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The Eurasian Politician - Issue 4 (August 2001)
By: Cengiz Çandar and Graham E. Fuller
Source: Turkistan Newsletter, Volume 5:076, 30th Apr. 2001
Turkey, like its mentor the United States, finds its foreign policy in the grip of a national security mentality, a mental outlook driven more by threat perceptions than by a vision of how to shape the environment around it.
Of course threats to nations still exist even after the end of the Cold War, but they are of a different order now – more immediate, more local and more manageable, less dependent on the grand play of global geopolitics.
We believe that the "national security approach" to foreign policy is narrow, reactive, uncreative, and offers little opportunity to work to improve the global political environment. We contrast it with an approach based on geopolitical vision involving a positive approach to regional problems and a quest for change that goes beyond mere vigilance against adversaries. Turkey today is at the center of US geopolitical calculations – at the crossroads of the Balkans, Eastern Mediterranean, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East and Arab-Israeli problems. Turkey plays importantly in all of these regions.
Yet the country itself is enmeshed in a major internal debate and even some confusion about its identity and place in the world – with direct and explicit implications for its foreign policy.
We offer here our concept of the "true face of Turkey," and the implications of this identity for Turkey’s future choices in this strategic region that faces certain turmoil in the future.
We direct it particularly towards Turks because Turkey will in the end act on its own interests, and not on Washington’s perception of Turkish interests. But we believe that only a clear-sighted American vision of what Turkey’s own real options are will enable Washington to develop sensible policies towards Turkey and the region.
The "old Turkey" of seventy years duration – from the founding of the state by the remarkable Mustafa Kemal Atatürk until the fall of the Soviet Union – has given way to a "new Turkey" at the start of the 21st century. The narrow geopolitical perspectives of a Soviet-dominated region have been replaced by a brand new geopolitical reality that leaves Turkey as the emerging great power in the region.
At the same time Turkey’s domestic life has undergone dramatic evolution, as a modern state emerges.
Now with a change in the top leadership, Turkey has opportunities for internal reform and maturation required of a modern state. If Turkey can reorder its foreign policy accordingly it can bring about a major shift across regional geopolitics.
If America and Europe hope to work with Turkey in serious partnership, they must understand the full geopolitical complexity of Turkey that transcends a strictly "western orientation." One of the key principles of Atatürk’s worldview was summed up in his expression "peace at home and peace abroad" (yurtta sulh cihanda sulh) that signaled a shift away from the old Ottoman state policies.
But this important phrase gradually lost a great deal of its meaning as Turkey over the past few decades has experienced neither peace at home nor peace abroad.
Internal conflict between deadly groups of leftists and rightists created a period of anarchy in the 1970s; the 1980s were marked with the emergence of an equally deadly civil conflict between a Kurdish insurgency led by the PKK which resorted to violence and periodic terrorist acts, and Turkish security forces that have damaged Turkish civil liberties and national cohesion.
Finally, the last decade has been marked by increasing religious tensions marked by the emergence of Islam-oriented groups that, in the eyes of Turkey’s secularists, threaten the Atatürkist project of a secular nation state.
Abroad, Turkey has had poor relations with almost all its immediate neighbors Greece, Russia, Armenia, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Atatürk’s extremely sensible policies in the 1920s warned sharply against any external adventurism that might involve an interest in Caucasian, Central Asian, or China’s Turks and thus provoke the armed might of the Soviet Union against Turkey. Today, with the end of the Soviet Union, Atatürk’s cautions about interest in external Turkish peoples, sensible in its day, now require reinterpretation.
And Turkey’s growing status requires it to take a far more activist policy in the troubled areas of the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Middle East. In this article we propose to resurrect Atatürk’s concept of "peace at home and peace abroad" and reinterpret it according to contemporary conditions. We propose a new foreign policy which, coupled with new domestic policies, will produce a Turkey at peace at home and actively and constructively involved with nearly all its neighbors.
We believe Turkey in the new millennium should now move away from a defensive and reactive foreign policy based on security fears, that only leaves it constant prisoner of events, to one based on a positive and dynamic policy based on reconciliation at home, a new harmony between internal and foreign policies – a grand foreign policy for an emerging great power.
