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Is Turkey losing its balancing act in the new Middle East?

Is Turkey losing its balancing act in the new Middle East?

Posted By Lenore Martin, Joshua W. Walker Thursday, May 26, 2011 – 3:20 PM Share

President Obama’s Middle East speech last week laid out a policy of support for the growth of democracy and peace in the area. He challenged all the players in the region to support self-determination, equal opportunity, democracy, political and civil rights and religious tolerance. He stated that democracy requires a free press and right to assembly. He called for a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders. The President has a clear vision of U.S. policy in the Middle East.

It is not obvious that the Turkish government could make the same declarations.

Under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) Turkey is having a tough time adjusting its much heralded foreign policy of “zero problems with neighbors” to the new realities of the Middle East. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says Turkey wants good relations with the people and regimes of the region. However the people of the Middle East are challenging their own dictators today. Tomorrow they will remember the states that supported the brutality of these regimes. Turkey must therefore realize the soft power they extol in their active diplomacy as a regional leader is not just about trade and diplomacy. It also calls for active support for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.

The AKP came to power with the promise of furthering Turkey’s Western orientation through the EU process. But under the leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and guidance of Davutoglu for the past eight years, Turkish foreign policy has been turned on its head by prioritizing its Middle Eastern neighbors rather than its traditional allies in the West. Beginning with its rejection of the U.S. request to enter Iraq through its territory in 2003, Turkey surprised many with its newfound independent streak. It built on this anti-Western popularity with Erdogan’s rhetoric at Davos in 2009 and increasingly hostile attitude towards Israel after the 2010 Gaza flotilla incident. This precipitated a honeymoon between Turkey and the Arab world, with Erdogan enjoying the highest popularity of any leader throughout the region. Turkey’s support for a second flotilla to Gaza and its bellicosity towards Israel now stands in noticeable contrast to its silence on attempts by the regimes in Iran and Syria to bury their citizens’ demands for democracy.

Having misjudged Libya by initially rejecting sanctions and even opposing NATO’s involvement, losing much credibility before changing course, Turkey finds itself in the uncomfortable situation of being a flip-flopping regional power. Now with the ongoing protests and brutal repression by Turkey’s closest “brother” Assad, Ankara once again seems to be sticking to its mantra of “zero problems” even as Syrians die every day. Syria has been the showcase of Turkey’s policy of engagement in the Middle East. Therefore how and with what speed it acts will be consequential for Turkey’s future role in the region. The people of the area will be looking for more than rhetoric. The EU and U.S. have imposed sanctions. Will Turkey too take action?

Turkey emphasizes its uniqueness as an indigenous Muslim democracy. Yet that democracy was facilitated not by its Middle Eastern neighbors but by its evolution within the community of Western nations. As a G-20 founding member, NATO member, and EU aspirant, Ankara has transformed itself into an international actor, capable of bringing considerable clout and influence to the region precisely because of its Western orientation — and not in spite of it.

Turkey should use the huge economic, moral, and political capital it has invested in its rapprochement with the Middle East to promote to its neighbors what Turkish citizens have been enjoying for decades — a vibrant democracy that in spite of its imperfections is seen as an example of reform in the region. Ankara can make a difference by publicly and firmly telling Damascus and Tehran to call off their security forces and institute meaningful reforms with tangible economic incentives. Ankara has the most to gain from a transformed Middle East which will increasingly look to Turkey for guidance and leadership.

The AKP’s confusing policies risk losing not only its credibility in the region as a champion of democracy but also its voice within the community of Western allies. Ankara needs to regain its balance among its neighbors and its allies. Its newfound status as a Middle Eastern power does not have to come at the expense of losing its hard-earned Western credentials.

Dr. Lenore Martin is the Louise Doherty Wyant Professor at Emmanuel College and Associate of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies both at Harvard University.

Dr. Joshua W. Walker is a postdoctoral fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University and a research fellow at the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School.

via Is Turkey losing its balancing act in the new Middle East? by Lenore Martin and Joshua W. Walker | The Middle East Channel.

May 27, 2011
Turkey’s prime minister rethinks country’s role in Middle East

Erdogan takes tougher stance against authoritarian regimes

Posted May 8, 2011, 12:05 pm

Nichole Sobecki GlobalPost

ISTANBUL – Turkey has emerged as a regional heavyweight, expanding its web of influence across the Arab world.

