considered the creator of a new kind of country. At the height of his power, he was the ruler of a magnificent empire bursting with prosperity.
But it all began far more modestly. Born the son of an insignificant minor king in what is today southwestern Iran, the young man mounted the throne in 559 B.C.
Even in antiquity, bizarre legends were associated with the king. According to one of them, Cyrus grew up in the wild and was nursed by a female dog. There are no contemporary images of him.
His neighbors to the west soon felt the brunt of this man’s determination. After conquering the neighboring Elamite people, he attacked the Median Empire in 550 B.C. with his army’s fast combat chariots and soldiers dressed in bronze armor.
After that, the upstart king invaded Asia Minor, or modern Turkey, where hundreds of thousands of Greeks lived in colonies. Well-to-do citizens from Priene were enslaved.
Part 2: ‘One of the Most Magnificent Documents Ever Written’
The general recuperated from the trials of war at his residence in Pasargadae. It was surrounded by an irrigated garden known as the “paradeisos” and was home to a sumptuous harem.
But Cyrus soon became restless in his palace and returned to the front, this time heading east to Afghanistan. His life ended at 71, somewhere in Uzbekistan, when a spear punctured his thigh. He died three days later.
The Walls of Babylon, now at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.
Courageous in battle and adept in the politics of running his empire, Cyrus, says Wiesehöfer, was a “pragmatist” who attained his goals with “carrots and sticks.” But he was no humanist.
Some Greeks praised the conqueror. Herodotus and Aeschylus (who lived after Cyrus’s death) called him merciful. The Bible describes him as the “anointed one,” because he supposedly permitted the abducted Jews to return to Israel.
But modern historians have long since debunked such reports as flattery. “A shining image of Cyrus was created in antiquity,” Wiesehöfer says. In truth, he was a violent ruler, like many others. His army ransacked residential neighborhoods and holy sites, and the urban elites were deported.
Only the Shah, who had his own problems in the 1960s, could have come up with the idea of reinterpreting this man as an originator of human rights. Despite his SAVAK secret police’s notorious torture practices, there was resistance throughout the country. Marxist groups carried out bombings while mullahs called upon their followers to resist the government.
In response, the Shah attempted to invoke his ancient predecessors. Just as Cyrus was once the father of the nation, he insisted, “So am I today.”
“The history of our empire begins with the famous proclamation by Cyrus,” the Shah claimed. “It is one of the most magnificent documents ever written on the spirit of freedom and justice in the history of mankind.”
One thing is true, and that is the clay cylinder documents a banal story of political betrayal. When the text was written in 539 B.C., Cyrus found himself in what was probably the most dramatic part of his life. He had dared to attack the New Babylonian Empire, his powerful rival for dominance of the Orient, a realm that extended all the way to Palestine. Its capital, the magnificent city of Babylon, crowned by a 91-meter tower, was also a center of knowledge and culture. The empire itself was bristling with weapons.
Nevertheless, the Persian ruler decided to risk attacking the Babylonians. His troops marched down the Tigris River. After attacking the fortified city of Opis and killing all prisoners, they advanced on Babylon.
Babylonian Betrayal
There, barricaded behind an 18-kilometer (11-mile) wall around the city, sat Cyrus’ beleaguered enemy: King Nabonid, an old man of 80.
At that very moment, the priests of the god Marduk were committing treason against their own country. Angry over the loss of power they had suffered under their king, they secretly opened the gates and allowed hostile Persian negotiators to enter the city. Nabonid was banished and his son murdered.
Cyrus' Persian Empire
The conditions for a complete surrender were then hammered out. Cyrus demanded the release of fellow Persians who had been carried off in earlier wars. He also insisted on the return of stolen statues of gods.
These were the passages that the Shah would later reinterpret as a general rejection of slavery. In truth, Cyrus merely freed his own followers.
In compensation for their treacherous services, the priests were given money and estates. In return, they praised Cyrus as a “great” and “just” man and as someone who “saved the entire world from hardship and distress.”
Only after all the arrangements had been made did the king enter Babylon, riding in through the blue-glazed Gate of Ishtar. Reeds were spread on the ground at his feet. Then, as is written in line 19 of the Cyrus proclamation, the people were permitted to “kiss his feet.”
