Turkish Forum

Tag: Neo-Ottoman Foreign Policy

  • Pitfalls in Turkey’s involvement in the Middle East

    Pitfalls in Turkey’s involvement in the Middle East

    VIEW : Pitfalls in Turkey’s involvement in the Middle East — Mohammad Ahmad

    Turkey needs to ensure that all its actions are towards safeguarding the fruits of the Ataturk revolution and preservation of its image as a free and modern democracy

    The war for Syria has a
    hidden dimension. The extremists make it appear as if the fight is for Syria but the strategic goal is Turkey. Unfortunately, the west in its zeal to ultimately take away from Russia its only naval base outside of the former Soviet Union on the Mediterranean at Tartus (Syria) is falling into the trap laid down by extremists by making Turkey the conduit to route arms to the Syrian rebels. Despite its deplorable human rights violations against the ethnic Kurds, the Turkey of today is the flag bearer of human rights in the region and its social values are in total conflict with the Saudi values that are led by Salafi theologians who dream of political victory in Turkey one day. They have very intelligently been able to make Turkey feel threatened by the strife in Syria and made it believe that it is helping the west by helping the resistance in Syria fight a government that is friends with Iran and Hezbollah.

    In reality though, it is involuntarily helping the Saudis and Turkey to fall into the same trap that Pakistan fell into when its radical President Ziaul Haq fought a proxy war for the west in Afghanistan. That war was led by mercenaries mostly under Salafi influence from around the globe. To support the proxy war seminaries that advocated extremism were promoted. After the Soviet withdrawal these mercenaries who had come with a grander purpose stayed back in Pakistan paying back their hosts with sectarianism and interfaith strife as the reward. Shiites, Ahmadis, Christians, and to a lesser extent, the majority Barelvis remain at the receiving end of the onslaught by this group and their local allies, the extremists from amongst the Deobandis. Does Turkey want its Alavis, who constitute 18 percent of its population, and the around three percent Asna Ash’ari Shiites, Christians and Jews, to start living a life of fear? Remaining mindful of this consequence, Turkey needs to ensure that all its actions are towards safeguarding the fruits of the Ataturk revolution and preservation of its image as a free and modern democracy for a long time. It must realise that all its economic progress could soon be lost if violence spills across its borders and it loses the image of a secure region to which business and money can flow.

    Modern Syria has a history of moderate Islamic practice and has long prided itself on peaceful inter-faith relations since its citizens have seen the repercussions of sectarian strife as civil war destroyed two of its neighbours, Lebanon and Iraq. It is unfortunate that continuous antagonism by the west made the Alavi-dominated government align itself with Iran and Hezbollah in this situation. This has made the Salafis lead the uprising, which they see as their chance of getting political control of Syria. It is true Hezbollah was a Syrian ally in Lebanon even prior to this civil war but this relationship seems to be based on the desire to find support in a hostile environment and is not based on ideology. It should be realised that around Syria were hostile governments allied to the United States, which the former perceived as the backer of its worst enemy Israel that had made peace with Egypt but was not prepared to make peace with Syria and give it back the occupied Golan Heights. In this backdrop, the whole civil war can be seen as an attempt to weaken any Syrian threat to Israel in the medium and long term. This complex issue requires more space and may be dealt with in another column.

    Turkey has the right to be concerned if there is trouble in its neighbourhood. However, if it really means to help its neighbour it is imperative for it to learn from the mistakes Pakistan made, engage Syria positively and provide its regime the relationship that can bring it out of isolation and allow it to reform from within. The Ba’athist ideology has the capacity to change and recognise the basic ability of all individuals to contribute and does not discriminate on the basis of faith. As long as a society does not discriminate on the basis of faith and at least in letter believes in responsibility commensurate with ability, it has the potential of evolving peacefully.

    These positives needs to be built upon rather than putting the Syrian people into the hands of a new regime that would usher into Syria religious extremism that has the potential to subsequently also consume Turkey. Turkey being part of Europe, a member of NATO, close to the United States and having a working relationship with Israel could use its energies positively towards resolution of the Golan Heights dispute between Syria and Israel. Using its influence in making Israel give up the Golan in return for peace with Syria and Lebanon where Syria has considerable influence will do the region real good. Turkey in the early part of the 19th century was the leader of the Muslim world and it would be appropriate for it to try to assert itself positively, not in the Ottoman style but as a responsible and powerful contributor. If somehow it can use its influence with the United States and Israel to make the latter realise that making peace with its neighbours by giving up occupied lands is in its interests and that life in perpetual fear of war is not, it would be fulfilling its true potential. The next Middle East peace initiative should therefore come from Turkey and not Saudi Arabia.

    The economic turnaround Turkey has achieved and its geo-political positioning combined with its progressive Muslim population makes it the best suited to bridge the gap between the west and the Muslim world. It is time it realises its true potential. With a 2011 GDP of $ 773 billion against Saudi Arabia’s GDP of $ 575 billion, it is not less fortunately placed when it has to offer trade to other Muslim countries. Turkey is a neutral trading partner whereas Saudi cooperation with countries has the tag of doctrinal influence attached. Growth of extremism is the bitter fruit of Saudi cooperation. It only needs to make others aware of this. The world would be a better place if Turkey were to play its true role.