But as the old regional order crumbles beneath the tide of revolution, the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is beginning to rethink its foreign policy – which in recent years has largely been to play nice with everyone – and take a bolder stance against authoritarian regimes.

“They’ve been trying to steer a realistic path through this maze,” said Hugh Pope, director of the Turkey-Cyprus project at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. “But this is a real wake-up call for Turkey.”

Turkey has longstanding ties to governments now beset by unrest, ties that have been meticulously cultivated through its much-heralded “zero problems with neighbors” policy. Under that policy, it has pushed for greater economic and diplomatic integration with countries across the Middle East.

Before the uprising in Libya took hold, for instance, Turkey had sought stronger relations with its leader, Muammar Gaddafi. Turkish exports to Libya had reached $2 billion a year and 25,000 Turkish citizens were engaged in major construction projects there, mainly in cooperation with the Libyan government.

But after two months of violent clashes between Libyan rebels and forces loyal to Gaddafi, in which as many as 30,000 people are thought to have been killed, Erdogan finally decided to pack it up. He closed the Turkish embassy in Tripoli – one of the last still open there – and called on Gaddafi to step down immediately.

“Muammar Gaddafi, instead of taking our suggestions into account, refraining from shedding blood or seeking for ways to maintain the territorial unity of Libya, chose blood, tears, oppression and attacks on his own people,” Erdogan said during a televised news conference last week.

Message to Syria

It was Turkey’s first move against a former partner, but probably not its last, analysts said. Wrapped in Erdogan’s call for Gaddafi to step down appeared to be a message to Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, as well.

“I find it necessary to repeat my warning to countries in the region,” he said. “Equality, justice and democracy are not the right of some countries but of every nation.”

Syria, a country with which Turkey had recently abolished visa requirements and held small-scale military exercises, has responded with brutal violence to an ever-growing protest movement, killing – by most estimates – hundreds of people.

“While he wasn’t speaking directly to Syria, he made it clear that Turkey’s support for al-Assad is not unconditional,” said Joshua Walker, a professor at the University of Richmond and expert on Turkey.

If Libya was a problem for Turkey’s foreign policy, Syria is a much bigger one. In many ways, Syria is Turkey’s gateway to the Arab world, and it’s a place they have invested heavily in for years.

Images from Syria published in Turkish newspapers paint a brutal image of security forces shooting unarmed demonstrators. About 200 members of Assad’s Baath Party have resigned in protest and the violence looks unlikely to end anytime soon.

Unwilling to set themselves directly against Assad, the Turks have so far used the same strategy as they had with Gaddafi – a mix of private pressure and veiled public criticism. Last month the Turkish foreign minister visited Assad and the Turkish intelligence chief was dispatched to Damascus.

But with Syria so close to home – they share a border – Turkey has more to lose if things spiral out of control as they have in Libya.

Credibility at risk

A deeply sectarian country in which the Alawite minority controls all the levers of power in a Sunni majority country, things there could quickly turn much more dangerous than they already are. Trade between the two countries would all but end and tens of thousands of refugees could end up at Ankara’s doorstep.

Turkey has for the most part continued to hedge its bets, keeping a pulse to the sea changes going on around them and cautiously, some say too cautiously, measuring their response.

“They’ve put a lot of emphasis on the zero-problem policy, at the expense of its relationship with the West,” Pope said. “But, for some time, the Middle East is going to be less stable, less wealthy and less appealing.”

For years Erdogan championed Palestinians, confronting Israel and winning himself popularity on the Arab streets. But by ignoring the violence against civilians in cities across Libya for so long, and now in Syria as well, experts say the prime minister is at risk of losing the credibility he has so carefully crafted.

Until Erdogan’s decision last week to break diplomatically with Libya, Turkish flags were being burned on the streets of Benghazi, the center of the rebellion, and the country’s consulate was almost overrun.

“Turkey’s vision for the Middle East was predicated on cooperation with the status quo there,” wrote Semih Idiz, a columnist for the Turkish Daily Hurriyet, adding that “Ankara will have to establish new bridges now.”

May 9, 2011
Turkey no longer has Kurdish issue, says PM Erdoğan

Turkey no longer has a Kurdish problem, and what currently remains to be addressed are the problems of individual Kurdish citizens, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Saturday during a rally at a central square in the eastern city of Muş.

