Turkey and Its Neighbors: Foreign Relations in Transition 9781626370890

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Turkey and Its Neighbors

Turkey and Its Neighbors Foreign Relations in Transition

Ronald H. Linden, Ahmet O. Evin, Kemal Kiri¸sci, Thomas Straubhaar, Nathalie Tocci, Juliette Tolay, and Joshua W. Walker

b o u l d e r l o n d o n

Published in the United States of America in 2012 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 2012 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Turkey and its neighbors: foreign relations in transition/ by Ronald H. Linden ... [et al.]. ISBN: 978-1-58826-771-9 (hc) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Turkey—Foreign relations. 2. Turkey—Foreign relations—1980– I. Linden, Ronald Haly. JZ1649.T87 2011 327.561—dc22 2011009473 24.70973—dc22 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

vii ix xi

List of Tables and Figures Foreword, Stephen F. Szabo Acknowledgments

1 Understanding Turkey’s Relations with Its Neighbors

1

Juliette Tolay and Ronald H. Linden

2 Reclaiming Turkey’s Imperial Past

13

Joshua W. Walker

3 From Confrontation to Engagement: Turkey and the Middle East Nathalie Tocci and Joshua W. Walker

35

4 Battles, Barrels, and Belonging: Turkey and Its Black Sea Neighbors Ronald H. Linden

61

5 Energy and Turkey’s Neighborhood: Post-Soviet Transformation and Transatlantic Interests Ahmet O. Evin

89

6 Coming and Going: Migration and Changes in Turkish Foreign Policy Juliette Tolay

119

7 Democracy Diffusion: The Turkish Experience Kemal Kiri≈sci

v

145

vi Contents

8 Turkey as an Economic Neighbor

173

Thomas Straubhaar

9 Turkey as a Transatlantic Neighbor

195

Nathalie Tocci

10 Turkey and Its Neighborhood: Past, Present, and Future

219

Ronald H. Linden, Ahmet O. Evin, Kemal Kiri≈sci, Thomas Straubhaar, Nathalie Tocci, Juliette Tolay, and Joshua W. Walker List of Acronyms Bibliography About the Authors Index About the Book

227 231 251 254 258

Tables and Figures

Tables

5.1 5.2 5.3a 5.3b 6.1 6.2 7.1 7.2 7.3 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4a 8.4b 8.4c 8.5 8.6

Oil Pipelines to Turkey Natural Gas Pipelines to Turkey Natural Gas Agreements LNG Agreements Turkish Emigrants Abroad in 1985, 1995, 2005, and 2008 Indicative Number of Immigrants to Turkey, 2000–2008 Foreign Trade and the Turkish Economy Between 1975 and 2008 Foreign Trade Relations Between Turkey and Its Neighbors, 1991, 2000, and 2008 Entry of People from the Neighborhood of Turkey Economies of Turkey and Its Neighborhood, 1990 and 2008 GDP per Capita in Turkey and Its Neighborhood, 2008 Degree of Openness of the Turkish Economy, 1970–2008 Foreign Trade Relations Between Turkey and Its Neighbors in 1991 Foreign Trade Relations Between Turkey and Its Neighbors in 2008 Foreign Trade Relations Between Turkey and Its Neighbors: Difference 2008–1991 Turkish Migrants Abroad in 1985 and 2008 Value Added in Agriculture as Percentage of Total GDP in 2008

95 98 106 111 121 122 147 148 149 175 176 177 177 178 178 180 189

Figures

4.1 4.2

Black Sea Pipelines and Tanker Routes Proposed Pipelines vii

64 65

viii Tables and Figures

4.3 4.4 4.5 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 6.1 8.1

Turkish Trade with Russia Turkish Trade with Romania Turkish Trade with Bulgaria Oil Pipelines to Turkey Bota≈s Projects: Turkey as an East-West Energy Corridor and East-West Energy Terminal Natural Gas Pipelines to Turkey Total Energy Consumption and Natural Gas Demand in Turkey Regional Trends in Movement of People into Turkey, 2000–2009 Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) Inflows to Turkey, 2000–2009

70 73 76 92 93 97 105 123 182

Foreword Stephen F. Szabo

This volume on Turkey and its neighbors is the product of over ten months of intensive and close collaboration devoted to exploring the course of key changes in Turkey’s foreign relations. Six scholars were in residence at the Transatlantic Academy, based at the German Marshall Fund, from September 2009 through June 2010 and were joined by a seventh, the Helmut Schmidt Fellow of the Zeit Foundation. The Transatlantic Academy is a unique place where both younger and more senior scholars from Europe and North America spend their residency working together on a theme of importance to the transatlantic community. The theme changes every year, and during 2009–2010 the fellows focused on the dynamics of how a changing Turkey interacted with its own neighborhood. This theme was chosen by the donors of the academy because of the centrality of Turkey to both the European Union and the United States. More than ever, Turkey is a key state in a pivotal region, and its future evolution will be important to the future of Europe and the transatlantic relationship. This was underlined dramatically during this fellowship year, as the relationship of Turkey to the West was continually in the headlines. Key events included a trip by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoπan to Washington; the signing of breakthrough protocols normalizing relations between Turkey and Armenia; the temporary recall of the Turkish ambassador to Washington in protest over a vote by the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on the Armenian genocide resolution; the chilling of Turkish-Israeli relations exacerbated by the Mavi Marmara flotilla incident; the attempted TurkishBrazilian mediation with Iran on its nuclear program, coupled with the Turkish “no” vote in the UN Security Council on further sanctions; and Turkey’s agreement to participate in key energy projects—including gas, oil, and nuclear power projects—sponsored by both the EU and Russia. These and other actions in and by Turkey raised questions and concerns in the West over the nature and direction of the country, especially its foreign policy. The authors of this book came together to design their research project months before the fellowships began. During their residence in Washington, ix

x

Foreword

they met often—sometimes daily—to discuss and critique each other’s work. They undertook study trips to Romania, Azerbaijan, Syria, Palestine, Israel, and Turkey to collect materials for their study and to interview scholars and policymakers. In the spring of 2010 they published a collaborative policy report, Getting to Zero: Turkey, Its Neighbors and the West (Washington, DC: Transatlantic Academy, 2010). This report was presented to policy and academic audiences in Turkey, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Canada, and the United States. The year’s research, exchanges of views, and in-country visits provided the basis for the in-depth treatment found in this volume. The fellows presented first and second drafts of their work to each other and to the Bosch Public Policy Fellows at the academy, as well as to staff members of the German Marshall Fund of the United States who were knowledgeable about Turkey and its foreign policy. Chapters were also presented at the annual meetings of the International Studies Association, the Council on European Studies, and the American Political Science Association. At several stages the chapters were edited by Ronald H. Linden, and final revisions were made based on the comments of anonymous outside reviewers arranged by Lynne Rienner Publishers. —Stephen F. Szabo Executive Director, Transatlantic Academy

Acknowledgments

As the Transatlantic Academy provided the venue and opportunity for this kind of concerted effort, we would like to thank the academy for this extraordinary opportunity. We also greatly appreciate the time and candor of our many interlocutors in Washington and in the countries we visited. Along with the Transatlantic Academy itself, we would like to express our thanks to the donors of the academy: the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius ZEIT Foundation, the Robert Bosch Foundation, and the Lynne and Harry Bradley Foundation. We would also like to thank the European Recovery Program of the German government and the Compagnia di San Paolo for additional support. Special thanks to the GMF staff including Ian Lesser, Peter van Praagh, Özgür ˜nlühisarcªklª, and Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, who gave their time and ideas to the project. The Bosch Public Policy Fellows deserve a special mention for their contribution to the development of this book. These include Hugh Pope, F. Stephen Larrabee, Katinka Barysch, Sinan ˜lgen, and Michael Thumann. Several of the authors benefited from the energy and commitment of research assistants and would thus like to thank Binio Binev, Onur Tanay, Maro Youssef, Emre Tunçalp, and Yasemin Irepoπlu, as well as Studio Graphique Loys, which helped with the design of the graphs and figures of the book. Anna Murphy, Erica Cameron, and Laura Blyler of the academy staff provided crucial and timely assistance at all phases of the project. Basak Ural went through the entire volume to insure uniformity in the use of German and Turkish languages, correct the notes and bibliography, and prepare the index. Finally, special thanks go to Ronald Linden, who served as the lead author and was instrumental in both shaping the final product and finding and working with the publisher. —The Authors

xi

Over the last seven years Turkey’s policy has been to ensure “zero problems” in this neighborhood. —Ahmet Davutoπlu Foreign Minister of Turkey

1 Understanding Turkey’s Relations with Its Neighbors Juliette Tolay and Ronald H. Linden

This is a book about Turkey—more specifically, Turkey’s relations with its immediate neighbors. Located center stage in a multiplayer international drama, Turkey’s “neighborhood” includes a remarkably diverse set of states, economies, and societies. There are former imperial territories and adversaries in the Balkans and the Middle East, new EU members along the Black Sea, and energy-rich post-Soviet states on the Caspian Sea. Given their past and present, these countries have a complex set of ties with Turkey, reflecting their politics and economics, their international postures, and their internal situations. Because of this region’s significance in contemporary geopolitical, economic, and cultural relations, Turkey’s acts toward the people and governments of this region also resonate with countries and organizations that are geographically more distant but still politically significant, like the United States and the EU. Therefore, this book about Turkey and its neighbors is also about Turkey and its transatlantic ties. This book’s theme centers on Turkish foreign policy, especially the extraordinary changes in Turkish policy in recent years and the factors that might explain those changes. Turkey has gone from being a Cold War bulwark against communism and Soviet expansion, through a period of tentative exploration— and sometimes confrontation—with its neighbors, to a period of redefinition and often breathtaking activism. But while Turkish foreign policy is a good starting point for analysis, this book is, more broadly, about Turkish foreign relations. What states aim to do, what their policies promise, tells only part of the story, the part about the intentions of governments or leaders. The results of foreign policy steps, the reactions of target groups or states, constitute the other part. Foreign relations outcomes are often not the same as foreign policy intentions. Turkey has discovered, for example, that while it may be aiming to have “zero problems” with its neighbors (to use Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoπlu’s phrase), the neighbors have something to say about whether that lofty goal is achieved. And internally, as leaders in democratizing states have discovered, foreign policy is policy and, as such, is subject to debate, discussion, and diversion by newly empowered domestic actors.1 1

2 Juliette Tolay and Ronald H. Linden

The authors of this volume aim to explore the complexities of Turkey’s relations with its neighbors and the implications of changes in these relations for Turkey and for those who pay attention to Turkey. The contributors begin from the perspective that Turkey’s relations with its neighbors have changed dramatically in the last decade. But they recognize that the new activism is, in some part, based on developments in and perceptions of the recent (1990s) and more distant (Ottoman) past. The authors focus on Turkey’s externally oriented actions, generally referred to as “foreign policy,” but they appreciate the role that two-level games that is, domestic and international politics, might play in that policy.2 In fact, the authors consider mind a broad range of internal and external factors and actors that might lie behind changes in Turkish policy, including, for example, the role of energy needs, personalities and ideas, the economy, and the political structure, but their investigations do not privilege one set of factors or one explanatory approach. Each chapter begins by recounting the nature of changes in Turkey’s recent actions toward a particular set of neighbors, for example, those near the Black Sea or in the Middle East, or a particular dynamic such as economic ties, migration, or democracy diffusion. Each then offers an argument that highlights the set of factors, domestic or external, human or national, that seem to offer the best explanation for why these changes have occurred.

Dramatic Changes in Turkey’s Foreign Relations

Turkey’s behavior in its neighborhood in the first decade of the new century stands in sharp contrast with that of the 1990s. After the end of the Cold War, Turkey stood as a tough neighbor in a tough neighborhood, one that included two major zones of instability, the Balkans and the Middle East.3 On three occasions, Turkey came to the brink of war with one of its neighbors: Armenia in 1992, Greece in 1996, and Syria in 1998. Regular military incursions were launched into Northern Iraq; in the Aegean, continual tactical provocations between the Greek and Turkish air forces took place. Little effort was invested toward the resolution of the Cyprus issue, and at one point Turkey even threatened to annex the northern part of the island. Ties with post–Cold War Russia were tentative and burdened by a long history of tension and conflict. Relations with Iran were soured by the Kurdish conflict and political Islam. Turkey’s overall approach to its neighbors was characterized by confrontation, mistrust, and the use of threats and force. Yet, despite tensions over domestic issues such as Turkey’s human rights violations, widespread use of torture in prisons, and the rights of the Kurdish minority, Turkey remained a strong transatlantic partner. The contrast with the current situation is striking. Relations with Greece have improved substantially since the beginning of rapprochement in 1999, and in 2004 the Turkish government reversed its position on Cyprus to support the Annan Plan for reunification. Turkey is now not only at peace with Syria, but

Turkey’s Relations with Its Neighbors

3

also is engaged in close political and economic cooperation with Damascus. A similar improvement of relations with Iraq culminated in the first-ever visit of a Turkish head of state to Baghdad in 2009 and the establishment of official relations with the Kurdish Regional Government in Northern Iraq. Turkey has also begun a process of reconciliation with Armenia aimed at reopening the border—closed since 1993—establishing full diplomatic relations, and jointly investigating historical events that burden contemporary relations. Gains from trade and recognition of common interests have substantially improved relations with both Iran and Russia. Turkey’s active foreign policy, which first aimed at improving bilateral relations and regional cooperation in the Balkans and among former Soviet states, has now been extended to the Middle East, the Gulf, and North Africa, as well. This has not occurred without costs. One result of the Armenian overture, for example, has been a disruption of relations with Turkey’s “brother” Azerbaijan. And Turkey’s improved relations with Syria and Iran have been accompanied by sharply deteriorating relations with long-time ally Israel. The level of tension between Turkey and Israel, and to a lesser extent between Turkey and the United States, escalated in spring 2010 with the “Free Palestine” flotilla incident and Turkey’s vote in the UN Security Council against sanctions on Iran. The chilling of relations between Turkey and Israel and Ankara’s intensified political, economic, and cultural ties with Iran and some Arab states in the Middle East is a shift that has drawn much international attention.

Different Views on Changes in Turkish Policy

European and US observers with a long-standing interest and stake in Turkey are struggling to interpret these changes—and some are alarmed. One line of interpretation has been to see Turkey as “shifting East” and consequently as being “lost” by the West.4 In this view, Turkey has abandoned its traditional place in the Western camp in order to pursue trade and energy ties with Russia or with pariah states of the Middle East, Syria and Iran. This new Eastern orientation is read through the lenses of balancing and realigning strategic interests: that is, the creation of an “axis of the excluded” with Russia as a reaction against US policies5 or as an alternative to the European project.6 Beyond strategic considerations, cultural arguments are advanced, as well. Turkey under the AKP (Justice and Development Party) is seen as giving up on “becoming European” and reverting to its Asian or Muslim roots by reengaging its Middle Eastern neighbors.7 Some interpret the change of Turkish relations as the product of an illiberal drive within the Turkish political system at times linked with the Islamic character of the government. According to this view, Turkey feels more at ease with Muslim regimes, such as those in Iran and Syria, and undemocratic ones, such as Russia’s.8 Other, more common, interpretations often apply simple but misleading metaphors. Turkey is seen as having evolved from a “barrier” to a “bridge” to

4 Juliette Tolay and Ronald H. Linden

a “model.” After the end of the Cold War, Turkey’s position as a barrier protecting the West from Soviet expansion was recast as that of a bridge to Central Asia, the Caucasus and Caspian Sea, or the Middle East.9 In the 2000s, the bridge metaphor evolved into the idea of Turkey as a model or spearhead of Western liberal ideas and practices, especially in the Muslim world.10 All of these notions were based on a view of Turkey as an instrument, as part of a wider policy of engagement defined and implemented by other, more powerful, states. Turkey was a piece of someone else’s puzzle. An alternative to such views is to understand Turkey’s new activism in its neighborhood and elsewhere as a product of Turkey’s own determination of its role as a regional power, one derived from its own perceptions, history, and political struggles. Turkey is in the process of redefining its identity and place, first of all in its own neighborhood, and is gaining self-confidence as it acts as a regional power. As part of this dynamic, some Turkish actions, such as its recognition of Kosovo, will be compatible with the desires of the Western powers, the United States and the EU; others, such as pursuing a vigorous relationship with Iran, will not. Turkey’s leaders see such complexities as normal and, moreover, as part of the multidimensional diplomacy that European powers often used when it suited their purposes. If Turkish policy is “Janus-faced,”11 it signifies Turkey’s engagement with both East and West, not an abandonment of its old allies.12 As Foreign Minister Davutoπlu put it, Turkey’s policies aim at being “complementary not in competition.”13 All metaphors, like monocausal explanations, offer parsimony at the expense of some understanding. The challenge to the authors of this volume is to try to unpack the causes behind the changes that have occurred in Turkish foreign relations, while recognizing the inherent complexity of any dynamic involving humans and their states. This is all the more difficult given the variety of states, regions, and people with which Turkey is now engaged and the significance, in terms of broader world politics, of its actions. By virtue of its history and location, Turkey finds itself not only in the midst of many—and many conflictual—neighbors, but smack in the middle of several critical issues affecting states in its neighborhood, such as conflict in the Middle East and the Caucasus, and those beyond, such as energy provision, nuclear proliferation, human migration, the role of religion, and the diffusion of democracy.

The Approach of This Volume

Classic works on Turkish foreign policy, such as William Hale’s Turkish Foreign Policy and Philip Robins’s Suits and Uniforms, tend to be all-encompassing and typically focus on hard power. The current volume approaches the topic from a perspective that is more limited geographically but more expansive analytically. The aim is to offer a nuanced understanding of the changes in

Turkey’s Relations with Its Neighbors

5

Turkey’s relations with its neighbors. While those changes are set in the broader context discussed in other works14 and certainly intersect with EU-Turkey15 and US-Turkey relations,16 this volume’s focus is Turkey’s “neighborhood.” By this we mean the Black Sea, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. The time frame of the book is contemporary, focusing on the recent transformation of Turkish foreign policy and its response to changes in its immediate neighborhood, globally and inside the country.17 Conceptually, the chapters in this volume are not enclosed within a single theoretical frame, either constructivist18 or realist,19 and they draw from different disciplines. In each chapter the authors look at state foreign policy and the political and economic factors underlying that policy. But all of the authors are also sensitive to the role of nonstate actors, a relatively new force in Turkish foreign relations. To keep the task manageable, the authors have divided the map of Turkish foreign policy along geographic and thematic lines. Nathalie Tocci and Joshua Walker examine the Middle East in Chapter 3, and Ronald Linden, the Black Sea area in Chapter 4. It is a measure of the sea change in Turkish foreign relations that relations with Greece no longer dominate the policy or analytic focus. Thus, unlike virtually all other works on the subject, or books that deal primarily with Turkey-EU relations, our study of Turkey’s foreign relations includes no separate chapter on Greece. At the same time, to the extent that issues with Greece or those involving Cyprus affect the dimensions and regions treated here, they are included. Moving away from a geographic orientation, in Chapter 2 Walker also looks at the role of history—that is, the Ottoman idea in Turkish policy—while Kemal Kiri≈sci explores the possible impact of the spread of ideas, including that of democracy, in Chapter 7. Policy areas such as energy, migration, and trade are studied by Ahmet Evin, Juliette Tolay, and Thomas Straubhaar, in Chapter 5, 6, and 8, respectively. Transatlantic relations are an important subtheme in all the chapters, but Nathalie Tocci takes a direct, comprehensive look at the implications of the transformation of Turkish foreign policy for ties with the United States and Europe in Chapter 9. Possible Explanations of Change External Factors

What are the factors that, at first glance, seem most likely to have an impact on Turkish foreign relations? At the international level, economic globalization has meant, for Turkey, an opening of the economy to the external world and greater economic interdependence. Turkey is now the seventeenth-largest economy in the world, and together its imports and exports exceed half of its GDP. Now more integrated with the global economy, the country needs to secure financial and investment flows and reliable sources of both goods and markets. Turkey is dependent on imports for two-thirds of its energy consumption; it needs to

6 Juliette Tolay and Ronald H. Linden

send labor abroad and to host tourists in the country. Technological and informational globalization has also heightened Turkish awareness of what the world thinks of Turkey—and the world now pays closer attention to what is happening there. This means that sometimes international public opinion or international organizations may put pressure on the Turkish government for policy actions, for example, on minority rights. At the same time, the culturalization of international politics has contributed to global polarization. International conflicts are seen by some as stemming from a “clash of civilizations,” with the West and the Muslim world presented as hostile, mutually exclusive forces.20 Policies derived from this view, such as the war on terror, the securitization of migration, and democracy promotion, can have an important impact on Turkey’s ties with its neighborhood.21 In a central geographic zone such as Turkey’s neighborhood, major international actors like the United States and the EU can have great influence. When the United States decides to project its power abroad, as it did in Iraq (1991 and 2003) and Afghanistan (2001), or involve itself in the competition over energy supplies (including those to Europe), its actions are likely to affect Turkey. The unexpected Turkish rejection of permission for the United States to invade Iraq from its territory in 2003 was a turning point in both US-Turkish and Turkish– Middle East relations. At the same time, the EU’s tortured consideration of Turkish membership has an impact not only on the evolving nature of Turkey’s self-definition and domestic politics but also on Turkey’s policies toward its neighbors, for example, by encouraging or discouraging ties in the Balkans or the Middle East. Turkey’s neighborhood also includes another assertive actor, one that is perhaps not a global superpower but certainly a neighborhood force. Russia’s own reformulated self-definition as a “sovereign democracy” with certain areas of “privileged interests” outside its territory was demonstrated most starkly by its intervention in Georgia in 2008. As a neighbor and Georgia’s largest investor and trading partner, Turkey could hardly pretend this was happening somewhere else. But with Russia as its largest trading partner and the major source of its energy supplies, Turkey was hardly in a position to challenge Moscow. Overall, the broader Black Sea zone has become more central to many “external” powers as an important transit zone for energy. But the Russian invasion of Georgia, the EU’s failure to produce a common energy policy, and US preoccupation elsewhere have left each Black Sea state, including Turkey, on its own. To its east and south, the Middle East has also witnessed important political developments right on Turkey’s border. These include the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq; a stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the fragmentation of the latter’s governing authority; Egypt’s waning leadership in the region; and the regional assertiveness of Iran. Turkey has venerable historic ties to these regions, but also growing contemporary cultural, economic, and political links; it is no longer cut off from or hostile to these developments. Instead, it is affected by them and, in some cases, deeply involved.

Turkey’s Relations with Its Neighbors

7

Domestic Factors

In combination with these changes in Turkey’s external environment, changes in the domestic political, economic, and societal spheres might also explain changes in Turkey’s behavior toward its neighbors. At the political level, the rise of the AKP and the strong political support it has enjoyed since 2002 are striking developments in a country more accustomed to unstable coalition governments. Structurally, Turkey has entered a period of virtually one-party dominance. The majority position of the AKP in parliament, the absence of an effective public or parliamentary opposition, AKP control of the presidency, and a weakening of the military institutionally and politically give the government substantial power to transform the country. Domestically, when membership in the EU seemed a reasonable prospect and support of liberal society was in place against an entrenched “deep state,” movement forward on democratization seemed assured. This made possible, for example, the political and legislative reforms required by the EU. From 2002 to 2005, Turkey adopted several harmonization packages to comply with the Copenhagen criteria, which led to a substantial democratization of the Turkish political system and the opening of formal accession negotiations in 2005. Since negotiations began, however, the pace of domestic reforms has slowed. Faced with waning public enthusiasm for joining the EU and an increase in nationalist sentiment, the AKP has since 2005 offered fewer major reform packages, and most of the ones that have been proposed, such as the “Kurdish opening” in 2009, have failed to materialize.22 More worrisome for observers—and political opponents—are the constitutional changes that serve to strengthen the power of the ruling government, even as they are made in response to broad EU urgings on democratization and reducing the power of the military.23 The secular establishment, embodied in the army and the judiciary, has at times challenged the AKP—so far unsuccessfully—resulting in a series of crises: over the election of Abdullah Gµl as president of the republic in 2007, over the legal attempt to ban the AKP in 2008, and related to the government’s arrest in 2009 and 2010 of retired and active-duty military officers charged with plotting a coup. Attempts by the AKP to remove the ban on headscarves for women in public office or to change the composition of key judicial bodies, along with its pressure on opposition media, have caused worries at home and abroad about the direction of Turkish political development and have provoked polarization of the Turkish political system.24 The international implications of movement toward—and away from— greater democracy are multiple. For example, more open political dynamics in general means more involvement by societal actors in issues of foreign relations. Such actors come from the business world (professional associations, business associations) or are trade unions, NGOs, or think tanks. There are domestic lobbies, based either on ethnicity (e.g., Abkhazians) or ideology, such as nationalists opposed to normalizing relations with Armenia. Most broadly, perhaps for the first time in history, Turkish leaders are conscious of the effect of

8 Juliette Tolay and Ronald H. Linden

foreign policy actions on public opinion and thus on their likely reelection prospects. Moreover, because of the rapid spread of information and the growing level of Turkish involvement in neighboring countries, what Turkey does at home does not stay at home. Migrants to and from Turkey, tourists, students, and even the producers of Turkish television shows have the potential to affect Turkey’s relations with its neighbors. At the same time, perceived Turkish backsliding on democracy at home can have international repercussions, such as when the EU weighed in on the possible ban of the AKP in 2008 or when the Kurdish party was banned in 2009.25 Political changes have occurred in parallel with important economic developments. After the opening of the Turkish economy to the world under Turgut Özal in the 1980s, growth combined with instability and high inflation during the 1990s. In 2001, following an economic crisis, Turkey engaged in a thorough reform of its financial infrastructure, which led to remarkable economic growth in the following years and allowed the country to be relatively protected from the recent global economic crisis. Turkey has become much more of a liberal market economy, and activity has shifted from traditional areas of dominance, such as agriculture, to manufacturing and services. There is a domestic geographic dimension to this shift, as well, whereby hubs of economic activity have diversified from Istanbul to include numerous central and eastern cities known as “Anatolian Tigers.” This has stimulated more interest in new markets abroad and allowed new economic actors with different backgrounds to have a stake in Turkish foreign economic (and political) relations. Finally, any discussion of the internal context must take into account the possible impact of somewhat less tangible, but potentially equally important, factors. One is ideology, or, more properly, the role of ideas. The foreign policy vision of Professor Ahmet Davutoπlu, the prime minister’s first foreign policy adviser and then minister of foreign affairs, deserves prominent attention. His notion of a policy designed to ensure “strategic depth” for Turkey informs many of the actions of the country—even if they do not achieve the stated goals.26 Another potentially powerful factor involves identity: Turkey sees itself as—and has been—both a democracy and the heir of the Ottoman Empire. It is reasonable to expect that such self-perceptions will have some effect on its pattern of neighborhood foreign relations. Finally—and probably most difficult to establish empirically—there is the role of personality, in this case that of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoÿan. Because he is the most prominent, and sometimes flamboyant, representative of the government, his personal demeanor, statements, and actions have great impact and must be considered as a possible factor in policymaking as well as policy implementation. None of the authors of this book see Turkish foreign relations as the product of only one of these factors or even one set. Instead, they envision Turkey’s relations with its neighbors as a function of a particular mix of international and domestic environments and agents that together has produced Turkish activism in the country’s neighborhood.