Indeed the imperative for this is even greater now that Turkey has acquired important candidate membership for eventual EU status. We also emphasize the role of principles in guiding foreign policy as opposed to so-called "Realpolitik" – an utterly vague concept that can be used to justify almost any policy, and is usually bereft of vision.
We believe that a principled policy is not only benefits Turkey itself, but also its neighbors, where relations with Ankara are now uneasy.
In the long run a Turkey at peace with itself and its neighbors should be in the interests of the region and the West as well.
Our proposals are based on seven key principles.
These principles need to be applied to policies that embrace every one of Turkey’s neighbors, a policy of 360 degrees that includes all of Turkey’s many faces: Western, Balkan, Anatolian, Caucasian, Central Asian and Turkic, Muslim, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean.
We believe Turkey unquestionably forms part of the West.
Turks are unique in their Western "vocation" or "calling" that brought them from Lake Baikal to the gates of Vienna in a movement of peoples over a thousand year period. The Ottomans became successors to the entire Byzantine geopolitical world that was deeply concerned with Europe.
Furthermore, Turkey has been involved in Western politics, diplomacy, and alignments for over 500 years. The reformers of the Ottoman Empire, going back two hundred years, based their reforms on their understanding of Western models of the time. The Ottoman Empire was essentially a South-East European state in orientation. The country has never ceased to try to attain a level of development and advancement comparable to, and part of, the West.
During the Cold War Turkey linked itself closely with the West for security against the Soviet threat – the origin of Turkey’s NATO membership. Since then Turkey has joined other European institutions such as the OECD, the Council of Europe, OSCE, all with binding commitments. With the Helsinki conference in 1999 Turkey gained candidate membership to the EU.
Today nearly every single element in Turkey accepts the concept of close linkage with the West, including Islamists and nationalists, even if some of them have reservations about the implications for Turkish sovereignty. Turkey furthermore becomes attractive to many in the region, particularly in the regions of the former Soviet Union precisely because of its Western ties. Today Turkey has several million Turkish citizens living in the West, and increasingly integrated there, part of the new European mosaic.
If Turkey is part of Europe, one look at the map also demonstrates that it is simultaneously a Middle Eastern country. The Ottoman Empire was the greatest empire the Middle East has ever known. Turkey is overwhelmingly Muslim and has benefited tremendously from, and contributed to, Islamic civilization. While Atatürk had good reason in his day to break off ties with some of the most backward and reactionary features of an ossified Islamic tradition, Turks can be proud of the great Islamic project in which they took the leading role.
Today, however, many Turks have negative views of the Middle East, based partly on facts, but also on prejudice and stereotype. Turks feel that the Arabs "stabbed Turkey in the back" during World War I contributing to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, but Arabs too naturally had aspirations to self-determination, just as Turks and other peoples did. Later, during the Cold War, Turkey perceived the Soviet Union as the main threat to its own security, based on firm historical grounds, whereas the Arabs saw Moscow as providing assistance and balance against excessive Western dominance and unqualified support for Israel in the region.
This put Turkey and the Arabs on different sides of the strategic fence. Today the Arab world in particular is in deep crisis by many measures, but the single deepest cause of most of its problems is the absence of responsible democratic rule. Autocratic and unstable regimes contribute to bad relations, especially in the minority-based dictatorial regimes that rule Syria (Alawite) and Iraq (Sunni minority). Turkey should publicly and explicitly encourage pro-democracy trends in all these states – as should the West.
Ankara’s participation in a pro-reform policy in the region will eventually bring major dividends to all in the region. Turkey need not have adversarial relations with Syria. Yet, for historical reasons each has viewed the other as a threat. Syria had no reason to support PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan for over a decade except to use as an instrument against Ankara. Water conflicts between Turkey and Syria reflect not so much the technical problems of sharing water, but mutual suspicions that politicize the issue on both sides. But secure democratic regimes on both sides can easily achieve a solution.
We believe that the democratization of Syria will bring major benefits: the end of paranoid minority rule in Damascus, restoration of a normal Sunni voice over policies, and Syria’s adoption of more liberal, less ideological policies.
