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Category: Middle East

With its Syria plan in tatters, Turkey needs a strategy reboot

For much of the late 2000s, Turkey hoped that a booming economy, the prestige of combative Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a burst of regional admiration for its successful mix of Muslim governance and democracy would reap it a harvest of Middle Eastern influence and profit.

At the heart of this strategy was an intimate relationship with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, the model for Turkey’s “zero problems” policy. The two countries signed model deals for visa-less travel, free trade and infrastructure integration. The leaders brought half their Cabinets to summit meetings. The Assads even lunched with the Erdogans on the eve of their 2008 holiday on the Turkish riviera.

Now the Syrian catastrophe has landed squarely on Turkey’s doorstep: 450,000 refugees, with the UN predicting double that by year’s end; costs of $1-billion and rising to look after the influx, only a tenth of which is covered by outside donors; and increasing tensions on the border. A recent Syrian air force raid close to one Turkish border crossing killed five Syrians, wounded 50 people, hit an aid warehouse and an opposition base. Just days later at another border crossing, Syrians wanting to cross rioted, fired weapons and killed a Turkish policeman, wounded 11 other people and burned buildings and cars.

As regional instability has spread since 2010, Turkey’s Middle Eastern position has suffered too. The Libya war badly disrupted Turkey’s big contracting interests there. The loss of Syrian trucking routes to regional markets has joined the previous loss of Iraqi ones. Ankara’s backing of armed Syrian opposition groups has encouraged negative perceptions of Turkey acting not just as a would-be Sunni Muslim hegemon, but also as taking sides within the Sunni Arab world. Arab and Iranian commentators are critical of what they see as Ankara’s hubristic tendency to seek what they see as Ottoman-style regional dominance.

These Middle Eastern entanglements are clearly not principally Turkey’s fault, but some of Ankara’s policies have made things worse. At the height of its Middle East hopes – which were indeed accompanied by a substantial rise in trade with a region that takes a quarter of Turkey’s exports – Turkey repeatedly snubbed its much bigger investor and principal trading partner, the EU. Mr. Erdogan made emotional attacks on Israel, seeking domestic and regional popularity but losing a valuable image of regional neutrality. And the intensity which Mr. Erdogan switched policy to calling for Mr. Assad’s ouster in August, 2011, painted Turkish policy into a corner.

Ankara is now adjusting course in some areas. When the Syrian war got under way, Turkey quickly sought to calm popular alarm by bringing in Patriot missiles from its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies. After years of stalling Turkey’s EU relationship, Mr. Erdogan is now visiting more EU states and nudging membership negotiations forward. Under intense U.S. pressure ahead of a May 16 trip to Washington, Mr. Erdogan also partly patched up his row with Israel by accepting an Israeli apology for Israel’s killing of eight Turkish citizens and Turkish-Americans trying to bring aid to the Palestinians in Gaza in 2010.

In fixing the overspill from the Syria crisis, however, much remains to be done. Certainly, the principal Western donors should be much more generous to Turkey, and engage effective Turkish humanitarian organizations, but Turkey also has to streamline its procedures to allow reputable, international NGOs to work. Turkey can hardly complain about a lack of Western aid when it has only registered three aid groups – thus allowing them bank accounts, to hire personnel, to get residence permits – since the crisis began two years ago.

Turkey is indeed a leading Sunni Muslim state, and a progressive one, but making Sunnism a key element of policy has become an element of polarizing tension both in the region and also for the 10 per cent of Turkey’s population who are heterodox Alevis. Turkey has long experience in its regional rivalry with Iran, but should work hard to avoid any gratuitous deepening of what could become proxy conflicts over Syria or Iraq. It should set up any new refugee camps well away from the border to avoid the impression that they are being used as rear bases.

Syria has already become a failed state, the Syrian conflict may still escalate further, and the crisis so far has shown that Turkey alone does not have the power to impose any solution, diplomatically or militarily. Even if the world does more to arm the Syrian opposition, this looks unlikely to topple the Assad regime. Ankara would therefore do well to abandon its wishful thinking about a quick resolution of the Syrian catastrophe, defend its vital interests with quieter rhetoric, continue rebuilding its frayed relations with traditional Western allies and adopt a realistic, medium-term strategy that balances its natural position between west and east.