Turkey’s Relations with Its Neighbors

9

Outline of the Book

Joshua Walker, in Chapter 2, analyzes how Turkey has been an outlier for most of its modern history as a Middle Eastern regional power, one that chose to turn away from its region and its past in favor of the West and Europe. Today, Walker argues, Turkey’s contemporary strategic decisions are very much informed by its Ottoman legacy, transmitted through the ideas, memories, and narratives of its political leaders. Given how central they are to the culture and identity of an imperial successor state like Turkey, imperial memories can, under certain conditions, be both causes and results of foreign policies. In Chapter 3, Nathalie Tocci and Joshua Walker examine Turkey’s goals, positions, and policies toward the Middle East, including how Turkish mediation efforts are perceived in the region and what the overall impact of Turkish engagement has been. A particular focus is Turkey’s involvement with Syria, Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and Iran. The argument advanced in this chapter is that Turkey’s Middle Eastern policies can be explained by understanding both the changing international dynamics of the region and the domestic dynamics within the ruling AK Party. Chapter 4 shifts the focus northward. In his analysis, Ronald Linden argues that Turkey’s relations with its Black Sea and Balkan neighbors are a product of both historical antecedents and plans for the future and reflect state-level actions, as well as societal ties, such as those of businessmen and ethnic lobbies. While domestic factors drive important parts of Turkey’s policy toward this region, powerful external actors, including the United States, the EU, and especially Russia, limit the range of Turkey’s power and produce some unintended outcomes, such as enabling an increase in the power of Russia. Ahmet Evin, in Chapter 5, tackles the issue of energy in a volatile neighborhood. Turkish foreign policy faces enormous challenges in the Black Sea region, an arena of fierce global competition for resources and influence. Turkey’s involvement in the energy competition affects relations not only with Russia but also with states in the Caucasus, the Caspian basin, Iran, and Iraq, as well as the EU and the United States. Formulated early in the post-Soviet period, Turkey’s energy policy has pursued the dual goal of ensuring the country’s supply and developing Turkey into a regional energy hub. Evin points to the inherent contradictions among Turkey’s energy policy objectives, its ambition to become an independent regional power, its EU membership goals, and its transatlantic obligations. In Chapter 6, Juliette Tolay analyzes the role played by migration in Turkish relations with its neighbors. Turkey has dramatically changed its policies toward migration, in particular on the issues of asylum, irregular migration, and visas. It is in the process of becoming a more rule-bound, less security-oriented, and, in most areas, more liberal country. Turkish migration policies have become part of Turkish foreign policy. Therefore, Tolay argues, changes in the Turkish foreign policy environment at the end of the Cold War, as well as domestic

10 Juliette Tolay and Ronald H. Linden

changes in the way foreign policy decisions are now made, explain the changes in Turkish migration policies. This, in turn, has led Turkey to be more fully, and humanely, connected with its neighborhood. In Chapter 7, Kemal Kiri≈sci looks at the expansion and impact of Turkey’s cultural, economic, and social relations with its neighborhood, focusing on its potential as a purveyor of democratization. The United States and the European Union played an important role in the democratization of Turkey and the emergence of a buoyant civil society in the last decade. More recently, Turkey—and, in particular, parts of Turkish civil society—has become a conduit for the transmission of ideas supporting democratization and the development of market economies. Kiri≈sci argues that although Turkey does not have a democracy-promotion program resembling those of the United States and the EU, by default it supports the diffusion of democracy in its neighborhood. The fact that Turkish democracy is a “work in progress” in itself facilitates the diffusion process. Chapter 8, by Thomas Straubhaar, presents an economic analysis of Turkey’s role in its neighborhood. Turkey’s economic relations with its neighbors have increased significantly in the past two decades but have remained relatively modest. In the near term, those relations cannot satisfy the needs of Turkey’s economy. The EU was and will be for the next decade the most important economic partner for Turkey. Given the political constraints on the membership process, Turkey will need a strategy that allows it to maximize the benefits of its ties with Europe, including improvement of the existing EU-Turkish Customs Union, and, economically, to “stay open to all directions.” In Chapter 9, Nathalie Tocci explores the transatlantic implications of Turkey’s recent foreign policy transformation. Both the EU and the United States have dramatically altered the environment in which Turkish foreign relations unfold and have directly influenced the role Turkey plays as a foreign policy actor. At the same time, what Turkey has done in its neighborhood raises significant questions for the transatlantic alliance. For example, Is Turkish activism likely to be a benefit or a hindrance to US or European policy goals in the region? Does Turkish policy make a stable, peaceful, democratic peace more or less likely in the Middle East or the Black Sea? Do Turkish policies facilitate the growth of Russian power in the region? The answers are not necessarily self-evident. Ankara’s most important contribution may lie in precisely those areas where Turkish policies differ most from those of the EU and the United States—for example, its status as both “in and of” the region is a characteristic that transatlantic partners cannot duplicate. In the conclusion, all the authors offer their most important finding or lesson from their aspect of the study and then turn their glances forward. Each briefly considers what the major international issues are likely to be for Turkey in the future and, more pointedly, what that will mean for those of us afflicted with a passion for trying to understand developments in this complex and fascinating country.

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11

Notes 1. Kahler, Liberalization and Foreign Policy. 2. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics.” 3. Mortimer, “European Security,” p. 13. 4. Almond, “Losing Turkey”; Menon and Wimbush, Is the United States Losing Turkey?; Moisi, “Who’s to Blame?”; Steinvorth, “Disillusioned with Europe”; Sullivan, “Losing Turkey?” 5. Hill and Ta≈spªnar, “Turkey and Russia: Axis of the Excluded?” 6. Çaπaptay, Turkey at a Crossroads; Steinvorth, “Disillusioned with Europe.” 7. Çaπaptay, Turkey at a Crossroads. 8. Schenker, “A NATO Without Turkey.” 9. See Chapter 9 in this volume. 10. See Chapter 7 in this volume. See also Emerson and Tocci, “Turkey as a Bridgehead and Spearhead”; Ta≈spªnar, An Uneven Fit? 11. Kªnªklªoπlu, “Neo-Ottoman Turkey?” 12. Kalªn, “Is the West Losing Turkey?”; Davutoπlu, “Turkish Foreign Policy and the EU.” 13. Davutoπlu, “Turkish Foreign Policy Vision,” p. 42. 14. Ismael and Aydªn, Turkey’s Foreign Policy; New Perspectives on Turkey “Special Issue on Turkish Foreign Policy”; Turkish Studies, “Special Issue: Turkey as a Transregional Actor.” 15. Tocci and Evin, Towards Accession Negotiations; Arikan, Turkey and the EU; Joseph, Turkey and the European Union; Müftüler-Baç and Stivachtis, Turkey–European Union Relations; Claeys, Dillen, and Theodoracopulos, A Bridge Too Far; Canan, The Impact of Europeanization; Arvanitopoulos, Turkey’s Accession; Akçapar, Turkey’s New European Era; Özcan, Harmonizing Foreign Policy. 16. Aydªn and Erhan, Turkish-American Relations; Hale, Turkey, the US and Iraq; Gordon and Ta≈spªnar, Winning Turkey. 17. For works on the 1990s, see Larrabee and Lesser, Turkish Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty; Robins, Suits and Uniforms; Bal, Turkish Foreign Policy; Martin and Keridis, The Future of Turkish Foreign Policy; Rubin and Kiri≈sci, Turkey in World Politics. 18. For studies of Turkish foreign policy from a constructivist perspective, see Bozdaπlªoπlu, Turkish Foreign Policy and Turkish Identity; Jorgensen and LaGro, Turkey and the European Union. 19. Larrabee, Turkey as a U.S. Security Partner, offers a realist perspective. 20. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?”; Challand and Bottici, The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations. 21. Tassinari, Why Europe Fears Its Neighbors. 22. Öni≈s and Yªlmaz, “Between Europeanization and Euro-Asianism”; Grigoriadis, “Upsurge Amidst Political Uncertainty.” 23. Bölme, Özhan, and Küçükcan, Constitutional Referendum in Turkey; Bali, “Turkey’s Referendum”; Çaπaptay and Özçelik, “The AKP’s Turkey.” 24. Uslu, “Ulusalcªlªk”; ≈Carkoπlu and Kalaycªoπlu, The Rising Tide of Conservatism; Turan, “War at Home”; Turan, “Checking the Opposition.” 25. Schleifer, “Turkey”; EurActiv, “EU Criticises Turkey’s Court Ban.” 26. Walker, “Learning Strategic Depth.”

2 Reclaiming Turkey’s Imperial Past Joshua W. Walker

Turkey’s turbulent birth and the way Turks have internalized that history have been a subject of much debate. Unlike Imperial Germany, whose fundamentally unchanged structure would reassert itself in World War II, or the collapsed Russian Empire, which reorganized itself through the Bolshevik Revolution into the Soviet Union, Turkey ceased to be a global player both by losing its empire in World War I and by choosing to focus internally on transforming Turkish society and culture rather than trying to reclaim its lost lands. Many have compared the defeat of the Hapsburg and Ottoman Empires at the end of World War I, but there is one fundamental difference: The Hapsburgs lacked a clear successor state that could marshal both the resources and the legacy of the former empire, while Turkey stands alone as the former heart of the Ottoman Empire.1 Eight decades later, that successor looks poised to play a greater role in its neighborhood. More than any of the other examples cited, Turkey is most shaped by its identity as the successor state to the collapsed Ottoman Empire.2 It is the natural heir to the imperial space inherited from the former Roman and Byzantine Empires that made the Ottomans the center of Eastern and Western world interactions for over six hundred years. No political entity has been able to exert a hierarchy of order in the international system stretching from the Balkans down into the Middle East and through North Africa since the Ottoman Empire.3 Having been the heart of the Ottoman Empire, the Turks today look back on their history with a mixture of pride and ambivalence. Despite Turkey’s Ottoman Islamic roots, the modern republic was established as a secular, Western-looking democracy. A consequence of that newly created identity was an almost immediate estrangement from its predominantly Muslim, authoritarian neighbors. Many Turks developed a sense of elitism and superiority toward those who were once subjects of the Ottoman Empire. Given the Ottoman Empire’s long and painful decline, Turkey’s decision to abandon its imperial ambitions and settle into a nation-state model that rejected the Ottomans in favor of a sense of Turkish nationalism served as a new unifying narrative. 13

14 Joshua W. Walker

As a result, the imperial reputation of the Ottoman Empire and the historical memory of modern Turkey are filled with paradoxes. On the one hand, the Ottoman Empire is remembered in Turkey largely for its first three hundred years of expansionist history. This period saw the Osman Tribe expand from along the Selcuk-Byzantine border in the late thirteenth century to rule throughout Anatolia and the Balkan Peninsula in the following centuries.4 On the other hand, the series of almost uninterrupted defeats at the hands of the West, including particularly the Hapsburg and Romanov Empires that began for the Ottomans with their second siege of Vienna (1683), are remembered as symptomatic of the decline and backwardness of the empire. Like any modern nation, the Turkish Republic selectively constructed its historical narrative and focused attention on the moments of triumph rather than the anguish of defeats. The historiography of modern Turkey reveals a serious disconnect between the official narratives on the emergence of the republic and the societal perceptions that constitute the state’s evolving identity and memories of its former empire. The majority of analyses and writings on contemporary Turkey and Turkish foreign policy neglect or superficially treat the impact of having once been the head of the Ottoman Empire and the leader of the Muslim world. In particular, the memories of the Ottoman Empire and the Turks’ imperial legacy have often been overlooked in favor of strictly ideological, geopolitical, or strategic explanations as to what has motivated the republic for the majority of its existence, because memories do not fit nicely into any analytical box. Simple and parsimonious explanations of Turkish foreign policy have been tempting given the lack of serious attention traditionally paid to Turkey as an indepen-dent actor. However, in the current environment, the increasing importance of Turkey as a regional power is being recognized and a more nuanced understanding of the context and ideas that shape Turkish decisionmakers’ attitudes is needed. It is no longer possible to simply ignore Turkey’s historical memories because they are too complicated or filled with paradoxes. Today there is a growing interest in the Ottoman legacy for modern Turkish foreign policy and a need to understand the resulting implications and international visions, which have rarely been examined or systematically understood by scholars of international relations or of Turkish studies.5 The irony of Atatürk and his last generation of Ottoman officers seeking to save the empire through establishing the republic left Turkey with extreme ambivalence about its Ottoman past. Atatürk simultaneously tore down the central pillars of the Ottoman political and religious tradition by abolishing the caliphate, while reinforcing his top-down “imperial” modernization approach by strengthening the Turkish military’s institutional role. This ambivalence toward imperialism has led to a contested legacy and tensions in Turkey over its identity, in particular with regard to its imperial past. This chapter traces the way the Republic of Turkey began its life rejecting its Ottoman past in favor of a more narrowly focused national identity centered on Atatürk’s vision of a Westernizing modern Turkey. From that starting point,

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and with deference to the legacy of Atatürk, subsequent leaders have slowly begun to reshape historical memories of the Ottoman Empire and attempted to glorify Turkey’s imperial experiences. During the 1960s and 1980s populist leaders such as Adnan Menderes and Turgut Özal invoked religious and cultural affinity to help serve their own domestic purposes while seeking to broaden Turkey’s memory of the Ottomans beyond the last years of humiliation and defeat. Since the end of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union, Turkey’s main geostrategic rival and threat disappeared, a newly assertive Turkey, informed by Özal’s convictions about Turkey’s role in its former Ottoman space, has become a more important regional player. Prime Minister Erdoÿan has built on the legacy of Özal and has begun to promote Turkey as the natural leader of the Muslim world, largely on the basis of its imperial legacy. By analyzing these particular periods in time and understanding the shifting rhetoric and ideas about Turkey’s imperial past, this chapter seeks to shed light on the connections between Turkey’s changing imperial memories and its engagement with the neighborhood it once dominated as the greatest empire of the region. Turkey’s legacies, memories, and narratives have implications for Turkey itself and for its relations with its neighbors.

Imperial Memories: Remembering the Ottomans

The questions presented and the answers developed in this chapter are based on the premise that ideas such as historical memories of collapsed empires matter on a variety of levels for a postimperial successor state like Turkey. Imperial identities that are supplanted by national identities carry with them the expectations of international prestige and great power that once characterized the former empire. As such, the identity of a former empire is directly affected by the imperial legacy that its successor state is bequeathed, and, more important, the memories that are held about the nature of that empire. The choices that the elites of a former imperial metropolis make in dealing with imperial memories are determined not only by rational self-interest and material capabilities, but also by the particular ideas enshrined in the formation of a needed national identity that might run counter to material and international interests.6 In addition, the reputation or perceptions of imperial rule by the metropolis on the periphery affect international relations between the successor states, and therefore matter for understanding foreign policies in the region. The fact that the Ottoman Empire comprised both Turkey and its neighborhood for close to six hundred years makes understanding how that history has been remembered, internalized, and utilized particularly important. On a theoretical level this chapter lays out an argument for understanding the evolution of the Republic of Turkey, along with two sets of ideas about its place in the world that paradoxically coexist within the historical memories of the Ottoman Empire, or what has been defined more broadly as “imperial memories.”7 This

16 Joshua W. Walker

work draws on research that highlights the interactions between international structural constraints in the aftermath of empire and the resulting domestic political landscape in metropolis successor states. I hypothesize that strong material factors are a necessary, but insufficient, condition for predicting a change in imperial memories. In combination with being an independent power,8 the presence of a weak domestic regime in a successor state leads to the “glorification” of a previous empire, while a cohesive domestic regime will choose to “reject” its former incarnation.9 I argue that once the selection of imperial memories has been explored and understood, the actions of that state can be better contextualized. I further specify the conditions in which successor states might change their historical narratives and their memories of imperial legacies, and I hope to further illuminate the instrumentalized role those memories play in shaping foreign policy decisions. On a practical level, this chapter highlights important instances in Turkish history in which particular types of imperial memories or ideas about Turkey’s past have been fostered by leaders to further their own agendas and to champion changes. However, the process of shaping imperial memories is greater than any individual leader or institution and has typically led to unintended consequences, as will be traced in the examples offered throughout this chapter. The relationship between imperial memories, political leaders, and societies is an iterative one. While a leader may seek to instrumentally use a particular memory to generate support within the population for a particular policy direction, that memory can in turn constrain and trap the leader into a course of action that was unintended. While history can be selectively crafted through state institutions and education, memories are not the exclusive purview of the state and can often be influenced in a democratic marketplace by a series of entrepreneurial actors. Therefore, as a society becomes more democratic, the state loses some of its ability to control the narrative of its past and leaders have an incentive to draw memories from the society rather than the other way around. In turn, imperial memories can be used by leaders to further present political means or foreign policy objectives; they can also be formative in a leader’s decisionmaking process, depending on the particular contexts and circumstances. While causality in foreign policy and international relations is difficult to establish, the examples offered demonstrate the way personalities and parties have shaped the debates and ideas about both the modern republic and its imperial past. Whether imperial memories cause or are the result of foreign policy is not the overarching question; rather, it is whether they are a useful tool for better understanding postimperial successor states like the Republic of Turkey and its subsequent behavior in its former imperial space. The argument advanced through the evidence in this chapter is that imperial memories can be both causes and results of foreign policies, given how central they are to the culture and identity of a successor state like Turkey. As will be demonstrated in this chapter, I believe there is strong supporting evidence in favor of incorporating imperial memories into the analytical toolboxes of scholars of international

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relations and foreign policy. The memories and narratives used by Turkey’s leaders have often been implemented by top-down educational reforms or history commissions, but in tandem with Turkey’s own democratization, the role of imperial memories has become an increasingly politicized and contested domain. Given the resonance of the imperial memories and narratives that connect Turks with the Ottomans, leaders can become hostage to the very past they seek to instrumentalize. The degree to which these memories matter and the ways in which they interact with other factors such as rising economic and military strength are explored in this chapter. Ultimately, however, these changing memories of Turkey’s imperial past laid the groundwork for the eventual shifts that we see today in Turkey’s foreign policy orientation.

Turkey’s Republican Transformation

As the Ottoman Empire dwindled and the European nations modernized their armies at the turn of the eighteenth century, the Ottomans became embroiled in a series of wars that ultimately led to their entrance into World War I on the side of Germany. This led to disaster and defeat. It was from the rubble of the Ottoman Empire that the Turkish Republic was founded. From a defeated, desolate, and occupied people, a revolutionary Turkish leader, Mustafa Kemal, emerged. As the one shining exception to the disaster of the war for the Turks, Kemal was determined to work toward a new nation and to start a new populist movement against the sultan and the remaining framework of the Ottoman Empire, which had accepted the harsh settlements of the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres. Kemal became the logical figure around whom the defeated nation could rally. With his newly formed national army, Kemal, later renamed and honored as Atatürk (“father of Turks”), declared war on the Western occupiers who had arrived in Anatolia in the aftermath of World War I and began to drive them out of Turkey. Turkish troops, led by Atatürk, stormed from their Anatolian heartland and reclaimed its lost territory. In what has been described as one of the most astonishing military reversals in modern history, “Atatürk turned utter defeat into brilliant triumph, ripping to shreds the Sèvres treaty under which modern Turkey was to have been aborted before it could be born.”10 The ideology espoused by Atatürk situated modernization and civilization within a Western model of development along with a particularly strict interpretation of Turkey as a secular state. The establishment of a modern, secular, and constitutionally based nation-state under the leadership of Atatürk created a fundamental shift in the bases of political legitimization and was a major redefinition for Turkey. Both internally and externally, many saw this Turkish transformation as the transition of a traditional society into a modern one. Accordingly—given that Turkey’s geopolitical and ideological orientations both faced Westward—Turkish foreign policy has traditionally been skewed toward Europe and away from Turkey’s other immediate neighbors.11

18 Joshua W. Walker

In support of this transition Atatürk and his top advisors set about eliminating the most sacred Islamic institutions left in the country. With the backing of the military establishment, he sought to change the predominantly Islamic institutions around him, starting with the Islamic caliphate. Prior to the republican revolution, Turkey was considered to be the leader of the Muslim world because of the presence of the caliphate, which was held in great esteem not only by Turks but by the entire Islamic civilization.12 Atatürk’s assault on this religious and political institution dealt a crushing blow to religious power in Turkey. He set about constructing a new state that sought to cut many ties with its pre-republican past and reject all things Ottoman. The sultan was immediately chased out of the republic and his palaces seized by the Turkish state. Two years later the caliphate’s disposal was quickly followed by the dissolution of Islamic courts and a ban on religious brotherhoods in Turkey. Atatürk moved the Turkish capital from cosmopolitan Istanbul, where the Ottoman Empire had been based, to the traditional heart of Anatolia, Ankara. In addition to those institutional changes, he banned various Islamic symbols from the public space. The traditional fez and religious outfits of the Turkish citizen became symbols of backwardness; they subsequently came under attack and were banned in public buildings. Secular state education replaced the traditional Muslim schools of Ottoman times. The 1928 language reforms replaced the Arabic script with a Latin alphabet that severed Turkish from the Middle East explicitly. Atatürk’s reforms stemmed from his desire to help Turkey progress and develop into a “modern” nation-state fashioned after the Western European model.13 By rejecting the country’s link to the Muslim world and its former empire, however, they also led to alienation in its own neighborhood.

Rewriting Turkey’s History

One of the most striking features of the official republican Turkish ideology, nationalism, and policies in the early modern era was their radical nature and self-professed goal of creating a break with the past.14 Toward that end, history and language were significant tools for shaping a favorable domestic environment in which the single political party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), could dominate. Having abolished the Ottoman Empire after the War of Independence with the stroke of a pen, Atatürk set about reeducating the Turkish people about the country’s past. In one of his many speeches he proclaimed, “The new Turkey has no relationship to the old. The Ottoman government has passed into history. A new Turkey is now born.”15 Republican nation building, as part of the modernization project, came to be based on the creation of this new Turkey, which promoted itself as the legitimate heir to the Western-oriented noble Turkish tribes of the past at the expense of delegitimizing the Turks’ OttomanIslamic heritage.

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The central feature of the Republicans’ efforts to construct a new past was reform of education and language. National and international congresses provided a unique forum—indeed were the Republicans’ favorite tool—for introducing and propagating changes in both history and language. The Republican elite set about reinventing the Turkish language and recasting Turkish history in a nationalist mold. The Turkish Historical Society (Türk Tarih Kurumu) and the Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu) were two important institutions of the early republic, and they took on the tasks of creating an official Turkish history and a standardized “bona fide” Turkish language to aid in the nation-building process. This led to the formulations of the Turkish History Thesis (Türk Tarih Tezi) and the Sun-Language Theory (Güne≈s Dil Teorisi) which despite their apparent distortions, were designed to give Turks a new history and identity from which they could derive self-esteem.16 The People’s Houses (Halkevleri) set up across Anatolia by the CHP to disseminate this newly forming ideology became the preferred venue, or vehicle, of the state to reach out to the population at large.17 The dismissal of the Ottoman-Islamic past as a reference point for modern Turkey was the crux of Republican efforts for cultural change, and hence identity transformation. The ideological expression of this rejection can be found in the regime’s perspective on and articulation of history. The connection between the regime’s rejectionist attitude toward the Ottoman-Islamic past and its ideological expression materialized in its official history project entitled Türk Tarihinin Ana Hatlari (The Main Theme of Turkish History). The Turkish Historical Society developed this project, which was eventually termed the Turkish History Thesis.18 This seminal text officially marked the modification and redefinition of Turkishness and the ascendancy of Republican nationalism. Thus, the first official textbook of Turkish national history, prepared and published in 1930 by the Turkish Historical Society, convened under the leadership of Atatürk, concludes with the following: The sons of Osman had long lost the ability and the honor to rule the Turkish nation. During the Armistice the Turkish nation encountered the worst devastation that it had ever faced in its history, which is as old as the history of the whole world. Almost no one contemplated the possibility of overthrowing the enemy armies and establishing an independent national Turkish state. But knowing the heroism of the Turkish nation in battlefields, the hardships it is facing and its need, Mustafa Kemal took on the leadership of the nation and initiated an opposition in Anatolia. . . . Mustafa Kemal, who saved the Turks from the sons of Osman and the worthless Caliphate, formed the Republic.19

The Turks’ failure versus Europe in the nineteenth century is attributed to the Ottoman failure to follow traditionally Turkish elements in favor of Islamic aspects. Following this logic, the Thesis argues that Islam has not been a positive contributing factor to Turkish development, but rather that Turks have provided invaluable services to Islam. The overall picture that emerges from this narrative is one in which the “good” and “noble” Turk is oppressed by “evil” and

20 Joshua W. Walker

“regressive” outside influences. The Ottoman dynasty and everything it represented, including Islam, were all part of the “evil” camp.20 What emerges from this Republican narrative of Turkish national history is the impression that modernity was achieved by the creation of a historical rupture, a break with the past marked by the founding of the republic on October 29, 1923. In order to create a new beginning, an end had to be created as well, which required the distancing of the self from everything that marked the immediate past—that is, Ottoman rule and the caliphate, as representatives of the Islamic legal-political system. Whatever Turkey was declared to be in 1923 had to be something completely new—different from, and better than, what came before. This required the construction of the immediate past as worthless, corrupt, and unredeemable—as something that could not possibly be worth glorifying, but should only be forgotten and rejected. The Turkish History Thesis needs to be understood in the context of the broader Republican project, which entailed a complete break with the immediate Ottoman-Islamic past. The demise of institutionalized Islam and the dynasty, which had pervaded the fabric of everyday life for more than six centuries, created a void that needed to be filled. In addition, the new regime needed to acquire a legitimacy in which it would be the ultimate arbitrator of the nation’s past. The solution that the regime came up with was history. It thus turned the clock back and focused on the Turks’ pre-Ottoman, pre-Islamic past, projecting onto it the principles it was trying to inculcate in the present.21 Toward that end, the Thesis was used to show that the Ottoman Empire had lagged behind contemporary levels of civilization. This portrayal was reinforced in CHP propaganda and in history textbooks that juxtaposed the idea of “old” versus “new”—the latter being the approach used in relating the Republican history, especially its “modern” reforms—with Ottoman history. In these texts anything remotely Ottoman is despised or frowned upon as “obsolete,” “not dynamic,” “archaic,” “oppressive,” “tainting Turkishness,” and “against the will of the people.”22 History textbooks used in the early republic point out the unforgivable and irreparable crimes committed in the wake of World War I by the Ottoman dynasty in the person of the sultan. The foremost accusation is that the Ottoman dynasty betrayed the nation: “Instead of protecting the nation and the homeland, the Ottoman Sultan succumbed to the will of the Allied enemies with nothing else in mind than the well-being of his dynasty and throne by signing the Armistice of Mondros on October 30, 1918 and the Treaty of Sevres.”23 This type of language and portrayal of the Ottomans, and the sultan in particular, served to discredit the old empire and legitimize the modernizing reforms of Republican Turkey. The most interesting characteristic of the Turkish revolution, as noted by Sibel Bozdoπan, lies in the totality of its modernization project.24 For Atatürk, modernization meant Westernization, secularization, and autonomy of religion for the individual.25 According to Bernard Lewis, “Two dominant beliefs of Atatürk’s life were in the Turkish nation and in progress; the future of both lay

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in civilization, which for him meant the modern civilization of the West, and no other.”26 Atatürk’s vision of a Westernized Turkey was not a mere facade. He believed strongly that superficial modernization was worthless and that fundamental changes were necessary in the structure of Turkish society and culture if the nation were to hold its own in the modern world. Rejecting Turkey’s Ottoman legacy allowed Atatürk to reshape a new nation unhindered by the historical baggage and problems that he experienced in the last days of the Ottoman period. As a result, his legacy of the republican revolution subsumed the Ottoman legacy by rejecting the new republic’s immediate past and transformed itself into a nationalist ideology that has guided Turkey for the past eighty years of existence.

