Turkish Forum

Tag: Davutoglu

  • ‘Turkey’s Kissinger’ Leads Foreign-Policy Balancing Act

    ‘Turkey’s Kissinger’ Leads Foreign-Policy Balancing Act

    Ahmet Davutoglu

    Ahmet Davutoglu

    By Abbas Djavadi

    During a recent televised discussion on foreign policy, six former Turkish foreign ministers recently gave Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s performance eight out of a maximum of 10 points. The six included some harsh Social Democrat critics of the current Justice and Development (AK) party government.

    Even before his promotion from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s special adviser to foreign minister in April, Davutoglu was regarded as the eminence grise behind Turkish foreign policy, and was occasionally even referred to as “Turkey’s Kissinger.” The Turks love to see their personalities, cities, and performances positively compared with the world’s most famous, but Davutoglu doesn’t like the comparison.

    Still, the 51-year old professor of political science is considered the architect of the new active foreign policy that the AK party has been pursuing since coming to power in 2002: “zero problems” with the neighbors while continuing to maintain traditionally good relations with the West.

    The West, Russia, and most members of the international community were pleased when Turkey and Armenia on October 10 signed accords, still to be ratified by the two countries’ parliaments, to restore diplomatic ties and open borders after almost a century of enmity. The accords were widely attributed to Davutoglu’s personal planning and implementation.

    In 2008, he mediated similar indirect talks between Israel and Syria in an effort to take first steps towards a Middle East peace. The effort was met with skepticism by the Bush administration and produced no tangible results, for reasons beyond Ankara’s control.

    Meanwhile, Turkey’s increasingly good relations with Russia and Iran have raised some eyebrows in the West. At the same time, Prime Minister Erdogan’s occasionally outrageous criticism of the Israeli operation against Gaza last winter, as well as the exclusion of Israel from a NATO air drill in Turkish skies two weeks ago, have led conservatives in Washington and Europe to ask if Ankara is rethinking its traditionally good relations with Israel. Discussing a potential Israeli attack on Iran, U.S. analyst Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute recently affirmed boldly that “Turkey is now on Iran’s side.”

    Rebalancing, Not Shifting

    Since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, Ankara has leaned increasingly towards the West while maintaining no more than functioning good relations with its neighbors. Davutoglu describes Turkey’s new foreign policy initiative as a Turkish version of the German Ostpolitik of the 1960s. “Turkey is a natural part of the European continent and culture,” he wrote in his book “Strategic Depth,” published 10 years ago.

    Echoing U.S. President Barack Obama, Davutoglu recently said that Ankara and Washington enjoy a “model partnership.” With regard to Turkey’s relations with her neighbors and regional policy, on the other hand, he said “zero-problem-based relations” must be transformed into “maximum mutual-interest-based ones.”

    Both Davutoglu and Erdogan have their roots in Turkey’s traditional, conservative, and Islamic thinking. However, improving relations with neighboring states and playing an increasingly leading role in the region seems to be based on real political influence and economic and energy interests, rather than prestige and nostalgia for the old Ottoman Empire, as some suggest. Erdogan and Davutoglu have attracted billions of dollars in Arab investment into Turkey and plan to make the country a main oil and gas corridor between the East and Europe.

    While Muslim and non-Muslim neighbors view Ankara’s balancing act with both appreciation and suspicion, many in the West suspect that Turkish efforts to promote “mutual interests” between “rogue states” such as Iran and Syria and the West will ultimately end in Turkey’s betrayal of Western values and commitments. Others, including the Turkish opposition, even suggest that the ruling AK is tacitly pursuing that goal.

    But Davutoglu denies that the axis of Turkey’s foreign policy is shifting. A region that is increasingly peaceful, with countries cooperating with one another, is good for the West and the world, he said recently. “This is an exceptional and unique role Turkey could play.”

    Abbas Djavadi is associate director of broadcasting at RFE/RL. The views expressed in this commentary are his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL

    Source: www.rferl.org, October 30, 2009

  • Turkey to recompense $1.1 billion for low-priced Azeri gas

    Turkey to recompense $1.1 billion for low-priced Azeri gas

    TURKISH-ARMENIAN PROTOCOLS ARE AT WORK

    [ 28 Oct 2009 15:18 ]

    Trend News Agency

    Baku. Rashad Suleymanov – APA-ECONOMICS. Turkey will pay the difference between the old price it has paid for Azeri gas since April 2008 after the gas agreement expired and the new price to be agreed on with Azerbaijan, said Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yilldiz.