There is no evidence of moral reforms or humane commandments in the cuneiform document. Assyriologist Schaudig calls it “a brilliant piece of propaganda.”
But the legend of this prince of peace had been born, thanks to the wily priests of Babylon. And since it was placed on a pedestal by the UN, it has become even more inflated.
Iran’s mullahs have not escaped the Cyrus cult. In mid-June, the British Museum in London announced that it planned to lend the valuable original cylinder to Tehran. It has become an object of Persian national pride.
“The German Bundestag even recently received a petition to have the proclamation exhibited in a glass case at the Reichstag building,” says Gallas.
The petition was denied, and yet the distortion of history continues. With its disastrous tribute, the UN gave birth to a seemingly never-ending rumor.
As the saying from the Orient goes: “A fool may throw a stone into a well which a hundred wise men cannot pull out.”
(Reuters) – Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on Friday Turkey’s direct relations with Iran remain the best way to achieve a diplomatic solution for keeping Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Turkey voted against the latest round of U.N. sanctions aimed at putting pressure on Tehran, which says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
The United States, a key Turkish ally and fellow member of NATO, suspects Iran seeks to develop atomic weapons and is leading the effort to thwart its nuclear ambitions.
Gul, speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations while attending the U.N. General Assembly meeting, addressed criticism that Turkey was shifting its orientation away from the West by engaging with Iran.
“If you look at all our allies, which leaders among those countries have the ability to be able to have direct discussions with the Iranian leaders, including the supreme religious leader?” Gul asked.
“There isn’t anyone,” he said, adding its engagement is for moving the process forward and should not be misunderstood.
“As was the case in the past, Turkey is and will remain a strong committed and reliable ally of the United States,” he said.
Gul once again criticized Israel’s actions in its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May. The incident has damaged relations between the two nations.
“Having said that, I must also emphasize that Turkey and Israel are friends. There are strong, centuries-old ties of friendship between our peoples.”
On Turkey’s European Union accession talks, Gul said the country remains committed to completing the process despite slow progress that he blamed on Europe.
“Europe today lacks a strategic vision, a strategic perspective of what it wants to be 50-60 years down the road,” he said.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addresses the 65th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, September 23, 2010. Credit: Reuters/Mike Segar
By Louis Charbonneau
(Reuters) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the United Nations on Thursday most people believe the U.S. government was behind the attacks of September 11, 2001, prompting the U.S. and European delegations to leave the hall in protest.
Addressing the General Assembly, he said it was mostly U.S. government officials and statesmen who believed al Qaeda Islamist militants carried out the suicide hijacking attacks that brought down New York’s World Trade Center — less than 4 miles from where the Iranian president was speaking.
Another theory, he said, was “that some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy, and its grips on the Middle East, in order to save the Zionist regime.” Ahmadinejad usually refers to Israel as the “Zionist regime.”
“The majority of the American people as well as most nations and politicians around the world agree with this view,” Ahmadinejad told the 192-nation assembly, calling on the United Nations to establish “an independent fact-finding group” to look into the events of September 11.
As in past years, the U.S. delegation walked out during Ahmadinejad’s speech. It was joined by all 27 European Union delegations and several other countries.
Mark Kornblau, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said Ahmadinejad chose “to spout vile conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic slurs that are as abhorrent and delusional as they are predictable.”
White House spokesman Bill Burton said President Barack Obama thought the comments “utterly outrageous and offensive — especially in the city where the 9/11 attacks occurred.”
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the remarks were “outrageous and unacceptable.”
‘COVERED UP’
Ahmadinejad said some evidence that could support alternative theories had been “covered up” — passports located in the rubble and a video of an unknown individual who had been “involved in oil deals with some American officials.”
As he had in past years, the Iranian president used the General Assembly podium to attack Iran’s other archfoe, Israel, and to defend the right of his country to a nuclear program that Western powers fear is aimed at developing arms.
“This regime (Israel), which enjoys the absolute support of some Western countries, regularly threatens the countries in the region and continues publicly announced assassination of Palestinian figures and others, while Palestinian defenders … are labeled as terrorists and anti-Semites,” he said.
“All values, even the freedom of expression, in Europe and the United States are being sacrificed at the altar of Zionism,” Ahmadinejad said.