Opening the Door to Turkey’s Paradoxical Views

Despite the tumultuous events and changes in Turkey from the 1930s onward through World War II and into the Cold War, the nation’s curriculum, identity, ideology, and narrative kept its Republican form with few changes. History textbooks from the 1930s through the 1970s reveal an amazing level of continuity.27 The changing societal attitudes toward Islam and the shifting pattern of elites moderated Turkey’s negative view of its Ottoman past but did not fundamentally reverse the rejectionist memories that had been instilled by Atatürk and his reforms of the 1930s. The emergence of a multiparty system in Turkey—in the aftermath of World War II—altered the incentives for political parties and leaders by allowing electoral politics to determine the fate of particular ideas and policies. With the demise of the one-party system and without the personal charisma and leadership of Atatürk, no leader or political party could enforce the radical changes and reforms that had constituted Republican history until 1946, when Turkey’s first democratic multiparty election took place. From that point onward, ideas and memories of the past became the battlefield on which ideational and electoral wars would be waged for the hearts and minds of Anatolia. The CHP, once seemingly invincible because of Atatürk’s legacy and party apparatus, struggled in elections to maintain a successful ruling coalition, eventually being defeated by a new charismatic leader, Adnan Menderes, and his Democrat Party (DP) in the 1950 election. This new ruling coalition came to power by appealing to the economic elites, championing societal causes of the masses, and using Islam in subtle ways to win votes. During the ten years of DP rule, Turkey’s official ideology and rhetoric were not changed; however, new ideas and debates about the country’s role in its region, which had never been questioned during Republican times, began to arise. Taboo subjects such as the role of Islam in Turkey and Ankara’s relationship with its Arab neighbors were raised for discussion and naturally led Turks to turn to their Ottoman past. As predicted by the original theoretical insights on imperial memories, the CHP, as

22 Joshua W. Walker

a strong regime, had always held a firm line on rejecting Turkey’s imperial past, while the DP, as a weaker regime, incrementally began to move away from that extreme rejectionist line to bolster its own domestic strength. The door was opened to imperial memories, and, while these changing memories were not a driving force for foreign policy during this time because of the international environment of the Cold War and Turkey’s relative dependency on the United States, they had an important effect on Turkey’s internal modernization and secularist understanding of itself. Domestically, a more open and nuanced discussion about the role of Islam in Turkey was allowed for the first time since the birth of the republic. Internationally, Turkey joined its first comprehensive security organization, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and its first Middle Eastern security pact (the Baghdad Pact). Yet it was on the domestic level that the DP ultimately met its match—in the form of a military coup that was tacitly supported by both its former allies in the economic elite and its enemies in the bureaucracy. As the leader of the strongest party, Menderes still presided over a weak regime that included many unelected forces, such as the bureaucracy and military, that disliked the challenge the DP represented to their control over the republic. This coalition held a common cause against Menderes but after his removal in 1960 could not agree on a stable ruling establishment. That led to the further strengthening of the role of Turkey’s military as political stabilizer. The post-1950s saw the flourishing of two different thematic versions of Turkey’s national identity that emerged from Republican history. The version promoted by the so-called Kemalists, who claimed the mantle and memory of Atatürk as their own, was a radical and secular vision of Turkey isolated from its neighborhood and past.28 This view emphasized the culture, language, and geography of the “new Turks” who had emerged from Central Asia en route to Europe. In contrast, a Turkish-Islamic vision of Turkey emerged, one that had been initially discredited in the aftermath of empire as a result of the negative portrayals of the Ottoman Empire and the extreme rejectionist memories fostered by the ruling Republican elites. This second strand had reemerged under Menderes in the 1950s but gained its greatest traction after his removal. While still separating Turkey from its Ottoman past, this orientation emphasized the importance of Islam to the Turks if for no other reason than as a unifying factor. The distance between the republic and empire was thus shortened over time, and the ideology of the state became further democratized and flexible to meet the needs of the various ruling elites.29 It is important to note the irony of the self-proclaimed followers of Atatürk, one-time Ottoman reformers, now rejecting their former empire, and Anatolian peasants who had been discriminated against in the empire now glorifying the very entity that had cost them dearly through a series of wars ending in World War I. The inherent paradoxes of memories in Turkey—in particular, imperial memories—demonstrate the tenuous relationship between historical facts and the ways people remember them. The evolution of Turkey’s imperial memories followed the general trajectory of the nascent republic. While shifts in imperial

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memory, which can be traced to the language reforms in 1928 and the first multiparty elections in 1946, were never as formative as the founding of the republic in 1923, they are instructive in understanding the development of early Republican Turkey. Turkey was clearly a successor state to the Ottoman Empire, yet it moved from a moderate then extreme rejection five years after its birth to gradually accept a historical narrative that rejected its imperial legacy. Atatürk’s disdain for all things Ottoman gave way to Menderes’s populist imagining of Turkey reconciling with its Islamic past. While still on the secular and modern path prescribed by Atatürk, Turkey during the Cold War no longer saw itself as simply being a clone of the West that had pre-occupied many of the early modernization reforms. Turkey’s unique history and memory of its past contributed to the evolving pathway that led into the 1980s.

The 1980s and Turkey’s New Synthesis: Turgut Özal

After three successive military coups in 1960, 1971, and 1980, Turkey’s democracy and prevailing political elites struggled to maintain power beyond urban centers without the support of the military and the state bureaucracy. This led to the emergence of a counterbalance with the rise of religious elite in the countryside and conservative Turkey. Their reemergence was matched also by a new ideology that sought to revise the relationship between Turkishness and Islam. This ideology was first formulated by right-wing nationalist academics in the 1950s. However, the actual ideological articulation, which came to be known as the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis (Synthesis), was not expressed publicly until 1972, at a history conference, by a small advocacy group called the Hearth of Intellectuals (Hearth), which became extremely influential. As articulated by its members and publicly declared at that conference, the Hearth maintained that true Turkish culture was a synthesis of the Turks’ pre-Islamic traditions and Islam. What the Hearth tried to do through its Synthesis was, first, to promote Islam as an integral part of Turkishness and, second, to increase the proportion of Turkish, especially Central Asian, history at the expense of world history. In short, this new thesis brought about a much more ethnocentric approach to history teaching. Ultimately, the Synthesis was to lay the foundation for a reformulation of the 1930s History Thesis, which had guided Turkey’s rejectionist view of its past for the previous five decades. The emergence of Kemalism as an ideology and as a power base for Turkey’s elites led to a shift during the 1980s in Turkey’s view of the Ottoman Empire that sought to reclaim certain aspects of its glorious past while ignoring some of its shortcomings. As evidenced by the new type of discourse promoted by the Hearth through its Synthesis, the stark break between Turkey’s Ottoman “Islamic” past and the new secular republic was reformulated. Given the external and internal pressures for stability in Turkey, there was a confluence

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between Turkey’s civilian and military leaders on the need to reincorporate Islam into the lives of the average Turk. The attempt to reconcile Atatürk’s vision of a modern and secular republic with the cultural and historical affinities rooted in Islam was personified most dramatically by Turgut Özal. As only the second Turkish president (1989–1993) to have no military ties and the first to be an overtly devout Muslim, Özal represented the shift from Turkey’s rejectionist memories to a more glorified vision of its Ottoman past.30 Through his life, policies, pronouncements, and writings, it is clear that Özal not only embraced the Ottomans but looked back on that period for inspiration. Following on the heels of the 1980 military coup, he found common cause with the military when it came to the rehabilitation of the Ottomans in Turkey’s official memory and narrative. The international environment since at least the 1970s had placed Turkey in a position to independently chart its own course regarding its historical memory. With the Cyprus Intervention of 1974, Turkey acted on its own despite Western sanctions. With a resurgent Soviet Union in Afghanistan and Islamic Revolution in Iran, the West had more pressing issues to deal with than Turkey’s internal debates about its historical memories and narratives of empire. Yet it was not until Özal that a true shift could be detected in Turkey’s official memory and historical narrative. The change was not a dramatic restructuring of the type experienced under Atatürk, but rather a more gradual shift similar to that of the 1950s under Adnan Menderes. Given the geopolitical conditions of the time,31 the fact that the Turkish military leaders and then Özal chose to glorify their Ottoman past seems consistent.32 Turkey had experienced domestic turmoil and instability since the 1960s, and the reincorporation of Islam into Turkish political life seemed to offer the stability that political elites so desperately sought, opening a new chapter in Turkey’s evolving political identity. Having reshaped a previously unassailable narrative, Turkey’s leaders adapted Kemalism to suit the environment in which they found themselves. For the military, this included guiding a revival of state-controlled Islam to combat atheistic communism and more radical strands of Islamism within the country. Rather than clinging to a rejectionist view of the Ottoman past, which clearly was not as dominant as it had been during the one-party years, Özal tapped into populist feelings among Turks to guide his Motherland Party to multiple electoral victories with a mix of religious nationalism and imperial glorification. Özal’s foreign policy ambitions have been referred to by Middle East scholar Malik Mufti as representing an “imperial vision” in which Turkey assumed its “rightful” place within the Muslim world. Whereas the Kemalist elites had espoused a vision of isolationism as a result of the traumatic experiences of the Ottoman Empire’s collapse and dismemberment after World War I, Özal’s foreign policy ambitions drew upon those experiences in a completely different way. Özal reasoned that “since developments abroad had consequences at home, isolation was not an option—Turkey would have to shape its environment if it did not want to be shaped by it.”33

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Özal was the first Turkish president to attend Friday prayers and perform the pilgrimage to Mecca. The issue of reorienting Turkey’s foreign policy to be more balanced between East and West became a personal mission. The age-old conflict between Kurdish and Turkish nationalism within the Turkish Republic was also a personal issue, given his own ethnic makeup. (Özal may not have been the first president of mixed Kurdish heritage, but he was the first to openly embrace it as part of his identity.) In Özal’s mind, the solution to that festering problem was the acceptance of a shared imperial past and a common religious brotherhood. He repeatedly referred to the Kurds as being “part of us” and considered them to be Ottoman citizens, which, in his mind, translated to Turkish citizens. He was a political force to be reckoned with; however, he was not able to transfer his personal popularity to his party or institutionally change the character of the Turkish state. As a result, his reforms and foreign policy visions were tied directly to him and, while they laid the groundwork for subsequent politicians, did not directly outlive his tenure. More than any other Turkish leader, Özal represented the unique paradoxes in Turkey. A close personal friend to President George H. W. Bush and Margaret Thatcher, he continually looked to the West for economic inspiration for Turkey. However, when it came to Turkey’s place among the great nations, he believed from the beginning that the country should rely upon its Ottoman heritage. The lessons learned from Özal confirm that individual leadership can have a profound effect on foreign policy orientation; however, entrenched official memories and narratives of the state are not easily swept aside. Özal’s initiatives on reaching out to the Central Asian republics were possible as long as Western support was evident. These initiatives were sold to the Turkish public as being part of Turkey’s reclamation of its imperial past, despite the fact that those states had never been a part of the Ottoman Empire. Gaining consensus for reaching out to Turkey’s Central Asian ethnic “brothers” proved much easier than many of Özal’s overtures to the Arab world.34 In fact, his crowning foreign policy achievements were almost all Western oriented; he was able to win approval from the various factions within Turkey on such issues as opening Turkey’s European Community membership application and supporting the United States during the first Gulf War. Özal’s sweeping foreign policy engagements and dynamic leadership made the period in which he dominated Turkish politics among the most formative in modern Turkish history, whereas the subsequent ten years returned to the divided politics of polarization. With the end of the Cold War, Turkey found itself rediscovering regions that it had abandoned since its Ottoman days. As part of that rediscovery, Özal was able to use the politics of memory to advance his own foreign policy agenda. By glorifying Turkey’s Ottoman past and reconnecting Turkishness with Islam, and through the force of his personality, he was able to maintain an uneasy coalition that collapsed with his death due to a lack of institutional and popular support but opened the way for a subsequent movement that would ultimately achieve his envisioned goal of a Turkey reconciling with its past and its Muslim neighbors.

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Utilizing Strategic Depth: New Imperial Direction?

Glorifying Turkey’s Ottoman past as an intellectual movement and a foreign policy strategy is not a new concept in Turkey, as outlined above.35 While its roots go back to at least the early 1980s with President Turgut Özal, the true flourishing of the rediscovered Ottoman heritage coincides with the current ruling party’s rise to power in 2002. The emergence of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) as a political force in Turkey has rekindled the debate over Turkey’s historical roots and its legacy as a successor state to the Ottoman Empire. As a result of its Islamic roots and Muslim outlook, the AKP has focused on the unifying character of the Ottoman Empire and the Muslim values inherited by the Turkish Republic. Articulating a new vision for Turkey that is not dependent on the West, while actively seeking ways to balance its relationships and alliances, the AKP harkens back to the days of the Ottoman Empire. In particular, the work of Ahmet Davutoπlu, chief foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoÿan and current foreign minister, can be pointed to as the most elaborate articulation of the importance of the Ottoman legacy and memory on the strategic thinking of Turkish decisionmakers. Davutoπlu’s academic writings as professor of international relations and his influential book Strategic Depth argue that a nation’s value in world politics is predicated on its geostrategic location and historical “depth.” Following the logic of Davutoπlu’s proclaimed theory, Turkey is uniquely endowed because of both its location in geopolitical areas of influence, particularly its control of the Bosporus, and its historical legacy as heir to the Ottoman Empire.36 While traditional measures of Turkey’s national power tend to overlook the cultural links fostered by a common history, Davutoπlu emphasizes Turkey’s connections to the Balkans, the Middle East, and even Central Asia. In the same vein, he argues that because Turkey is the natural heir to the Ottoman Empire that once unified the Muslim world, it therefore has the potential to become a transregional power that helps to once again unify and lead the Muslim world.37 Accordingly, Turkey is not simply an “ordinary nation-state” that emerged at a certain point due to the play of circumstances or the designs of the outside powers—like, for example, many new states in Central Europe in the aftermath of World War I. Rather, it is a regional power in its own right, having strong traditions of statehood and broad strategic outreach. Thus, Davutoπlu concludes, “It has no chance to be peripheral, it is not a sideline country of the EU, NATO or Asia.”38 Davutoπlu and the AKP foreign policy strategists contend that rather than being peripheral, Turkey is a centrally positioned international player. For them, “Turkey is a country with a close land basin, the epicenter of the Balkans, the Middle East and the Caucasus, the center of Eurasia in general and is in the middle of the Rimland belt cutting across the Mediterranean to the Pacific” (emphasis added).39 Such a geostrategic vision reflects a newly acquired self-confidence on the part of the AKP, which is supportive of a more proactive foreign policy—particularly in what it calls the Ottoman geopolitical space.40 This orientation is highly critical of Turkey’s Cold War strategy for its myopic reluc-

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tance to embrace the country’s obvious advantages—namely, its rich history and geographical location. Beyond the academic discussions surrounding Turkey’s potential and place in the world, strategic depth advocates seek to counterbalance Turkey’s dependencies on the West by courting multiple alliances to maintain the balance of power in its region. The premise of this argument is that Turkey should not be dependent on any one actor and should actively seek ways to balance its relationships and alliances so that it can maintain optimal independence and leverage on the global and regional stages. The approach exhibited by this foreign policy doctrine is perfectly suited to the prime minister’s personality, and his political rhetoric has resonated in Turkey as a whole. It also stems directly from the political power accumulated by his party. Given the AKP’s unrivaled position domestically, its foreign policy doctrine of strategic depth has also been hegemonic within the country.41 The AKP’s reading of Turkey’s history differs markedly from the traditional pre-Özal republican narrative that sought to sever all ties with the pre-Kemalist past and reject all things Ottoman. The appeal of this interpretation has allowed Davutoπlu to work with many nationalists and ardent secularists within the Turkish state who actively seek to embrace both Turkey’s Ottoman past and its former geopolitical space, those who champion a deliberate revival of the Ottoman past “both as a matter of cultural enrichment, but also as a source of an enriched Turkish identity as a political actor.”42 In this sense, the proposed new strategic outlook is not merely national but regional, and it shifts Turkey’s self-perception of being on the periphery to an understanding that the country is at the very center of important historical developments. Taking this line of reasoning further, it follows that Turkey should strive to take on a larger role in its former Ottoman territories. In this view neighbors should welcome Turkey’s “return” and its willingness to take on greater responsibility for regional stability. Given the tenuous nature of Turkish politics, these developments follow our original proposition that the AKP, though a strong party, represents a weaker overall regime than its Kemalist predecessors given its ongoing conflict with the military and the judiciary, a regime that would seek to strengthen its position by glorifying its Ottoman past and emphasizing its populist credentials. The distinction here is that while the AKP has been a stronger party than any other in Turkey’s multiparty period, it has been met with strong opposition from both the military and the judiciary, thereby creating a contested regime. The counterintuitive result is that while uncontested, weak Kemalist parties enjoyed the full support of the bureaucracy, military, and judiciary institutions, thereby leading to a strong domestic regime, while a strong, contested party like the AKP has led to a weaker domestic regime.

Engaging Turkey’s Ottoman History

The reverence and kinship that Turkey’s modern leaders feel toward the Ottomans come from a personal understanding of their history and the societies from

28 Joshua W. Walker

which they are elected. General trends in Turkey point toward an increased role for history, as demonstrated by the mushrooming of Ottoman museums and exhibits in every conceivable corner of Anatolia. Even well-established museums that have played an active role in trying to periodize and distinguish republican Turkey from its Ottoman past, such as Istanbul’s Military Museum, have begun to glorify and modify their narratives to present a story of continuation from Ottoman legions to Turkey’s modern battalions. Similarly, celebrations in the hometown of Ertuπrul Gazi, the father of Ottoman Empire founder Osman Bey, where the empire was first established as a dynasty in 1299, have ballooned into national events and gained political significance. For example, on September 14, 2008, all major political leaders of the modern Turkish Republic came to pay their tribute to the Ottomans at a commemoration held in Bey’s hometown. This commemoration, which up until ten years ago was merely a local event with no national significance, has taken on a new aura in Turkey today. Given the highly contentious nature of domestic Turkish politics, the appearance of the president, the prime minister, and all opposition leaders extolling the greatness and glory of the Ottoman Empire is seminal. Turkey’s changing memories of the Ottoman Empire, once vilified as a “backward” Islamic empire by Turkey’s secular modernizers, offer a compelling view not only of its past, but also of its present and its future trajectory as a regional power. Turkey’s newly rediscovered Ottoman memories are having a direct impact on how the modern republic views itself. Portrayal of the Ottomans has become almost a national pastime in Turkey, with every citizen, commentator, and politician offering a viewpoint on what the former empire represents for the modern republic. Broken down into their simplest form, the perceptions of the Ottomans can be represented by two views, mirroring splits in Turkey’s national identity. In the first portrayal, the Ottomans were pragmatic strategists who used the office of the caliphate to increase their symbolic strength against a resurgent Russia while forging secular alliances with various Christian European empires. The second view is of an empire that drew its inspiration from Islam and, while less than perfect, represented the best attempt at unifying the Muslim world. Neither view can be disproved by historical arguments or facts, and the advocates of both seek to gain prominence based on the realities of the day.43 While it is difficult to simplistically categorize individuals and political parties on the whole, the militantly secular CHP would clearly prefer to promote the former view, while the more “Islamfriendly” AKP would undoubtedly choose the latter, given its own political calculations and views of Turkey. Because the AKP controls almost all of the levers of foreign policy making and continually emphasizes Turkey’s responsibility toward its neighborhood, this is an increasingly interesting area of research.44 While the diplomatic advantages of being able to point toward a common history and past are fairly obvious on the international level, the domestic consequences of this Ottoman resurgence remain to be seen. The new sense of self and burgeoning confidence personified by Prime Minister Erdoÿan draws directly from a view of history in which Turkey has

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always been centrally located. The historical anomaly from this viewpoint is not the Ottoman period, but the republican period, in which Turkey chose to isolate itself from its neighborhood in favor of alliances with the transatlantic world. While Turkey has traditionally been labeled as either a “bridge” or a “barrier” between its region and the West, it now finds itself playing the role of a catalyst.45 In the words of the prime minister, Turkey under the AKP seeks to bring the principal actors of the region together to transform the Middle East in the same way that US involvement helped transform Europe from “a hotbed of continental and world wars into a geography of peace.”46 However, many in the region are wary of Turkey being nothing more than an agent or functionary of the United States; thus, it must build its assets as a “bridge” of trust for both sides.47 In this respect, drawing on Turkey’s reservoir of Ottoman past has great symbolic value. Given the decentralized nature of Ottoman rule and the weakness of the empire, most of Turkey’s Middle Eastern neighbors have a less contentious view of the empire than do the Balkan states that waged wars of independence against the Ottomans.48 Also, it is important to note the influence of the Ottoman system of distinguishing between Muslim and non-Muslim citizens in the way the millet system functioned. The overall impact seemed to be greater resentment on the part of the Ottoman Empire’s Christian minorities than in its Muslim ruling class, regardless of ethnic differences. Historically, given Turkey’s domestic realities and sensitivity toward the role of Islam, it has proven easier for Turkish leaders and successive governments to engage with non-Muslims’ former colonies rather than Muslims, who might exacerbate internal conflicts and reinforce tensions within the Turkish state. As a result, Turkey’s major activism in the 1990s was in the Balkans and not the Middle East.49 However, under the AKP there has been an attempt to focus equally on all surrounding regions, including the Middle East and the Balkans. The fact that Muslims held a privileged place within the Ottoman Empire and the lack of grassroots nationalist movements among the Arab states until World War I has made Turkey’s reemergence as an actor under the AKP less threatening for the Middle East, as the AKP has actively used the shared Ottoman heritage and history to its advantage. As discussed by Ronald Linden in Chapter 4, the AKP has been equally active in the Balkans despite the attention paid by the West and the domestic opposition to the AKP’s Middle Eastern activism. As discussed in the next chapter, the Middle East and its current realities represent the most malleable and dynamic frontiers for Turkish foreign policy. Although Turkey has had difficulties developing a comprehensive and consistent policy that would serve both its national and its regional interests, a new approach by the AKP seems both possible and necessary. This new Turkish Middle Eastern policy includes the preservation of national integrity, modernization along Western standards, and noninvolvement in the domestic issues of neighboring countries. Turkey seems ready to shed its former policies of disengagement and become an active participant in all of its regions in order to create “zero problems” and foster regional stability. Engaged Turkish behavior in its

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immediate neighborhood represents a key to success. As both a uniquely Western and Muslim actor, Turkey has the potential to create new opportunities for pragmatic deal making in the region, which might begin through shared views of an Ottoman past. These opportunities could contribute to the creation of a more stable neighborhood, one based on mutual cooperation rather than mutual destruction. Turkey represents the only country able to play the role of both mediator and bridge. In these multiple roles historical memory facilitates a more inclusive regional framework. With its Ottoman legacy Turkey has uniquely positioned itself to utilize less intrusive offers of assistance and diplomatic help to its Middle Eastern neighbors. As alluded to in other chapters in this volume, indicators such as the number of Turkish television programs watched by Turkey’s neighbors; trade, energy, travel, and investment in its former empire; and the reemergence of various Ottoman artifacts and architecture throughout Turkey’s neighborhood point toward new incentives to find common ground through Turkey’s Ottoman past.50 The AKP has been trying to play a positive role in pushing forward Turkey’s European credentials while embracing the positive aspects of Turkey’s Middle Eastern cultural and religious connections, which often involves invoking Ottoman history and imagery.51

Conclusions

Turkey’s Ottoman legacy is critical for explaining the role of identity and grand strategy formation in contemporary Turkey. Turkey sees itself as an important international actor that has more to offer than simply its military and economic capabilities. Given their proud history, Turks can be particularly nationalistic and prickly when dealt with as less than equals. Insulting the pride of the Turkish nation by using Turkey as a means to an end can lead to diplomatic failures—for example, the US attempts to “buy” Turkey’s support for its operations against Iraq and current attempts to offer Turkey less than full membership in the EU. Having ruled for the better part of six centuries as the Ottoman Empire, Turkey expects a certain level of respect in its international dealings. The current mood in Turkey of anti-Americanism and anti-EU sentiments could lead to a more isolationist or regionally focused foreign policy in response to electorally popular ultranationalist sentiments. Understanding and being sensitive to the Turks’ sense of fairness would go a long way in defusing the current mood in Turkey. Turkey now finds itself simultaneously in the democratization process in the Middle East and at the doorstep of the European Union. Laden with its history as part of the Ottoman Empire and its more recent past in the Cold War Western alliance, Turkey has been forced to formulate a new strategy for a post9/11 world that has shifted the emphasis from Turkey’s geography to its historic role as regional leader. By broadening its horizons and seeing the positive role

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it has to play in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia, Turkey is beginning to realize its full potential as a versatile multiregional and increasingly powerful international actor. This newfound confidence is bringing about an imperial recollection of and interest in the Ottoman Empire as a great power in the region, just as other regional leaders globally, such as China and Russia, draw from their imperial legacies. Having emerged from the shadows of isolationism before World War II and dependency during the Cold War, Turkey now is asserting itself in a way unprecedented by modern Turkish republican standards but quite normal by Ottoman standards. Given the current political leadership in Turkey, there does seem to be a will for Turkey to play a greater role in its region, particularly in the Middle East. It is highly unlikely that this role will be imperial in nature, given the prevailing norms of sovereignty and the cost of imposing Ottoman-style rule in this day and age. That said, the prestige associated with playing an active regional role seems to be driving the resurgence in the glorification of imperial memories and the emphasis on recapturing Ottoman thinking on the part of the current government. Turkey’s contemporary strategic decisions are informed not only by its military and economic power, but also by its Ottoman legacy and inherited perceptions of self.52 Its imperial legacy can serve as both a constraint and an opportunity for a Turkish grand strategy. Its historic place between East and West has led to various identity crises in the country. If studied in isolation from the country’s Ottoman past, contemporary Turkey’s culture, values, and institutions seem to offer few clues to contemporary policy. However, by including its Ottoman legacy in discussions about Turkey’s strategic culture and decisionmaking, scholars of international politics and policymakers can better understand Turkey’s historic place in both the West and the East and the role of this legacy in shaping current Turkish foreign policy.

Notes 1. The pioneering comparative historical work in this regard is Barkey and Hagen’s After Empire. 2. For more on the Ottoman Empire and its relevance to the modern Republic of Turkey see classic works such as Ahmad, The Making of Modern Turkey; Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains; Inalcik and Quataert, An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914; Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey; Zurcher, Turkey. 3. The Ottoman Empire lasted from the decline of the Byzantine Empire in the fourteenth century until the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Present-day Turkey sits at the heart of the old Ottoman Empire, whose imperial capital was also located in Istanbul. The empire grew as the lands of Byzantium and beyond were conquered, eventually including the countries of the Balkan Peninsula; the islands of the eastern Mediterranean; parts of Hungary and Russia; Iraq, Syria, the Caucasus, Palestine, and Egypt; parts of Arabia; and North Africa through to Algeria.

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4. The teaching of Ottoman history in Turkey has been a constant source of academic debate, particularly the relative lack of treatment of the last 300 years of Ottoman history when compared to the first 300 years or the early years of the Turkish Republic. For an interesting study on the teaching of history in Turkey see Yildrim “An Assessment of High School History Textbooks: Teachers and Students Perceptions.” 5. A good summary of this interest from both a European and Asian perspective can be found at http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,660635,00.html and http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LA14Ak01.html 6. Scholars such as Michael Doyle have shown that certain states within an empire have centralized government, differentiated economies, and a shared sense of political loyalty, which permits such states to dominate other political societies, and thus define “imperial metropolises.” Other societies are vulnerable to domination and collaboration. These “imperializable peripheries” have at best highly divided governments and often no governments, undifferentiated economies, and absent or highly divided political loyalties. See Doyle’s Empires. 7. For a full definition of this see Walker, Shadows of Empire. 8. I use “independent” here to connote sovereign or having the ability to have agency. In other words, it is not occupied or annexed even if stronger powers restrict some of its choices and options. 9. For the purposes of this chapter the general ideas of “glorification” and “rejectionism” are useful, however a full treatment of how weak and strong regimes are defined in particular contexts will not be attempted. It is important to note that this theory only argues for when and how original glorificationism begins and not what happens once a regime begins to glorify and increases its strength. Therefore, while the AKP is coded as a weak regime when it comes to power given its struggles to control the Turkish state, there is much more research that needs to be done to understand how memories from the past are being used for domestic political consumption. For the fullest explanation of these ideas and theory see Walker, Shadows of Empire. 10. This particular phrasing comes from Kinzer, Crescent and Star, pp. 40–41. 11. Classic works on Turkish foreign policy all emphasize this point, including Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774–2000; Mango, Turkey; Robins, Suits and Uniforms. 12. For more on the Islamic nature of the Ottoman Empire and the importance of the Caliphate see Karsh, Islamic Imperialism. 13. For more on this see Mardin, Religion, Society and Modernity in Turkey. 14. Unless specifically noted otherwise, each of the primary sources I reference were accessed through the Ministry of Education Archives or National Library in Ankara the summer of 2008. Thirty-five texts were read from junior-high to high-school level history textbooks for dissertation research that is condensed for the purposes of analysis here. 15. Ozkirimli, Tortured by History, p. 68. 16. The Sun-Language Theory was a linguistic hypothesis developed in Turkey in the 1930s claiming that all human languages were descendants of one primal Central Asian language. The theory further proposed that the only language remaining more or less the same as this primal language was Turkish. According to the theory, the Central Asian worshippers, who wanted to salute the omnipotence of the sun and its life-giving qualities, had done so by transforming their verbal communication into a coherent set of ritual utterings, and language was born, hence the name. There is a well-developed historical literature on this that is summarized nicely in Kafadar, Between Two Worlds. 17. The literature on Halkevleri is an extensive one in Turkish, however the best summary in English can be found in Durukan’s The Ideological Pillars of Turkish Education, pp. 70–71.