    According to him, Turkey has continued to import natural gas from Azerbaijan although the gas supply agreement expired in April 2008.

    “Today we no longer buy low-priced gas from Azerbaijan. In accordance with the new price to be agreed upon, we will pay the difference”, he said, adding that Turkey is continuing talks with Azerbaijan’s SOCAR on natural gas, and hopes to reach an agreement soon.

    Turkish media report that Turkey will have to pay at least $1.1 billion to Azerbaijan as price difference compensation if the new gas price is around $250 per 1,000 cubic meters, compared to the current price of $120. .

  • Turkey’s Prime Minister Troubled by Armenia’s Diaspora

    Turkey’s Prime Minister Troubled by Armenia’s Diaspora

    By Appo Jabarian
    Executive Publisher / Managing Editor
    USA Armenian Life MagazineDuring a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan went on a temper tantrum against Diaspora Armenians.

    When asked about the Protocols, Armenia, and Artsakh (Nagorno Karabagh), Mr. Erdogan said: “I believe when President Sargsyan was on an international visit, he was faced by a reaction from the Armenian Diaspora. So what he does in face of the reaction of the Diaspora is very important. If he can stand firm, and if it is the government of Armenia and not the Armenian Diaspora that is determining policy in Armenia, then I think that we can move forward. As far as we’re concerned there is no problem. But it is up to the government in Armenia.

    Next, he added: “What is important and I would like to underline this, because this is perhaps the most important point is that Armenia should not allow its policies to be taken hostage by the Armenian Diaspora. It should be up to the government to carry out its policies.”

    It’s all too clear that Mr. Erdogan wants to divide and conquer. The Turkish Prime Minister is working overtime to create a wedge between Armenia and its 8-million strong Diaspora.

    Will the denialist Turkish leader succeed in stripping Armenia from its number one social, economic, and political ally, the Armenian Diaspora?

    It was because of a strong opposition by Armenians both in the homeland and the Diaspora to the unfair terms of the Protocols, including Ankara’s demand that Armenia give up its pursuit of Artsakh’s independence, Turkey back-paddled and started to distance itself from the Artsakh issue, separating it from the normalization of diplomatic ties with Armenia.

    But that should not misguide the Armenians into thinking that Turkey is doing Armenia and Armenians a favor. They are entitled to carry out the Destalinization/Deturkification process of the Armenian territories. Artsakh is the first of many steps leading to the ultimate reunification of Armenia through the establishment of Federal Republics of Armenia.

    In 1921, the following Eastern Armenian provinces of Artsakh (1), Nakhitchevan (1), Gandzak (1), Javakhq (2), Ardahan (3), Kars (3), and Igdir (3) were stalinized under the infamous Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. They were carved out of Armenia of 1918 and were arbitrarily “gifted” respectively to the newly Sovietized Azerbaijan (1), Georgia (2), and Kemalist Turkey (3).

    Now that the infamous Protocols are signed, Armenians in Armenia and around the world have no choice but to derail its ratification in the National Assembly. Armenia’s capitulation to unfair Turkish demands shall not be allowed to linger. Turkey should be stopped and Armenia should be saved. Otherwise, Mr. Erdogan’s obvious anxiety over the Diaspora Armenians activism will definitely multiply.

    He should take no solace from the temporary support of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, acting as a proxy for the multi-national oil/gas conglomerates.

    Secretary Clinton: The Oil Lady

    During ’08 U.S. presidential primary election season, then candidate Hillary Clinton used to refer to then President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney as “The oilmen.”

    So now, since she is eagerly catering to energy multi-national corporations’ thirst for faster profits at the expense of Armenia and Armenians, she must be called “The Oil Lady.”