Much of Syria’s population, especially in the north, is quite sympathetic to Turkey and would value closer ties. Close Turkish-Syrian cooperation will bring Syria back into the circle of liberalized and integrated nations of the world instead of one languishing in backwardness and isolation as Syria has under the Alawite Baath.
No one wants to compromise the deeply-rooted and rich Arab character of Syria, but its Arabness is not compromised by restoring its former longer-term good relations with Turkey. Turkish citizens of Arab origin can contribute to facilitating this process and help restore Turkey to the position of major partner in the Arab Levant.
In Iraq, Turkey should again take a strong declarative position in favor of rapid and urgent democratization of one of the most brutal, aggressive and paranoid regimes in the modern history of the Arab world. But Turkey’s power of diplomacy in Iraq is totally dependent upon one contingency – satisfactory solution of the Kurdish problem in Turkey.
We believe Ankara can relatively easily resolve the question of Kurdish ethnic aspirations without separatism or even the creation of a federal Turkish state. Recognition of the right of all peoples to use their own language in the media, to grant formal recognition of their existence as a people inside Turkey, permit Kurdish to be taught in schools, and to enjoy some degree of local governance – as all Turkish provinces should have – should bring satisfaction to the Kurds and enable them to live peacefully and happily within a prosperous and democratic Turkey.
Today, however, Turkey is hostage to its Kurdish problem, since it fears that any liberal solution of the Kurdish problem in Iraq, Iran, or Syria will strengthen Kurdish nationalism within Turkey. We believe that if Turkey can take the few important measures to meet Kurdish aspirations, Turkey will emerge as a powerful and stable state that will have nothing to fear from Kurdish autonomy in Iraq and Iran.
On the contrary, those states must fear that the model of a liberal solution in Turkey will cause the other Kurds in the region to look to Diyarbakir as a model and a magnet, in which Turkey’s Kurds will be the dominant voice of the larger Kurdish world. A happy Diyarbakir is a threat to a repressive Iraq, even to a repressive Iran. Thus, with its own Kurdish issue resolved, Turkey can support democratization in Iraq rather than preferring Saddam.
A democratic regime in Baghdad will have extremely important implications for Turkey. Where democracy in Syria brings Sunnis to dominant influence, in Iraq it brings Shi’a to dominant influence – who are not anti-Turkish and represent no cause for concern. They are proud of being Arab and emphatically are not agents of Iranian influence in Iraq.
Iraq’s move to democracy will furthermore remove a dangerous regime from Turkey’s borders. It will allow Turkey to restore close relations with Iraq and benefit from the oil flow and trade of the past – an issue that has created tensions between Ankara and Washington for a decade due to US sanctions.
Turkey today yearns for restoration of the "good old days" of relations with Baghdad before the Gulf war, but those days are gone forever. On the other hand, a responsible, moderate and democratic government in Baghdad will make solution of the Tigris water problem much easier, since water will no longer be a tool of negative but of positive relations. Trade and oil flows will return. Turkey will once again return to the position of gateway to the Arab world that was so beneficial to both sides. We are aware that some Arabs worry that Turkey is somehow used as an instrument of the West to weaken Arabism in the region.
Our intentions are quite the opposite. We believe that a modern, progressive, democratic Syria and Iraq will strengthen the Arab world in all respects and eliminate the repression, backwardness, conflict and isolation of much of the Arab world that has come from tyranny in the name of Arab nationalism. We emphasize, furthermore, that Turkey cannot gain the confidence of the Arab world unless it demonstrates good neighborly policies, continued sympathy for a just and balanced solution of the Arab-Israeli problem, the rights of the Palestinians, and abandonment of any "strategic alliance" with Israel against Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
Today Turkey has seemingly chosen between Syria, Iraq and Iran on the one hand and Israel on the other. This is not only unhealthy, but there need not be a choice in which nobody wins. While both Ankara and Jerusalem may avoid calling it a strategic alliance, it is in fact exactly that and there is no doubt in the minds of Turkey’s neighbors on this issue.