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18. The Turkish History Society (Turk Tarihi Kurumu) continues to operate in Turkey and has further resources on this period of time and further exploration of Turkish history on its website at http://www.ttk.gov.tr/. 19. Taken from Walker, Shadows of Empire, p. 91, where it is translated from the original source in Ankara. See also Çinar, “National History as a Contested Cite,” p. 369. 20. In addition to the author’s personal assessment of textbooks, Durukan, The Ideological Pillars of Turkish Education, reaches very similar conclusions, and supporting evidence can be found on p. 140 thereof. 21. Ozkirimli, Theories of Nationalism, p. 97. 22. Cited in Durukan, The Ideological Pillars of Turkish Education, p. 159. Note that actual textbook pages vary by year of publication. 23. Durukan, The Ideological Pillars of Turkish Education, p. 180. 24. Bozdogan and Kasaba, Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey, p. 199. 25. Atatürk never used the term “Westernization,” rather he referred to “contemporary civilization.” 26. Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, p. 292. 27. Swartz, Textbooks and National Ideology confirms and deals with changing memories on historical grounds and merit, as opposed to the political ramifications with which this chapter deals. 28. The term “Kemalist” is used in this chapter as a self-identifier adopted by a group of secularist elites in a post-1950 environment who defined themselves in ideological terms fashioned from the reforms focused on modernity and secularism instituted by Atatürk in the early Republic. 29. Mardin pioneered research on Turkey’s ruling elites and the divide between center and periphery through his seminal work, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought. 30. This is not without controversy given Özal’s proclivities toward alcohol, but the fact that he unabashedly defined himself as Muslim and was the first Turkish prime minister or president to make the hajj to Mecca is what “devout” means in this context. 31. In light of both the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Turkey entered the 1980s stronger than it had ever been, with a powerful military yet an underperforming economy. Turkey was seen as relatively more stable but susceptible to ideologies that could be exploited unless otherwise controlled by the ruling elites. 32. Memoirs and books of important elites including Turgut Özal are filled with accounts nostalgically glorifying the Ottomans. See the various entries in the Turkology Update Leiden Project Working Papers Archives, which can be found at www.tulp .leidenuniv.nl. 33. Mufti, “Daring and Caution in Turkish Strategic Culture.” 34. The contrast between Turkish-Arab relations under Özal versus under Erdoÿan is instructive of how much things have changed and indicative of the changing imperial memories not just in Turkey, but in its former colonies. See Chapter 3 in this volume on these changes. 35. For more see Kªnªklªoÿlu, “‘Neo-Ottoman’ Turkey?” For a thoughtful discussion of the emergence of neo-Ottomanism, see Yavuz, “Turkish Identity and Foreign Policy in Flux.” 36. See Davutoπlu, Strategik Derinlik (unfortunately there is no English translation available at this time). 37. Interview with Ahmet Davutoπlu, August 18, 2009, in the Foreign Ministry in Ankara. 38. Davutoπlu, Stratejik Derinlik, see also his article “The Clash of Interests.” 39. Murinson, “The Strategic Depth Doctrine of Turkish Foreign Policy.”

34 Joshua W. Walker 40. Here the distinction between the academic discussions surrounding where the Ottomans had actual control and whether these areas should be considered “colonies” given the Orientalist narrative of Western imperialism matters less than how policymakers incorporate a vision of cultural, historic, and religious affinity. 41. For further discussion on this doctrine, see Walker, “Learning Strategic Depth,” pp. 32–47. 42. Richard Falk, “Reconsidering Turkey,” Zaman, June 10, 2004. 43. Clearly the Ottoman empire was a mix of both Islamic and pragmatic statecraft, however, the ways in which it is portrayed are often both orientalist and stylistic, as represented here. 44. This does not mean that the AKP always makes unilateral moves even if it controls Cankaya Palace, the Foreign Ministry, or the Turkish Grand National Assembly because other actors such as the military and judiciary continue to exert influence. 45. For more on this concept see Walker “Turkey’s Role in the Middle East.” 46. Alvin Powell, “Erdoÿan Calls for Cooperation,” Harvard Gazette, 5 February 2004. http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/02.05/03-turkey.html (18 February 2005). 47. See Heper, “The Ottoman Legacy and Turkish Politics,” pp. 63–82. 48. To understand the historical context and precedent for this development see Kayalª, Arabs and Young Turks. 49. This included the dispatch of peacekeeping and police forces to various parts of the former Yugoslavia. 50. In particular see Chapter 7 in this volume for a discussion of various indicators that show Turkey becoming a hub for its region and for a proposed way to integrate its region through globalization. 51. The debate on the role of Islam in the AKP’s foreign policy orientation is taken up in the next chapter. 52. As further evidence of this, Ibrahim Kalin, the prime minister’s chief foreign policy advisor, argued that “Turkey’s post-modernity lies in the Ottoman Empire,” further bolstering the significance of the Ottoman legacy in the current government’s strategic thinking. Interview by this author in Istanbul, October 16, 2009.

3 From Confrontation to Engagement: Turkey and the Middle East Nathalie Tocci and Joshua W. Walker Rarely do a state’s foreign policies undergo such a dramatic transformation as Turkey’s Middle Eastern policies have in the twenty-first century. A cursory comparison of Turkey’s policies toward Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Israel and Palestine between the 1990s and the 2000s clearly brings this sea change to the fore. This chapter aims to assess Turkey’s transformed policies in the region, explaining what brought about those changes, analyzing Turkey’s impact, and elaborating what the transatlantic implications might be. In brief, the argument is that whereas international and regional dynamics opened the space for and shaped the nature of Turkey’s involvement, the precise form of that involvement is the product of Turkey’s domestic transformation. Key agents have been the Justice and Development Party (AKP) governments as well as a range of nonstate actors in the economic and civil society domains. The broadening scope of Turkish foreign policy making has shaped the views of Turkey in the Middle East and has been used as a “soft power” resource by official Turkish actors. The chapter explores the impact of Turkey’s actions, focusing on what the country’s potential is to alter the conflictual dynamics bedeviling the region. While Turkey’s potential to mediate the protracted conflicts of the Middle East is limited, its potential to realign the region in a manner conducive to peace and stability is considerable. The chapter also outlines the transatlantic implications of Turkey’s Middle Eastern transformation, exploring whether it represents an asset for the European Union and the United States and under what conditions that might be so.

Mapping the Sea Change in Turkey’s Middle Eastern Policies

Turkey’s involvement in the Middle East has been on the rise since the 1990s, but the nature of that involvement has changed in recent years. In the 1990s, Turkey’s military ties with Israel, its coercive pressure on Syria, and its participation in Western sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq were largely framed 35

36 Nathalie Tocci and Joshua W. Walker

within a realist understanding of the Middle Eastern balance of power. Today, Turkey presents itself as a mediating power in the region, intent on developing relations with all actors in order to promote peace and regional integration. Ankara has mediated between Israel and Syria, Israel and Hamas, Syria and Iraq, as well as within the broader Sunni and Arab world and between the United States and Iran. The continuing withdrawal of US troops from Iraq has changed Turkey’s regional dynamics and allowed Ankara new space for maneuvering; a space that Turkey has seized by promoting a Kurdish and regional initiative. The 2009 High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council agreements between Turkey and Syria and Turkey and Iraq, and possibly one with Iran in the future, are unprecedented.1 The mere discussion of an economic union between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq would have been unthinkable in any other period of Turkey’s modern history. Turkish-Iranian Relations

After the 1979 Iranian revolution, Turkish-Iranian relations were marked by tension over cooperation. Tension never threatened to break into conflict, and the centuries-old Turkish-Iranian border is often flagged as an atypical instance of Middle Eastern stability.2 Yet bilateral relations were strained over the two issues lying at the heart of republican Turkey’s security dilemma: political Islam and the Kurdish question. On both counts the 1990s saw a considerable aggravation of relations,3 which went as far as Turkish war threats in the mid-1990s. In 1994 and 1999 Turkish fighter planes struck Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) camps in Iran, reportedly hitting Iranian border villages.4 Turkey’s heightened concerns in the mid-1990s over the rise of political Islam5 also translated into a growing sensitivity toward alleged Iranian attempts to “export” the Islamic revolution. Hence, the “Baqeri incident”—a six-month diplomatic crisis in which both countries recalled their ambassadors6—and the accusation in 1999 by then president Süleyman Demirel that head-scarved Virtue Party (Fazilet) parliamentarian Merve Kavakçª was acting as an agent provocateur in the service of Iran. Turkish-Iranian competition also played out in the Caucasus, with the two countries adopting diametrically opposed views on the Armenia-Azeri conflict over NagornoKarabakh and Iran accusing Turkey of inciting separatism among its Azeri minority (as well as harboring the Mujahideen al-Kalq, a violent opponent to the Iranian regime). But while crisis often characterized political relations, ties in the energy realm began and grew. In 1996, Turkish prime minister Necmettin Erbakan signed a $23 billion deal with Iran establishing the framework for Iranian natural gas delivery over twenty-five years via a pipeline between Tabriz and Erzurum7; two further agreements were signed in 1997, rendering Iran the secondlargest supplier of gas to Turkey after Russia.8 Yet despite energy cooperation, in the 1990s Iran was portrayed as Turkey’s feared “other.” In the twenty-first century this dreary picture has visibly improved. In the energy domain, an agreement was signed in February 2007 to allow the Turkish

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Petroleum Corporation to explore energy reserves in Iran,9 and a memorandum of understanding was signed in July 2007, followed by a more detailed agreement in November 2008, to transport 30 billion cubic meters annually of Iranian and Turkmen gas through Iran and Turkey into the EU.10 Largely due to this deepening energy relationship, bilateral trade has soared from $1.2 billion in 2002, to $6.7 billion in 2006, and to $10 billion in 2008, with Iran becoming Turkey’s fifth-largest trading partner.11 Bilateral social contact has also deepened, with Turkey’s liberal visa regime attracting approximately a million Iranian tourists per year. Turkey has also attempted to penetrate the Iranian market through investments, including Tepe-Akfen-Ventures’ (TAV) building of Tehran’s airport and TURKCELL’s bid in the Iranian mobile phone market.12 The most significant change relates to the security and political realms, with the removal or diffusion of the principal thorns that had formerly poisoned the relationship. Tensions have dampened between the two countries over political Islam, to the extent that in June 2002 staunchly secularist Turkish president Ahmet Necdet Sezer visited Iran. He not only traveled to its Azeri provinces but also delivered a lecture on Kemalism and Atatürk.13 Yet the most dramatic political compromise has centered on the Kurdish question. In stark contrast to what it represented in the 1990s, the Kurdish question now represents an area of convergent interests and cooperation between Turkey and Iran, leading to Turkish-Iranian security cooperation.14 Prime Minister Recep Erdoÿan visited Iran in 2004 to sign a security agreement branding the PKK as a terrorist organization, and the two countries stepped up efforts to protect their common border against the PKK and its affiliates. Cooperation deepened in 2007, when the secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Council, Ali Larijani, suggested that Turkey join Iran and Syria in a security platform to tackle Kurdish transnational terrorist organizations, a proposal that Turkey accepted. In April 2008, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding foreseeing intelligence sharing in ongoing operations. In June 2008, Turkey and Iran undertook a coordinated air strike in the Kandil Mountains against the PKK and its affiliates. Turkey’s deepening energy and economic links and improving political ties with Iran have led to a distinctive Turkish position regarding the Iranian nuclear question. Turkey, like other European countries and the United States, objects to a nuclear Iran. Yet it does not feel as threatened by Iran’s nuclear program as its Western allies do. This lower threat perception is shared by the Turkish public, which disapproves of coercive measures against Iran and displays higher levels of acceptance for the prospect of a nuclear Iran (29 percent) compared to European and US levels (8 percent and 5 percent, respectively).15 Turkey does feel threatened by a nuclear arms race in the region, however. As argued by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoπlu in December 2009, the consequences for Turkey of an Israeli nuclear attack on Iran or an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel would be equally disastrous.16 Hence, Turkey’s repeated calls for a nuclear-free region. Ankara opposes sanctioning Iran, as sanctions could hinder its burgeoning relations with its neighbor without accomplishing a nuclear-free Middle

38 Nathalie Tocci and Joshua W. Walker

East. In view of Turkey’s objection to sanctions and its ties to Iran, Ankara has also offered to mediate between Washington and Tehran. Turkish-Iraqi Relations

Turkey’s relations with Iraq have followed a general pattern of pragmatism, despite frequent regime changes in Baghdad. Turkey’s post–Cold War policy toward Iraq involved demanding respect for United Nations resolutions and keeping the commitments stemming from its general alignment with the West. This meant that as Iraq’s relations with the West soured, Turkish-Iraqi relations followed suit. During the 1991 Gulf War, Turkey, under the leadership of President Turgut Özal, firmly allied with US-led forces by securing its southeastern border with Iraq. It did not, however, contribute any offensive forces, given the domestic opposition in Turkey to Özal’s decision to support the war. Perhaps more significant, during the war Turkey served as a base from which Allied attacks were launched into Iraq. In April 1991, the war sparked a Kurdish refugee crisis that deeply marked Turkey’s consciousness and inadvertently pushed Ankara into playing a central role in creating the Kurdish “safe haven” in northern Iraq.17 From that point onward, Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, became a difficult neighbor, with whom Turkey suspended trade and energy relations for the better part of two decades until the second Gulf War. Between the first Gulf War and the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Turkey concerned itself with the elimination of the PKK in Northern Iraq. Part of Turkey’s willingness to allow continued access to US airplanes, which enforced a no-fly zone protecting the northern enclave, was the tacit agreement by the United States not to criticize Turkey’s anti-PKK incursions into Northern Iraq. The tacit US acceptance of Turkish incursions was the quid pro quo for Turkey’s reluctant acceptance of Northern Iraq’s de facto autonomy. Turkey did attempt to maintain a relationship with Saddam’s Iraq, while developing its ties with Iraqi Kurdish leaders in order to eradicate the PKK from Northern Iraq. Turkey’s driving rationale was its strong opposition to the creation of a Kurdish state in Iraq due to concerns that such a development could fuel secessionist trends in its own Kurdish-populated regions. Its greatest fears came to pass in March 2003, when the United States declared war on Iraq. Largely in response to public opposition to the war in Turkey and the lack of a clear UN mandate, the Turkish parliament refused to approve US use of the country’s territory to invade Iraq. That decision took Turkey out of the initial US-led coalition and out of the decisionmaking process that would lead to the defeat of Saddam Hussein. A subsequent vote by the Turkish parliament in October 2003, however, approved the deployment of ten thousand Turkish troops to Iraq. Although those troops were never deployed because of Kurdish fears about Turkey’s intentions in Iraq (and US appreciation of those fears), Turkey’s willingness to take on added responsibilities in the region was highlighted and foreshadowed by this assertive offer.

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Turkey’s primary concern with Iraq’s territorial integrity meant that while the post-2003 situation opened the way for greater cooperation with Syria and Iran, which also have sizable Kurdish populations, cooperation with Iraq (and Northern Iraq, in particular) took longer to develop. Turkey’s relations with the new Iraqi regime were difficult, poisoned by sectarian prejudices between Turkey’s Sunni versus Iraq’s predominate Shiite character, and Ankara’s history of cooperation with Saddam Hussein. Most acutely, Turkey remains sensitive to developments in Northern Iraq, strongly opposes separatism, and consequently is wary of the inclusion of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk into Northern Iraq. It also is pressing the Iraqi Kurdish authorities to cooperate in the fight against the PKK. Turkey has amassed troops on its border with Iraq on several occasions since 2003 and has conducted frequent operations within Northern Iraq against the PKK to signal its intentions.18 However, since 2007 there has been a marked improvement in relations between Turkey and Iraq, and in particular with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). This followed extensive intelligence sharing with the United States since 2007 that has allowed Turkish special forces to target the remnants of PKK training camps in the Kandil Mountains, including through a large ground operation in February 2008.19 The turn in Turkey’s battle against the PKK has facilitated Turkish rapprochement with the Kurdish leaders of Northern Iraq. With the elimination of the PKK as a serious military threat and the acknowledgment on the part of the Turkish government that Kurdish problems cannot be solved by military force alone, the continued stability offered by the KRG has become a major opportunity rather than a threat for the Turkish state. Turkish-Kurdish cooperation generates economic interdependence along the border and also increases Turkish influence throughout Iraq at the expense of Iran. Since 2007–2008 there have been key developments on both the Turkish and the Iraqi sides regarding the Kurdish question, including greater Turkish acceptance of Iraqi Kurdish autonomy; the opening of official ties between Turkey and the KRG, including a Turkish consulate in Erbil; and the KRG’s cooperation in the fight against the PKK.20 This has opened the space for a burgeoning economic, social, and political relationship. Bilateral trade reached $5 billion in 2008, with Turkey predicting a rise to $25 billion over the next three to four years. As much as 80 percent of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Northern Iraq comes from Turkey.21 The recent creation of the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council, which included the signing of over forty major agreements between Turkey and Iraq, is a further indicator of just how far these two former enemies have come in the past fifteen years.22 Turkish-Syrian Relations

Syria has always represented the prototypical hostile neighbor for Turkey. From its creation in the wake of the Ottoman Empire’s collapse, Syria has had historical grievances with the Turkish Republic involving the Turkish province of

40 Nathalie Tocci and Joshua W. Walker

Hatay, the former Sanjak of Alexandretta, which Syria was forced by the French to cede to Turkey in 1939. This traditional claim, which has not yet been officially resolved (though it has been unofficially shelved since 2004), was compounded by the two states’ differing alignment during the Cold War.23 Most important, the Kurdish separatist movement in southeastern Anatolia has historically plagued Turkish-Syrian relations. From the inception of violence in Turkey by the PKK, Turkey had consistently argued that Syria was the organization’s major backer. While Turkey wanted to contain its “Kurdish problem” and viewed it as a predominately internal matter, the PKK’s regional networks increasingly forced Turkish foreign policy to deal with countries like Syria from an adversarial position. For much of the 1990s most of Turkey’s relations with Syria were dominated by the issue of Syria’s support for the PKK, particularly its involvement in harboring PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. Another contentious (and related) issue between the two countries is the long-standing dispute over the Euphrates River. Syria, as a downstream nation, has always claimed water rights to part of the Euphrates River that flows through Turkey. Turkey has accused Syria of backing the PKK to leverage this “water controversy,” while Syria has accused Turkey of violating Syria’s water rights with the development of dams for the Southeastern Anatolia Project. Although Turgut Özal attempted to forge a comprehensive settlement over water rights in 1988, the negotiations failed after less than six months. Deteriorating relations with Syria throughout the 1990s prompted Turkey to seek closer ties with Israel to coerce Syria into dropping its support of the PKK. The full-scale mobilization of the Turkish military along the Syrian border in 1998 forced Damascus to change its strategy concerning the PKK and take Ankara’s threats seriously.24 This led to the expulsion of Öcalan from Syria in October 1998 and a subsequent reduction of violence in Turkey’s Kurdish regions. Syrian acquiescence to Turkish demands regarding the PKK did not by itself eliminate the prospect of war between the two countries. The subsequent immediate development of bilateral relations through the multifaceted “Adana Process” produced economic, military, and intelligence cooperation.25 As one observer in the region put it, “Talking Turkish meant both credible threats but also massive engagement thereafter.”26 This process led to the possibility of improved bilateral relations at the political level. The breakthrough came when Turkish president Necdet Sezer attended the funeral of former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad in 2000. With that gesture by the Turkish state, followed by friendly overtures by the ensuing AKP governments, the scene was set for the historic visit by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to Turkey in January 2004.27 During his visit, President alAssad emphasized that Syria wanted to be a bridge for Turkey to the Arab world, and stressed that Turkey was a door to Europe for Syria.28 The visit was reciprocated in December 2004 when Prime Minister Erdoÿan visited Damascus to sign a bilateral free-trade agreement. The invasion of Iraq and Turkey’s March 2003 vote, alongside Turkey’s defiance of US (and EU) efforts to isolate Syria,29 served to further foster positive relations between the two countries. Joint concerns over

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Iraq’s territorial integrity also led to the creation of a “common plan” for Iraq’s territorial integrity.30 Since then, relations have continued to improve, leading to the signing of a bilateral visa-free agreement and the establishment of the Strategic Cooperation Council in October 2009 modeled on the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council created with Iraq. These agreements have already ushered in a new era of regional foreign policy for Turkey. Having studiously avoided the Middle East in favor of Europe for the majority of its history, Turkey now finds itself in a novel position. In contrast to its situation less than a decade ago, when it was on the brink of war over Syrian support of Kurdish separatist movements and supported Western sanctions against Iraq, Turkey now finds itself the leader of a new Kurdish and regional initiative, whose relevance has increased in light of the Arab Spring in 2011. Turkish–Israeli and Palestinian Relations

Equally significant is the transformation of Turkey’s relations with Israel and the Palestinians. Turkey has historically enjoyed close relations with Israel, being the first predominantly Muslim state to recognize Israel, in 1949, thus providing Israel with a key diplomatic, social, and economic outlet in the Middle East and conferring on it a degree of acceptance in the region. At the same time, Turkey, and in particular the Turkish public, has been sensitive to the plight of the Palestinians; the PLO opened an office in Ankara in 1979, before the European Community, let alone the United States, was ready to recognize it as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Yet Turkey’s policies toward Israel, the Palestinians, and the broader Arab-Israeli conflict have alternated erratically over the years. In the 1990s, Turkey’s approach was based on two pillars: a strategic military relationship with Israel and support for the Oslo process and its logic. After years of somewhat strained relations in the 1980s in the context of Turgut Özal’s opening to the Middle East, Turkish-Israeli relations dramatically improved in the 1990s.31 In 1992 the two countries signed a tourism agreement.32 That was followed by a framework agreement in 1993 comprising tourism, economic cooperation, and educational exchanges; an environmental cooperation agreement in 1994; discussions on a free trade agreement in 1994 (ultimately signed in 1996 and ratified in 1997); and cooperation in the fields of telecommunications, postal services, and fighting drug trafficking. However, the core of the relationship was military-strategic. In February 1996 the two countries signed a Military Training and Cooperation Agreement, which outlined a range of joint training and intelligence-sharing activities, including Israeli access to the Konya airbase and Turkish airspace for training purposes, Israeli modernization of the Turkish air force, and Israeli provision of military technology to Turkey. That agreement was followed by further agreements in August 1996 on military technology transfers, joint military research, intelligence sharing, regular strategic policy-planning dialogue, and bilateral and multilateral military ex-

42 Nathalie Tocci and Joshua W. Walker

ercises. Largely due to the burgeoning military relationship, bilateral trade boomed, from $100 million in 1991 to $2 billion in 2000, with Turkey becoming a lucrative market for the Israeli defense industry.33 Turkey’s military relationship with Israel raised eyebrows throughout the region and caused acute concern in Syria, Lebanon, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Ankara attempted to rally credit in the Arab world by supporting the peace process, including the process launched with the 1991 Madrid conference and the 1993 Oslo process. Hence, it participated in the Arms Control and Regional Security Working Group of the Madrid process in the early 1990s; and in 1997 it joined the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) in the Oslo framework.34 Other peace-related efforts included President Özal’s project for a “peace pipeline” to transport Turkish water to Syria, Israel, and Jordan, which was first presented in the mid-1980s and was resurrected in the optimism of the early Oslo years. In the twenty-first century Turkey’s relations with Israel and the Palestinians have been marked by both change and continuity. Turkish-Israeli cooperation has continued.35 In 2005 prime ministers Erdoÿan and Ariel Sharon established a hotline for the exchange of intelligence on terrorism-related issues. In January 2007 Turkey and Israel completed talks over the Med Stream project, an offshore water pipeline to connect Turkey and Israel across the Mediterranean Sea. In November 2007 Shimon Peres became the first Israeli president to address the Turkish Grand National Assembly. In October 2008 Turkey and Israel signed an agreement on the construction of an oil pipeline between Ceyhan and Ashkelon. Military cooperation also continued, through joint military exercises,36 intelligence sharing,37 and defense industrial cooperation.38 Yet the growth of the economic relationship has slowed. Bilateral trade increased, but far from the boom of the 1990s, in the 2000s trade grew from $2 billion in 2000 to only $2.8 billion in 2008.39 With the outbreak of the second intifada and the aggravation of the ArabIsraeli conflict, Turkish-Israeli political relations have deteriorated. In 2002 the Turkish prime minister Bülent Ecevit described Israel’s attack on Jenin as “genocide.”40 In 2006 Prime Minister Erdoÿan described Israel’s war on Lebanon as “illegitimate.”41 Most notoriously, at the Davos World Economic Forum in January 2009, days after the end of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, Erdoÿan accused Israel (and his co-panelist Shimon Peres) of crimes against humanity. Relations plummeted further in the fall of 2009, with a renewed crisis caused by Turkey’s withdrawal of an invitation to Israel to participate in the military exercise Anatolian Eagle,42 along with Israel’s abhorrence at an episode of a Turkish TV series (Ayrªlªk) showing Israeli forces deliberately targeting Palestinian children. The “TV series crisis” brought Turkish-Israeli relations to an all-time low, with Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman stating that not even an “enemy country” would dare act this way and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Danny Ayalon publicly humiliating Turkey’s ambassador to Israel in January 2010.43 Finally and most dramatically, in May 2010 the Israel Defense

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Forces killed nine Turkish citizens on board a Turkish vessel, part of an international flotilla carrying humanitarian goods to Gaza in defiance of Israel’s closure of the Gaza Strip. The crisis continued to simmer over 2010 and 2011, as Turkey insisted on Israel’s apology, an international investigation of the flotilla incident, and the lifting of the siege on Gaza. For the first time in history Turkish-Israeli ties suffered a bilateral crisis rather than being marked by differences over the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Turkish-Israeli relationship, far from the seemingly unbreakable military alliance of the 1990s, appears to have undergone a fundamental change.44 Consequently, Turkish-Palestinian relations have also changed. Some Turkish actions have been articulated within the broad contours of the (failed) Oslo process (and the many attempts to resurrect it). These include President Süleyman Demirel’s participation in the 2000 Mitchell Commission; the growing aid delivery by the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA) to the Occupied Territory (approximately $10 million since 1996); the meeting in November 2007 between Israeli president Peres and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas in Turkey; the Turkish Foreign Ministry sponsorship of a Young Palestinian Diplomats Training Program; and the Industry for Peace (Barª≈s için Sanayi) project sponsored by the Turkish Chambers of Commerce (TOBB) to develop the Erez industrial zone straddling the Gaza Strip.45 Yet beyond these initiatives, Turkey has undertaken three specific actions whose logic is distinctly different from the “Oslo logic,” yet whose repercussions are arguably more important. First is the opening of Ottoman archives regarding property certificates. This represents a critical asset in the Palestinian and international battle against Israeli house evictions and demolitions, particularly in Jerusalem. Given the international consensus over Jerusalem representing the capitals of both Israel and Palestine and the Israeli government’s support for Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, Turkey’s decision to open the archives represents an important contribution to the realization of a viable twostate solution.46 Second, Turkey supported the report of the UN Human Rights Council headed by Justice Richard Goldstone, which not only condemned Israel (and Hamas) of war crimes in Gaza (and southern Israel) but also recommended measures to ensure accountability. The Goldstone report represents a milestone in the arduous task of reinserting international law in the international community’s approach to the conflict. Third, Turkey, like other European countries such as Norway and Switzerland, but unlike the EU and the United States, has maintained open channels with Hamas. Indeed, upon Hamas’s electoral victory in January 2006, Turkey recognized the new Palestinian government and invited Hamas’s Damascus-based leader Khaled Meshal to Ankara in February 2006, causing stark reactions on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide.47 Insofar as any Israeli-Palestinian agreement hinges, inter alia, on acceptance of Hamas, given the movement’s control of the Gaza Strip and its support among the Palestinians, Turkey represents one of the few Western channels to engage Hamas.