Hugh Pope is director of International Crisis Group’s Turkey/Cyprus Project, and author of Turkey Unveiled: A History of Modern Turkey, Sons of the Conquerors: the Rise of the Turkic World, and Dining with al-Qaeda: Three Decades Exploring the Many Worlds of the Middle East.

via With its Syria plan in tatters, Turkey needs a strategy reboot – The Globe and Mail.

May 10, 2013
Iraq Rejects Refuge for Turkey’s Kurdish Fighters

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN Associated Press

BAGHDAD May 9, 2013 (AP)

Iraq on Thursday rejected a key element of an accord to bring an end to a long Kurdish uprising in Turkey — offering refuge to rebel fighters in country’s north.

In March, the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, announced a deal to end a nearly three-decade conflict in turkey that has killed tens of thousands of people. The deal was reached in talks between imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and the Turkish government.

The refuge offer came from Iraq’s Kurdish region, which enjoys limited independence from the central Iraqi government in Baghdad. Iraqi Kurds were involved in the talks with Turkey.

The prospect of additional fighters joining the Kurdish forces in Iraq’s north could add tension to already souring relations with Baghdad. The two sides are in conflict over contested areas, including key oil-producing sectors.

As part of the accord, the PKK rebels agreed to a gradual retreat from Turkish territory to Iraq’s Kurdish region. On Thursday, Baghdad rejected that.

“The Iraqi government welcomes any political and peaceful settlement to the Kurdish cause in Turkey to stop the bloodshed and violence between the two sides and adopt a democratic approach to end this internal struggle,” said a statement issued by the Iraqi Foreign Ministry.

“But at the same time … it does not accept the entry of armed groups to its territories that can be used to harm Iraq’s security and stability,” the ministry said.

PKK, considered a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies, is believed to have between 1,500 and 2,000 fighters inside Turkey, in addition to several thousand more based in northern Iraq, which they use as a springboard for attacks in Turkey.

To ease Baghdad’s concerns, PKK spokesman, Ahmet Deniz assured the Iraqi government that the plan would boost democracy and stability in the region.

“The (peace) process is not aimed against anyone, and there is no need for concerns that the struggle will take on another format and pose a threat to others,” Deniz told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

“A democratic resolution will have a positive effect on the region,” Deniz said. “We understand the concerns, but the process is related to the resolution of the Kurdish issue and won’t cause harm to anyone.”

The statement came a day after PKK rebels started withdrawing to bases in the Iraqi mountains. It was not clear if the Baghdad government would try to stop the process, expected to take several months.

Deniz confirmed that the PKK’s withdrawal process began on Wednesday. He gave no details on the numbers of fighters that had begun to retreat or if any had crossed into Iraq.

Iraqi and Turkish officials were not immediately available for comment.

PKK has sought greater autonomy and more rights for Turkey’s Kurds. The armed conflict between the two sides began in 1984.

In addition to the dispute over developing oil resources, the Kurds and the central government in Baghdad have been in a long-running dispute over lands claimed by the Kurds, power-sharing and rights to develop other natural resources.

Along with Sunni Arabs, the Kurds accuse Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, of amassing power in his hands and marginalizing political opponents.

Relations between Iraq and Turkey have been strained since December, when fugitive Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi took refuge in Turkey following accusations by Shiite-led government that he was running death squads. Turkish officials rejected Baghdad’s request to hand over al-Hashemi, who was tried and convicted in absentia.

Turkish support for Sunni-led anti-government protests and a unilateral energy deal with Iraqi Kurds has added tension to relations between Baghdad and Ankara.

———

Associated Press writer Suzan Frazer in Ankara, Turkey contributed to this report.

via Iraq Rejects Refuge for Turkey’s Kurdish Fighters – ABC News.

May 10, 2013
M of A – Syria: Al-Nusra With “Chemical Weapons” Sourced From Turkey

Syria: Al-Nusra With “Chemical Weapons” Sourced From Turkey

One of the three alleged “chemical weapon” attacks in Syria was done by chlorine on a checkpoint of the Syrian army. Fifteen soldiers died.

Two other attacks which Israel Britain and France alleged were done by the Syrian army and were somewhat mysterious. With collaboration of two bloggers and a photographer the incidents are now likely to be interpreted very different than Israel, Britain and France alleged.

Eliot Higgins, who blogs as Brown Moses, analyzed pictures of ammunition debris found at the two alleged attack sides.