Indeed, Ankara has been partially justified in seeking to create strategic pressure against these paranoid and harsh neighboring regimes – both sides are at fault. But if Syria, Iraq, and Iran all move towards flexible and moderate democracies, and a just solution of the Arab-Israeli problem has been attained, there is little reason for either Israel or Turkey to seek to forge any "alliance" against Syria, Iraq and Iran.
In fact, this alliance actually strengthens negative and not positive trends in the region. We strongly believe that Turkey, as part of a broad good neighbor policy, should have close and diversified relations with Israel of great mutual benefit. Jews have always enjoyed freedom and safety in Turkey for over a thousand years. Turkey and Israel today both benefit greatly from tourism, important and growing trade, and technological assistance and share modern outlooks. It is the military relationship that we view in negative terms.
We oppose Israeli use of Turkish soil as a training ground for the Israeli Air Force since it sends a strong message of intimidation to Turkey’s neighbors and draws Turkey into Israel’s own web of strategic problems. Given the present adversarial relationships both states have with Syria, Iraq and Iran, this intimidation may seem to make strategic sense for now. But the goal is to reduce tensions and change the nature of the relationships – certainly easier after a settlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute. Basically, Turkey’s "special" relationship with Israel is of great importance only when Turkey is operating in a geopolitical void bereft of friends.
It is valuable as long as Turkey has bad relations with its Muslim neighbors. We wish to transform that negative situation. An additional key concern for Ankara is the development of weapons of mass destruction in the region, especially nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. Iraq and Iran are the leading candidates here.
We frankly believe that the technological genie cannot be put back in the bottle, 1940’s nuclear technology will rapidly spread in this next century, even if Washington’s policies can delay the process somewhat. In the end, however, one important fact emerges. It is not only the existence of certain weapons that matters, but the character and intentions of the regimes and states that possess them.
Canada does not lose sleep over US nukes, nor do Americans worry about French nukes. The best defense for Ankara – indeed for any state in the region – is to work for the emergence of democratic and responsible regimes rather than anti-ballistic missiles against nuclear tyrants. A democratic nuclear Iraq is a safer neighbor than a nuclear-armed Saddam.
Indeed the world might be a better place with less nukes rather than more, but it is not going to happen. We believe Turkey itself will eventually decide to develop its own nuclear deterrent rather than depend upon the US or any other outside support.
If a new "grand" Turkish foreign policy can change the character of relations with Syria and Iraq it will represent the first time in a century that Turkey has managed to restore good relations with the Arab world. We might add that a Turkey that is not integrated into the Middle East would be more troublesome for both Europe and Washington than a Turkey that works integrally with its Muslim neighbors.
We should note too, Turkey already has a strong constituency inside the country for this policy initiative with Muslim neighbors and the Muslim world. Pious Muslims and Islamists in Turkey favor closer relations with the Arab and Muslim world in the warmth of shared religious and cultural membership in the Islamic umma.
Turkish foreign policy thus will continue to reflect the various constituents of its social makeup – just as American foreign policy too reflects the particular interests and influences of African-Americans, as well as American Jews, Muslims, Asians and Latinos. Indeed, any enduring Turkish foreign policy must be based on the social realities of the country – reflecting Turkey’s cultural and ethnic richness and diversity. Islam links Turkey to a huge part of the world, and enables it to share in these special relationships even while it shares in its Western heritage as well.
Such policies will help remove the deep suspicions of Turkey now found in so much of the Muslim world that Turkey is "anti-Islam" or an "instrument of the West." It presents the face of a more truly independent Turkey as well that the Turkish left too, has called for over many years.
Our recommendation of these policies towards the Muslim world emphatically does not mean restoration of Shari’a law in Turkey or abandonment of Turkish secularism. But we believe in true secularism that separates state and religion, and not false secularism that represents control of religion in the name of the state.
Turkey’s Islam-oriented groups, especially Fazilet and the Fethullah Gülen movement both can play strong and important roles of positively representing Turkey in the Muslim world, and demonstrating the moderate character of Turkish Islam and Islamism that denies neither democracy or good ties with the West. Thus we see the peaceful integration of Islamic groups into the Turkish political order as directly linked to the pursuit of successful Turkish relations with the Muslim world in the name of Islam – one of Turkey’s key heritages of which it should be proud.