44 Nathalie Tocci and Joshua W. Walker

Explaining the Transformation of Turkey’s Middle Eastern Policies

Turkey’s activism in the region is not new. At different points in time, Turkey has opted to engage the Middle East. Yet its interventions in the past played into the balance-of-power logic of the broader Arab-Israeli/Soviet-US conflict. On the one hand, Turkey participated, for example, in the ill-fated 1955 Baghdad Pact, amassed troops on the Syrian (1957)48 and Iraqi (1958) borders, and allowed the United States to station troops in Adana during the 1958 Lebanon crisis.49 On the other hand, it sided with Egypt on the eve of the 1967 Six-Day War; participated in the deliberations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Rabat in 196950; denied the United States use of its airbases to resupply Israel in the 1973 war, while allowing the Soviet Union overflight rights to support Syria; and expanded economic ties with the Gulf, Iraq, and Iran in the 1980s.51 In the 1990s, Turkey’s activism translated into assertiveness and confrontation. While its military relationship with Israel drew favor in the United States (and to some extent in the EU), its actions made the Middle East an even more unstable and crisis-prone region.52 Turkey believed and acted as if it were “besieged by a veritable ring of evil.”53 In turn it fueled counteralliances between Syria, Iran, Iraq, Greece, Russia, Serbia, and Armenia.54 In sharp contrast, Turkey today strives to improve relations with all its neighbors. How much success it will have remains an open question, but the intention is to promote reconciliation and integration throughout the region. What explains this sea change in Turkey’s Middle Eastern policies? Structural factors operating at the international, regional, and domestic levels, alongside agency-related changes within Turkey go far in explaining it. International Factors Opening the Way for Turkey’s Transformation in the Middle East

At the international level, a clear turning point was the 1991 Gulf War. When President Özal backed the war effort to reconfirm Turkey’s geopolitical significance to the West in a post–Cold War context, the door was opened for the country’s meddling in Iraq and in the wider region. As put by Larrabee and Lesser, “The frequency of Turkish cross-border operations [in Iraq] since 1994 tends to obscure the fact that this kind of intervention would have been almost unthinkable in the pre-Gulf War tradition of Turkish foreign policy toward the region.”55 But the Gulf War created far more problems than anticipated by Ankara, including large-scale refugee influxes,56 an aggravation of the PKK insurgency, and devastating costs from the war and the sanctions that ensued.57 The Gulf War thus dramatically reduced Turkey’s appetite for war in the region. Hence, in the run-up to the 2003 attack on Iraq, Turkey not only opposed the war (as did many EU member states) but also felt compelled to engage its neighbors in order to prevent it. Ankara feared that US ambi-

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tions to redraw the Middle East would bring sectarian violence, separatism, and religious extremism. September 11, the ensuing “war on terror,” and the unprecedented importance attributed by some to religion in global politics provided additional incentives for Turkey to engage its “Muslim” southern neighbors—hence, the birth of a Turkish initiative, the Conference of Iraq’s Neighbors in January 200358 and, more broadly, Turkey’s ongoing efforts to foster regional integration among itself, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.59 This orientation also informed Turkey’s mediation efforts between Syria and Israel, which were partly aimed at helping Syria break out of the isolation imposed by the United States and Europe. By 2006–2007, however, the malaise in Turkish-US relations had gradually evaporated, opening the way for Turkey’s deeper cooperation with Iraq. With the stepping up of Turkish-US cooperation on the fight against the PKK through the July 2006 “Strategic Vision and Structured Dialogue to Advance the TurkishAmerican Strategic Relationship” and the November 2007 visit by Turkish prime minister Erdoÿan to the White House, Turkish effectiveness in combating the PKK increased. The ensuing reduction of PKK attacks on Turkey by 2008 opened the way for Turkey’s greater cooperation with Northern Iraq. These dynamics have persisted and deepened since the Obama administration took office in 2009. On President Obama’s three most urgent strategic issues—Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran—Turkey is viewed as a critical partner. As a result, US-Turkish interests are more closely aligned now than at any point in the past decade. On Afghanistan, Turkey might still be reluctant to commit more troops, but Ankara recognizes the priority of extinguishing the Afghan-Pakistani fires before they spread. The Turkey-Afghanistan-Pakistan tripartite summit, which convened in January 2010, is the most concrete example of this newfound recognition.60 On Iraq, the imminent US withdrawal is likely to remove a central point of tension in the relationship. Turkish fears of a US-sponsored independent Kurdish region have faded and have been replaced by a new impetus to resolve long-simmering Kurdish issues in view of the vacuum to be left by US withdrawal. Moreover, US cooperation in the battle against the PKK has facilitated Turkish rapprochement with the Kurdish leaders of Northern Iraq, which will prove crucial if Ankara is to be successful in its attempts to resolve its own Kurdish question. Short of military action, Ankara insists on a nuclear weapon–free Iran and is equally determined to prevent a nuclear arms race in the region; Turkey will support Obama’s attempts to resolve the standoff diplomatically. Turkey’s relations with the EU also help explain the transformation of its Middle Eastern policies. The passing of the Cold War in the late 1980s and early 1990s accentuated Turkey’s desire for a Western affiliation. Turkey applied for European Community membership in 1987 and pushed for inclusion in the EU customs union in the mid-1990s. Yet its EC application was turned down in 1989, and the 1995 customs union agreement did not accord Turkey its desired European identity affiliation. Most (in)famously, in 1997 the EU denied Turkey candidacy for membership. Rejection by the EU reinforced the perception in

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Turkey that the country needed an “identity anchorage” in the West.61 That need was partly satisfied by the strategic alliance with Israel, which bolstered Turkey’s Western credentials, at least in Washington.62 Alliance with Israel also brought with it support of the American Jewish lobbies, which helped defeat resolutions on the Armenian genocide in Congress and allowed Turkey to circumvent US congressional and EU restrictions on the delivery of arms supplies due to Turkey’s record on Cyprus, Armenia, the Kurds, and human rights in those years. In the 1990s, Turkey’s strategic alliance with Israel thus partly served an identity need that Europe refused to assuage. When Turkey became a candidate member in 1999, the scene changed. With the launch of its accession process and the domestic political reforms that came with it, Turkey’s domestic need for a Western identity anchor was partly met. That facilitated the transformation of Turkey’s foreign policy in the Middle East in two ways. First, it made Turkey more confident of its identity and allowed a pursuit of its norms and interests through the deployment of its own soft power resources.63 In that changed context, an alliance with Israel was no longer viewed as indispensable.64 Second, the EU-inspired democratic transformation of the 2000s in Turkey acquired a life of its own by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, making possible initiatives such as the “Democratic Opening” toward the Kurds in 2009, with repercussions on relations with Northern Iraq as well as with Syria and Iran. The question on the minds of many by 2009 was whether Turkey had turned full circle, and that has remained a question in some quarters. Has Turkey’s feeling of rejection by the EU, particularly since the opening of accession negotiations in 2005, induced an identity-driven U-turn toward the Middle East?65 There is no reason Turkey’s rapprochement with the Middle East implies a distancing from Europe. First, when Turkey opened relations with the former Soviet space in the 1990s, concerns about “losing Turkey” to the East did not permeate Western debate about Turkey. The fact that Turkey’s opening to the Middle East is engendering such a discourse in the West says more about US and European approaches to the Middle East than about Turkey’s “reorientation” to the region. Second, Turkey’s EU accession process is primarily a domestic rather than a foreign policy project. While clearly signaling Turkey’s self-ascribed place of belonging in the world, the details and substance of its relationship with the EU cover domestic policy questions. The accession process concentrates on issues such as competition policy, taxation, infrastructure, agriculture, labor and markets, decentralization, and institutions. Reforming these domestic policy areas has momentous implications for Turkey’s political and economic systems, which, as discussed below, have shaped its opening to the Middle East. To view Turkey’s Middle Eastern policies as symptomatic of a shift away from Europe would entail a misreading of what the accession process is all about. Still, if Turkey’s accession process falters, the likelihood of the country’s domestic transformation needing an alternative identity anchorage may increase, as occurred when Turkey strengthened its relationship with Israel partly as a

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means to reconfirm its Western credentials in light of the EU’s snubbing of its accession aspirations in the mid-1990s. Regional Dynamics Shaping the Nature of Turkey’s Transformation

Although the United States and the EU opened the door for the transformation of Turkey’s Middle Eastern policies, regional dynamics have shaped the nature of that transformation. In the 1990s, Turkey’s assertiveness and confrontational attitude were dictated by a set of regional factors, all of which altered dramatically in the twenty-first century. First, while the end of the Cold War eroded much of the rationale for the broader Turkish-Arab tension,66 the accentuation of the Turkish-Syrian conflict in the 1980s and 1990s (and Turkey’s ensuing military alliance with Israel) continued to fan the flames of Turkey’s Arab problem.67 This was epitomized by Syria’s push for a communiqué of the Arab League in January 1996 criticizing Turkey and calling for a permanent water-sharing agreement between the parties. The Turkish-Arab tension further fueled the decades-old regional alignment pitting Arab against non-Arab states and formed the bedrock of the deepened Turkish-Israeli alliance in the 1990s.68 Currently, as noted, the conflict with Syria has dissolved,69 and Turkey’s relationship with the Arab world has also evolved. Turkey’s eagerness to further develop its ties to the Arab world has generated a greater incentive to transform its relationship with Damascus, which would provide a key to the Arab Middle East. Alongside this, the rise of Iran and the deepening disunity of the Arab world have induced Arab states in the Gulf, as well as Egypt, to develop their own bilateral ties with Turkey, thus drawing Turkey deeper into the region. Change in the nature of the Kurdish question and regional concerns over Iraq are a second key element. As indicated, this had been a prime source of conflict between Turkey and Syria, Turkey and Iraq, and Turkey and Iran. Unintentionally, the 2003 US-led war transformed the Kurdish issue and concerns over Iraq’s territorial integrity into a cause for unity among Iraq’s neighbors. The war overturned the positions of Syria70 and Iran71 on the PKK, engendering a threeparty platform in 2007 to counter the Kurdish insurgency. Furthermore, by 2004– 2005 the position of the Kurdish Regional Government—in particular, its prime minister, Nechirvan Barzani—also started changing, with increasingly conciliatory political rhetoric toward Turkey and encouragement of Turkish trade with and investment in Northern Iraq.72 With the improvement of relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government, Ankara has felt more at ease in tackling politically its domestic Kurdish problem. As US troops continue their withdrawal from the region, it is clear that the integrity of Iraq can be guaranteed only through closer cooperation between regional and national authorities in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. The agreement between the United States and Turkey in 2007 on the sharing of actionable intelligence on the PKK has created condi-

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tions under which a lasting regional political solution could be found. Perhaps for the first time in Turkish history, domestic, regional, and international factors are simultaneously contributing to a lasting solution to the Kurdish question. Developments in the Arab-Israeli conflict are a third key factor. In view of the Turkish public’s sensitivity to the Palestinian question, Turkey’s strategic relationship with Israel in the 1990s had been a delicate domestic affair. Yet the Oslo process and Turkey’s support for it provided the space and cover for the bilateral Turkish-Israeli relationship to flourish. With the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000 and the reduction of tensions between Turkey and the Arab world (and Syria in particular) since 1998, Turkey’s relationship with Israel has become increasingly conditional on the evolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Whereas in the past the Turkish-Israeli relationship had been shaped by two opposing forces—the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Arab-Turkish conflict—with the evaporation of the second, Turkish-Israeli relations have become increasingly conditional on Israel’s conduct in the first.73 In this respect, we should note that Turkish-Israeli relations were positive when Israel negotiated with Syria (with Turkish mediation) in 2006–2008 and when it agreed on a cease-fire with Hamas between June and December 2008. Relations have soured since Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in December 2008–January 2009. Domestic Dynamics

In concert with international and regional dynamics affecting Turkey’s policies in the Middle East, domestic factors loom large. Without Turkey’s domestic transformation and, most pointedly, the willingness of the AKP to transform Turkey’s traditional detachment from the region, any explanation of the developments outlined above would be incomplete. The domestic contours of Turkey’s foreign policy establishment are notoriously fractious, consisting of institutional actors such as the military and a bureaucracy that must work with the democratically elected legislature. Given the country’s political history of highly unstable coalition governments and corruption scandals, it is unsurprising that political parties have commanded far less public trust and support than the military, which is seen as the ultimate caretaker of Atatürk’s secular republic.74 In addition, the constitutional courts and the presidency have checked the power of any parliamentary majority. It is with this backdrop that the AKP came to power in 2002. As the historical successor of Turkey’s right-leaning Islamic conservative movement, the AKP had many domestic hurdles to overcome. After its surprise electoral victory, it enjoyed popular support for most of its term. That popularity was fueled by the fact that the AKP was seen as being untainted by the corruption and cronyism of Turkey’s secular parties. Following the pattern of “two-level games,”75 Erdoÿan and the AKP began using the foreign policy agenda to placate domestic opposition and expand areas of possible cooperation with Turkey’s liberal elites. In particular, the AKP had focused on the EU accession process to broaden its

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domestic support and weaken its opponents during 2002–2005. As part of that strategy, Turkey began to use its rising regional influence to support its foreign policies in the Middle East, particularly since 2004–2005, when the European process came to a virtual standstill. Attempting that feat in the context of the Iraq crisis was complex, yet the AKP pushed for cooperation with the Middle East by relying on Turkey’s historical legacy and its modern “soft power” resources to fulfill its ambitions.76 Presenting Turkey as a soft power in the Middle East was made possible by its broader democratization since the end of the Cold War—in particular, since 2001. There has been a relationship between greater democratization and Eastern-oriented foreign policy initiatives throughout Turkish political history.77 The three longest-serving prime ministers (Adnan Menderes, Turgut Özal, and Recep Erdoÿan) all implemented at least one Eastern-oriented initiative (the Baghdad Pact in 1955, the Central Asian Initiative in 1991, and “strategic depth” in 2004) along with their domestic democratization efforts. The same prime ministers commanded the largest percentage of the parliament and were among the most responsive to public opinion given the often tenuous relationships they had with Turkey’s traditional purveyors of foreign policy— namely, the military. There is something electorally attractive about Eastern initiatives even if they are less attractive or institutional than Western initiatives such as its inclusion in NATO in 1952, EC application in 1987, and EU accession negotiations in 2005. In the democratizing Turkey that has existed for the past decade, civilian leaders cannot ignore where public opinion stands on critical foreign policy questions as easily as the military leaders who previously dominated Turkish foreign policy decisionmaking. Alongside this, Turkey’s economic growth has also played into the country’s developing ties to its neighbors, in building economic interdependence with formerly hostile countries like Syria and Iraq, while hoping to draw Iran closer into Ankara’s orbit. Rather than seeing Iran, Iraq, and Syria as former enemies or “others,” Turkey increasingly sees its eastern neighbors as potential markets for its goods and partners in a neighborhood that can benefit from an actively engaged regional stabilizer. A growing Turkish economic interest in its Middle Eastern neighbors also has led to a growing influence of business and civil society actors in foreign policy making, insofar as nonstate actors press the government and bureaucracy to develop cooperative ties. More specifically, growing commercial interests in the region have raised Turkish stakes in a peaceful and stable Middle East, consolidating Turkish foreign policy objectives to promote peace and regional integration in the Middle East.78 The role of ideas has facilitated further the transformation in Turkey’s outlook on the Middle East. Turkey’s “reengagement” with the Middle East has been greatly facilitated by the AKP’s historical memory and ideas about Turkey’s place both in and of the region. The rise of the AKP has meant a deemphasis of the Islamic threat in Turkey’s view of the region. Closer Middle Eastern relations are not seen as being dichotomous or detrimental to Turkey’s Western orientation,

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at home or abroad, as had been trumpeted under military rule in the 1980s. Hence, a more “Islam-friendly” approach that focuses on economic opportunities and a shared heritage has come to permeate Turkey’s policy toward the region. Turkey’s activism in and focus on the Middle East have been as controversial at home as they have been internationally (on this, see Chapter 9). They have produced the most contentious and continual criticism of the AKP by other political actors, and the AKP has had to continually rely on its key constituents, including the business community, to defend its actions. In a country that has experienced four military coups (one being the “soft” coup in 1997 that forced the closure of the Refah party), and one so-called electronic coup that triggered the 2007 elections, attempts to discredit and ban the AKP through antidemocratic means are a new twist in an old plotline. The AKP speaks for a large portion of the Turkish people who want to see changes made in the approach and character of both their republic and its international relations. The democratization of the country has brought with it increased opportunity to influence foreign as well as domestic policy, and the Erdoÿan government is attentive to newly empowered groups. The debate over Turkey’s identity will continue to polarize domestic politics, yet the AKP has played by the rules set by the secular establishment and has relied on Turkish voters to be the final arbiters. Analytically, the AKP’s objectives in the Middle East can be characterized either as purely driven by pragmatic national interest, particularly in securing new investments and markets for the country’s growing economy, or as identity politics. While there are compelling arguments for both of these approaches, the true intentions seem to lie somewhere in the middle. Turkey’s path back to the Middle East is laden with history, yet there is clear opportunity there. As the largest economic and military player of and in the region since the United States pulled its combat forces out of Iraq, Turkey has quickly become a rising regional hegemon that the AKP under Erdoÿan and Davutoπlu clearly seems to appreciate and thrive on. Nonetheless, many domestic problems plague Turkey’s foreign policy ambitions. The central one is a political system in which one party—arguably, one personality, that of Prime Minister Erdoÿan—thoroughly dominates. The lack of a coherent opposition or ideology other than the AKP’s is dangerous for both domestic and foreign policy. Domestic and international critics of the AKP are increasingly concerned about the chilling effects of power left virtually unchecked. Turkey, they believe, has reached a critical juncture in its political development, and many do not like the trajectory AKP has chosen.79 Indeed, the consolidation of AKP’s political power has eliminated many of the traditional fault lines in Turkey’s perennial Kulturkampf. Few Turkey watchers would ever have believed that the military establishment and an Islamist-rooted political party could make common cause. Oddly, Turkey has become more European, more democratic, more Islamic, and increasingly more nationalist simultaneously. In that complex political environment, the AKP has sometimes resorted to the lowest common denominator, using economic and political populism to

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ensure its appeal among a large swath of the Turkish electorate that is angry at the West, including the EU and the United States. Finally, the prime minister’s personal feelings toward Israel are no longer secret and have become a major driving factor in Turkey’s foreign policy in the region. Having championed a more critical line toward Israel since its Gaza operations and his infamous eruption at Davos, the prime minister has benefited from the subsequent outburst of support he received both in Turkey and in the Arab world. As a savvy politician deeply attuned to the hearts and minds of the Anatolian heartland, Erdoÿan seemingly has little time for the more nuanced language of diplomacy. Separating legitimate criticism of Israel and the more populist anti-Jewish rhetoric from his personal language is becoming more difficult and more troubling for Turkey’s international partners. Therefore, while the general message of Turkey’s self-confident and assertive foreign policy may be well tuned, it is sometimes lost in the theatrics of the messenger.80

Turkey’s Impact on the Middle East

What have the changes in Turkey’s Middle Eastern policies achieved? There appear to be two major arenas in which Turkey’s transformation is having an impact. Turkey’s Impact Through Mediation

The first and most evident impact of Turkey’s transformation regards the country’s role in mediation. Given that promoting peace among and developing ties with all parties have been two pillars of Turkish current foreign policy,81 offering to mediate in the conflict-ridden Middle East has been a principal feature and outcome of Turkey’s transformation. The most important case regards Turkey’s mediation between Israel and Syria.82 The Turkish initiative dates back to January 2004 in the context of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s visit to Turkey. At the time, however, not least because of the US strategy of isolating Syria, Israel rejected the offer of an official restart of negotiations. That led to the launch of a track-two process, instead.83 By September 2004 the initiative had developed into a more structured process, which lasted until July 2006. The 2006 Lebanon War (and Israel’s ensuing awareness of Hizballah’s capabilities and its own relative vulnerability) raised Israel’s perceived need to move forward on the Syrian track, triggering Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s call for his Turkish counterpart’s mediation in September 2006. The process was delayed by Israel’s bombing of Syria’s military installation near Dayr al-Zur in September 2007 (incidentally flying through Turkish airspace), but official preparations started. Between May 2008 and December 2008 four rounds of official indirect talks via Turkish shuttle diplomacy took place. According to both sides, greater progress was achieved

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than originally expected. The parties had entered the process for different reasons. For President Assad a prime aim was to break Syria’s international isolation and show the West that Syria was a serious partner for peace. For Prime Minister Olmert the aim was to negotiate with Syria in order to weaken the IranSyria-Hizballah link.84 Neither side expected a breakthrough, yet more was achieved than ever before.85 The climax came at a dinner between the Turkish prime minister and his Israeli counterpart on December 23, 2008, in which the launch of direct talks appeared to be in the offing. Five days later Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, and the process broke down. Another case of Turkish mediation regards Hamas. In view of Turkey’s open political channels to Hamas (in particular, its political bureau in Damascus), Ankara has offered to mediate on two occasions. The first was over a prisoner exchange in the aftermath of the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in June 2006. Turkish prime minister advisor Ahmet Davutπlu traveled to Damascus several times to try to broker a deal. Following the failure to yield a breakthrough, the potential of Turkey’s efforts was recognized by UN Human Rights Rapporteur in the Occupied Territories Richard Falk, who argued, “It is tragic that this effort failed, and was at the time criticized. In retrospect, both the wellbeing of the Gazan civilian population and the security of Israel would have greatly benefited by taking advantage of the Turkish initiative, and moving to implement the readiness of Hamas to establish a ceasefire.”86 The second instance of Turkish mediation with Hamas was during Operation Cast Lead in December 2008–January 2009. Given the absence of official contact with Hamas, neither the United States nor the EU could exert any influence on Hamas to try to secure a cease-fire on its side.87 Egypt played a crucial role, yet the wellknown difficulties between Hamas and the Egyptian regime made movement difficult and opened a space for Turkey. Davutπlu readily used it by holding two meetings with Hamas leader Meshal and shuttling between Damascus and Cairo to try to secure a cease-fire by Hamas in return for an Israeli cease-fire and the lifting of Israel’s closure of Gaza. The EU—in particular, French president Nicolas Sarkozy—appreciated Turkey’s role and advocated in favor of it.88 Following the end of the Israeli offensive and despite the absence of a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, Turkey’s efforts were openly praised by the Arab League, Syria, France, and the European Union.89 The possibility of mediating one of the most internationally contentious issues and engendering the praise of the United States and the EU has captivated Ankara’s attention when it comes to Iran. Given Turkey’s strategy of avoiding regional destabilization and wanting to avoid further sanctions on Iran, which would curtail the burgeoning economic relations between Turkey and Iran, mediating between Tehran and the West has become a major aspect of Turkey’s diplomacy in the region. More broadly, as an important regional power that has had a long history of pragmatic relations with Iran and been an important member of the Western camp, Turkey is geographically, historically, and strategically well placed to play a major mediating role. However, Turkey’s efforts have

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thus far yielded few results. In 2006 Turkey sought to facilitate 5+1 talks,90 when President Abdullah Gµl conducted shuttle diplomacy between the principal actors, Condoleezza Rice, Javier Solana, Mohammed el Baradei, and Ali Larijani. US Secretary of State Rice acknowledged Turkey’s efforts in July 2006, but nothing came of them. Since then Ankara has consistently offered its good offices to mediate on the question of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and continues to pass messages from Washington to Tehran. However, by 2009 the tone of the Turkish prime minister’s rhetoric on Iran’s nuclear ambitions started to be seen as less than helpful by the West.91 On Iran there are clearly differing short-term approaches between Turkish and US officials but the same overarching desire to prevent a nuclear Iran. In attempts to head off coercive action that would hurt its own citizens living near Iran and dependent on cross-border trade for their economic livelihood, Ankara has been attempting its own trilateral diplomacy (with the help of Brazil) to deal with Tehran. Those attempts—which were originally encouraged by the Obama administration—have led to a divide on the means necessary to achieve a nuclear weapon–free Iran.92 The subsequent recriminations and rhetorical outbursts of the prime minister in defense of the Iranian regime and the TurkishBrazilian deal have further clouded Turkey’s intentions toward achieving a Western consensus on preventing a nuclear-armed Iran. While official Turkish diplomatic energy has been focused on the prevention of a nuclear-armed Iran, many diplomats and officials have begun to feel that the prime minister’s rhetoric is at odds with stated aims.93 Washington has increasingly turned to President Gµl to deliver messages and warnings while trying to sideline Erdoÿan because of his perceived bias toward Iran and repeated calls for a nuclear-free Middle East that focus on Israel. Critics of Turkey’s policy argue that a nuclear Iran would be a destabilizing factor that would ultimately hurt Turkey’s longterm interests in the region by changing the existing strategic calculus, which favors Turkey’s considerable conventional military advantage.94 A final area of Turkey’s attempted mediation has been within the Arab world, which was unthinkable for Turkey in any period of its past. Two examples are its mediation efforts between Syria and Iraq and between Syria and Saudi Arabia. In the first case, Turkey attempted to reconcile Syrians and Iraqis over the latter’s accusation of involvement by Syria in the August 2009 bombings in Baghdad. In the second case, Turkey mediated a microcrisis over the quasi-cancellation of a state visit by the king of Saudi Arabia to Syria in September 2009 due to tensions between Damascus and Riyadh. With the help of Turkey’s last-minute interventions the visit was completed in October 2009, and Syria’s rapprochement with the Arab League was further facilitated.95 Within Lebanon as well as Iraq, Turkey also intervened to reconcile contrasting sectarian groups, playing a facilitation role (albeit a secondary one) in the 2008 Doha agreement on Lebanon and encouraging Iraq’s Sunni groups to participate in the 2005 elections. In different conflict hubs, Turkey’s supply of mediation has been matched by high demand in the region. One may legitimately ask, however: What has

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Turkey achieved? A critic may rightly point out that despite all its efforts, Turkey has not brokered any breakthroughs. Peace between Israel and Syria, Israel and Hamas, and the West and Iran, as well as reconciliation within the fractious Arab world is certainly not imminent. But using as a benchmark the achievement of a long-sought peace agreement is placing the bar very high—not even the United States can report many (if any) successes in that arena. The real test is whether Turkey has contributed to making mediation forums more effective, thus increasing their chance of success. In this respect the record, while mixed, tilts toward the positive. Moreover, provided that ties to Israel are not completely cut off, Turkey offers important added value in terms of identity and experience in the search for a peaceful Middle East. In the case of Turkey’s mediation within the Arab world, Ankara’s involvement may be limited to instances of microcrisis management, but they are nonetheless exemplary of a new Turkish role in the Arab world. Turkey’s Potential in Realigning the Middle East

A second, and potentially more important, Turkish impact on the Middle East regards the geopolitical realignment of the region. First, Turkey offers the prospect of realigning the region by countering revisionist and securitizing trends rampant there. In today’s Middle East, states like Iran and Israel through their rhetoric (particularly in the case of the former) and actions (particularly in the case of the latter) raise suspicion, anxiety, and fear of revisionism, triggering an accelerated securitization in the region. By contrast, Turkey is trying to foster relations with all parties through bilateral relations and regional integration. Arab countries like Syria, in particular, see the potential. Prevalent in Syrian perceptions of Turkey is precisely Damascus’s double objectives of strengthening its hand vis-à-vis Israel96 while concomitantly diversifying its alliances beyond Iran. As put by a key Syrian interlocutor, “When Syria feels threatened it turns to Iran, when it sees opportunities it turns to Turkey.”97 Indeed, Syria has important areas of disagreement with Tehran, particularly regarding the sectarianization of Iraq. Thus, it appreciates Turkey’s potential as a route to the West and the opportunity it offers for an integrated Middle East. Other Arab states, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have been less enthusiastic about Turkey’s role, particularly in Palestine and intra-Arab affairs, fearing a loss of primacy in those areas. On the whole, however, the Turks have generally been accepted by Arab states that welcome the pragmatic and business-savvy nature of Turkish diplomacy. As a gateway to both Europe and the United States, Turkey has become an important meeting and convening spot for the actors of the region. Second, and related, Turkey offers the prospect of unsettling, dislodging, and possibly breaking the dichotomies that have poisoned the Middle East in the past. Particularly in the West (yet partly also in the Middle East), the region has been viewed in either-or terms: moderate or radical, Western or anti-Western, Sunni or Shiite, Israeli or Arab, West or Islam. A transformed Turkey in the region could help move away from those dichotomies by being moderate, Muslim,

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and Western yet enjoying relations with radicals and anti-Western actors in the Muslim Middle East; by being predominantly Sunni while enjoying relations with Shiite countries (e.g., Iran), movements (e.g., Hizballah), and regimes (e.g., the Alawite Syrian regime), as well as enjoying the credibility to mediate between sectarian groups in Iraq and Lebanon; by being neither Arab nor Israeli while enjoying relations with both. Fulfilling that potential will be no small feat. To the extent that the Middle East is conflict ridden, Turkey will not be able to improve relations with some without harming its relations with and raising suspicion in others. Whatever the outcome, Turkey does run the risk of going beyond mediation and doing little more than switching alliances. Its fiery rhetoric toward Israel is an example of this risk. While it is healthy for Turkey’s relations with Israel to be dictated by conditionality and “tough love,” it is equally important, if its diplomacy is to be effective, for Turkey not to fall into the opposing camp. Above all, it is essential that Turkey’s actions in the Middle East be interpreted as driven not by its Muslim nature, but rather by international norms. For Turkey’s potential to be fulfilled, it cannot be viewed as fueling an identitydriven clash that it supposedly attempts to transcend.