    On October 14, The Washington Post reported that Secretary Clinton “executed some deft diplomacy last weekend as the leaders of Turkey and Armenia signed a potentially historic deal to establish normal diplomatic relations and reopen their borders. We say ‘potentially’ because there are some big obstacles to implementing the accord, which we’ll come back to. … The rapprochement between these two nations matters to the United States for a number of reasons. It could help stabilize the volatile Caucasus region, open the way for new corridors for the export of gas and oil to the West, ease Russia’s political domination of Armenia, and remove a major irritant from U.S. relations with Turkey. The Obama administration worked diligently to promote the accord. … President Obama played a part by sidestepping a campaign promise to formally recognize the mass killing of Armenians by Turks during World War I as ‘genocide.’”

    The Moscow, Europe and U.S.-based energy giants have set their eyes on the construction of their oil pipeline linking the oil and gas fields of Central Asia to Europe via Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Turkey. But why pursue it at dire consequences for Armenia and Diaspora Armenians? Why allow Turkey to exploit the opportunity by forcing Armenia to give up its demands of lands in Turkish-occupied Western Armenia; Reparations for the Turkish-executed Armenian genocide?

    By abusing the political opportunity, Turkey has poured more gasoline on the fire, igniting worldwide Armenian condemnation. But who is to blame for the fact that Turkey is deeply troubled by Armenia’s Diaspora? Turkey!
  • Armenians horrified by treaty with Turkey

    Armenians horrified by treaty with Turkey

    Genocide forgotten:

    A new trade deal is set to gloss over the
    murder of 1.5 million people

    By Robert Fisk
    www.independent.co.uk

    In the autumn of 1915, an Austrian engineer called Litzmayer, who was helping build the Constantinople-Baghdad railway, saw what he thought was a large Turkish army heading for Mesopotamia. But as the crowd came closer, he realised it was a huge caravan of women, moving forward under the supervision of soldiers.


    The 40,000 or so women were all Armenians, separated from their men – most of whom had already had their throats cut by Turkish gendarmerie – and deported on a genocidal death march during which up to 1.5 million Armenians died.


    Subjected to constant rape and beatings, some had already swallowed poison on their way from their homes in Erzerum, Serena, Sivas, Bitlis and other cities in Turkish western Armenia. “Some of them,” Bishop Grigoris Balakian, one of Litzmayer’s contemporaries, recorded, “had been driven to such a state that they were mere skeletons enveloped in rags, with skin that had turned leathery, burned from the sun, cold, and wind. Many pregnant women, having become numb, had left their newborns on the side of the road as a protest against mankind and God.” Every year, new evidence emerges about this mass ethnic cleansing, the first holocaust of the last century; and every year, Turkey denies that it ever committed genocide. Yet on Saturday – to the horror of millions of descendants of Armenian survivors – the President of Armenia, Serg Sarkissian, plans to agree to a protocol with Turkey to re-open diplomatic relations, which should allow for new trade concessions and oil interests. And he proposes to do this without honouring his most important promise to Armenians abroad – to demand that Turkey admit it carried out the Armenian genocide in 1915.


    In Beirut yesterday, outside Mr Sarkissian’s hotel, thousands of Armenians protested against this trade-for-denial treaty. “We will not forget,” their banners read. “Armenian history is not for sale.” They called the President a traitor. “Why should our million and a half martyrs be put up for sale?” one of them asked. “And what about our Armenian lands in Turkey, the homes our grandparents left behind? Sarkissian is selling them too.”


    The sad truth is that the 5.7 million Armenian diaspora, scattered across Russia, the US, France, Lebanon and many other c    ountries, are the descendants of the western Armenians who bore the brunt of Turkish Ottoman brutality in 1915.


    Tiny, landlocked, modern-day Armenia – its population a mere 3.2 million, living in what was once called eastern Armenia – is poor, flaunts a dubious version of democracy and is deeply corrupt. It relies on remittances from its wealthier cousins overseas; hence Mr Sarkissian’s hopeless mission to New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Beirut and Rostov-on-Don to persuade them to support the treaty, to be signed by the Armenian and Turkish Foreign Ministers in Switzerland.


    The Turks have also been trumpeting a possible settlement to the territory of Nagorno-Karabagh, part of historic Armenia seized from Azerbaijan by Armenian militias almost two decades ago – not without a little ethnic cleansing by Armenians, it should be added. But it is the refusal of the Yerevan government to make Turkey’s acknowledgement of the genocide a condition of talks that has infuriated the diaspora.