A truly integrated Turkey can in fact offer both a model and advice to states at war with their own Islamists. Turkish Islamists can assist in moderating other Islamist movements in the region and in supporting reconciliation through its own successful mode. Here again we posit a close linkage between "peace at home" in Turkey and "peace abroad."
Iran is another neighbor with poor relations with Ankara, for which the ideological extremism of Tehran’s clerics bears much of the responsibility. But Turkish-Iranian hostility has few roots in modern history and we believe is a transient situation.
First, despite some frictions and ideological rivalry, Turkey and Iran enjoy one of the longest lasting peaceful borders along a broad area ever since the 1639 Treaty of Qasr-e-Shirin. There are no territorial issues between the two countries.
Both underwent nearly simultaneous movements for Constitutional Government at the start of the twentieth century, and both shared similar approaches to modernization under Atatürk and Reza Shah. Both shared deep concerns over the dangers of Soviet imperialism. Both benefited immensely from the fall of the Soviet Union and the opportunity to restore some influence and interest in the new Muslim republics of the region. Both share elements of a historic common Turco-Persian culture.
It is Washington-Tehran hostility that has served to push Iran closer to Russia, a country that has otherwise been the greatest territorial threat to Iran for centuries. Today that situation may be changing. Powerful reasons exist for Turkey to seek close ties with Tehran, rather than depend on Washington’s lead.
It is critically important for Turkey to establish solid relations with Iran in order to avoid creating an Iranian-Russian linkage designed to cut off Turkey from the Caucasus and Central Asia. Ankara furthermore needs Iranian gas, and Iranian cooperation in providing Turkmen gas to Turkey as well.
Turkey will always remain to some extent a rival of Iran for influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia, but this rivalry need not be profound. Iran’s earlier influence upon a small handful of Islamic zealots in Turkey is now a thing of the past and Iran’s Shi’ism has virtually no impact upon Sunni or even Alevi Turks.
Both countries have much to gain from cooperation issues involving Iraq, the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia. While Turgut Özal was president he sought to include Iran in many regional organizations such as the RCD and its successor ECO.
Russia may be the only country in the region with whom Turkey is destined to have a difficult relationship. This is due to inherent structural geopolitical tensions between the two states based on genuine rivalries of interests that can be managed, but not eliminated. Thus some degree of tension and contestation will mark this relationship indefinitely.
First, these are the only two states that play both in the European as well as the Asian arena, making them rivals for influence from the Balkans to the Chinese border. This rivalry and tension predate the Cold War, going back to the nineteenth century during which time Russia helped eliminate Turkey’s domination of the Balkans, and established imperial control over the Caucasus and Central Asia. Today that process is in reversal.
The key structural tension results from the large Turkic and Muslim populations lying between the two countries whose own geopolitical orientation between the two states is now being contested. But because most of these Muslim states are Turkic, we believe they ultimately will form closer ties with Turkey than with Russia, their erstwhile oppressors and colonial masters.
These states do not want a "big brother" in either Russia or Turkey, but they will seek to balance regional forces to maximize their own independence. This situation is not pleasing to Russia.
We further posit that over time the Muslim and Turkic states of the former Soviet Union will seek ever greater independence from Moscow, especially after the passing of the present authoritarian, largely neo-communist leadership in these states.
New leadership will be in the hands of more representative and democratic nationalist figures who look far more favorably upon Turkey – such as we have already seen among some of the opposition figures in Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, currently spurned by Ankara in the interests of "Realpolitik."
Indeed, with the collapse of the Cold War, Russia has already emerged as the loser and Turkey as the gainer in terms of regional influence. Russia lost large portions of its Muslim Turkic empire, and over the long run we believe will yet lose more, through a coming quest for greater autonomy or independence in most of the northern Caucasus, and perhaps even in Tatarstan, and Bashkortostan. Even non-Turkic Muslim regions tend to look to Turkey as a friendly Muslim state while distrusting Russia.