Transatlantic Implications of Turkey’s Middle Eastern Transformation

What does Turkey’s transformation in the Middle East add up to, and what are its implications for the United States and the European Union? As far as mediation is concerned, Turkey’s efforts can bear fruit only if undertaken in tandem with the United States. Turkey has demonstrated its ability to mediate microcrises and can also play a useful role as a go-between for the West and actors such as Hamas, Iran, and Syria. As discussed above, however, as far as the macroconflicts in the region are concerned, Turkey’s potential is limited. Turkey played an important role in moving the Syrian-Israeli track forward and won Syrian trust of and support for its involvement in future peace efforts.98 But Turkey, alone, could not deliver an agreement. This is not because the deterioration of relations with Israel has disqualified Turkey as an “honest broker.”99 The history of mediation in the region suggests that neutrality has hardly been a condition for success. The principal reason Turkey’s mediation potential is limited is that Israel, Syria, and Turkey all know that a deal will be sealed only when the United States steps in to support and confirm an agreement.100 Israel will not budge unless it is induced by Washington, while Syria will not grant Israel a peace process that lacks the prospect of a peace deal, a deal that Turkey alone cannot deliver in view of its limited leverage with all parties. If and when the United States reengages in an Israeli-Syrian peace process, Turkey’s role will have value, but it will still be secondary. Likewise, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Turkey’s relations with Hamas are important because of the self-imposed lack of US-EU

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contact and thus influence on the movement. Yet the prime actor calling the shots in the conflict is Israel, over which Turkey, irrespective of the state of its bilateral relations, has little influence. It is only if and when the United States and the EU choose to exert their influence on Israel that Turkey’s ties to Hamas can contribute to a positive movement in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. Turkey’s major contribution lies in the fact that it is an actor “of” rather than simply “in” the Middle East. Its actions offer the prospect of realigning the Middle East and breaking the dichotomies of the past by developing relations with all parties. This does not mean that its ties with all actors will always be good. Indeed tough love and conditionality, if measured (i.e., not excessive) and consistent (i.e., toward all parties), would mark a welcome difference from US and EU policies in the region. Yet this potential would be squandered if Turkey were viewed as acting purely according to particularistic identity affiliations rather than in the name of international rights and law.

Notes 1. The Strategic Cooperation Councils cover culture, economics, energy, transport, tourism, education, science, customs, defense, water, and the environment. They are presided over by the two heads of state and government and include regular ministerial meetings. 2. The Turkish-Iranian border dates back to the 1639 Kars-I Sirin Treaty. 3. Aras, “Turkish Foreign Policy Towards Iran.” 4. Larrabee and Lesser, Turkish Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty, p. 148. 5. The 1990s saw a renewed surge of political Islam in Turkey through the strong electoral showing of the Welfare Party (Refah). Particularly during Welfare leader Necmettin Erbakan’s term as prime minister (1996–1997), concerns among Turkey’s secular elites were at an all time high, culminating in the “soft” military coup that led to the collapse of the coalition government and the banning of Refah. 6. In February 1997 then Iranian Ambassador to Turkey Mohammed Reza Baqeri delivered a speech on Jerusalem Day in Sincan, Ankara, inciting Turks to follow Iran’s footsteps. See Aras and Polat, “From Conflict to Cooperation.” 7. The pipeline was opened in 2002. 8. The first agreement covered the transport of Turkmen gas through Iran, Turkey, and the EU; the second covered the extraction of Iranian oil to be transported to Ceyhan. See Aras, “Turkish Foreign Policy Towards Iran.” 9. The deal has been put on hold and at the time of writing in 2010 was not yet implemented. 10. Larrabee, Turkey as a US Security Partner, p. 12. 11. Turkish Statistical Institute, Foreign Trade by Countries Report. 12. Having built the airport, TAV had been awarded the contract to operate it as well, although the contract was revoked in 2004 when the Iranian Revolutionary Guard objected to a foreign firm taking over such a key role. A similar story can be told of TURKCELL, which had been awarded an operating license in September 2004, later revoked, allegedly in view of Turkey’s ties to Israel. 13. Ta≈spªnar, “Turkey’s Middle East Policies,” p. 20. 14. Larrabee, Turkey as a US Security Partner, p. 13. 15. Transatlantic Trends, Topline Data.

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16. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoπlu’s speech, December 8, 2009, SETA, Washington. 17. UN Resolution 688 creating this zone was actually drafted in Ankara despite official Turkish protests to the contrary. For further reading on this see Kiri≈sci, “Provide Comfort and Turkey.” 18. Malka, “Turkey and the Middle East.” 19. Walker, “Re-examining the US-Turkish Alliance.” 20. This was followed by key developments in 2009, including a visit to Turkey by Iraqi president Jalal Talebani in which he publicly opposed the creation of a Kurdish state, and a visit to Baghdad by President Abdullah Gµl, the first visit by a Turkish president since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, in which he also held direct talks with president of the Iraqi Kurdish region Massoud Barzani. 21. Malka, “Turkey and the Middle East,” p. 39. 22. See “Turkey, Iraq Sign Deals for Regional Integration,” Today’s Zaman, Apr. 12, 2010, http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-190067-turkey-iraq-sign-dealsfor-regional-integration.html 23. The issue has been effectively shelved as Syria no longer raises it and Turkey appreciates that, having been part of Syria’s official policy for decades, Damascus cannot immediately officially renounce its claims to the province. Interviews with Turkish and Syrian officials, Damascus, October 2009. 24. One of the reasons why Syria took Turkey’s military threat seriously in 1998 was that Turkish troops and military vehicles actually crossed a few miles into Syrian territory, albeit briefly. 25. Further reading on the “Adana Process” can be found in Bali Aykan, “The Palestinian Question in Turkish Foreign Policy from the 1950s to the 1990s.” 26. Interview with expert on Syria, Damascus, Oct. 2009. 27. These turning points in Turkish-Syrian relations were reiterated in all interviews with Syrian analysts, officials, and journalists, Damascus, Oct. 2009. 28. “Syrian President: Common Interests of Turkey and Syria Can Turn into a Significant Brotherhood,” Turkish Press, Mar. 3, 2004, http://www.turkishpress.com/turkish press/news.asp?ID=18083 29. Syria appreciated Turkey’s opening, particularly at a time when Damascus was facing increasing isolation from the United States through the December 2003 Syria Accountability Act, followed by broader US and European (and in particular French) accusations of Syria’s involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Refik Hariri in February 2005. 30. “Syrian President: Common Interests of Turkey and Syria Can Turn into a Significant Brotherhood,” Turkish Press, Mar. 3, 2004, http://www.turkishpress.com/turkish press/news.asp?ID=18083 31. Yavuz, “Turkish-Israeli Relations.” 32. This led to a progressive increase in the number of Israeli tourists visiting Turkey over the 1990s, reaching 300,000 tourists per year in 2000. Interview with Israeli journalist, Tel-Aviv, Oct. 2009. 33. Israeli-Turkish trade has included strategic products such as military hardware and technology, mineral fuels, organic chemicals, machinery, and optical equipment. 34. Alongside Norway, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, and Sweden. 35. Bengio, “Altercating Interests and Orientations Between Israel and Turkey.” 36. Including a search and rescue exercise off the Turkish coast in Aug. 2007, Larrabee, Turkey as a US Security Partner, p. 20. 37. Turkey allegedly benefitted from Israeli intelligence prior to its ground offensive against the PKK in Northern Iraq in February 2008. Bengio, “Altercating Interests and Orientations Between Israel and Turkey.”

58 Nathalie Tocci and Joshua W. Walker

38. Including a $141 million contract granted by the Israeli Aerospace Industries to Elbit Systems and the Turkish manufacturer Aselan in December 2008, at the height of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. See “Elbit, IAI get $141 Million Turkish Air Force Deal,” Reuters, December 25, 2008. 39. Nafi, “The Arabs and Modern Turkey.” 40. Jack Dymond, “Turkey Accuses Israel of Genocide,” BBC News, Apr. 4, 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1911609.stm 41. “Erdoÿan: Unfair War in Lebanon Will Have No Winner,” Turkish Daily News, Aug. 4, 2006. 42. The exercise was cancelled after the United States (and Italy) withdrew their participation. 43. H. D. S. Greenway, “It’s Getting Chilly Between Turkey and Israel,” Global Post, Oct. 21, 2009. 44. Interview with Turkish academic, Istanbul, Oct. 2009. 45. TOBB’s initiative consists in inviting to the “Ankara Forum” Turkish, Israeli, and Palestinian chambers of commerce representatives in order to develop joint commercial projects. The forum’s pet project was the development of the Erez Industrial Zone in the aftermath of the 2005 Israeli disengagement, which was meant to create 7,000 jobs in Gaza. Like many of the Oslo (and Oslo-like) initiatives, however, the project crumbled in the wake of the political separation between the West Bank and Gaza in 2007 and Operation Cast Lead in 2008. 46. Interview with Palestinian human rights activist, Ramallah, Oct. 2009. 47. After much controversy surrounding the Hamas visit to Ankara, Khaled Meshal met then Foreign Minister Gµl at the AKP headquarters rather than at the Foreign Ministry. 48. Turkish and Syrian border guards also exchanged fire on this occasion. 49. Bali Aykan, “The Palestinian Question in Turkish Foreign Policy.” 50. Turkey however refused to vote in favor of the resolution calling states to sever diplomatic relations with Israel. See Aras and Bicakci, “Europe, Turkey and the Middle East.” 51. Kiri≈sci, “Turkey and the Muslim Middle East.” 52. Makovsky, “The New Activism in Turkish Foreign Policy.” 53. S ≈ µkrµ Elekdaÿ (1996) quoted in Mufti, “Daring and Caution in Turkish Foreign Policy,” p. 34. 54. In the mid-1990s, Greece, Armenia, and Iran held annual foreign ministers meetings, and Greece and Syria signed an agreement in 1995 regarding Greek use of Syrian airbases. 55. Larrabee and Lesser, Turkish Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty, p. 137. 56. Approximately 1.5 million refugees are said to have crossed the border from northern Iraq into Turkey and Iran as a consequence of the war and Saddam Hussein’s policies toward the Kurds. See Larrabee and Lesser, Turkish Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty, p. 138. On the implications for Turkey of the Gulf war and the creation of a safe haven in northern Iraq see Kiri≈sci, “Turkey and the Kurdish Safe-Haven in Northern Iraq.” 57. Approximately $2 billion per year, Larrabee and Lesser, Turkish Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty, p. 135. 58. Including Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. The Conference of Iraq’s Neighbors drew from a aborted initiative by former Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem to establish a “Neighborhood Forum” in order to ease tensions arising from the situation in Iraq in 1998. See Altunª≈sªk, “Worldviews and Turkish Foreign Policy in the Middle East,” p. 186. 59. Interview with Syrian analyst, Damascus, Oct. 2009.

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60. Conversation with Turkish foreign ministry, Ankara, Oct. 2009. http://www .todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-199534-istanbul-hosting-presidential-level-trilateralsummit-with-afghanistan-pakistan.html 61. Kiri≈sci, “Between Europe and the Middle East.” 62. Yavuz, “Turkish-Israeli Relations.” 63. Emerson and Tocci, “Turkey as Bridgehead and Spearhead.” 64. Interview with Turkish academic, Istanbul Oct. 2009. 65. Kramer, “Turkey’s Accession Process to the EU.” Particularly in Israel, Turkey’s rapprochement to the Middle East is viewed as driven by its Islamic identity. Interviews with Israeli civil society representative, Jerusalem, and journalist, Tel Aviv, Oct. 2009. 66. The Turkish-Arab conflict predates the Cold War, going back to the rise of Arab nationalism, Arab resentment against Ottoman colonialism and the Arab alliance with the British in World War I, and republican Turkey’s distancing from the Middle East. Ta≈spinar, “Turkey’s Middle East Policies.” 67. The Turkish-Israeli alliance and the widespread accusations of it led then President Demirel to storm out of an Organiation of the Islamic Conference meeting in Tehran in November 1997. 68. Prior to the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Arab/non-Arab dichotomy also included the Shah’s Iran in the latter group. The idea of the non-Arab alliance was also embedded in David Ben Gurion’s concept of Israel’s four-cornered alliance, which included Turkey, Iran, Uganda, and Ethiopia. The Israeli logic was that of allying with non-Arab states and communities (e.g., the Druzes and Maronites in Lebanon as well as the Kurds). Interview with Israeli journalist, Tel Aviv, Oct. 2009. 69. A trilateral working commission including Turkey, Iraq, and Syria has been established to work out pending differences over water sharing. 70. Following the war, Kurdish riots erupted in northeast Syria in April 2004, and Syrian Kurds have increasingly called for more rights. 71. Following the 2003 war, Iran became subject to attacks by the PKK’s sister organization PJAK (Free Life in Kurdistan). Iran, as opposed to Turkey (and Syria), is far more agnostic (if not supportive) on the sectarianization of Iraq (entailing greater autonomy for the Shi’ite south). Despite these differences with Syria and Turkey over the future of Iraq, Iran also resists the emergence of an independent Iraqi Kurdistan. 72. Lundgren, Unwelcome Neighbour. 73. Interviews with former Israeli negotiator, Jerusalem, and analyst, Tel Aviv, Oct. 2009. 74. Jenkins, Context and Circumstance. 75. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics”; Putnam, Double Edged Diplomacy. 76. See Chapter 7 in this volume. 77. See Chapter 2 in this volume. 78. Kiri≈sci, “The Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy.” 79. Cook, “Turkey’s War at Home.” 80. http://experts.foreignpolicy.com/blog/4800 81. Speech by Ibrahim Kalªn, advisor to the Turkish prime minister, Istanbul Forum, Istanbul, Oct. 20, 2009. 82. This account was informed by interviews with Syrian, Israeli, and Turkish negotiators in the process, Damascus, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Istanbul, Oct. 2009. 83. That is, an unofficial negotiation process including both civil society actors as well as officials participating in individual capacity. 84. Although reportedly far less for his coalition partners and the foreign ministry, who were not fully involved in the process. Interview with former Israeli negotiator, Jerusalem, Oct. 2009.

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85. Syria for the first time made a written territorial offer (six reference points on the map) on the Golan Heights expecting an Israeli response. In turn Israel asked a set of security questions (related to Syria’s stance vis-à-vis Hamas, Hizballah, and Iran following a deal) to which Syria responded in written form yet in a manner deemed too vague by Israel. During his visit to Turkey on Dec. 23, 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert was expected to deliver written responses to the Syrian offer, which he did not, primarily for domestic political reasons. The two prime ministers allegedly had a fivehour-long dinner in telephone conversation with Syrian President Asad. 86. Richard Falk “Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe,” Today’s Zaman, Jan. 4, 2009. 87. While choosing not to exert any influence on Israel to ensure a cease-fire on its side. 88. “Turkish PM Speaks to Sarkozy on the Phone,” Time Turk English, Jan. 7, 2009. 89. “Turkey Key to Convincing Hamas on Gaza Cease-Fire,” TurkishNY.com, Jan. 20, 2009, http://www.turkishny.com/tr/ingilizce-haberler/1639-turkey-key-to-convincinghamas-on-gaza-cease-fire-.html 90. The 5+1 contact group includes the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. 91. Sakªp Sabanci Lecture by Assistant Secretary of State Phil Gordon, Mar. 17, 2010, The Brookings Institution. 92. http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/05/19/turkey_obama_wanted_us_ to_make_a_deal_with_iran 93. Turkey and Iran have historically had tense relations, and privately many Turkish diplomats voice their concerns about how the prime minister’s support for the Iranian regime may be counterproductive to their efforts to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. Author interview with senior officials in Istanbul and Ankara May 15–19, 2010. 94. For example ≈Sanlª Bahadªr Koç, a Turkish strategist, has written extensively on Turkey’s position in the Middle East with regard to a nuclear Iran on his blog and various publications at http://bahadirkoc.blogspot.com/ 95. Interviews with Turkish diplomats, Ankara, Oct. 20, 2009. 96. For example, by assuring that Israeli attacks, such as the one in 2007 through Turkish airspace, would no longer be possible. Telephone conversation with expert on Syria, Paris, Sept. 2009. 97. Interview, Damascus, Oct. 2009. 98. Interviews with Syrian officials, diplomats, and academics, Washington and Damascus, Oct. 2009. 99. See “Netanyahu: Turkey Can’t Be an ‘Honest Broker’ in Syria Talks,” Ha’aretz, Oct. 18, 2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121723.html. Accessed Oct. 18, 2010. 100. Interviews with Syrian and Israeli negotiators and Turkish diplomats, Damascus, Jerusalem, and Istanbul, Oct. 2009.

4 Battles, Barrels, and Belonging: Turkey and Its Black Sea Neighbors Ronald H. Linden At a speech in Brussels in September 2009, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon remarked, “It is always striking when you deal with Turkey that you’re dealing with energy, NATO, European Union, Middle East, Iran, Cyprus, Greece, there’s hardly an issue that Turkey isn’t related to.”1 In fact, Secretary Gordon could easily have added to the list of high-profile topics that swirl around Turkey to include relations with Russia; changes in and around the Black Sea, including war; and the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Many of these are not new, but in recent years Turkey’s involvement in its “neighborhood” has changed significantly. Ankara has undertaken an active and markedly different approach to its region compared to that seen during the Cold War or in the years after the Cold War’s end. This chapter will consider part of the neighborhood, loosely aggregated under the notion of “the Black Sea area.” The multiple states around or near this small but significant body of water hardly constitute a single “region,” but their very diversity and centrality to numerous issues act as organizing devices to allow us to analyze the various dimensions of Turkish foreign relations. Using the Black Sea area as a focal point, we can consider Turkey’s relations with two EU member states in the Balkans, Romania and Bulgaria, and others there who want to be members; its ties with and relations to developments in post-Soviet states, especially Georgia and Armenia; and the scope and dynamics of relations with Russia. In recent years the Black Sea itself has drawn increasing attention as a transit corridor for energy derived farther east but needed farther west. Turkey, energy poor but well located, seeks to be and is a part of the changing energy dynamics, as well. In addition, of course, there is the EU, since 2007 an organization with a Black Sea coast. While many have examined Turkey’s long and fitful journey toward full membership in the European Union,2 this chapter will concentrate on the interaction of that dynamic with the politics and policies related to the Black Sea area and its nearby environs. This chapter will consider first the contemporary situation of the Black Sea area and how changes there have presented both risk and opportunity for Turkey. 61

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It will then examine Turkey’s policies toward key states and issues in the region and explore both the impact of these policies and the reasons behind them.

The Black Sea Area: A Region in Flux

The current diversity of states and systems in the region generally referred to as the Black Sea is well documented, both historically and for contemporary times.3 Currently, the region includes three members of NATO, Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria—and at least one other that would like to become a member, Georgia— and the two EU members, Romania and Bulgaria. Several Black Sea states, including Russia, are post-Soviet in domestic and international behavior. Zooming out only slightly—and keeping Turkey in mind—we find nearby no less than three “frozen conflicts”: one in Moldova (Transnistria); one in Azerbaijan (Nagorno-Karabakh); and the oldest one, a divided Cyprus. Turkey has some historical involvement and a substantial stake in at least two of these, as it does in relations with states and societies in the Balkans that were once part of its imperium. This diversity has pushed the states of the region in several different directions in terms of international relations, and the differences have sharpened in recent years. From the beginning of the postcommunist period, the governments of Romania and Bulgaria took steps toward moving closer to the alliances based in West Europe—that is, the EU and NATO. Both made applications to join these organizations and both were rebuffed, at least at first. Finally, the EU granted them candidacy in 1999, and both eventually joined in 2007, but with a unique accompanying mechanism known as “verification and cooperation.” The two newest members thus report every six months on their efforts to improve in areas considered troublesome by Brussels: corruption and the independence of the judiciary and, for Bulgaria, crime.4 NATO, too, eventually welcomed the two former Warsaw Pact states, admitting them in 2004. Romania was generally more eager to join than Bulgaria, though both had participated in NATO missions in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as non-NATO action in Afghanistan, before joining. Other Balkan states, such as Croatia and Albania, have been able to join NATO, while most are in various stages of the long accession process with the EU.5 In contrast, at the turn of the millennium neither Ukraine nor Georgia was on the list to join NATO, though the latter expressed its desire to do so once Mikhail Saakashvili took power in late 2003 after that country’s Rose Revolution. But the EU has made it clear that membership is “not on offer” for either of those states, though Brussels was deeply involved in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004 and labels the country a “priority partner.” In 2007 the EU unveiled its Black Sea Synergy initiative, and in 2008 it launched a new Eastern Partnership overture that is clearly an attempt to exert influence economically and politically while holding off on promising partnership. This policy is targeted at several former Soviet states with Black Sea ties or ties to Turkey, including

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Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, and Georgia, and aims to promote greater economic and energy cooperation in the region.6 For the Balkans the EU has moved to try to reinvigorate its own initiatives, including the prospect of membership.7 The involvement of the EU and especially the expansion of NATO into what was once a Soviet empire provoked renewed Russian interest in keeping Western and especially US influence to a minimum in the region. During the early years of Vladimir Putin’s presidency (2000–2008), Russia was supportive of the US war in Afghanistan; made no objection to the stationing of US troops, even in countries that had once been part of the USSR, like Uzbekistan; and generally pursued policies aimed at greater cooperation with the West. But disappointment with the results of such efforts, the approach of NATO toward Georgia and Ukraine, and the assertiveness of the United States—represented most starkly by the invasion of Iraq—and of the EU in Kosovo and in former Soviet states like Ukraine, led Moscow to adopt a more assertive attitude toward Western influence in the region.8 Russian economic strength engendered by rising oil prices reinforced Russia’s ability to project power in the area around the Black Sea region.9 The Russian national strategy, articulated in new foreign policy concepts in 2008 and a new national security strategy in 2009, made clear Russia’s desire to be treated as a global power, its hostility to NATO as a European security organization, and its broad view of security as embracing many socioeconomic concerns, including energy.10 Russian president Dmitry Medvedev asserted Russia’s special interest in the “near abroad”—that is, the former Soviet republics— most plainly when he argued that one of the key principles of Russian foreign policy was “privileged access” in certain neighboring areas.11 Hectoring Ukraine and forcibly carving up Georgia demonstrated that Moscow intended to put these principles into action. In 2006 and again in 2009 Gazprom abruptly cut off oil supplies to Ukraine, and Moscow has threatened to do so again.12 Russian president Medvedev was not shy about the Kremlin’s preference for a new leader in Ukraine.13 Equally clear was Russian disdain for Saakashvili and his attempts to reunify Georgia, divided since conflict between Tblisi and three regions of the country, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Adjaria, led to violence. In 2004 Saakashvili forcibly brought Adjaria back under control of the Georgian government, but an attempt to do so in South Ossetia in 2008 gave Russia the opportunity to launch a fullscale invasion of Georgia and partition the country. Russia had previously offered passports and economic support to people in these regions and after the invasion formally recognized them as states. More than three thousand Russian troops remain in these areas, and the Abkhazian coast of the Black Sea is effectively under Russian control.14 Concomitant with these political and alliance changes, the Black Sea has begun to figure prominently in energy politics. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and changes in the Middle East, the Black Sea area has become even more important as a transit route for energy (see Figure 4.1). Slowly, European states

Figure 4.1 Black Sea Pipelines and Tanker Routes

Source: Rafael Kandiyoti, “Pipeline Chess Across the Black Sea,” Le Monde Diplomatique (English Edition), January 24, 2011, http://mondediplo.com/blogs/ pipeline-chess-across-the-black-sea.

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have begun to realize that to secure alternatives to the choke points of Russian pipelines and East-East politics, energy from other sources—for example, the Caspian Sea—have to be secured. For both oil and gas this means going through or near Turkey. The major European initiative to erode Russia’s position in gas supply is the Nabucco pipeline, designed to stretch from eastern Turkey to Austria and to bring 31 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas to Europe per year (see Figure 4.2). A variety of national and international issues delayed the signing of the transit agreement needed to begin to build the pipeline, but that finally occurred in 2009. The gas for the pipeline is supposed to come from the Caspian Sea fields, most particularly those controlled by Azerbaijan. The alternatives, getting gas into the pipeline from Iran or Iraq, bring with them a host of political obstacles. Wherever the gas comes from, the pipeline itself must travel through Turkey.

Figure 4.2 Proposed Pipelines

Source: Richard Galpin, “Energy Fuels New ‘Great Game’ in Europe,” BBC, June 9, 2009.

66 Ronald H. Linden

Other lines are being built that will link Romanian and Bulgarian ports to sites in Italy and Greece, respectively. But the Bourgas (Bulgaria)–Alexandroupolis (Greece) pipeline, like the Baltic–North Sea pipeline, will still rely on oil to be supplied by Russia. The Black Sea area thus provides in microcosm a picture of the external environment that provides both opportunity and risk for Turkey. The changes in the region require a national response because neither Turkey’s long-time allies nor its once and future partners, NATO and the EU, have managed effective, coordinated responses to these changes. The ability of NATO and the EU to project power into this part of the neighborhood is limited, while the interest and power of erstwhile adversaries, like Russia, have increased. These changes— and Turkey’s policies—cover many policy dimensions: conflict, energy, membership in international organizations, and national identity and have both contemporary and historical aspects. The new activism of Turkish policy must address all of these and do so in a way that supports a new Turkish vision of its role in this region.

Turkish Policy

After the end of World War II, Turkey was anchored in the NATO alliance system as a bulwark against possible Soviet expansion. Along with Norway, Turkey was the only NATO country with a land border with the USSR, and its military bases and listening posts were invaluable for the alliance. With the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, Turkey’s strategic value to the West was steeply discounted, and Turkey struggled to find a new role. During the 1990s, Turkey pursued relations with Russia along multiple channels. Visits and trade increased as the two former enemies renewed acquaintances. Specific and general agreements were signed, and a newly democratic, and much weaker, Russia allowed for lower threat perceptions.15 At the same time, Turkey pursued, and the United States encouraged, a new role as a “Turkish model” in the former Soviet space, specifically Central Asia. This was not received well in Moscow or pursued to full fruition by Turkey, and the idea of such a role faded.16 In contrast to the southern and eastern parts of Turkey’s neighborhood after the Cold War, the Black Sea area provided an opportunity for greater Turkish involvement. Some of the states in this region had previously been off limits, and in the case of Russia, parallel interests emerged. In 1992 the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) group was founded, with Russia and Turkey at its core. It included not only all Black Sea littoral countries but also others such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Greece. The organization was regional and intergovernmental but with no supranational bodies like the EU and no US membership like NATO. With its headquarters in Istanbul, BSEC has spawned a host of subsidiary governmental organizations and projects, most devoted to business

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and trade development, environment, and infrastructure.17 In 2001, following a Turkish proposal, six littoral states created the Black Sea Naval Cooperation Task Group (BLACKSEAFOR). This group also operates on functional lines, providing for low-level military cooperation such as search and rescue missions, naval visits, and later, under Turkish urging, cooperation against terrorism and nuclear proliferation.18 Ankara sought to reestablish ties in the Balkans, and multilateral cooperation provided the opportunity to do so.19 Turkey participated in NATO-led peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as follow-on missions in both regions led by the EU and the United Nations. Turkish trade in the Balkans grew quickly and was followed by substantial increases in Turkish investment. In the early post–Cold War period, with NATO undertaking the double roles of peacemaking and peacekeeping in the former communist region, Turkey could participate as a full member and in a way that served its own goals of seeking greater influence. Even after the attacks of 9/11, when the United States reoriented its national security strategy toward southern and western Asia, neither Turkey’s supporting role as an ally nor its aim of improving ties with Russia was compromised. For a time Turkey’s central geostrategic position enhanced its value; the country joined the war in Afghanistan before it became an official NATO operation and remained—and even led it—afterward. But Turkey was rebuffed by France, Germany, and Belgium when it formally asked NATO for protection and assistance prior to the Iraq War in 2003.20 When Turkey was asked by the United States the same year to allow its troops to open a second front against Iraq from Turkey, its parliament voted down the request. During the administration of George W. Bush, public views of the United States in Turkey shifted from favorable to decidedly unfavorable.21 The changed international environment did not provide the same opportunity for Turkey to participate as a full partner in the European Union as the Balkan conflicts had through NATO. While Turkey had formally applied to join the European Union in 1987, it was rejected in 1989 and not granted candidate status until 1999. This occurred after the organization had grown to fifteen with the addition of Sweden, Austria, and Finland and had granted candidacy to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. Candidacy was extended to Turkey simultaneously with the remaining eastern European and Baltic countries, plus Malta and Cyprus. But Turkey’s formal negotiations did not even begin until 2005, as the EU was consumed with absorbing ten, then twelve, new member states, most former communist countries of eastern Europe. In this case, the neighborhood environment brought more obstacles than opportunities. Brussels began to show evidence of “enlargement fatigue” and preoccupation with “absorption capacity.” The performance of Black Sea neighbors Romania and, especially, Bulgaria has not eased the membership path of nearby countries, including Turkey.22 Turkey is, of course, even bigger, poorer, and more agricultural than the most recent additions and faces straightforward, and often blunt, opposition to its membership. Suggestions from France and

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Germany of a “privileged partnership” have been angrily rejected by Ankara, and public support for membership is flagging.23 Initiatives were begun under Turkish governments in the early 1990s to open the economy, and under the first AKP government reforms were undertaken with great energy and substantial EU influence.24 But since 2005, progress on EU-mandated reforms has slowed, and the Turkey-EU relationship has grown decidedly cooler (see Chapters 7 and 9).25 Currently, only thirteen chapters of the thirty-five-chapter acquis communautaire have been opened and only one closed provisionally. Even this little progress may come to a halt if movement toward easing the division of Cyprus is not forthcoming (see Chapter 9). Membership aside, Europe’s somewhat belated recognition of its new role as a Black Sea littoral player has brought it to Turkey’s door. To some extent this is the result of belated recognition by the European states of their substantial dependence on Russia as a source of both oil and gas. Some 30 percent of Europe’s imported oil comes from Russia. Most of that comes west through huge pipelines that cross Ukraine; the rest is transported out of the Black Sea via the Bosporus in tankers.26 Europe also receives roughly 40 percent of its imported gas from Russia, (down from 75 percent in 1990).27 Overall, EU countries are dependent on Russia for about 25 percent of their energy needs, though the level varies greatly.28 After the disruptions of 2006, Europe began searching for alternatives to Russian supply and transport and to the uncertainties of the Russia-Ukraine energy relationship. Earlier, the United States had strongly supported construction of the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which began operating in 2006 and has brought nearly 100 million tons of oil to the Turkish port for shipment farther west. In July 2009, an agreement on the Nabucco gas pipeline was finally signed by all participants in Ankara. It is Europe’s energy needs that, in principle, offer the greatest opportunity for Turkey to exert leverage on the EU membership issue (see Chapter 5).29 Turkey’s response has been to reimagine itself as an “energy hub.” With few natural resources of its own, the country can take advantage of its geographic position to host virtually all alternative routes for oil and gas delivery from Central Asia to Europe. The first oil in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline arrived the same year that gas from Baku reached Erzurum, from which it is eventually to be shipped farther west via the Nabucco gas pipeline. But the biggest change in recent years—the improvement of Turkish-Russian relations—is also accompanied by substantial increases in the Russian provision of energy to Turkey for both domestic supply and shipment farther west. Turkey has been importing Russian gas through the Blue Stream pipeline, which runs under the Black Sea, since 2003 and in 2009 agreed to let Russia explore building the South Stream pipeline, which will carry gas to Europe through Turkish territorial waters. The two countries also moved forward on a projected “Blue Stream II,” which is to ship gas to the Middle East, and a new oil pipeline connecting Samsun on the Black Sea to Ceyhan. At the same time, Turkey accepted a Russian bid to build its first nuclear reactor in the country.30

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In a way that was not possible before the end of the Cold War or even in the two decades since, the contemporary period has created in the Black Sea area a nexus of opportunity for Turkish foreign policy. The EU’s need for energy—as well as its attitude toward Turkish membership—cannot be considered in isolation from Turkey’s relations with Russia. In turn, those relations are linked to Turkey’s own view of the strategic balance in the Black Sea area and its ties with the United States. Moreover, as we will see in the cases of Armenia and Azerbaijan, even overtures aimed eastward, toward the Caucasus, can have implications for several of these other dimensions.