    “The Armenian government is trying to sweeten the taste for us by suggesting that Turkish and Armenian historians sit down to decide what happened in 1915,” one of the Armenians protesting in Beirut said.
    “But would the Israelis maintain diplomatic relations if the German government suddenly called the Jewish Holocaust into question and suggested it all be mulled over by historians?”


    Betrayal has always been in the air. Barack Obama was the third successive US President to promise Armenian electors that he would acknowledge the genocide if he won office – and then to betray them, once elected, by refusing even to use the word. Despite thunderous denunciations in the aftermath of the Armenian genocide by Lloyd George and Churchill – the first British politician to call it a holocaust – the Foreign Office also now meekly claims that the “details” of the 1915 massacres are still in question. Yet still the evidence comes in, even from this     newspaper’s readers. In a letter to me, an Australian, Robert Davidson, said his grandfather, John “Jock” Davidson, a First World War veteran of the Australian Light Horse, had witnessed the Armenian genocide: “He wrote of the hundreds of Armenian carcasses outside the walls of Homs. They were men, women and children and were all naked and had been left to rot or be devoured by dogs.


    “The Australian Light Horsemen were appalled at the brutality done to these people. In another instance his company came upon an Armenian woman and two children in skeletal condition. She signed to them that the Turks had cut the throats of her husband and two elder children.”


    In his new book on Bishop Balakian, Armenian Golgotha, the historian Peter Balakian (the bishop’s great-nephew) records how British soldiers who had surrendered to the Turks at Kut al-Amara in present-day Iraq and were sent on their own death march north – of 13,000 British and Indian soldiers, only 1,600 would survive – had spoken of frightful scenes of Armenian carnage near Deir ez-Zour, not far from Homs in Syria. “In those vast deserts,” the Bishop said, “they had come upon piles of human bones, crushed skulls, and skeletons stretched out everywhere, and heaps of skeletons of murdered children.”


    When the foreign ministers sit down to sign their protocol in Switzerland on Saturday, they must hope that blood does not run out of their pens.

  • Senate Resolution Reshuffles Political Cards in Ankara, Yerevan and Beyond

    Senate Resolution Reshuffles Political Cards in Ankara, Yerevan and Beyond

    SASSUN-2

    On October 21, while introducing the Armenia-Turkey Protocols to the Turkish Parliament for ratification, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu exposed his government’s true intentions.

    Davutoglu stated that Armenia’s acceptance of the agreement, calling for the study of historical archives, indicated that Armenians no longer insisted on their unilateral interpretation of history. He further stated that the Protocols safeguarded Turkey’s territorial integrity from any future Armenian claims by reconfirming the present borders based on past treaties, and that the agreement would contribute to the “liberation of Azerbaijan’s territories,” meaning Karabagh (Artsakh).

    While it is understandable that Davutoglu would try to put the best possible spin on the Protocols in order to secure their ratification by the Turkish Parliament, the three advantages he cited are exactly the reasons why most Armenians have so vehemently objected to this agreement.

    As expected, Davutoglu was severely criticized by the opposition parties in Parliament that reject the Protocols. The most unexpected attack, however, came from Selahattin Demirtas, head of the Kurdish faction (DTP) in Parliament, who took the government to task for distorting and denying the facts of “the Armenian massacres.” Such a criticism has never been voiced before in the Turkish Parliament. Demirtas brazenly continued: “We believe that we now need to address an issue that has caused so much suffering to the Armenian people — one of the key problems facing the Republic of Turkey. A hundred years ago, the Ittihad Party, with a policy of Islamizing and Turkifying the entire Anatolia, sought to eliminate the non-Muslims, particularly the Armenian people, from these lands through exile, expulsion, deportation and massacres.”

    Ignoring the insults hurled by members of the ruling party (AKP) and others, Demirtas condemned the government’s policy of denial that had the aim of escaping the consequences of this “tragedy,” prompting the creation of “a fake history.” He noted that the persecutions and massacres of Armenians were presented as if they never happened. “We need to speak about all of these things and correct the record,” Demirtas concluded.