Erdoğan has been holding rallies in various cities of the East and the Southeast as part of his election campaign. In the Muş rally on Saturday, tens of thousands showed up to hear Erdoğan, the prime minister and leader of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party). His speech in this Kurdish-dominated city included harsh criticism of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its jailed leader Abdulah Öcalan.

He criticized the BDP, one of whose members earlier referred to Öcalan as “the Kurdish prophet,” saying: “We don’t have anything to do with those who declare Apo [how most people in Turkey refer to Öcalan] a prophet. We will be together with you against those who cheat my Kurdish brothers and sisters. We will give them the appropriate response at the ballot box.”

Erdoğan criticized the separatist PKK and the BDP, saying: “We can’t get anywhere with those who try to set one brother against another. We can’t get anywhere with those who are trying to divide this country. We can’t get our country up on its feet with the separatist terrorist organization [PKK]. We can’t get anywhere with those who try to undermine the democratic will of the people.

He recalled in his speech that the last time he had visited Muş was on Dec. 18, 2010, when he attended the opening ceremony for 106 different public facilities. He said he has visited Muş eight times since 2002, when the AK Party was first elected to power.

“This land is our land. This is our motherland. There is no discrimination, no separatism. We are one, and we are together. We will be one, we will be united, we will be big and fresh. We are like the teeth of a comb. We are like nail and cuticle. We are not friends or relatives; we are eternal brothers. We are as much as brothers as the Euphrates and the Tigris. We are as brothers as the Süphan and Ağrı [Mountains] are. We are as inseparable as the sky and the earth. Whoever says the opposite, you should know, denies history, murders truth and denies himself.”

Erdoğan said the services provided to Muş under the AK Party government had restored the city’s pride. “We are not after votes; we are not like those who become democratic all of a sudden, who suddenly remember Muş when elections are around the corner. … The pain and troubles of this region have always been our pains, too. We feel like we lost a part of our selves every time someone here died. Every tear shed in this region seeped into our hearts, conscience and soul. As weapons spoke, as bullets flew in the air, as young men died up in the mountains, our hearts burned. We have been fighting to end this pain for the past eight-and-a-half years.”

“There is no longer a Kurdish question in this country. I do not accept this. There are problems of my Kurdish brothers, but no longer a Kurdish question. …. Tayyip Erdoğan is not your master, he is your servant.” He criticized the BDP for exploiting religion, as that party has recently been calling on its supporters to refuse to pray behind imams appointed by the Turkish state during Friday prayers. He said, referring to BDP politicians: “Now they are saying, ‘Don’t pray behind a state imam.’ There are people praying here, and then those who listen to the terrorist organization [PKK] go to pray somewhere else. This is separatism. We have nothing to do with those who declare Apo a prophet. We will stand together against those who try to deceive my Kurdish brothers.”

Religious specialization center in Diyarbakır

Head of the Religious Affairs Directorate Mehmet Görmez on Saturday announced that the directorate had plans to set up a Supreme Religious Specialization Center in Diyarbakır.

He said Turkey’s Kurdish problem could not be solved by talking about brotherhood but only by “the law of brotherhood.” Görmez said: “Saying we are brothers doesn’t solve the problem. We need to emphasize the law of brotherhood. I mean there is an ethical obligation we have to each other based in our brotherhood in religion. Both they and we know that we are brothers; there is no need to declare that.”

Görmez said a State Waterworks Authority (DSİ) building that is no longer used by the agency would host the center. He said they hoped to open the center soon.

via Zaman

May 6, 2011
PM Recep Erdogan is the best leader in the world

Turkey: PM Recep Erdogan is the best leader in the world.

I have known The Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for many years.

I have closely followed him in his achievements and what he has done as PM in Turkey.

The Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is one of the most successful leaders in the world. He is a source of inspiration for hard-working Turkish people. He is loved and respected in muslim world.

His achievements in Turkey speak for themselves.

Turkey’s gross domestic product grew 8.2 percent in 2010.

Strong economic growth will continue in Turkey this year,

Turkey’s economic growth accelerated to 9.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 .

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said they were going to elevate Turkey into becoming one of the world’s top 10 economies by 2023.

The Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s also said that Turkey’s gross domestic product to grow to $2 trillion .