Relations with Russia

All by themselves, Turkey’s relations with Russia embody many of the complexities and contradictions involved in Ankara’s new foreign policy activism. In this case the past does not offer a wealth of positive examples to draw on. The clash of the Ottoman and Russian Empires was a consistent feature of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century international relations—producing several wars—and during the Cold War there was no doubt which side of the global divide Turkey lay on. Moreover, at other times, for example, during the 1980s— successive military, or militarily backed, governments brutally suppressed leftwing movements in Turkey. To this day there is no vigorous socialist or social democratic party challenging for power, as there is in much of Europe.31 Yet with the Cold War over and the regional environment changing, Ankara and Moscow have found many complementarities in their views of the region, aspects that have made positive relations and pragmatic cooperation fruitful for both. For one thing, the dominant Turkish view of the Black Sea is one that precludes a major US or NATO presence—apart from Turkey’s own. Turkey has long viewed the Black Sea as central to equanimity in this zone and has resisted attempts to increase external forces there. It has rejected, for example, efforts by the United States to expand Operation Active Endeavor, a NATO antiterrorist force for the eastern Mediterranean, to the Black Sea. Ankara prefers the multilateral (and non-US) naval cooperation afforded by BLACKSEAFOR. In 2004 it launched its own BLACKSEA HARMONY force to counter terrorism in the region; Russia joined in 2006. Turkish officials assert that such Black Sea littoral actions make a large NATO presence unnecessary and, incidentally, that they are more effective in countering threats.32 Moscow and Ankara share concerns over terrorism, extrapolating from their own domestic turbulence, in the north Caucasus area in Russia and the Kurdish southeast in Turkey. After a period of rhetorical support for rebel groups, both sides recognized the larger significance of their mutual interests, and this has ceased to be a major problem. Indeed, Turkey and Russia regularly cooperate through a series of bilateral commissions, including in the military realm. On his trip to Ankara in 2009, Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin agreed to the establishment of a high-level strategic council between the two countries.33

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As Figure 4.3 shows, Russian-Turkish trade has grown dramatically in the last decade, and in 2008 Russia became Turkey’s largest trading partner. The worldwide recession caused a sharp drop in trade volume (40 percent) in 2009, but Turkey still depends on Russian energy for two-thirds of its imports of gas and 30 percent of its imported oil. Trade is heavily unbalanced in Russia’s favor, but nearly three million Russian tourists visited Turkey in 2008, and Turkish investment in Russia exceeded $17 billion over the past decade.34 While Turkey will in theory benefit from Europe’s desire to diversify its energy sources—the Nabucco pipeline and the gas it carries will cross Turkish territory—Turkey also benefits from Russia’s own energy plans. This is not a new development; Turkey imported its first Russian gas in 1987, and the agreement on building the Blue Stream pipeline was signed in 1997. But amounts have more than doubled since then,35 and recent Turkish receptivity to Moscow’s desire for another outlet to Western markets produced agreements on South Stream, Blue Stream II, and the new Samsun– Ceyhan pipeline. Those, plus the agreement to build Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, make Russian and Turkish energy plans even more inextricable.

Figure 4.3 Turkish Trade with Russia

Exports to Russia

Imports from Russia

Source: Turkstat, http://evds.tcmb.gov.tr/yeni/cbt-uk.html.

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Moscow and Ankara do not see the world in identical terms. Turkey quickly recognized Kosovo, for example, while Russia has staunchly backed Serbian opposition to that state. Russian military support makes possible Armenia’s continued occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region inside Azerbaijan, whom Turkey has supported. Turkey backed NATO expansion to the Balkans and has pursued membership in the European Union, while Russia opposes the former and has been aggressively challenging the latter.36 Ankara has supported—and even led—NATO actions in Afghanistan and, despite blocking the United States from invading Iraq from its territory, became the major conduit for US supplies and a transit point for troops into and out of Iraq. None of these has proven an obstacle to improved Turkish-Russian relations. Moscow has itself permitted military flights across its territory to resupply troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan—having its own reasons to fear radical Islam. In 2009, as part of its policy of “zero problems” with its neighbors, Ankara made a vigorous effort to improve relations with Yerevan (see below). While both Russia and Turkey are hostile to broad sanctions on Iran because of its nuclear program, Russia was able to support a fourth round of limited sanctions adopted by the UN in June 2010, while Ankara not only voted against them but proposed (with Brazil) its own deal with Iran for reprocessing nuclear fuel in Turkey.37 Turkish prime minister Erdoÿan has been sharply critical of sanctions, and Turkish-Iranian trade of more than $10 billion annually makes it very unlikely that Turkey will support broader sanctions. Such differences notwithstanding, Russia and Turkey share a sense of exclusion from Europe and a renewed desire to assert their own prerogatives.38 Discussing Russia’s recent experience with Europe and international changes, Paul Flenley writes, “All this presents the opportunity for Russia once again to play an international role, having been sidelined and patronised for much of the 1990s. The long period of ‘withdrawal’ and humiliation from 1989 onwards is now over.”39 Much the same could be said of Turkey, especially with regard to the EU, and there are enough common strategic and economic interests to reinforce such views and make the new Russian-Turkish relationship unrecognizable compared to Cold War days.40 This was seen most vividly in the Turkish reaction to the Russian invasion of Georgia in August 2008. Though Turkey has strong historical ties to Georgia, was its largest trading partner and investor, and supplied it with much military equipment,41 Ankara issued only cursory criticism of the Russian action and confined itself to urging respect for the territorial integrity of Georgia. Turkey was in a position to talk to both sides and did so, but with little effect. After the war, Ankara unveiled, in Moscow, a “Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform,” which envisioned multilateral agreement among several combatants in the region42; not surprisingly, the initiative was stillborn. Militarily, Turkey has maintained a virtually neutral stance in this conflict. When the United States pressed Turkey to allow its naval forces to move through the Bosporus to provide economic and humanitarian aid to Georgia, Turkey clung—

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as it has for decades—to the sanctity of the 1936 Montreux Convention governing the length of stay and the size and number of forces in the Black Sea.43 In September 2009, when Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoπlu visited Tbilisi, Georgia, a deputy undersecretary at the Foreign Ministry visited Sukhumi, the capital of the breakaway Abkhazia region.44 It would be wrong to see Turkish policy as engaged in a simple East-versusWest choice—at least, Turkey’s foreign policy makers do not see it that way. For example, Turkey has by no means retreated from involvement in European energy plans. The same month the South Stream agreement was signed, Turkey signed the long-delayed agreement on the Nabucco pipeline. Moreover, President Barack Obama’s visit to Turkey in April 2009 was widely praised in the country and produced the same “Obama bounce” in favorable views toward the United States that was seen elsewhere in Europe (though smaller).45 Turkish leadership rejects the antinomy of an either-or choice and instead uses gains for Turkey as its yardstick. “Turkey’s relations,” says Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoπlu, “are multidimensional,” and “much more result-oriented and proactive.”46

Turkey and the Balkans

Turkey’s northern and northwestern neighborhood includes not only former adversaries, like Russia, but former subordinate territories in the Balkans. The Ottoman past in this region provides familiarity and opportunity, as in the Middle East, but also, as in that region, some troublesome legacies and contemporary challenges. Since 2004 both Romania and Bulgaria have been NATO allies and, like Turkey, have US bases on their territory. But their views on the Black Sea differ from each other and from those of Turkey. Since 2007 the two have also been members of the European Union, which has implications for Turkey’s application for membership and bilateral relations. Romania and Turkey have quite different views on a NATO and US presence in the Black Sea, with Bucharest favoring a more prominent presence than Turkey typically has. Romania is much more suspicious of Russian moves in the region, and for Bucharest the “frozen conflict” between Moldova and Transnistria—where the Russian 14th Army still resides—has great salience. Partly for this reason and partly because of its own Hungarian minority, Romania refuses to recognize Kosovo, for example, which Ankara did almost immediately. In addition, Romania, like Bulgaria and Turkey, wants to be a transit country for energy supplies to be sent to Europe. Bucharest signed on to both the Constan≈ta–Trieste oil pipeline and the Nabucco gas pipeline. Romania is much more wary than either Bulgaria or Turkey of dependence on Russia for its own supplies but in 2009 took its first step toward Moscow by signing an agreement for a joint venture to store Russian gas in Romania on its way to Europe.47 Given Russian dominance of the energy supply and the divided EU response to that dominance, Romania, like Bulgaria, finds itself having to pursue its own best

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national course on energy supply—a course that puts it in competition with Turkey for transit routes. Despite these differences in principle, Turkish-Romanian relations have flourished in recent years. Unlike in Bulgaria, relations are not encumbered by a bitterly remembered past. Southern and eastern parts of contemporary Romania were ruled indirectly by the Ottomans, and the western part (Transylvania) was ruled by Hungary. Romanian history includes much more Russian occupation than Turkish. This also means that there is almost no “legacy” population left in the country from imperial times. The Turkish population in Romania is estimated at 100,000 (in a country of 22 million) and is not politically powerful or particularly aggrieved. As Figure 4.4 shows, Romanian-Turkish trade has grown by a factor of ten in the past decade. Turkish companies rank fourteenth among investors in Romania, with a total of just under 600 million euros.48 In the face of the changed strategic environment of the region—including a powerfully assertive Russia, a hesitant NATO and EU, and the growing

Figure 4.4 Turkish Trade with Romania

Exports to Romania

Imports from Romania

Source: Turkstat, http://evds.tcmb.gov.tr/yeni/cbt-uk.html.

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importance of the Black Sea as an energy route—Romania in September 2009 proposed a broad “strategic alliance” with Turkey. Bucharest’s intention is to build strong bilateral relations and to broaden and support these with an ongoing policy structure (action plans) especially in the area of energy security.49 Romania is a strong supporter of Turkish membership in the European Union, as it was before it became a member itself. But the country’s own continued weak performance, along with that of Bulgaria, on key issues identified by the EU has damaged what enthusiasm there might have been for further enlargement. European Commission members admit candidly that the “verification and cooperation mechanism” was included to ensure that new members, like Turkey, would be subject to intrusive EU monitoring even after joining. But such monitoring has proven a weak instrument in the case of the two Balkan members, though it eventually did provoke a cutoff of EU pre-accession funds to Bulgaria. This last enlargement has made it harder for Turkey’s supporters, both in the country and in Brussels, to make the case for the EU’s ability to make troublesome new members keep their commitments related to the acquis communautaire. Turkey’s contemporary relations with Bulgaria are more complicated, largely because Turkey’s past with the country is also more complicated. Bulgaria was ruled for five hundred years by the Ottoman Empire, and the “Turkish yoke” is as central to Bulgarian national identity as the Sèvres treaty is to Turkish identity. Moreover, some 800,000 Turks still live in the country, mostly in the southeastern region, in addition to some 130,000 Pomaks—ethnically Bulgarian Muslims. During the communist period, the Turks were subject to a brutal campaign to change their names, abjure their Turkish identity, and, ultimately, emigrate to Turkey. After the fall of communism, the name change and emigration policies were reversed, but some 300,000 Bulgarian Turks still live in Turkey. They have regularly voted in Bulgarian elections, overwhelmingly for the Movement of Rights and Freedoms Party (MRF) led by Ahmed Doÿan. That has led to charges from within Bulgaria of “voting tourism,” corruption, and vote manipulation from Turkey.50 With its ability to monopolize the Bulgarian Turkish vote and the polarization of the country between right and left, the MRF has managed to be part of virtually all governments since the fall of communism—including an unlikely coalition with the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the party of the former king, which lasted from 2005 to 2009. The dominance of the Turkish party and its leader and the suspicion (and admission) of corruption and vote buying fuels a much more ambivalent attitude toward Turkish membership in the EU than is found in Romania. Fears of “Cypriotization” and manipulation from Turkey using the MRF are regularly put forth by the nationalist Ataka Party in Bulgaria and even by more mainstream analyses of Turkey’s relations with the country and Europe.51 In July 2009, a new government came to power, led by the populist Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) movement. Like leaders be-

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fore him, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov is formally in favor of Turkish membership in the EU, but the party has supported antimembership actions in Brussels.52 In late 2009 the Ataka Party proposed that a referendum be held in the country on the continuation of the broadcast in Turkish of ten minutes of news a day on the national television station. The prime minister at first publicly supported the idea, then backed off in the face of EU criticism.53 Similarly, in January 2010 a minister without portfolio suggested that Turkish membership should not go forward until compensation was paid to Bulgarians who were expelled from Thrace in 1913. Bulgaria could and would veto membership, he said. His idea was promptly disavowed by the government,54 but those kinds of atmospherics caused enough discomfort in Ankara to produce an intervention by Prime Minister Erdoÿan.55 The GERB Party clearly feels political heat from the nationalist right and unlike the previous government, which had ethnic Turkish representation, may seem more inclined to move in the same direction on the Turkish issue. Whatever the official position of the government, Bulgaria’s poor performance as a new EU member, like that of Romania, contributes to making Turkish integration into the EU less likely. As with Romania, Turkish trade with Bulgaria nevertheless increased significantly until the financial woes of 2009 caused a fall in trade with both countries (see Figure 4.5). Like Romania, Bulgaria wants pipelines across its territory and has signed both Nabucco and its own Bourgas–Alexandroupolis oil pipeline. Like Turkey, it agreed to the extension of the South Stream pipeline to bring Russian gas to Europe. And, like Turkey, it has agreed to let a Russian company build a nuclear reactor on its territory. Bulgaria’s energy policies, plus the EU’s insistence on closing the country’s four nuclear reactors at Kozloduy, have created even greater energy dependence on Russia than is the case with Turkey. By virtue of its more positive orientation toward Russia, its nearly total dependence on Russian energy, and its skeptical attitude toward a large US naval presence in the Black Sea, Bulgaria is something of a supporting cast member in a play that features greater Russian influence in the region. But in 2009 the new Bulgarian government moved to reexamine or try to renegotiate those deals on environmental or economic grounds.56 This could, in theory, rebound to the advantage of Turkey, especially in energy trade, and Moscow itself used the availability of Turkish routes in both oil and gas to put pressure on Bulgaria not to ask for better terms.57 In the end, a Russian-Bulgarian gas deal with somewhat better terms for Bulgaria was signed, and negotiations resumed on the Bourgas–Alexandroupolis oil pipeline.58 Bulgaria and Turkey, like Romania and Turkey, are thus competitors in the energy transit game, but they are also partners as they continue their cooperation and joint plans on Nabucco.59 Broader inter-Balkan diplomacy offers other opportunities for exertion of Turkish influence and the chance to counter the slowdown in progress toward the EU. With numerous trips to the region by both Davutoÿlu and Erdoÿan and

76 Ronald H. Linden Figure 4.5 Turkish Trade with Bulgaria

Exports to Bulgaria

Imports from Bulgaria

Source: Turkstat, http://evds.tcmb.gov.tr/yeni/cbt-uk.html.

a spate of bilateral and trilateral hostings in Istanbul, Turkey has managed several small but significant successes. Ankara is widely credited with persuading the Serbian government to apologize to the Bosnia people for the Srebrenica massacre of 1995 and with encouraging the snail-like “Butmir process” of trying to forge a Bosnian constitution acceptable to the EU. Ankara pushed hard for Bosnia to be given a NATO Membership Action Plan and has been mediating between Serbia and Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo, and even among Muslim factions in southern Serbia. Much of that has been accompanied by Turkish investment and promises of more.60 As with similar efforts in the Middle East (see Chapter 3), long-standing conflicts that have spilled blood are not easily forgotten, but as in the Middle East, Turkey is taking advantage of its unique past and present (i.e., it is not the United States or Russia) and its willingness to be active when the energy of others flags. As one analyst from the UN’s Office of the High Representative in Bosnia put it, “If you compare the solo Turkish diplomatic efforts to everyone

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else’s in the past six months, they are the only people who got anything done at all.”61

The Armenian Overture

The extraordinary volte-face undertaken by Ankara toward Armenia during 2009 must be seen both in a multifaceted East-West context and in that of new Turkish activism in foreign policy. For sixteen years, since the end of fighting inside newly independent Azerbaijan, the roughly two-hundred-mile Turkish border with Armenia has been closed. As the USSR disintegrated, warfare inside Azerbaijan displaced Azeri forces and population from the contested Nagorno-Karabakh enclave that had been part of Soviet Azerbaijan. In addition, Armenian forces conquered territory connecting the enclave with Armenia (the “Lachin corridor”), as well as other districts of Azerbaijan. A cease-fire was arranged in 1994, but some 725,000 Azeris are either refugees from Armenia or internally displaced within Azerbaijan (along with some 350,000 Armenian refugees in Armenia). Armenia holds some 13 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory outside the enclave. Negotiations began in the mid-1990s under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) but have shown little progress.62 Turkey has long supported the Azerbaijani position and, in addition to closing the border, refused direct economic or political dealings with Armenia. But in 2008, Armenian president Serzh Sarkisian invited his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gµl, to Armenia to attend a soccer match. Gµl accepted and subsequently hosted the Armenian president in October 2009. Meanwhile, secret talks produced protocols to normalize relations that were signed the same month.63 The Azerbaijan reaction was unequivocal. Azeri president Ilham Aliev made it clear that he was not happy with this turn of events and clearly indicated that if the process went forward without progress on Nagorno-Karabakh— presumably to include withdrawal from at least some of the occupied territory— Turkey would be punished. In particular, the Azeris suggested that they would no longer sell gas to Turkey at one-third the world price and might deny Turkey access to the huge amount of gas needed to fill the Nabucco pipeline.64 After the early soccer diplomacy, Baku had complained that it was not kept informed, so this time Turkey moved quickly to do so. A delegation of parliamentarians visited Baku right after the normalization protocols were signed and pledged to defend Baku’s interests in Nagorno-Karabakh. Prime Minister Erdoÿan asserted, “Turkey cannot take a positive step towards Armenia unless Armenia withdraws from Azerbaijani land. . . . If that issue is solved our people and our parliament will have a more positive attitude towards this protocol and this process.”65 Armenia rejects any linkage between normalization of ArmenianTurkish bilateral relations and the conflict with Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh

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and accuses Ankara of adding conditions it did not raise when the protocols were negotiated.66 For its part, Turkey accuses Armenia of doing the same thing after its constitutional court, in a decision declaring the agreements to be in conformity with the Armenian constitution, made explicit reference to the Armenian Declaration of Independence, which itself refers to recognition of the Armenian genocide and “western Armenia.”67 Ratification by each side’s parliament, which is required, was stalled in any case, and in April 2010 Armenia suspended its ratification process. What is Turkey trying to achieve? Like the activism in the Middle East and the Balkans, this overture fits with Turkish notions of what its influence should be in its neighborhood. In addition, by making itself indispensible to peace and progress in the region, it demonstrates to the European Union that Turkey is a net contributor to European stability and security, especially in regions that have been troublesome in the past (the Balkans) or are crucial to the future because they will carry oil and gas to the west (the southern Caucasus). Equally important in the latter case, the normalization of relations with Armenia, should it occur, includes provisions for a bilateral “scientific examination of the historical records and archives to define existing problems and formulate recommendations.”68 Agreeing to this gives ammunition to Ankara and its supporters in their annual struggle to prevent passage in the United States of a resolution recognizing the deaths of 100,000 Armenians in 1915 as genocide.69 But Turkey is discovering what great and small powers alike have learned many times: Intentions do not equal outcomes. Ankara has much less control over how its interlocutors (in this case, Armenia) will respond to its positive overtures, and it appears to have even less control over how others that are affected (in this case, Azerbaijan) will respond. Despite years of close relations with Azerbaijan, a shared language, religion, and ethnic heritage, and, more recently, geostrategic objectives—shipment of gas to the west—Turkey found itself receiving angry warnings from Baku about the Armenian protocols and having to scale back or even abandon its plans for normalization. The failure of this initiative is a setback for Turkey’s ties with old and new allies. Washington strongly supports Armenian-Turkish normalization, and both US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lent diplomatic pressure (and their presence at the signing) to securing the protocols. Armenian-Turkish rapprochement would provide economic relief for Armenia, long isolated and dependent on Russia, and thus perhaps some diminution of Russian influence. But a key gain for Moscow would be a pipeline route from east to west that would bypass Georgia. Normalization of TurkishArmenian ties without real gains in Nagorno-Karabakh would certainly weaken Turkish-Azerbaijani ties, which would heighten the value of Russia to both countries. The Azeris would still need to export their gas, and Russia has already agreed to purchases through 2014.70 If Azerbaijan does reduce supplies or make them economically unattractive, Turkey would need to replace the gas, which Russia is eager to offer, along with the pipelines to deliver it. An advan-

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taged Russia may not have been the aim of the Turkish policy in this instance, but it could certainly be the result.

New Turkish Policy: A Blend of Factors External Environment

What accounts for these changes in the pattern of Turkish foreign relations? How much can we attribute the new foreign policy to changes external to the country itself and how much to domestic or even personal dynamics? Precise apportioning of causality for phenomena like foreign relations cannot be achieved with mathematical precision, but foreign relations are a form of human political behavior, and we can try to identify at least some of the causes. Turkish foreign relations, like those of any state, are a product of many factors, only some of which come under the rubric of “foreign policy” or are even under the control of the government at all. Nation-states exist in an international political space whose dynamics and changes are usually beyond their control. As Thucydides reminds us, “The great do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.” Thus, even superpowers only “do what they can” while middlelevel powers like Turkey, though hardly “weak,” nevertheless are often at the mercy of a changing environment. The changes in Turkey’s neighborhood that have most affected it include several already mentioned: the end of the Cold War, the shifting of US priorities, and a return of Russian assertiveness. Such changes have produced a new environment but left Turkey in the familiar position as object or instrument of other states’ foreign policies. The United States wanted Turkey to act as a base for its attack on Iraq. Russia would like Turkey to be its partner in creating a condominium in the energy trade and in resisting US and Western influence in the region. And the EU, apparently, would like Turkey to spend eternity trying to become a member but never actually join. To some extent these changes put Turkey in the position of what economists call a “price taker.” Turkey did not create the new political, economic, or strategic environment in the Black Sea area. In fact, it wasn’t even a major source of those changes. US reorientation away from the region was a function of the attacks of 9/11 and the end of the Cold War in Europe. Russian resurgence was a product of domestic power consolidation by Vladimir Putin, fractious politics in states such as Ukraine and Georgia, and the economics (and politics) of oil. Both EU expansion to the Black Sea and its subsequent enlargement fatigue were induced primarily by the costs—and consequences—of the “big bang” of 2004–2007. Thus, even if Turkey had wanted to pursue policies in the region that reflected close continuity with the immediate past, it could not have done so. The region, and the level of involvement of major powers in it, were not the same.