    The writer can be reached at thelogicalguy@yahoo.com

  • Turkey’s Neo-Ottoman Foreign Policy

    Turkey’s Neo-Ottoman Foreign Policy

    Turkey’s Neo-Ottoman Foreign Policy

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    Pro-Palestinian activists hold down an Israeli commando on the Gaza-bound Turkish ship “Mavi Marmara.” Nine Turkish nationals were killed when Israeli forces boarded the ship in international waters in 2010.

    September 15, 2011
    By Michael Weiss

    How does Turkey’s ruling Islamist party react when it gets a report it doesn’t like from the United Nations?

    By yanking diplomats, threatening military conflict with a neighbor, and menacingly eyeing that neighbor’s new yield of natural resources.

    If the General Assembly ever does something really provocative and votes on a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide or the right of Kurdish self-determination, you can bet that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will make the prison guard in “Midnight Express” look like Florence Nightingale.

    Reacting to the leaked UN Palmer Report on the 2010 flotilla fiasco, which found that Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip is legal and that the passengers aboard the “Mavi Marmara” were cruising for a bruising, Erdogan’s government has taken to issuing thuggish pronunciamentos.

    At issue is the fact that Israel refused to apologize to Turkey for killing nine Turkish nationals in the Mediterranean.

    Israel reckons that to do so would be an insult to the commandos who abseiled onto the “Mavi Marmara” only to be bludgeoned, stabbed, and shot.

    Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has tried to have it both ways on the flotilla. It banned its own members from participating in order to distance itself from what was obviously a blockade-running provocation.

    Yet ranking AKP members are on the board of IHH, the Turkish “charity” that organized the event.

    Anatolian Chest-Poundings

    And Erdogan’s refusal to let the 2011 flotilla start out from Istanbul — at the urging of Washington — complicates the government’s claims of having no control over a supposedly independent NGO. Needless to say, bilateral relations with Israel have gone from lousy to dire.

    “The eastern Mediterranean will no longer be a place where Israeli naval forces can freely exercise their bullying practices against civilian vessels,” one Turkish official said, promising a military escort for all future “aid” ships to Gaza — assuming, that is, that these ships can outfox the savvy Israeli lawyers who made the sequel set-sail a busted flush.

    From the sound of it, Turkey now wants to become the chief maritime bully. Part and parcel with its “more aggressive strategy” in the eastern Mediterranean is its attempt to stop Israel from mining its huge natural gas and oil fields, recent discoveries which some experts predict will make the Jewish state one of the largest — and wealthiest — energy exporters in the world.

    The threat by a NATO member to skirmish on the high seas with a major U.S. ally follows other Anatolian chest-poundings.

    Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoganyrian (left) had done “happy business” in the past with Syrian President Bashar Assad

    Earlier in the week, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, whose foreign policy vision used to be known as “no problems with the neighbors,” announced that Ankara would be expelling all Israeli Embassy officials above the rank of second secretary.

    Erdogan wants to visit Gaza in the coming days to increase “international attention” on Israel’s siege of the strip.

    This from the man who previously said that he doesn’t think Hamas is a terrorist group.

    Erdogan’s visit is sure to impress upon Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas which  party the AKP would like see ruling the Palestinian state the UN is about to recognize.

    A Dirty Little Secret

    Finally, Erdogan vowed to suspend all military relations and defense industry trade between Turkey and Israel.

    Years ago, this might have been significant. Yet here’s a dirty little secret: Greece, which diplomatically facilitated the second flotilla’s deep-sixing, is fast replacing Turkey as Israel’s favorite regional military partner.

    Not only is flight distance between Israel and Greece the same as that between Israel and Iran, but the Hellenes have got S-300 antiaircraft missiles that the mullahs have been itching to buy from Russia in order to deter an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Joint Israeli-Greek military exercises are therefore seen as very valuable at the moment.

    The Israelis and Palestinians have had their share of Turkish strong-arming, but so have the Syrians.

    Indeed, the reason that a Syrian National Council was hastily announced on Al-Jazeera late last month, following weeks of oppositionist wrangling and backbiting at a conference in Istanbul, is that a faction of Syrian youth activists had grown tired of seeing the AKP trying to make their revolution a Muslim Brotherhood-led affair. (What better way to minimize the Islamists than to appoint a secular French sociologist chairman of a transitional body, as the Syrian National Council voted last month?)

    Erdogan did happy business with Bashar al-Assad while he could, but he now wants to make sure that any post-Assad state consists of loyal Sunni ideologues.

    That’d be one way to undercut Iran’s influence in the Middle East, and never mind that the people bleeding and dying in Syria are mostly apolitical kids who don’t trust neo-Ottoman power brokers any more than they do former regime apologists.

    Turkish intelligence and the Muslim Brotherhood are also trying to co-opt the Syrian Free Army of rebel soldiers, according to Syrian sources.

    “They are the only ones connected to them,” one opposition activist told me recently. “I’d rather the Syrian Free Army connect to the CIA. Tell your NATO friends that I extend them an open invitation to Syria.”

    Michael Weiss is the communications director of The Henry Jackson Society, a foreign policy think tank based in London. The views expressed in this commentary are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL