Why It’s Good To Know About A Topic Before Writing On It
May 21, 2012 § Leave a comment
Paul Alster had a column yesterday in the Times of Israel predicting a reconciliation between Israel and Turkey. Seems like a reasonable enough proposition, particularly in light of the news that Israel has repaired and returned four Heron drones belonging to Turkey after agreeing to fix them over a year ago. Sure, there are other factors to weigh, such as the Turkish warning to Israel just last week not to violate Northern Cyprus’s airspace or the reports of Turkey vetoing Israel’s participation in this weekend’s NATO summit, but let’s assume that Paul Alster is a glass half full kind of guy. Reasonable people can differ on this issue, and for every sign that the freeze between the two countries is only getting deeper, there are signs of thawing in the relationship.
On the other hand, the specific arguments made by Alster in support of the proposition that Turkey and Israel are going to mend their relationship border on the patently ridiculous, and his command of the facts is, to put it charitably, a bit suspect. Let’s look at some representative examples.
Erdogan (who went out of his way to antagonize and inflame relations with Israel at every possible opportunity) seems to have realized what a grave misjudgement he made in allying himself to two of the most despotic leaders on the planet, and by association being tarnished with the very dirty brush that has seen them gain pariah status across the globe.
I hardly think that Turkey has been tarnished with any brush that puts it at risk of becoming a pariah. At the moment, Turkey is being touted as a model by all sorts of Islamist political parties across the Arab world, is increasingly relied upon by the United States as a vital ally in the Middle East, has the second largest military of all NATO members, is once again making some progress on its EU bid, and is universally viewed as one of the most important actors of the coming decades. Does this sound to you like Turkey’s international status has been put at risk in any way? Undoubtedly Turkey waited too long to give up on Assad, but after that initial stumble Turkey’s reputation does not seem very much worse for the wear.
Exactly what was truly behind Erdogan’s posturing is hard to figure, as he had long been pushing for membership in the EU, and his cozying up to Iran and Syria was hardly likely to endear him to Turkey‘s potential European partners. This ill-conceived strategic gamble has clearly backfired and quickly blown up in Erdogan’s face. The prospect of the EU admitting a new member-state that is joined at the hip with two of the world’s most corrupt and authoritarian regimes was never going to prove a vote winner in Brussels; the tactic seeming to reveal a significant flaw in the political maneuvering of a man who has gradually been losing his way, only three years after he appeared to be a major player with growing influence on the international scene.
Hard as it may be to figure out for Alster, let’s see if we can come up with some reason for Erdoğan’s “posturing” in which he tried to develop closer ties with his neighbors. Might it be Turkey’s stated policy of zero problems with neighbors? Guess it wasn’t that hard to figure out after all.
As for this argument with regard to the EU, Turkey was not exactly sailing effortlessly toward EU membership before it consciously improved its relations with Syria and Iran. More saliently, there are a number of reasons why Turkey is having problems with its accession bid, from European cultural bias to worrying government suppression of the press to discredited witch hunts of military officers. Being “joined at the hip” with Iran and Syria is so far down the list of things that EU member states are worried about that to mention it betrays a staggering lack of knowledge about the real issues surrounding Turkey’s EU bid.
A PLAY IN ONE ACT
Herman van Rompuy: Nice to see you again Tayyip. I must say, you have made amazing progress in your efforts to join the EU. Who would have thought that just months after Sarkozy was out of office you would have made your peace with Cyprus and successfully negotiated all 35 chapters needed to gain accession to our club? We have never before seen such singleminded devotion by an EU applicant.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: Thank you Herman. My fellow countrymen and I are most excited to take our spots in the European Commission, the European Council, the Council of Europe, and your various other bodies that have such wonderfully differentiated names. So when do I get my official EU membership badge?
Herman van Rompuy: Unfortunately, you made the grave mistake of being joined at the hip with Syria and Iran, which is the single greatest flaw we have ever encountered from a prospective EU member and is the subject of the double secret 36th chapter which you have now violated. As such, you are no longer considered to be a “major player with growing influence” – after all, your credibility with Iran, Pakistan, and Sunni Arab states is worthless to us, as is your rapidly expanding economy and military strength. Please confine yourself to Kadıköy and all points east from now on, as we have voted in Brussels to revoke your Europe visitation privileges.
CURTAIN
In recent months, with Iran becoming increasingly isolated by the international community as a result of its alleged development of nuclear weapons, and the Syrian government continuing to massacre large numbers of its own people while driving many more to seek refuge in Turkey — causing a growing humanitarian crisis within Turkey’s own borders — Erdogan’s government, amid rumors that Ankara is keen to re-establish relations with Jerusalem, has been noticeably short on its previously stinging anti-Israel rhetoric.
Right, I forgot about how popular Israel is among the international community. That BBC poll released just last week revealing Israel to be ranked above only Iran and Pakistan in favorability, and in which majorities in Spain, France, Germany, and Britain viewed Israel negatively, didn’t accurately capture the public relations value in Europe for Turkey of cozying up to Israel following Iran’s isolation and Syria’s horrific massacre of civilians (both of which everyone knows are Turkey’s fault, of course). That is precisely why Turkey’s top officials have in the past six months ceased berating reporters for not focusing on Israel’s nuclear weapons or accusing Israel of not wanting peace with the Palestinians or bragging about isolating Israel and bringing it to its knees. Isn’t it great how that previously stinging rhetoric has just disappeared?
This easing of the tensions in the eastern Mediterranean is surely more down to necessity on the part of the Turks than to a sea change in the attitude of their leader. With the door to Europe slammed in their face, Syria and Iran remaining on the international blacklist, no improvement in their relationship with Greece, and problems on their eastern front with Syrian refugees and Kurdish separatists, Turkey is surely keen to find friends in the region.
Yes, Turkey’s isolation is really terrible. Granted, the P5+1 talks were held in Istanbul last month, and Turkey is fresh off the NATO summit in Chicago, and Turkey’s approval rating in the Arab world is 78%, but Turkey is still desperate for a friend, and that is why it is going to make up with Israel. Not because the world’s superpower is pushing for it, not because it benefits Turkey’s tourism industry and export markets, not because the two countries have a long history of military cooperation, but because Turkey is feeling terribly isolated and lonely. I mean, everyone knows that Turkey is just another term for Iranian/Syrian province, right? And oh, let’s not forget about Alster’s reference to Turkey’s “majority secular population” in which 83% of Turks identify themselves as religious and 55% self-identify as either “extremely” or “highly” religious.
I could go on, but I think you get the point. I do not know what your expertise is, Mr. Alster, but it is clearly not this. Israel and Turkey may very well reconcile, but just as a broken clock showing the right time twice a day is not evidence that it is working, an Israeli-Turkish rapprochement will not be a testament to your analytical skills in the realm of foreign affairs.
Magical Thinking On Turkey’s EU Bid
May 16, 2012 § Leave a comment
The swearing in of new French president François Hollande has led to a round of renewed optimism in Turkey over its bid to join the European Union. The Turkish parliament is racing to introduce new legislation that would establish a human rights commission and a panel to deal with complaints about Turkey’s judiciary, and the hope is that these moves will lead France to unblock five chapters in the EU accession talks. On Monday, Germany’s foreign minister said that there is space to once again resume negotiations but that Turkey should not get its hopes up too much since progress on the issue will take awhile. As always, it is interesting to note the difference in the accounts from Hürriyet and Today’s Zaman, as the former includes the German minister’s words of caution while the latter omits them. Zaman does, however, take stock of the elephant in the room, which is Cyprus. Despite the fact that Cyprus is a member of the EU, Turkey’s seaports and airports are closed to Cypriot ships and planes, which is what led the EU to suspend succession talks in the first place. Turkey has no plans to change its policy, and on Monday FM Davutoğlu confirmed Turkey’s position that it will suspend relations with the EU once Cyprus assumes the rotating presidency on July 1. At the very same press conference, Davutoğlu also voiced the expectation and hope that there is going to be a “positive acceleration” of relations between Turkey and the EU now that Sarkozy is gone and Hollande is in his place.
I call this magical thinking because it completely glosses over the real obstacles to Turkey’s EU bid and and ignores the hard facts on the ground in favor of highlighting ephemeral minutiae that will barely register in the grand scheme of things. The actual situation is as follows: of the 35 chapters of EU law that must be negotiated, 13 have been successfully opened, 17 are currently frozen, 4 have yet to be opened, and only 1 has been successfully completed. Furthermore, of the 17 that are frozen, only 5 were blocked by France; the other 12 were blocked by the EU itself or Cyprus, a situation which is not bound to resolve itself any time in the foreseeable future. Turkey is convincing itself that a new French president means that its EU bid is about to begin sailing through, as if perfidious France was the only obstacle to Turkey’s accession, and Davutoğlu is busily crowing about a new era of positive relations while at the same time preparing to freeze all political relations and EU accession talks come July. The notion that replacing Sarkozy with Hollande is ultimately going to make even one lick of difference is laughable. Until Turkey complies with EU demands over normalizing relations with Cyprus, Turkey will remain on the outside looking in. The French could elect Abdullah Gül and it still wouldn’t change a thing.
