Turkey Shoots Itself in the Foot Over Nevruz
March 18, 2012 § 3 Comments
Nevruz, which is the Turkish name for the Persian New Year (traditionally celebrated the first day of spring) has caused all sorts of headaches for successive Turkish governments. It is a day that is celebrated by Kurds, leading to increased Kurdish nationalism and sometimes to PKK violence, both of which the Turkish government wants to avoid. In fact, Nevruz has been so controversial in the past that its celebration was actually banned in the mid-90s following demonstrations and police shooting and killing civilians in 1992. This year, controversy swirled again after the pro-Kurdish BDP announced that it would be celebrating Nevruz this year on March 18 rather than March 21 since Sunday festivities would get more people into the streets, and Turkish provincial governors responded by ordering celebrations to take place on March 21 as usual.
The reasoning behind forbidding Nevruz celebrations today was to minimize excessive shows of Kurdish nationalism, but as was entirely predictable, the move backfired terribly. The BDP refused to back down, police in Diyarbakır and Istanbul ended up using tear gas and water cannons on crowds that gathered to celebrate/protest, and BDP member in Istanbul was killed during the clashes (rumored to be a Kurdish politician).
Two quick thoughts on this, one specific to today’s events and one more general. First, having state officials attempt to dictate when a non-state holiday is to be celebrated is nothing more than foolish and guaranteed to lead to trouble. Ankara is understandably wary of PKK violence on Nevruz and of louder calls for Kurdish autonomy, but attempting to designate an official day on which festivities can be held is always going to be a losing proposition. There was no doubt that Kurds were going to fill the streets, and that police equipped with crowd control devices trying to stop them would lead to injuries and possibly fatalities. What was the potential upside to doing things this way? Now pro-Kurdish politicians get to loudly proclaim that Turkey’s actions make it a “fascist state” and Kurdish nationalism gets a larger boost than it otherwise would, obviating the very purpose of trying to eliminate a Sunday Nevruz observance.
Second, this type of stuff is going to keep on happening until Turkey finds a genuine solution to its Kurdish problem. Kurdish nationalism is not going to disappear, and the 15-20% of Turkey’s population that is ethnically Kurdish is not going to all of a sudden embrace the Kemalist narrative of “we are all Turks.” Erdoğan’s brief Kurdish opening was a start, but he quickly reversed himself and now again has gone back to trying to sweep the issue of Kurdish nationalism and identity under the rug. Until the government has an open and honest conversation about what to do with its Kurdish population in the long term, Nevruz is going to continue to be a day of violence rather than an innocuous festival heralding the end of winter.
I Wonder What Rick Perry Would Say
March 16, 2012 § Leave a comment
The helicopter crash in Afghanistan that killed 12 Turkish soldiers is a sobering but important reminder that Turkey is not run by “Islamic terrorists” but is a member of NATO and an ally of the United States supporting the mission in Afghanistan. The fact that anyone with such a high level of ignorance about basic foreign affairs was deemed fit at one point to run for president is just staggering. Plenty of people take issue with aspects of Turkish foreign policy, but it is somehow overlooked by far too many casual observers that Turkey has been in NATO since 1952, hosts the 39th Air Base Wing of the U.S. Air Force at Incirlik, and is a linchpin of American strategy in the Middle East.
A Turkish Buffer Zone
March 15, 2012 § Leave a comment
This report is interesting, as it opens up a possibility that would have been entirely unlikely months ago. If Turkey actually goes through with establishing a buffer zone inside Syria, it will be welcomed by those who are advocating intervention as it will move Turkey away from rhetorical support of the Syrian opposition and refugee assistance to active military action against the Assad government. I would be a bit surprised if it happens though, as it will make it easier for PKK fighters to slip through the cracks since there will be a larger border area to cover, and recent Turkish airstrikes and cross-border raids into northern Iraq indicate that Turkey’s willingness to risk a larger PKK presence inside its borders is slim.
Will Israel and Turkey Make Up, Cont.
March 15, 2012 § Leave a comment
Will Israel and Turkey Make Up?
March 14, 2012 § Leave a comment
Last month I wrote about the systemic pressures that might cause Israel and Turkey to reconcile and resume their history of military and diplomatic cooperation. Nimrod Goren has an op-ed today in Haaretz assessing Israel-Turkey ties and arguing – similarly to me – that the two countries have a bevy of shared interests that should theoretically provide a good opportunity for them to get over their feud. I am obviously sympathetic to this argument and hopeful that it will indeed occur, but this is a good place to assess some different theories about what makes states cooperate and what it means for Turkey and Israel.