    Immediately after addressing the Turkish Parliament, Davutoglu flew to Baku in order to quell the Azerbaijani uproar over the signing of the Protocols. Realizing the depth of their anger, Davutoglu was forced to make several outlandish declarations: “Azerbaijan’s lands are sacred for us and their liberation is Turkey’s utmost priority. We will not change our position even if the sky falls down to earth!” He also assured them that “if need be, 72 million Turks are ready to die in Azerbaijan!” Azerbaijan’s leaders, however, were not too impressed with Davutoglu’s highly inflated pronouncements. They continued to shut down mosques financed by Turkey, removed Turkey’s flags from a monument for Turkish martyrs in Baku, and threatened to raise the price of gas sold to Turkey.

    While Davutoglu had his hands full in Baku, a news flash from Washington came to reshuffle Ankara’s political cards. A Resolution was introduced in the U.S. Senate that called for the reaffirmation of the Armenian Genocide. This unexpected development sent a powerful message not only to Turkey, but also to the leaders of Armenia, Russia, the European Union and the United States.

    To their dismay, Turkish leaders discovered that the Protocols would not put an end to the pursuit of recognition and justice for the crime of genocide committed by their ancestors.

    Turkey’s Ambassador to Washington Nabi Sensoy was alarmed by this unexpected development and wasted no time in condemning the Senate Resolution during a Voice of America interview. He called the timing of the Resolution “regrettable” and “unfortunate,” coming just one day after the introduction of the Protocols in the Turkish Parliament. The esteemed Ambassador failed to indicate, however, when would be a better time to introduce such a Resolution!

    Turkey’s leaders are now caught in the horns of a dilemma. If they rush to ratify the Protocols in order to prevent the House and Senate Resolutions from gaining political support, they would alienate their oil-rich Azerbaijani “brothers” for not having delivered on their promises on Karabagh. On the other hand, if Turkish leaders delay ratification until after April 24 — waiting for Armenia to make concessions on Artsakh — they would run the risk of having either the House or the Senate or both pass the Genocide Resolutions. Since 2010 is an election year for all House Members and a third of the Senate, members of Congress are usually more responsive to their constituents, raising the likelihood of the passage of the Genocide Resolutions. Furthermore, even if Pres. Obama has no intention of keeping his campaign promise on the Armenian Genocide, he would feel compelled to pressure the Turks to ratify the Protocols before April 24, with or without concessions from Armenia on Artsakh, in order to provide a face-saving cover for his next “Meds Yeghern” statement!

    Therefore, if Armenia’s leaders stand firm on their repeated public commitments not to make concessions on Artsakh linked to the Protocols, they would be in the driver’s seat in terms of controlling Ankara’s next steps.

    Pres. Sargsyan must also keep his solemn promise not to allow the Protocols to undermine Armenia’s efforts for genocide recognition. A good start to demonstrate the Armenian President’s resolve on this issue is to send a letter to the leadership of the House and the Senate, encouraging them to pass the pending Resolutions. It should be noted that the Turkish government has never hesitated to use its considerable political muscle to lobby against past Congressional Resolutions on the Armenian Genocide. Sending a simple letter of support to the U.S. Congress is the least Pres. Sargsyan could do!

    The Armenian government’s backing for the newly-introduced Senate Resolution would also send a message to Washington, Moscow and beyond that Armenia is not giving up on its historic rights, even though it is being pressured to make major concessions in other areas.

    It is high time for Armenian leaders to reassess the nation’s difficult predicament and take all necessary measures to avoid further missteps.

  • Improbable Embrace – Turkey and Armenia

    Improbable Embrace – Turkey and Armenia

    Hubble-Bubble
    pic
    Melik Kaylan, 10.23.09, 12:01 AM ET

    Turkey and Armenia are about to restore diplomatic relations. At the very least, they signed a landmark agreement to do so on Oct. 10 in Switzerland–after some tense last-minute wrangling in a Zurich hotel room with Hillary Clinton mediating. An astonishing development. A marvel to see in one’s lifetime, not unlike the fall of the Soviet Union. Two ancient peoples in eternal enmity. Sounds utterly implausible. Ancient hatreds never go away.