The photographer Jeffry Ruigendijk photographed a salafist Al-Nusra fighter carrying a riot control gas canister that looks very similar to the ammunition debris found at the attacked places.

Small arms expert N.R. Jenzen-Jones identified the producer of these canisters and the likely way they found their way into Al-Nusra hands:

[T]he munitions do appear quite similar to those produced by the Indian Border Security Force’s Tear Smoke Unit (TSU), at their plant in Tekanpur, Madhya Pradesh. Several of their production items appear to share physical similarities with the unidentified grenade, but the closest visual match is their ‘Tear Smoke Chilli Grenade’, seen below. This grenade contains a combination of CS gas ( 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile) and ‘synthetic chilli’ (likely a synthetic capsaicin, such as nonivamide) – both common riot control agents.

Riot control agents like tear gas or pepper spray can be deadly when, for example, used in closed rooms. They symptoms vary (pdf) but there are usually respiratory problems just as those described by those people who were under the alleged “chemical weapons attack.

So how did the Al-Nusra fighters get their hands on a Indian Border Security Force’s Tear Smoke Unit grenade?

This Indian news article notes that Turkey purchased 10,025 munitions from TSU in 2007, which may indicate a possible avenue of supply, particularly if the grenades were in the hands of rebel forces, as the image at top appears to indicate.

The “chemical weapon” attacks were not done by the Syrian army. They were done by so called “rebels” with chlorine and with riot control agents by jihadist insurgencies who sourced the gas by stealing it from a Syrian factory and somehow obtained riot control agents from official Turkish state stocks.

The Israeli, the British and the French government tried to instigate a wider war on Syria by making false allegations about “chemical weapon” attacks by the Syrian army. The U.S. nearly joined them in their allegations. Will all those op-ed writers and tried to use the “fact” of chemical weapon usage now call for all out war on Al-Nusra?

Don’t bet on it.

via M of A – Syria: Al-Nusra With “Chemical Weapons” Sourced From Turkey.

May 9, 2013
Islamists in Egypt and Turkey: a comparison

The Al Arabiya Institute for Studies compared Islamists in Egypt and Turkey. (File)

Al Arabiya Institute for Studies – Hoshnek Oussi

The Al Arabiya Institute for Studies examined 15 points of conversion and difference between Egypt under Muslim Brotherhood rule, and Turkey under the Justice and Development Party (AK).

1. Turkey’s Islamists have long participated in political life, co-governing the country in the mid-1970s and mid-1990s, and ruling on their own since 2002. Egypt’s Brotherhood were in opposition since the establishment of the group, until the election of Mohamed Mursi as president last year.

2. Turkey’s Islamists, despite being oppressed, never committed violence against the state. This excludes the experience of the Turkish Hezbollah, an extremist organization established by the intelligence services in the early 1990s against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and dissolved at the end of the 1990s with it leaders’ imprisonment. After coming to power, the AK made some serious judiciary reforms, resulting in the release of thousands of Turkish Hezbollah detainees, whose party was divided in two, with one group following the AK, and the other operating undercover with its old name, as a Sunni party inspired by the Iranian experience of the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Egypt’s Islamists used violence against the state, and against those who opposed them before and after they gained power.

3. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government entered into conflict with the army and the constitutional court six years after coming to power. Egypt’s Islamists started their governing days with an open war against the judiciary, army, military and society.

4. Turkey’s Islamists embedded their cadres and commanders in the army, police, security forces and judiciary, as a first step on the path to key positions. This represents long-term planning. However, to date there are no prominent Brotherhood loyalists among Egypt’s army or security forces.

5. Egypt’s Islamists possess a network of businesses and media, but do not compare with Turkish Islamists’ economic and media power.

6. Turkey’s Islamists are more flexible, liberal and pragmatic than Egypt’s.

7. Turkey’s Islamists have neo-Ottoman, nationalist and Islamist ambitions, as well as a regional and international network of allies based on economic and military ties with Israel, the United States, Russia, China and the European Union. Egypt’s Brotherhood seek the Islamization of the state at any cost.

8. The nationalist side of Turkey’s Islamists is very strong, and the highest interests of the state are a priority, to the point that the Islamists are ready to partner with seculars on the Kurdish, Armenian and Cypriot issues. Turkish Islamists are trying to revive the nationalistic roots of Turkmen descendants in Iraq and Syria, in the service of Turkey’s interests. This was manifested during a Syrian Turkmen conference in Istanbul in Dec. 2012, attended by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Ershad Hormozlu, an Iraqi Turkmen and a key advisor to Turkish President Abdullah Gul. Egyptian Islamists have an “us against them” approach, of believers versus disbelievers, and of rebels versus remnants of the ousted regime.