Two trends fortunately help soften this confrontation between Ankara and Moscow: democratization in Russia and beneficial economic ties. A genuinely democratic Russia will treat the Muslims of the former Soviet empire with greater flexibility and tolerance, diminishing the chances of conflict. At the same time the important trading ties between Turkey and Russia are of major importance to both states and help to diminish confrontation.
There is a small but significant pro-Russian lobby in Turkey that is deeply involved in this significant trade with Russia. Yet, Turkey cannot allow these trade ties to dictate Turkey’s geopolitical interests in the region to favor Moscow over the Muslim regions.
For the same reason Turkey cannot allow itself to become hostage to energy pipelines that link it closely to Russia; diversification of Turkish energy sources is key to its economic security. We also note that Turkey’s secular influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus is complemented by Turkey’s several moderate but Islam-oriented non-governmental organizations, especially that of Fethullah Gülen, whose hundreds of schools with modern curriculum across the region have major impact upon Central Asian society.
We envisage the Caucasus as a key strategic region for Turkey where its influence will generally grow as Russia’s declines. We believe the pivot of Caucasian geopolitics for Turkey should be Armenia. Armenia today is almost completely hostage to Russia, since it fears "encirclement by Turks" in both Turkey and Azerbaijan, and depends on Moscow for its defense needs against these states. At the same time Armenia lacks any access to Europe, except through Russia.
We strongly advocate priority on improvement of ties with Yerevan, which will lessen Armenian anxieties, offer them alternative access to Europe, and improve chances for settlement of the Karabagh issue. Once Armenia has non-Russian options open to it, it will be less willing to serve as a military base for Russia or serve as Russia’s instrument in the Transcaucasus. All three Transcaucasian states are natural allies for Ankara and ultimately may be linked with Turkey in some kind of grander confederation.
In Central Asia and the Caucasus Turkey must support the democratizing process. While there may be temptations to "do business" with the unreliable authoritarian and neo-communist regimes of this region, authoritarianism in these states serves the long term interests of Russia, not Turkey.
Turkey must be willing to pay the price of less cordial relations with dictators in the region today in the longer range interests of gaining support among the populations of the region and building to a democratic future which will serve Turkey’s interests more deeply. Admittedly there are some tensions between good relations today and working for a better tomorrow. But democratization must be a central feature of Turkey’s regional strategy and accords with the wave of future global trends.
Let us not forget too, that concepts of pan-Turkism originated among the Turkic peoples of the Russian Empire long before the idea was ever accepted in Turkey. So today too, these states will probably be the repository of pan-Turkic ideas – in a modern sense of close and special political, cultural and economic ties, free of domination by any one state.
At least four elements of Turkish society will have special interest in this new Turkish approach to Central Asia and the Caucasus. First, Turkey can draw on its nationalist forces that have particular skills and commitment to fostering Turkey’s ties with the Turkic region.
Second, Turkey’s Islamist communities share an interest in maintaining ties with the Muslim and Turkish populations of the former Soviet Union, and already have played a very valuable role in developing an education network that strengthen cultural and intellectual ties with Turkey. Turkey’s own moderate Islamist movements also can help moderate the emerging forces of political Islam in Central Asia that will grow importance with each passing year.
Third, Turkey’s liberal democratic sector shares a strong interest in helping foster democratic governance in these former Soviet areas that are still deprived of democratic process.
Finally, Turkey is also the recipient over hundreds of years of large numbers of Caucasian and Central Asian minorities. These communities will certainly exert increasing influence over Turkey’s foreign policy orientation, tend to view Russia with deep suspicion, and will encourage Turkish activism. Turkey is entering a new era with the states of the Caucasus and Central Asia because it never had an opportunity for normal state to state relations in the past—there were no independent Turkic states in the modern sense until recently.
Over time we expect that modest but consistent Turkish investment, valuable educational and cultural ties and other programs will help cement special relationships between Turkey and other Turkic regions.
Because of the natural tensions between Russia and Turkey in the Muslim and Turkic areas of the former Soviet Union, Turkey will need to maintain allies in the region who support similar goals. Chief among these is Iran that under normal circumstances has deep distrust for Russian policies, shares with Turkey the same structural tensions with Russia.