The Iranian president previously raised doubts about the Holocaust of the Jews in World War Two and said Israel had no right to exist.
Tehran has been hit with four rounds of U.N. sanctions for refusing to halt its nuclear enrichment program. Obama earlier told the assembly the door to diplomacy was still open for Iran, but it needed to prove its atomic program is peaceful, as it says it is.
Adabank is to be sold, in a tender [offer], on October 19 by Savings Deposit Insurance Fund.
Bank Hapolaim of Israel, who owns the majority of the shares of Turkey’s Bank Pozitif, was announced his interest to buy Adabank.
Since Iranians entered the negotiations for Adabank, Mossad and CIA started to follow the deal.
The main concern of the Americans and Israelis is if Iran Government buys a bank in Turkey, they might launder money for their nuclear targets through an internationally recognized bank.
Farzad Farhangian, a 47-year-old press attache at the Iranian Embassy in Brussels, arrived in Norway on Monday night and is planning to hand an application for asylum to Norwegian authorities Tuesday, his lawyer told Babylon & Beyond from Oslo.
Farhangian’s move marks the third time in less than a year that an Iranian diplomat has defected and applied for asylum in a Scandinavian country.
Saying he was angered by the crackdown on dissidents during the Iranian presidential elections last year, Farhangian slammed Tehran’s hard-line government at a news conference in Oslo on Tuesday and said he had joined the political opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“I’m apologizing to the Iranian people. During the last 30 years I was of service to the Iranian people, 23 of them in the diplomatic service, but the deviation that the Iranian republic has reached leaves me no choice. I hope to be a voice of the opposition,” Agence-France Presse quoted Farhangian as saying before reporters.
Arild Humlen, a Norwegian lawyer who first met with Farhangian on Tuesday morning, says his client is receiving protection from Norwegian authorities.
According to Humlen, Farhangian had for some time expressed strong criticism toward the Iranian government. When a delegation of Iranian officials from Tehran recently showed up in Brussels to put some pressure on the diplomat, Farhangian knew it was time to go, Humlen said.
On his arrival in Norway, Farhangian joined a former colleague from the Iranian Foreign Ministry: Mohammad Reza Heydari, the former consul at the Iranian Embassy in Oslo who resigned earlier this year in protest of the government and became a campaigner for the Iranian political opposition.
Rahman Saki of the Norwegian-Iranian Support Committee in Oslo told Babylon & Beyond that he and Heydari have been working together since the former diplomat’s resignation in January. Together, they’ve reached out to Iranian diplomats and supported those who’ve contemplated quitting.
“We’ve been active in working with diplomats after Heydari came out and announced that he had resigned. Me and Heydari work very close. … We’ve sent faxes to them, and we’ve called Iranian diplomats and talked to them,” he said.
They reached Farhangian, who, according to Saki, contacted Heydari, an old friend, for advice. Discussions went on for months before Farhangian decided to take the final step, Saki said. He also said that Farhangian arrived in Oslo with his wife and son.
Saki says more Iranian diplomats are thinking of resigning from their posts.
“There are several who are interested, but the situation is difficult,” he said.
Just a few days ago, the former charge d’affaires at the Iranian Embassy in Finland announced that he had resigned. At first, Hossein Alizadeh remained tight-lipped about whether he would stay in Finland, but media reports said Monday that he would apply for political asylum there. Heydari obtained political asylum in Norway earlier this year.
Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Turkey last week. Although the official purpose of Mullen’s visit was to congratulate his Turkish counterpart General Isik Kosaner, recently appointed as the Chief of the General Staff, this introductory visit had no fixed agenda. Mullen had a chance to gauge Turkey’s position on many of US policies in the surrounding regions. In his meetings with Turkish military and civilian leaders, Mullen exchanged opinions on US withdrawal from Iraq, the Iranian nuclear issue and the international military presence in Afghanistan, as well as reiterating US support for Turkey on various issues such as its struggle against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and sales of military equipment for the Turkish armed forces (Hurriyet, Cumhuriyet, Radikal, September 5).
On the issue of Iran, Mullen downplayed recent disagreements, arguing that both Turkey and the US share the common objective of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. However, as Ankara’s earlier diplomacy on the Iranian nuclear standoff attested, such blanket mutual understanding was not enough to eliminate major differences of opinion over how best to deal with Iran (EDM, June 1). Ankara’s objections to a tougher US position and insistence on a diplomatic solution culminated in Turkey’s vote against a US-brokered UN Security Council resolution authorizing a new round of sanctions in June. Coupled with other crises, such as the problems encountered in Turkish-Israeli relations, this development further strained bilateral relations, prompting many US politicians and interest groups to question the strategic partnership with Turkey. In this tense environment, in August the Republicans blocked President Barack Obama’s nominee for the next Ambassador to Turkey, Frank Ricciardione. The vacant post highlighted how tenuous Obama’s Turkey policy remained, as well as the impact of Ankara’s recent policies on US domestic politics.
While for Washington a combination of diplomatic efforts and punitive sanctions is needed to deal with Iran, Ankara still believes that constructive diplomacy must be prioritized. Earlier in August, Mullen had raised tensions in the region, following his statement that military options against Iran remain on the table, which invited a harsh reaction from Iran, placing Turkey in a difficult diplomatic position (AFP, August 3).
In this context, Mullen adopted a rather balanced tone in Ankara and said that he had no plan to question Turkey over the Security Council vote and emphasized that he welcomed Turkish leaders’ statements that they would comply with UN sanctions against Iran. Nonetheless, this last point underscored continued differences over Iran. The Turkish government has reiterated on many occasions that it would implement only sanctions authorized by the UN, not the stricter set of measures being introduced by the US and the European countries.
Mullen also referred to ongoing discussions within NATO pertaining to the formation of a missile defense system against Iran, which will be part of the agenda of the upcoming NATO summit in November. Turkey is one of the possible locations for radars and interceptors. However, the Turkish position on this issue remains unclear, and it is unlikely to welcome such a proposal considering Ankara’s sensitivity to Tehran’s concerns.
Turkey’s contribution to the international military effort in Afghanistan was also discussed. Praising Turkey’s critical role in ensuring Afghanistan’s security through its provision of troops and training to Afghan security personnel, Mullen requested that Turkey maintains its military contribution after its command over international troops in Kabul and the surrounding area expires in October. Turkey has contributed to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) since its inception immediately after the US invasion of the country in 2001, and has assumed the command of ISAF on many occasions. Although the US has pressured Turkey to increase its troop levels, Ankara has refused to do so, on the grounds that non-military means should be used to address the root causes of the conflict. Washington has come to acknowledge Ankara’s concerns on this issue, but wants to ensure that Turkey maintains at least its current level of commitment to ISAF.
An additional area discussed during the bilateral talks was Turkey’s specific role in US withdrawal plans from Iraq. Ever since the Obama administration announced its withdrawal plans, there has been speculation that Turkey would serve as one of the exit routes for US troops and military equipment (EDM, March 9, 2009). Denying such reports, Mullen stressed that he was not in Ankara to negotiate the terms of the US military exit from Iraq through Turkey. Since the transfer of military units will require authorization from the Turkish parliament, it is unlikely that Washington will seriously consider this option. Indeed, a recent statement from the Turkish foreign ministry also ruled out such an option, though welcoming the possibility of moving non-combat elements through the country. If an agreement is reached, Turkey would be ready to create a safe zone for the transfer of technical equipment (Sabah, September 3).
The visit by Mullen underscores the extent to which US-Turkish relations are characterized by military-strategic issues, and how the United States needs Turkey’s cooperation at best and at the very least its acquiescence for the successful execution of its military engagements in the regions surrounding Turkey. Therefore, Turkey is a key part of discussions on major US military campaigns, which serves as a constraint on Washington and prevents it from severing ties with this critical ally over its independent policies. Turkey, in contrast, relies on US assistance and the transfer of military technology, which curbs any tendency on its part to pursue unilateral policies. Aware of this mutual interdependence in military-security affairs, civilian and military bureaucrats from both sides have intensified their efforts to maintain the pace of cooperation. Recently, Turkish foreign ministry officials visited Washington to reiterate Ankara’s determination to maintain strategic ties with the US. This message will perhaps be repeated during the visit to the US later this month by Turkish President, Abdullah Gul, and Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, as part of the UN General Assembly.