9. Erdogan’s government commits all types of abuses against freedom of expression, undermining and destroying the media, but in a lawful manner. Reporters Without Borders has described Turkey as “the world’s biggest prison for journalists.” Egypt’s Islamists resort to intimidation, threats, arson, destruction, and even assassination.

10. Turkey’s Islamists have infiltrated regional opposition groups, especially Sunni ones. It is more accurate to say that the Brotherhood in Syria and Iraq are associated with Turkey rather than Egypt, despite the fact that the Brotherhood in Egypt is supposed to be the global reference for Arab Brotherhood groups. Turkey’s Islamists succeeded in controlling the Syrian regime before the revolution, and control both the revolution and the Syrian opposition, even contributing to its Islamization. Egypt’s Islamists lack the experience and culture to manage a state. Turkey’s Islamists have earned a reputation for being balanced and moderate, in harmony with secularism and the civil state, compared with the stubbornness and rigidity of Egypt’s Islamists, who are fighting the state and society.

11. Turkey’s Islamists did not make adversity to Israel their first priority when they assumed power, until they cut ties with it. Egypt’s Islamists do not camouflage their intention to rethink Cairo’s international and regional relations, including the peace treaty with Israel, according to their ideology, not the national interest.

12. Turkey’s and Egypt’s Islamists share the idea of a hidden agenda, although they do not agree on the tools or methods to be used in order to impose this agenda, which aims at remodeling the state under their slogan “Islam is the solution.”

13. Despite numerous military coups (1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997), Turkish political Islam grew in a pseudo-democratic environment. Egyptian political Islam grew under a long history of a state under emergency law. This has nurtured the civic approach to solving issues among Turkey’s Islamists, instead of the harsh confrontation and street agitation adopted by Egypt’s Islamists since the revolution. Turkey’s Islamists could have brought millions to the streets when they were threatened by seculars through a lawsuit at the constitutional court against the AK, but they refrained from doing so to avoid a state crisis, favoring the national interest over party ideology.

14. Turkey’s Islamists did not assume power by revolution, and did not betray their allies. The Brotherhood did not adhere to Egypt’s revolution in its early days, then stole the show, broke its promises, betrayed its revolutionary comrades, and assumed power unilaterally by force and trickery. Turkey’s Islamists ruled unilaterally through their economic development projects.

15. Turkey does not have an “office of the high adviser,” which in Egypt controls the president and prime minister.

Prepared by Hoshnek Oussi for the Al Arabiya Institute for Studies

May 9, 2013
Turkey Launches Military Drills Along Syria Border

Suriye sınırında yapılan NATO tatbikatı soru işaretleri doğurdu

Exercise at NATO Base to Test ‘Readiness for Battle’

by Jason Ditz

With tensions soaring in the wake of the weekend Israeli attacks on Syria, the Turkish military has launched a round of military drills at a NATO air base along the Syrian border.

The 10-day drills will involve military and government ministry coordination in mobilization for a war with Syria. NATO says the mission was planned ahead of time, but was never reported until it began.

The drill adds to speculation about the possibility of a NATO attack on Syria, though officials downplayed that possibility. The Assad government has not commented on the exercise.

Indeed, military drills in NATO nations are so common that it is entirely possible that they did just plan a small drill they didn’t figure was worth mentioning and it became a bigger deal because of the tensions with Syria.

via Turkey Launches Military Drills Along Syria Border — News from Antiwar.com.

May 8, 2013
Turkey Fears Russia Too Much to Intervene in Syria

Turkey Fears Russia Too Much to Intervene in Syria

Ankara won’t step into the conflict because it’s terrified Moscow will retaliate — again.

SONER CAGAPTAYMAY 6 2013, 10:16 AM ET

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu (R) reach out to shake hands following a joint news conference at Ciragan Palace in Istanbul on April 17, 2013. (Murad Sezer/Reuters)

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov visited Ankara on April 17th, but the event went almost unnoticed. Despite deep differences between Ankara and Moscow over Syria, Turkey has refrained from rebuking Moscow. That’s because Turkey fears no country more than it fears Russia.