Political scientists tend to focus on the larger structural forces that shape states’ foreign policies. In the case of Israel and Turkey, the two have a shared interest in balancing against Iran. A nuclear Iran immediately upsets the balance of power in the region and while it evidently presents Israel with the larger threat, Turkey and Iran are in many ways natural rivals. Despite Turkey’s seemingly lackadaisical approach to preventing a nuclear Iran, my hunch is that their softer public stance is a result of Davutoğlu’s “zero problems with neighbors” policy and that behind the scenes they are not eager to see Iran become a nuclear power. On Syria as well, Israel and Turkey both have an interest in making sure that the country does not explode across their borders, and Turkey in particular does not want to see Syria’s Kurds attempt to break away and join up with Kurdish populations in Turkey and Iraq. Goren quotes Tarık Oğuzlu as believing that realpolitik will bring Turkey and Israel closer together, and as anyone who read my guest post on Steven Cook’s blog knows, I agree with this analysis of the geopolitical environment.
There is another strain within international relations, however, and this one is the type of analysis that one almost always sees in the press, which is to focus on individuals rather than the larger system. Read nearly any news analysis in a prominent newspaper or current events magazine and there is almost always an outsized focus on the personalities involved, whether it is a breakdown of Obama and Netanyahu’s relationship and how this drives the U.S.-Israeli relationship or how U Thein Sein’s helicopter tour of his flooded boyhood village turned him into a reformer. Looking at it from this perspective, Israel and Turkey are nowhere close to mending their differences. Both countries are led by nationalist leaders who despise each other and make their feelings perfectly clear, and waste no chance to demonize each other’s respective states. Erdoğan’s latest gem is to accuse Israel of attempted genocide during its recent air strikes in Gaza, while Netanyahu and members of his cabinet like Avigdor Lieberman go entirely overboard and describe Turkey’s government as radical Islamic extremist supporters of terror. Viewed in this light, Israel and Turkey will never make up, and as each side goes tit-for-tat in the war of words, the possibility of reconciliation becomes more remote.
I am a big fan of structural explanations for how the world works. But in this case I worry that structural forces are not enough. Even taking into consideration Israel’s mistrust of any foreign government sympathetic to Hamas and Turkey’s bid to increase its soft power in the Middle East, Israel and Turkey’s spat cannot be explained by structure alone. I think it is crucial for them to get over their differences for a host of reasons, but I am currently bearish on it actually happening.
If You’re A Real Estate Investor, Istanbul Might Not Be The Place For You
March 14, 2012 § Leave a comment
This superb article by Claire Berlinski from last summer on the risks of an earthquake destroying Istanbul is sobering in light of the news of yet another earthquake and tsunami in Japan (thankfully not terribly damaging this time). For anyone who has been to Istanbul, the shoddy construction is legion and painfully apparent, and if you’ve ever rented an apartment there, the newer buildings tout their earthquake-proof status very prominently. Read the article to the end for a list of world cities in which you might want to be particularly careful.
Turkey’s Journalists
March 13, 2012 § Leave a comment
Mustafa Akyol, who is one of the more insightful Turkish columnists and has been very harsh on the press crackdown under Erdoğan, thinks that the worst might be over for Turkish journalists now that Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener have been released from prison. This column comes on the heels of a long Dexter Filkins piece examining the growing quashing of opposition under Erdoğan, which is certainly not a new phenomenon to anyone who has followed Turkish politics over the last decade. I think that Akyol might be jumping the gun just a bit in the glow of Şık and Şener’s reprieves – the bottom line is that the dynamics that have led Erdoğan to become more heavy-handed in his attempts to ensure that the AKP becomes Turkey’s permanent ruling party have not changed. Turkey’s burgeoning economic growth and building conviction that it doesn’t need to join the EU are still in play, as is Erdoğan’s personal popularity and dominant position atop the Turkish political firmament. It also still remains true that Erdoğan’s instincts tend toward the authoritarian side and that he does not react well to challenges.
There is a great word in Turkish – kabadayı – that is used to describe Erdoğan and that captures well the divide between his supporters and opponents. A kabadayı was historically the neighborhood tough or small time gangster, and it carries a negative connotation of being a bully but also a positive connotation as someone who stands up for his own people and those under his protection. To Erdoğan’s fans, he is a kabadayı in the sense of unapologetically fighting for Turkey on the world stage and restoring Turkish honor and prestige. To his detractors, he is simply a bully who pushes people around and brings the power of the state down on his political opponents.
While it is a positive sign that four journalists out of the over one hundred in jail have been released, Şık and Şener were prominent high profile cases, and lots of domestic and international pressure had been brought to bear on the government to release them. I hope that Akyol is right and that this indeed heralds the end to a sorry era for press freedoms in Turkey, but I fear that this is just a momentary blip that is ultimately not going to mean very much in the larger scheme of things.