Both Iran and Turkey share a mutual interest in helping maintain the independence of these Muslim regions. Overall, if Turkey must choose between ties with Iran or Russia, the Iranian ties are ultimately the more important.
Support for democratization must be a key feature of Turkish relations with China. While practical interests may dictate some degree of cooperation with China’s dying quasi-communist authoritarian regime, over the longer run democratizing forces will play a greater role in China, with important implications for China’s minorities, especially the Uighur Turks of Eastern Turkestan or Xinjiang.
Turkey has a direct interest in the welfare of this 10 million strong Uighur community, the oldest and first literate Turkic people of the world with a strong community in Turkey. Settlement of Turkey’s Kurdish issue will bring freedom to look objectively at the Uighur issue without concern for possible Chinese support for the Kurds in response. Turkey’s nationalist and Islamist forces, as well as liberal democrats, will show special concern for these ties and for the democratization agenda. Turkey’s modest commercial interests with China should not deter Turkey from looking beyond narrow neo-communist party rule to a future liberal China.
Turkey must also be mindful of China’s geopolitical ambitions in Central Asia. China is bidding to play a major role there, which displaces Russia and ultimately could prove the dominant force in the region. China has already displaced Russia as the major source of consumer goods and is already planning to build oil and gas pipelines across Central Asia to make it a major consumer energy and a major geopolitical player there. An expansionist authoritarian China represents a challenge to Turkish interest in the region. It is not in Turkey’s interest to see China become the dominant force in Central Asia, which suggests that Turkey must seek to ensure a balance between Russian and Chinese power there.
Close ties with Europe are at the heart of Turkey’s future domestic and foreign policy. Without ties to Europe Turkey’s democratization process will be severely hindered and no ambitious grand foreign policy is possible. And without democratization, close Turkish ties with the EU are also impossible.
A Turkey isolated by Europe will become more Middle Eastern in nature – more authoritarian and less stable. Non-integrated into Europe, Turkey becomes more of a problem to both Europe and Washington.
Conversely, contrary to the opinion of many, Turkey’s democratizing role in the Balkans, Caucasus and Central Asia will strengthen Turkey’s prestige and role in Europe and make it more important and desirable in European eyes.
Furthermore, Turkey’s Islamic identity will not, in the long run, hinder Turkey’s entry into the EU, for it will be the very presence of Turkey in the EU which will demonstrate that Europe truly embraces universal values above narrow Christian or European ones. And Turkey’s ties with Europe enhance its credibility in calling for democratization in Asia as well.
We believe that Greek-Turkish relations will be increasingly handled within the context of EU relations, since the issue is losing its former strategic importance to the US.
We devote limited space to the Turkish-US relationship mainly because the issues are well known and exhaustively treated on a regular basis in both countries.
Needless to say, the US represents the single biggest reality in Turkish foreign policy. As important as this relationship is, however, we believe over time Turkey’s democratizing agenda will bring it closer to Europe and distance it, in part, from the US: Europe has greater interest in democratization than does Washington whose strategic security concerns dominate most other interests.
Congressional limitations on arms sales to Turkey will also make other countries than the US more important military suppliers for Turkey over the long run. Economic ties with the US are important, but not as important as Europe. In short, there is no Western option for Turkey outside of Europe.
It is in the area of strategic support that US assistance to Turkey is perhaps most important. For Washington Turkey will always hold major strategic significance, whereas Turkey may be dispensable to Europe, especially since Europe lacks the intensity of global focus that Washington has.
But American and Turkish regional interests may demonstrate some contradictions in the future, especially as the US seeks to balance between ties with Russia and with Turkey.
We foresee Turkey playing a truly major role in the region in the future. Turkish liberalization and democratization will give Turkey the internal freedom and flexibility to adopt a much bolder and principle policy towards the outside world based on self-confidence in its own values rather than on security fears and confrontational politics. As Turkey changes its own internal character, it will be in a position to encourage similar changes in a region that desperately needs change.
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Turkistan Newsletter, published by SOTA, can be subscribed by writing to: sota@wanadoo.nl
The ideas and recommendations presented in this article are those of the authors.