For what it’s worth, outside experts appear to believe that Turkey’s future if it does not soon join the EU is going to be one that looks very different from its present. Foreign Policy surveyed 59 experts (including heads of state and foreign and defense ministers) about issues relating to NATO, and on the question of Turkey’s orientation in five years if it is still not a member of the EU, 21 believed that Turkey would pursue a revival of Ottoman power, 13 that it would be more closely aligned with its Muslim neighbors, and only 11 that Turkey would still be closely aligned with its Western allies. The point of bringing this up is not to allege that Turkey is on the verge of anything drastic, but to illustrate the European and American perception that Turkey’s reliability as an ally is in many ways contingent on it officially joining Europe in the form of becoming an EU member. If this perception holds and Turkey is not able to join the EU, the consequences will be bad for all parties involved. It is encouraging to see Turkish optimism over the EU once again, but the optimism will continue to be entirely misplaced so long as Turkey continues to fool itself over what true obstacles remain in its path. It is altogether possible that Turkey could do everything that is asked of it and still get rejected for xenophobic cultural reasons, and if that does indeed happen, it will be the EU’s loss. But Turkey as of now is not doing everything that is required to mount a successful accession bid, and that has not changed just because we now have President Hollande.
Turkey Should Not Get Its Hopes Up Over Hollande
April 24, 2012 § 2 Comments
With the prospect that Socialist candidate François Hollande might be France’s next president, there is a renewed sense of optimism in Turkey over EU accession talks due to Nicolas Sarkozy’s role in blocking Turkey’s bid and the expectation that Hollande will look upon Turkey’s application more favorably. Relations between Turkey and France have deteriorated to a once-unimaginable level during Sarkozy’s tenure, a fact that resonates even more today being Armenian Genocide Commemoration Day with the recent hostility between Turkey and France over the subject. There is yet another controversy now brewing over Turkish schoolchildren in France being exposed to an anti-Turkish cartoon dealing with the Armenian genocide, which will only hasten Ankara’s eagerness to be done with the Sarkozy era and what it feels is unwarranted aggression toward Turkey.
Assuming that Hollande defeats Sarkozy in the run-off, Turkey might still want to temper its hopes. Hollande is on record as being more open to Turkey joining the EU as a full partner, but there is still the inconvenient fact that it will not happen during his five year term, so any gains made during that period might easily be reversed later on. It is also true that while Sarkozy has been leading the charge against Turkish EU membership, France is not the only country that is opposed. Many Europeans are nervous about the prospect of Turkey joining the EU and instantly becoming the bloc’s second largest country and with its largest military, and German Marshall Fund polling reflects European nervousness over the economic benefits of Turkish accession. That Sarkozy is not the sole obstacle even where France is concerned is illustrated by the fact that historically, French support for Turkey’s bid has not translated into tangible results. Jacques Chirac championed Turkey’s efforts to join and oversaw a period during which Turkey carried out wide-ranging reforms in order to meet the Copenhagen criteria, yet Turkish accession was repeatedly put off. Hollande may very well be more open to it than Sarkozy, but that is no guarantee of anything.
The other factor is that French-Turkish enmity is not simply a matter of clashing personalities or who happens to be occupying the Élysée Palace. As Yigal Schleifer points out, France and Turkey battle behind the scenes and sometimes in the open for influence in the Middle East, most recently following Qaddafi’s fall in Libya, and that is not set to change with Sarkozy’s defeat. France sees much of North Africa as being in its domain given its colonial history there, and it is threatened by another outside power establishing deep economic ties as Turkey has been doing. The Armenian issue is also not one that was first initiated by Sarkozy; the French parliament voted in 2001 to declare the events in Armenia a genocide and the Assembly voted in 2006 to criminalize its denial (it did not pass the Senate at that time). Turkey-bashing is a popular electoral sport in France no matter who is running, and the emotions that it stirs up are not so easily suppressed once the votes are counted. At the end of the day, a Hollande victory is likely to herald a positive reset in France’s relations with Turkey – although Hollande is considered to be one of the Socialist Party’s most pro-Israel politicians so the continued shenanigans over Israel in NATO forums won’t help matters – but it is not going to be the panacea that permanently puts the Armenian issue to rest in France or mean a fast track victory for Turkey’s EU bid.