Ankara has nearly a dozen neighbors if you include its maritime neighbors across the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Emboldened by its phenomenal economic growth in the past decade and rising political power, Turkey appears willing to square-off against any of them; Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has publicly chided the leaders of Syria, Iran, and Iraq. In fact, none of the country’s neighbors can feel safe from Ankara’s wrath — with the exception of Russia, that is.

“The Russians can make life miserable for us, they are good at this.”

The Turks suffer from a deep-rooted, historic reluctance to confront the Russians. The humming Turkish economy is woefully dependent on Russian energy exports: More than half of Turkey’s natural gas consumption comes from Russia. Consequently, Turkey is unlikely to confront Moscow even when Russia undermines Turkey’s interests, such as in Syria where Russia is supporting the Assad regime, even as Ankara tries to depose it.

Historically, the Turks have always feared the Russians. Between 1568, when the Ottomans and Russians first clashed, to the end of the Russian Empire in 1917, the Turks and Russians fought 17 wars. In each encounter, Russia was the instigator and the victor. In these defeats, the Ottomans lost vast, and often solidly Turkish and Muslim, territories spanning from the Crimea to Circassia to the Russians. The Russians killed many inhabitants of these Ottoman lands and expelled the rest to Turkey. So many Turks descend from refugees from Russia that the adage in Turkey is: “If you scratch a Turk, you find a Circassian persecuted by Russians underneath.”

Having suffered at the hands of the Russians for centuries, the Turks now have a deeply engrained fear of the Russians. This explains why Turkey dived for the safety of NATO and the United States when Stalin demanded territory from Turkey and a base on the Bosporus in 1945. Fear of the Russians made Turkey one of the most committed Cold-War allies to the United States.

Recently, Turkish-Russian ties have improved measurably. Russia is Turkey’s number-one trading partner, and nearly four million Russians vacation in Turkey annually. At the same time, Turkey’s construction, retail, and manufacturing businesses are thriving in Russia. Turkish Airlines, the country’s flag carrier, offers daily flights from Istanbul to eight Russian cities.

Still, none of this has erased the Turks’ subconscious Russophobia. In 2012, I asked a policymaker in Ankara whether Turkey would take unilateral military action to depose the Assad regime in Damascus. “Not against the wishes of Moscow” my interlocutor said. Adding: “The Russians can make life miserable for us, they are good at this.”

At least some of the Turkish fear of Russia appears grounded in reality. Turkey is dependent on Russia more than any other country for its energy needs. Despite being a large economy, Turkey has neither significant natural gas and oil deposits, nor nuclear power stations of its own. Ankara is therefore bound to Moscow, which has often used natural gas supplies as a means to punish countries, such as Ukraine, that cross its foreign policy goals.

There is also a security component: Russia helped set up the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group that led a terror campaign against Turkey for decades, causing over 30,000 casualties. The PKK emerged under Russian tutelage in Lebanon’s then-Syrian occupied Bekaa Valley during the 1980s, and it has enjoyed intermittent Russian support even after the collapse of Communism.

Turkey recently entered peace talks with the PKK, and many in the group are likely to heed the advice of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and lay down their weapons. Yet, a pervasive fear in Ankara is that some rogue elements and hardliners could emerge from the PKK, denouncing the talks and continuing to fight Turkey.

Meanwhile, Ankara has been confronting the Assad regime in Damascus since late 2011 by supporting the Syrian opposition. This had led to a spike in PKK attacks against Turkey, most coming from Iran, which apparently has allowed the PKK freedom of movement in its territory to punish Ankara for its stance against Assad.

The fear in Ankara is that Russia might just do the same if Turkey were to invade Syria, propping up rogue PKK elements inside that country to lead an insurgency against Turkish troops. Together with other concerns, such as the risk of the conflict in Syria spilling over into Turkey, the Turkish fear of Russia has led Ankara to avoid direct intervention in Syria.

Such fears have also led Turkey to pivot further toward the United States, once again seeking protection under the NATO umbrella against the looming Russian giant. Taking into consideration Turkey’s fear of Russia, any Turkish military action against the Assad regime will have to be predicated on full NATO support and involvement.

For the Turks, history repeats itself every day when it comes to Moscow: don’t stand in Russia’s way lest it torment you, again.

via Turkey Fears Russia Too Much to Intervene in Syria – Soner Cagaptay – The Atlantic.

May 7, 2013