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government is pursuing a strategy intertwining political influence with economic might in the all world.

Turkish companies are investing in Russia, Balkans, Islamic countries and extending across EU, India, Iran, China and Africa.

Turkey is the largest investor in Albania_, Kosovo, Bosnia, Kurdistan, Libya, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkestan, Bulgaria, Romania, Afghanistan, Iraq, Qatar, and Algeria .

Turkey’s companies are investing worldwide in real estate, energy sector, food industry, tourism, IT, automobiles, cement, chemicals, consumer electronics, food processing, machinery, mining, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, steel, transportation equipment, and textiles.

Sahit_Muja
President & CEO
Albanian_Minerals
New York

via WSJ: Turkey: PM Recep Erdogan is the best leader in the world..

April 25, 2011
Walker’s World: Turkey’s new Sultan

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seen as Iran, Turkey and Brazil sign an agreement to ship Iran's low-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for fuel for a nuclear reactor in Tehran, Iran, on May 17, 2010. Iran signed an agreement to swap its uranium in Turkey for enrichment, hoping to avert new international sanctions. Brazil helped broker the deal. UPI/Maryam Rahmanian Read more: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/Opinion/Walker/2011/04/18/Walkers-World-Turkeys-new-Sultan/UPI-37581303124100/#ixzz1JwjZVOYq

ISTANBUL, Turkey, April 18 (UPI) — With its economy growing at almost 9 percent and foreign money flooding in fast, Turkey is booming, which means that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party should cruise to re-election in elections this June.

But the country is troubled by a series of profound challenges and the political divisions run deep, which helps explain the growing row with Europe and the United States over press freedom. Turkey holds the unenviable title of the most journalists arrested in the world, a total of 54, ahead of China and Iran.

In a defensive appearance before the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly this month, Erdogan blustered that only 26 were under arrest for journalistic activities. This provoked derision but he has something of a point. The arrests, and a raid on the office of the daily Radikal to seize drafts of a book, are largely related to the murky Ergenekon affair, an alleged ultra-nationalist plot to topple the government in a military coup.

via Walker’s World: Turkey’s new Sultan – UPI.com.

April 19, 2011
Erdogan and the French

By Marc Champion

Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy during a bilateral meeting in Ankara, Turkey, on Feb. 25, 2011.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy during a bilateral meeting in Ankara, Turkey, on Feb. 25, 2011.

Don’t mention the French to Turkey’s outspoken prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

On Wednesday, Mr. Erdogan was taking questions from the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly in Strasbourg when an unsuspecting French MP asked him a question about how he would guarantee freedoms for religious minorities in Turkey.

“I believe this friend is French? She is also “French” to Turkey,” said Mr. Erdogan, using a blunt Turkish saying that means: You don’t know what you’re talking about.

France-bashing plays well in Turkey nowadays and Mr. Erdogan is in the midst of a re-election campaign. Many Turks have taken deep offense to French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s active opposition to Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. And France’s recent decision to ban women from wearing the Burqa has played loudly and badly in Turkish media.

Meanwhile, Mr. Sarkozy’s decision to exclude Turkey from the gathering in Paris that launched a no-fly zone over Libya last month infuriated Mr. Erdogan and other Turkish leaders, who see France as a spent colonial power and Turkey as the Middle East’s new playmaker.

“Our attitude is not a bandit’s facing booty, like some,” Mr. Erdogan said, in a veiled reference to the leading role France took in imposing the Libyan no-fly zone, according to Turkey’s NTV television. Mr. Erdogan has repeatedly implied that France and other coalition members intervened in Libya because they want its oil.

Mr. Erdogan also told questioners to look to themselves before criticizing Turkey over human rights issues, and that Turkey’s electoral process wasn’t their business. What he didn’t talk about at all was Turkey’s EU bid, no longer a vote-winner among Turks.

Turkey’s NTV television quickly dubbed the performance another “One Minute!” moment, a reference to the moment at the 2009 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, when Mr. Erdogan stormed off the stage after demanding more time to talk and telling Israel’s President Shimon Peres: “You know how to kill well.”

Many analysts now see Mr. Erdogan’s performance in Davos as the moment when he changed his country’s policy towards Israel, formerly a close military ally.

via Erdogan and the French – Emerging Europe Real Time – WSJ.

April 14, 2011