    That, at any rate, is the narrative–an arguably fraudulent one–that we’ve been fed for several generations. In fact, depending on how you calculate it, Turks and Armenians lived peaceably together for almost 600 years–or almost 900 years–until the 20th century. The calculation depends on whether you date their time together from the Seljuks or the later Ottomans–and where you end the timeline. Either way, it was an epoch or two, possibly an unprecedented achievement. Then, according to the prevailing interpretation, the Turks turned suddenly on their cheek-by-jowl neighbors, unprovoked, and wished to obliterate them from the Earth entirely as a people. It’s possible. Strange things have happened in the annals of genocide, though not after that long a duration of mutual tolerance. If so, why then? What changed?
    Here you enter into difficult terrain. Because you can easily slip into an alternate viewpoint, one that goes something like this: Turks and Armenians lived in peace until Czarist Russia began to move southward down the Caucasus, purging Muslims downward into Turkish territory–throughout the 19th century. All those fiery Daghestanis, Chechens, Abkhaz, Kurds. Many ended up in Ottoman lands, some say half a million. At one point, Russia actually occupied a whole swath of Turkey, including the provincial capital of Kars, for several decades until World War I ended. The Russians did their conquering explicitly as a Christian Crusade, claiming the complicity of all Eastern Christians (including Armenians) in that part of Turkey, an area seething with displaced Caucasus Muslims and Muslim Kurds. In short, if you are curious about a proximate cause for catastrophic bloodshed, look no further than Russkie provocation–a plausible scenario considering their conduct right up to the present in Georgia–of stirring one ethnicity against another for imperial ends.
    Discretion being the better part of valor, let us leave the historical dispute delicately hanging there for professional historians to sort out. The present is complicated enough. What happens if Turkey and Armenia bury the hatchet? Azerbaijan gets upset, for sure, and Azeris are close kin to the Turks. Why does that matter to America and the West? The Armenians carved out a slice of Azerbaijan in a secessionist war with Russian help during the post-Soviet chaos in the Caucasus. Azeris want it back. Armenians wish to keep it. Azeris don’t want Turkey to make peace with Armenia. Azerbaijan is a critical source of non-Middle Eastern oil to the West via pipeline through Turkey. Azeri oil will help liberate Europe from Moscow’s oil. No wonder foreign minister Sergei Lavrov attended the signing ceremony in Switzerland: Russia would benefit from driving a wedge between Turkey and Azerbaijan. The Azeris are already threatening to re-route their oil through Russia. So why is Turkey ready to alienate Azerbaijan?
    As many have observed, Turkey is pushing a neo-Ottoman strategic vision under Prime Minister Erdogan and his busybody foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Until their collapse in the 20th century, the Ottomans pursued a centuries-long game of diplomatic promiscuity with other world powers, allowing Venetians and Genoese trading rights early on, giving Sephardic Jews a new home after their expulsion from Spain, letting the British help them against the Czars and against Napoleon, inviting the Russians and Hapsburgs to compete over privileges in Ottoman lands.
    As the Ottomans declined militarily they used the country’s strategic position diplomatically to stay afloat. Under the more insular nationalist republic of Ataturk, Turkey allied exclusively with NATO and stayed out of regional engagement. Now Ankara is making friends with all its neighbors. Suddenly, the minefields along the Syrian border are being lifted and Syrians may enter Turkey with minimal red tape. Georgians have similar status. Baghdad and Ankara have just signed a slew of deals involving water, oil and trade. Greece and Turkey are friendlier than they’ve been in, say, 200 years with Greece actually backing Turkey’s candidacy to the E.U. Natural gas comes in from Russia while Turkish construction companies are doing more than anyone to build infrastructure across the Russian Federation. In short, a neo-Ottoman approach means that Ankara is allowing all the neighbor countries to gain so much benefit from Turkey’s evenhandedness that all are invested in keeping the country stable and prosperous.
    There are side benefits too. A Syria dependent on Turkey may become less dependent on Iran economically. Ankara’s deals with Baghdad show Iraq’s Kurds that hostility to Turkey will only leave them out of the loop economically. In the past, almost all neighboring capitals had a hand in aiding the Kurdish insurrection within Turkey–Moscow, Athens, Damascus, Baghdad and all the Iron Curtain belt nearby played that game. These days only the E.U. and the U.S. are pushing the issue of Kurdish rights. Prime Minister Erdogan calculates that as Turkey gains increasing leverage through befriending one and all indiscriminately while shifting an inch this way or that (such as publicly snubbing Israel), even the U.S. and E.U. will have to ease pressures or risk pushing Ankara further into the arms of rivals. The Erdogan government may calculate that Azerbaijan, too, will come around and realize that it will only lose from a rift with the Turks as the Azeris can, in reaction to the Armenia demarche, only befriend the Russian bear–and only for a while before it swallows them whole.
    Meantime, Ankara is going about eradicating the leverage of outside powers over Turkey over such matters as ethnic rights. The Kurds now have broadcasts in Kurdish. Armenia may finally have a partner other than Russia to trade with–that’s a lot of incentive. It’s a lot of incentive for the U.S. to climb on board too. Turkish-Armenian amity in the region will soon de-fang the various genocide bills so beloved of the Armenian diaspora.
    All this comes under the rubric of “neo-Ottoman” for another reason. The Ottomans held Islam’s Caliphate for five centuries, and it was under Islamic laws that they extended rights to religious minorities while ostensibly treating all Muslims as equals with no preference to ethnicity. Erdogan’s slide toward Islamist inclusiveness ironically stirs a beneficent echo in the hearts of Armenians in the region. They have flourished relatively unhindered in the Middle East under countries hostile to the West, such as Syria and Iran. They’ve had no problem living under anti-Western regimes such as the Soviet Union. Their historical sense of identity is anchored in ambivalence toward the West going way back to their doomed alliance with the Persians against Roman power. Throughout the Middle Ages they identified with Eastern Christianity against the Vatican. The Armenian patriarch showed no friendship toward proselytizing Protestant missionaries in the Ottoman era. In short, Armenians of the region feel no discomfort with Mid-eastern traditions or Islamization, and certainly not Erdogan’s apparently moderate version of it.
    One can only dream and hope for the day when Armenians, like Greeks do now, interact with Turkey in large numbers and perhaps even settle back into their interrupted history there. But that it happens under an Islamizing umbrella–and there’s the rub. For it’s not at all clear that once you drift in that direction, there can be any way back–that is, short of a Kemalist or, much worse, a Soviet-style enforced secularism. Erdogan’s strategy of giving all comers a stake in the stability of Turkey also anchors them in Turkey’s renewed Islamist pull. Israel is unlikely to benefit from this, except perhaps in the leverage it gives Turkey to negotiate for Israel with Islamic countries. The Europeans will soon lose all purchase on Turkey’s cultural and political center of gravity as the Turks learn that money from non-Western allies outdoes any expected benefits from the E.U.
    Erdogan’s policies are neo-Ottoman in this way too: in decline, Ottoman state policy, the Sultan or the Sublime Porte in Western parlance, was open to the influence of the highest bidder outside or inside the country. Everyone may benefit in the short term, especially the Turks with their new-found diplomatic clout. But in the long term, that kind of polity cannot be transparent. It can be enlightened in all sorts of ways except a fully Westernized one. Erdogan’s government is already swallowing up independent news media a la Putin. Backroom deals fill his party’s coffers and reward party loyalists at all levels of the economy. This kind of thing went on aplenty under the secularists too, but you can manifestly turn back from secularism, whereas Islamism looks like a one-way street and derives larger financial benefits from Saudi and Gulf investment. As money flows in–the IMF ranked Turkey as the world’s 17th-largest economy last year–the Turks can easily leave off struggling for their own freedoms.
    Republican Turkey has offered the single example, thus far, of a Muslim country living under Western democratic laws, however clunkily. But Islamic nostalgia is a powerful and insidious force. What people forget is that, from the 1400s onward, Turkey was as much based in Europe as in Asia. The Turks do not harbor a fundamentally eastern identity as many in the West mistakenly believe. The U.S. and E.U. can still keep the Turks in their camp. But first they must want to do so. And finally, they must start bidding higher.
    Melik Kaylan, a writer based in New York, writes a weekly column for Forbes. His story “Georgia In The Time of Misha” is featured in The Best American Travel Writing 2008.
    Read more Forbes Opinions here.

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