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To some extent, Turkey has nevertheless pursued continuity. It has remained an active member of NATO, continued its presence in Afghanistan, and even allowed itself to be the main transit corridor for US troops and supplies into and out of Iraq—despite the fact that it would not allow US troops to join the invasion from the north. It has continued to pursue EU membership by adopting sometimes dramatic domestic measures71 and by taking some foreign policy actions that are likely to meet with EU approval, such as the Armenian overture. It has built upon and expanded a relationship with Russia that has its roots in early post–Cold War diplomacy. But the key difference in recent years has been Ankara’s unwillingness to allow its actions to be completely driven by external demands, either from the West or the East. It has not agreed, for example, to a reformulation of the strategic role of the Black Sea, blocking an enhanced US role for fighting terrorism or challenging Russia. Nor has it thrown in its lot completely with Russian energy plans, as the signing of Nabucco attests. It has not acceded to the EU demand to recognize Cypriot shipping nor, as yet, to domestic changes on the scale the European Commission would like, for example, with regard to freedom of expression.72 For Turkey the changes in its neighborhood present a new opportunity to advance Turkish interests. Rather than reflexively frame its responses to what was expected of it by its allies, either NATO or the United States, Turkey has pursued actions in its neighborhood within a frame that evaluates the benefits for its own present and future, as defined by its leadership. No case illustrates this more than its response to the Russian invasion of Georgia. Rather than automatically endorsing or reinforcing Washington’s reaction, Turkey pursued a policy designed to protect two key Turkish foreign policy goals: (1) stability in its neighborhood and (2) a good relationship with Russia. “Georgia’s instability and civil war is more of a threat to Turkey than a Georgia without territorial integrity,” scholar Mitat Çelikpala put it starkly.73 Seen more broadly, Turkish policy reflects both the danger and the opportunity represented by changes in the region. “Ankara has accepted the new geopolitical situation in the region (clear weakening of western influence and reinforcement of Russia) and at the same time chosen to use it to expand its own influence in the Southern Caucasus.”74 In that respect, the Turkish response to Russian actions, certainly not as forceful as the United States would have wanted, is similar to the Turkish improvement of relations with Syria and Iran, both anathema to the United States. Furthermore, Turkey has pursued these policies armed with a notion of Turkish identity that has changed and that does not fit into neat, externally determined boxes. Turkish foreign policy makers see the country as responding to the power gaps in the region created by weakening US influence in the Balkans, the Black Sea, and the Middle East—not to mention former Soviet areas. They see uncoordinated and ineffective EU responses to both Russian energy power and Moscow’s assertiveness in the area. Underlying these phenomena is the notion that the new regional rearrangement provides an opportunity for a reassertion

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of Turkey’s influence—a sentiment backed up with reference to Turkey’s economic growth, political stability, and history, as other chapters in this volume make clear. For external actors, this may seem at times as if Turkey is being “lost,” that is, shifting its foreign policy orientation toward the Middle East or Russia, to the detriment of the West.75 The Turkish leadership rejects that characterization as simplistic and even offensive because other countries, allies included, often have ties with adversaries and those are applauded. Prime Minister Erdoÿan said as much in parliament: “While Europeans and Americans conduct all kinds of business in the Middle East, from military action to oil and education, these relations are seen as normal. When Turkey wants to participate in the same type of businesses and improve its cultural, social and economic relations with Arab and Muslim countries, this is seen as shifting alliances and leaving the West.”76 The same applies to ties with Russia: “When Egon Bahr formulated his Ostpolitik in the 1960s,” writes Suat Kªnªklªoÿlu, a key AKP parliamentary foreign policy leader, “no one asked Willi Brandt whether Germany was lost.”77 Turkish policies reflect Turkey’s assessments of its surroundings, which need to be seen in all their complexities, with regard to possible impacts on Turkey and— maybe for the first time—without the constraints imposed by Allied perceptions of “East” and “West.” Domestic Factors

As other chapters in this volume also attest, the new Turkish self-assessment is not monolithic or uncontested. Philip Robins has pointed to what he calls the “cohabitation” of Kemalist and Islamist traditions in Turkish foreign policy.78 Turkish democratization, while not complete, nevertheless means that foreign policy is now no longer the sole preserve of a tiny political elite, top political leaders, or the military. In this respect Turkish foreign policy making has become “Europeanized,” that is, more open and less dominated by the military, as a result of the EU accession process.79 Different political and social groups have emerged with a stake in Turkey’s foreign role, and their views support different strands of the new Turkish activism.80 Many Turkish businessmen, including exporters and investors, have an increasing stake in greater Turkish economic involvement in the neighborhood,81 including the Balkans82 and Russia.83 Turkish companies are very active throughout the Black Sea area, as they are in the Middle East (see Chapter 7), and have influential voices in foreign policy debates. Exporters to the Black Sea area, for example, were vocal in their criticism of Georgian seizures of Turkish ships headed to Abkhazia and put pressure on the Turkish government to intervene with Georgia—which it did.84 Such involvement often intersects with and strengthens the assertion—or some say, reassertion—by Turkey of its influence in a neighborhood that was once under its control.85 The conception of the country and its history held by Turkey’s leaders and population is one that embraces what they see as the best

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of the Ottoman legacy (see Chapter 2). Such views reinforce the idea that Turkey can and should act not as an appendage of the West but as the guarantor of its own best interests in regions that it knows well. While this can be problematical in the Balkans, given Ottoman history and conflicting perceptions, Turkey has found itself generally welcomed.86 Turkish recognition and support for Kosovo, for example, has not prevented a substantial warming of Turkish-Serbian relations.87 In this case Turkey has been able to act in ways that advance its own interests, including economic ones, and are complementary with the wishes of the EU. But as Chapter 3 demonstrates, many Turkish actions in former imperial zones do not accord with Western preferences.88 And, as the 2009 extension by the EU of visa-free travel privileges to citizens of Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia (the latter two not yet candidate members) demonstrates, the policy payoff from the EU has certainly been disappointing. Turkey’s past extensive empire also left legacies at home and abroad that now, in a more democratic domestic environment, affect its policies toward its neighborhood. We have already seen how policies toward and actions of ethnic Turks in Bulgaria have affected Turkish-Bulgarian relations—in contrast to Romania. Residual Turkish communities in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Macedonia also frame Turkish attitudes toward those new states.89 Along with Albania, they received more than $60 million in Turkish development assistance during 2008.90 At the same time, ethnic communities in Turkey with strong ties outside the country number in the millions and exercise an important say in the direction of Turkish policy. Abkhazians in Turkey, estimated variously at 300,000 to 500,000, pushed aggressively for Ankara to condemn Georgian actions and then to recognize or at least engage more fully with the breakaway Abkhazian republic.91 More broadly, Turkish activism is supported by a newly empowered political and economic elite that is no longer as interested in getting the West’s approval. The economic and sociological changes that Turkey has undergone in the past decade have brought to influence more conservative, more Islamic, and now more powerful actors from Anatolia and eastern Turkey. These “Anatolian tigers” form a key public attentive to the government’s actions, and they support the notion of a more assertive and economically involved country, especially in its nearby neighborhood.92 The replacement of once powerful central elites with those from the periphery affects external as well as domestic policies. These constituents want foreign policies that reflect their views of how best to serve the country’s needs. Actions that seem to conform to Turkey’s own history and culture, as do many of Turkey’s recent shifts, have significant domestic support. While useful to—and often used by—the current leadership, independent public views on foreign policy not controlled by the government can be an obstacle. For example, the same cultural orientation that supports AKP moves toward the Middle East shows substantially less enthusiasm for the reforms demanded by the EU that are at least nominally supported by the AKP.93 Significant domestic opposition to the Turkish-Armenian overture played a role in

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forcing the Turkish government to pointedly reassert the link between improved relations with Armenia and movement on Nagorno-Karabakh—something the government might have preferred to play down because it is clearly an obstacle to rapprochement with Armenia.94 Finally, there is ideology—or at least vision. The leaders responsible for articulating and implementing Turkish foreign policy are not simply reliving the past or, as noted, choosing “East” over “West.” Foreign Minister Davutoπlu has articulated an overall approach that is based on the unique geographic position and history of Turkey. Policies derived from recognition of Turkey’s “strategic depth” involve using the country’s influence to try to create a secure, peaceful neighborhood, one in which there are “zero problems” with neighbors.95 Considering how many neighbors there are (seven contiguous) and who they are, this is a tall order. Hence, the activism and the vision underlying Turkish actions are based on a balancing of ties and links rather than a close association with any one state or alliance. It also means that bilateral relations with any one state, such as Russia or the United States, can have both cooperative and potentially conflictual aspects.96 On this basis, Ankara has been pursuing active engagement throughout its neighborhood. To its north and west this involves states with whom Turkey has had conflicts in the past, such as Russia and Armenia, as well as those with whom relations were based less on equality than on imperium, such as in the Balkans. For contemporary Turkey, this makes it necessary, as Kemal Atatürk himself put it, “to think not according to the lethargic mentality of past centuries but according to the concepts of speed and action of our century.”97

Notes 1. Gordon, “A New Era for Transatlantic Cooperation.” 2. See, among others, Müftüler-Baç and Stivachtis, Turkey–European Union Relations; LaGro and Jorgensen, Turkey and the European Union; Akçapar, Turkey’s New European Era. 3. King, The Black Sea; Bunce, ‘‘East European Democratization.” 4. These reports can be seen at http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/secretariat_general/cvm/ progress_reports_en.htm. 5. The status of EU relations with each country can be seen at http://ec.europa .eu/enlargement/potential-candidates/index_en.htm; for NATO, see http://www.nato.int/ cps/en/natolive/index.htm. 6. See “Joint Declaration of the Prague Eastern Partnership Summit.” For a discussion of the implications of this policy and the EU’s “Black Sea Synergy” policy for the Black Sea region, see Tsantoulis, “Black Sea Synergy and Eastern Partnership.” 7. EurActiv, “EU Stages ‘Feel Good’ Event for Western Balkan Hopefuls”; European Commission, “EU Regionally Relevant Activities in the Western Balkans.” 8. Mankoff, Russian Foreign Policy, pp. 249–264. On Russian policy in the Caucasus, see Suny, “The Pawn of the Great Powers.” 9. Thorun, Explaining Change in Russian Foreign Policy; Bugajski, Dismantling the West.

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10. Schroder, “Russia’s National Security Strategy to 2020”; de Haas, “Medvedev’s Security Policy”; Strategia Natsionalnoi Bezopastnosti Rossiskoi Federatsii do 2020 goda. 11. Paul Reynolds, “New Russian World Order: The Five Principles,” BBC NEWS: Sept. 1, 2008. 12. “Steal Our Gas, Europe Will Suffer: Putin Warns Kiev,” Reuters, Nov. 11, 2009. 13. “Interview with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev,” Der Spiegel (English, web edition) http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,660114,00.html, Nov. 9, 2009. 14. Before the outbreak of the war in 2008, there were 2,000 Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia and 1,000 in South Ossetia. Russia has prevented continuation of either OSCE or EU monitoring inside the breakaway territories, so an accurate count of forces is impossible. A US congressional staff report in 2009 said that troop levels in the two regions were “well above those [preconflict] levels.” US Senate. “Striking the Balance,” pp. 7–8. 15. Yanik, “Allies or Partners?”; Aktürk, “Turkish-Russian Relations after the Cold War (1992–2002).” 16. Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774–2000, pp. 287–294. 17. Aybak, “Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) and Turkey”; for a sample of recent activities, see http://www.bsec-organization.org/bsecnews/BlackSeaNews/ Downloads/August%202010%20No%2023.pdf. 18. Winrow, “Turkey and the Greater Black Sea Region,” p. 129. Georgia has not participated in recent years due to conflicts with Russia; other members are Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Romania. 19. Uzgel, “The Balkans: Turkey’s Stabilizing Role.” 20. Michael Evans, Roland Watson, Richard Beeston, and Rory Watson, “US Will Move to Protect Turkey Despite Nato Rift,” The Times (London), Feb. 11, 2003, http:// www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article873332.ece. Turkey had invoked Article 4, asking for consultations and assistance should it be attacked by Iraq. When these were blocked, the decision was moved to NATO’s Defense Planning Committee—of which France was not a member—and provisions were made to supply Turkey with AWACS, Patriot missiles, and defenses against chemical and biological weapons. See NATO Press Release, (2003) 040, April 16, 2003, http://www .nato.int/docu/pr/2003/p03-040e.htm. 21. “Confidence in Obama Lifts U.S. Image Around The World,” Pew Global Attitudes Project; http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=264. 22. This is especially true with regard to the issue of corruption. See Neil MacDonald and Stefan Wagstyl, “Europe: Higher Aspirations,” FT.com, Jan. 12, 2010. 23. Support in Turkey for membership in the EU fell from 73 percent in 2004 to 38 percent in 2010, German Marshall Fund, Transatlantic Trends, p. 25. On privileged partnership, see, Saban Karda≈s, “Merkel and Sarkozy Call for Privileged Partnership Angers Turkey,” Eurasian Daily Monitor, May 13, 2009. 24. Grigoriadis, Trials of Europeanization. 25. See the discussion in Öni≈s and Yilmaz, “Between Europeanization and EuroAsianism.” 26. By one estimate more than half of Russia’s total oil exports come through the Bosporus, Hill, “Caspian Conundrum,” p. 216. 27. Noël, “How Dependent Is Europe on Russian Gas?” 28. Youngs, Energy Security, pp. 79–80. 29. Tekin and Williams, “EU-Russian Relations and Turkey’s Role as an Energy Corridor.” 30. “UPDATE 1: Russia Says Turkey Backs All Its Energy Projects,” Reuters, Jan. 13, 2010; “Russia Offers Turkey Asset Swaps, Aid in Armenian Relations,” RIANovosti,

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Jan. 13, 2010. Brian Whitmore, “Moscow Visit by Turkish PM Underscores New Strategic Alliance,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Jan. 12, 2010; “Moscow, Ankara Agree on Nuclear Power Plant Cooperation,” RIANovosti, Jan. 13, 2010; http://en.rian.ru/ business/20100113/157534466.html. 31. Öni≈s, “Conservative Globalism at the Crossroads.” 32. Kªnªklªoπlu and Morkva, “An Anatomy of Turkish-Russian Relations,” p. 544. This position was stated to the author during interviews at the Turkish Foreign Ministry in Ankara, June 2008. 33. Today’s Zaman, Jan. 12, 2010. 34. “MFA Spokesman Andrei Nesterenko Interview with RIA Novosti,” Embassy of the Russian Federation in Turkey, July 1, 2009. 35. Kªnªklªoπlu and Morkva, “An Anatomy of Turkish-Russian Relations,” p. 540. 36. Flenley, “Russia and the EU: The Clash of New Neighborhoods.” 37. Yigal Schleifer, “Turkish-Iranian Nuclear Deal: Triumph or Tragedy?” eurasianet .org, May 17, 2010, http://www.eurasianet.org/node/61082. 38. Walker, “Learning Strategic Depth,” pp. 41–42; Whitmore, “Moscow Visit by Turkish PM”; Hill and Taspinar, “Turkey and Russia: Axis of the Excluded?” 39. Flenley, “Russia and the EU,” p. 199. 40. During Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s visit to Ankara in August 2009, agreements were signed in a range of areas aside from energy, including on expanding the use by Turkey and Russia of their own currencies in trade, beginning the process of eliminating visas, and holding joint cabinet meetings. “[JTW Interview] The Future of TurkeyRussia Relations,” The Journal of Turkish Weekly, Jan. 23, 2010; “Ankara Moves Toward ‘Privileged Partnership’ with Moscow,” Today’s Zaman, Oct. 21, 2009. 41. One indication of the level of integration of the two states is the fact that Turkish citizens fly in and out of Batumi, on the Black Sea coast in southwestern Georgia, as if it were a domestic airport. I am indebted to Kemal Kiri≈sci for pointing this out. 42. Ak≈sit, “Turkey and Multilateral Cooperation in the Black Sea Region.”; Fotiou, “Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform.” 43. Aliriza, “Turkey and the Crisis in the Caucasus.” 44. Goble, “Might Turkey Be the Next Country to Recognize Abkhazia?” 45. See German Marshall Fund, Transatlantic Trends: Key Findings 2009, p. 7. 46. Davutoπlu, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy Vision,” p. 82; Davutoπlu, “Turkish Foreign Policy and the EU in 2010,” p. 12. 47. “Romania Sets Up Joint Venture with Russia’s Gazprom for Underground Gas Storage Facilities,” Associated Press, June 1, 2009. 48. National Bank of Romania, “Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Romania as of 31 December 2008.” 49. Interview with Mihnea Constantinescu, Ambassador at Large for Energy Security, Bucharest, Oct. 14, 2009. See also press releases by Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Feb. 2, 2010 and Sept. 11, 2009. Among other things, Turkey agreed to allow visa-free travel for Romanians; Bucharest, like Bulgaria, is setting up a Schengen system and agreed only to “consider taking steps to facilitate Turkish citizens’ movement,” http://www.romaniantimes.at, Feb. 6, 2010. 50. See the discussion in Linden, “The Burden of Belonging.” For details on the number and voting behavior of Bulgarian Turks living in Turkey, see Baklacªoπlu, Constituting Identity in Crossborder Discourse. 51. “After Parvanov, Turkey Gave a Medal to Dogan,” ATAKA, Jan. 16, 2007; Minchev, The Case of Turkey in the EU, pp. 12–13. 52. Linden, “The Burden of Belonging,” p. 286. 53. “Borissov Reversed on the Referendum About News in Turkish” Dnevnik, Dec. 20, 2009.

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54. “Bozhidar Dimitrov: I Messed Up with the Veto for Turkey in the EU,” Dnevnik, Jan. 7, 2010; “Raikov: There Is No Connection Between the Undecided Issues with Turkey and EU Enlargement,” Dnevnik, Jan. 6, 2010. 55. “Erdoÿan to Borisov: Radical Statements Target Turkish Minority in Bulgaria,” http://www.novinite.com, Dec. 18, 2009. 56. In October 2009, on the heels of reports that Bulgaria had lost money on gas deals under the previous government, Minister for Economy, Energy and Tourism Traicho Traikov declared in reference to South Stream, “If we lose money, we won’t participate.” “Traikov: If We Lose, We Don’t Participate in South Stream,” Standart, Oct. 23, 2009. In November, Foreign Minister Rumiana Zheleva indicated that Bulgarian participation in both the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline and the South Stream gas pipeline necessitated “a revisit and a consideration whether Bulgaria can participate or not.” “Zheleva: We Have Excellent Relations with Russia,” Standart, Nov. 30, 2009. In December the prime minister declared that there would be a new “common strategy on energy projects” and singled out for criticism the Bourgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline, which would receive Russian oil for transshipment. “A New Strategy Regarding the Energy Questions and Project Will Be Prepared,” Darik, Dec. 8, 2009; “The BourgasAlexandroupolis Project Is Not Beneficial for Bulgaria,” Darik, Dec. 6, 2009. 57. Svletlana Nenova “Moscow Threatens with Stopping of Bourgas-Alexandroupolis,” Dnevnik, Dec. 3, 2009. As one Russian analyst put it, “There is not sharp necessity for the pipeline via Bulgaria and Greece.” Idem. Gazprom also noted that if the Bulgarians wanted out of South Stream, “Romania is interested in participation.” “Alexandr Medvedev: Gazprom Relies on Other Options About South Stream, Different from Bulgaria,” Dnevnik, Dec. 13, 2009. See also Socor, “Gazprom Takes Its South Stream Bluff to Bucharest.” 58. “Bulgaria, Russia Sign ‘South Stream’ Project Roadmap, Agree on Lower Gas Price,” BGNES Online, July 17, 2010; “Bulgaria, Russia Sign Road Map On South Stream Pipeline,” ITAR-TASS, July 17, 2010 [World News Connection, July 17, 2010]; Thodoris Panagoulis: “A Bulgarian Turnaround on White House Instructions,” O Kosmos tou Ependhiti, Sept. 23, 2010 [World News Connection, Sept. 23, 2010]. 59. “Bulgaria, Turkey to Apply for European Co-financing of Gas Link-Up,” BTA, September 30, 2010, [World News Connection, Sept. 20, 2010]. 60. Eralp, Turkey and Bosnia-Herzegovina; Ramadanovic, “Turkey’s Reach Has Strong Implication for BiH”; Champion, “Turkey Steps In to Fill Void in Former Yugoslavia.” 61. Quoted in Champion, “Turkey Steps In to Fill Void in Former Yugoslavia.” 62. International Crisis Group, Nagorno-Karabakh; de Waal, Black Garden. 63. The text of both protocols can be found at http://www.mfa.gov.tr/data/ dispolitika/türkiye-ermenistan-ingilizce.pdf. 64. Brian Whitmore, “Azerbaijan Could Scuttle Nabucco Over Turkey-Armenia Deal,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Nov. 16, 2009. http://www.rferl.org/content/ Azerbaijan_Could_Scuttle_Nabucco_Over_TurkeyArmenia_Deal/1855784.html. 65. EurActiv.com, Oct. 12, 2009. 66. Anna Israelian and Aghasi Yenokian, “Armenian Foreign Minister Warns Turkey, Cools Karabakh Peace Talk,” RFE/RL, Jan. 18, 2010. 67. Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Press Release Regarding the Recently Published Grounds of the Decision of the Armenian Constitutional Court on the Protocals Between Turkey and Armenia”; see the analysis in Eurasia Daily Monitor, “Turkey Reacts to Armenian Constitutional Court’s Decision on Protocols.” 68. Protocol on the Development of Diplomatic Relations Between the Republic of Turkey and Republic or Armenia, Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, n.d. http://www .mfa.gov.tr/protocol-on-development-of-relations-between-the-republic-of-turkey-andthe-republic-of-armenia.en.mfa.

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69. Resolutions to this effect were passed by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives in 2007 and 2010. 70. Socor, “Azerbaijan-Russia Gas Agreement.” 71. Among the most significant of these was the reform package designed to modify the 1982 military-era constitution, approved in a referendum in September, 2010. For discussion of the constitutional changes, see Bölme, Özhan, and Küçükcan, Constitutional Referendum in Turkey. A vague “Kurdish initiative” announced in the summer of 2009, aimed at language and education policies and devolution of some power to the regions, has not been implemented. See “Interview: Will Turkey’s ‘Kurdish Initiative’ Succeed?” RFE/RL, Aug. 12, 2009; Ercan Yavuz, “Gov’t to Forge Ahead with Kurdish Initiative in 2010,” Today’s Zaman, Feb. 2, 2010. 72. European Commission, Turkey 2009 Progress Report, pp. 17–19. After the September 2010 referendum, EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle said “I don’t know if [Turkey] will be the perfect candidate, but I’m sure it will be a better candidate,” euronews, Sept. 13, 2010, http://www.euronews.net/2010/09/13/eu-enlargement-commissioner-onturkey-s-referendum-results/. 73. Quoted in Fotiou, “Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform,’’ p. 8. 74. Balcer, “The Future of Turkish-Russian Relations,” p. 86. 75. Almond, “Losing Turkey”; Moisi, “Who’s to Blame for ‘Losing’ Turkey?”; Schenker, “A NATO Without Turkey?”; Menon and Wimbush, Is The United States Losing Turkey? 76. Quoted in Ibrahim Kalin, “Is the West Losing Turkey?” Today’s Zaman, Nov. 5, 2009. 77. Kªnªklªoπlu, “‘Neo-Ottoman’ Turkey?”; “Turkish Premier Rejects Shift in Foregn Policy Direction, Today’s Zaman, Jan. 7, 2010; Ihsan Bal, “Expansion Not Shift in the Turkish Foreign Policy Axis,” Turkish Weekly, Nov. 10, 2009. 78. Robins, “Turkish Foreign Policy Since 2002.” 79. Terzi, “The Influence of the European Union on the Making of Turkish Foreign Policy.” 80. Kiri≈sci, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy in Turbulent Times,” pp. 38–49. 81. Kiri≈sci, “The Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy.” 82. Erdinç, “Economics of a Hidden Saga”; Turkey was the fourth leading investor in Bosnia as of 2009, owns 49 percent of Air Bosnia, and was in negotiations to purchase JAT, the main Serbian airline, Champion, “Turkey Steps In to Fill Void in Former Yugoslavia.” 83. Kªnªklªoÿlu and Morkva, “An Anatomy of Turkish-Russian Relations,” pp. 545– 546. 84. Karda≈s, “Turkish-Abkhazia Ties Test Turkey’s Strategic Partnership with Georgia.” 85. Daniel Steinvorth, “Nostalgia for the Ottomans: Disillusioned with Europe, Turkey Looks East,” Spiegel Online, Nov. 12, 2009. 86. Alexander Fatic, “A Return of Turkey as the Problem-Solver in the Balkans,” Agora, Jan. 5, 2010, http://agora-dialogue.com/?p=2856; Hajrudin Somun, “Turkey and Bosnia: A Matter of Life and Death,” Today’s Zaman, Dec. 14, 2009. 87. In July 2010, Turkey and Serbia signed an agreement providing for visa-free travel between the two states, a continuation of the use of visa policy as foreign policy discussed in Chapter 6 in this volume. See “Turkey, Serbia Expand Cooperation with Visa Deal,” Today’s Zaman, July 13, 2010. 88. Nicholas Danforth sees this as a major difference between contemporary Turkish policy and the neo-Ottomanism practiced by Turgat Özal in the 1990s. Danforth, “Ideology and Pragmatism in Turkish Foreign Policy.” 89. Aydªn, “Twenty Years Before, Twenty Years After,” p. 14.

88 Ronald H. Linden 90. Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency, Turkish Development Assistance Report, 2008. Aid to Bosnia and Kosovo was mostly related to “peace construction.” The largest share of specific project aid, provided as part of Official Development Assistance, went to Moldova, a country in which some 140,000 Turkic-speaking Gagauz reside. 91. Karda≈s, “Turkish-Abkhazia Ties Test Turkey’s Strategic Partnership with Georgia”; ≈Celikpala, “From Immigrants to Diaspora,” esp. pp. 431–436. 92. Tok, “Anatolian Cities and the New Spirit of Turkish Capitalism.” 93. Kalaycªoπlu, “Public Choice and Foreign Affairs.” 94. Ta≈spªnar, “Turkish-Armenian Stalemate.” 95. Davutoπlu, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy Vision,” pp. 77–96. 96. Walker, “Learning Strategic Depth.” 97. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, “Speech on the Occasion of the Tenth Anniversary of the Republic,” Ankara, October 29, 1933, http://www.allaboutturkey.com/ata_speech.htm.

5 Energy and Turkey’s Neighborhood: Post-Soviet Transformation and Transatlantic Interests Ahmet O. Evin In his speech to the Turkish parliament on April 6, 2009, US president Barack Obama referred to many opportunities that the United States and Turkey could pursue “to serve prosperity for our people” and pointed to the “enormous opportunity when it comes to energy to create jobs,” going on to say, “We can increase new sources to not only free ourselves from dependence of . . . other countries’ energy sources, but also to combat climate change. We should build on our Clean Technology Fund to leverage efficiency and renewable energy investments in Turkey. And to power markets in Turkey and Europe, the United States will continue to support your central role as an East-West corridor for oil and natural gas.”1 Made, appropriately, in the capital of an energy-poor country that is situated in the proximity of 72 percent of the world’s proven hydrocarbon reserves, these remarks highlighted, once again, Turkey’s geostrategic value to its allies. Early in the post-Soviet period, access to Caspian energy resources, as well as Iraq’s containment, had replaced Soviet containment as the main driver of US-Turkey cooperation. The breakup of the Soviet Union provided an opportunity for Ankara to reestablish relations with the newly independent Turkic republics of Central Asia. Washington welcomed and encouraged Ankara’s engagement in that region, for it would only help reinforce the US aim to strengthen the independence of the former Soviet republics and thereby free them from Moscow’s tutelage. With Washington’s active support, on January 27, 1992, the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA) was established to provide “development assistance foremost to developing countries where Turkish is spoken and countries that border Turkey as well as improving cooperation through projects and programs in economic, commercial, technical, social, cultural and educational arenas.”2 In addition to their mutual goal of opening these newly independent states to world markets, both Turkey and the United States were powerfully motivated by the prospect of achieving direct connection to Eurasian resources, particularly hydrocarbons 89

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that had been under Moscow’s control earlier. Although Turkey would fall short of achieving its objective to become the main locomotive for Central Asia’s economic development, its ambition to gain access to the Caspian energy resources has had far-reaching implications for its transatlantic relations as well as its EU membership goals. Moreover, its actual and potential role as EastWest energy corridor has since come to affect the political dynamics in Turkey’s broader neighborhood and to play a determining role in the shaping of relationships and rivalries in the region and beyond. This chapter will examine Turkey’s policies toward its changing neighborhood in the context of the region’s energy resources. Turkey’s policy toward its northern neighbors has been taken up in Chapter 4 and its relationship to the Middle East in Chapter 3. Yet energy is one issue that affects Turkey’s interests equally and simultaneously across its broader neighborhood, including the Black Sea and southeastern Europe, as well as the Middle East and North Africa. It also has a bearing, as noted, on Turkey’s relationship with Europe, in particular the EU, in addition to the United States. Moreover, driven simultaneously by security considerations and market forces, energy politics tend to acquire a realist dimension and, as a result, may not always fully converge with policies formulated according to different goals and priorities.3 It is not uncommon to observe divergences between a given country’s energy security considerations and foreign policy objectives. Such discrepancies stand out more clearly in the case of natural gas, the bulk of which is conveyed by pipelines and financed on the basis of long-term, take-or-pay contracts between supplier and consumer. In this respect natural gas becomes a “bilateral” commodity,4 priced to a large extent not by the market but by international agreements. Under these circumstances mutual interdependence between producer and consumer may form the basis for the security of supply for the latter, as well as the security of demand for the former.5 West Germany’s reliance on Soviet gas supplies during the Cold War provides an example of energy interdependence between two sovereign states that belong to opposing blocs. Alternatively, energy security may be pursued by means of diversifying sources and supply routes in order to reduce dependence on a dominant supplier. A third factor is the reliability of the transit route in terms of security, protection, and legal guarantees provided by transit countries. Situated at the intersection of several fast-changing and unstable regions, Turkey’s goal of ensuring its own supply security, on the one hand, and its ambition to become an energy trading hub, on the other, have not always converged with its regional and foreign policy goals. Furthermore, Turkey has come to adopt, over the past few years, a new foreign policy framework. While the new policy framework represents a major shift of emphasis, if not orientation, from Turkey’s Western vocation to being an independent central power, Ankara’s engagement with the neighborhood nevertheless predates the adoption of the current policy framework by several decades.

Energy and Turkey’s Neighborhood 91

Emergence of a Neighborhood

Turkey’s neighborhood, comprising several dynamic and unstable regions, is a post–Cold War space. Prior to the breakup of the Soviet bloc, Turkey was sealed off from all of its northern neighbors—all of the Black Sea coastal states, as well as Armenia in the south Caucasus. All those states, including the two Warsaw Pact members, Romania and Bulgaria, were firmly controlled by Moscow. The Black Sea, as a result, was also dominated by the Soviet naval presence, and a virtual iron curtain stood where Turkey’s coastal waters ended. By contrast, to the east, Iran, a constitutional monarchy then, was a Western ally and remained so until the Khomeini revolution in 1979. In the 1950s, Iran was considered a key link between NATO and what came to be called the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), which included Pakistan as its easternmost member. As such, Iran was instrumental in extending the West’s security belt from the eastern Mediterranean to the Himalayas, in keeping with Washington’s policy of Soviet containment. But it was physically remote from Turkey, lying behind mountains that allowed little overland traffic at that time. Even oil imported from Iran was shipped to Turkey from the Persian Gulf. Until the 1958 coups in Iraq and Syria, Turkey’s relations were cordial with the former but distant with the latter. Following the coup in Iraq, Baathist Iraq repudiated the Baghdad Pact and distanced itself from Turkey and the West. After its coup, Syria united briefly with Egypt to form the pro-Moscow United Arab Republic, but shortly thereafter Damascus came under an anti-imperialist, and therefore anti-Ottoman, Baathist regime, as well. The circumstances of the Cold War reinforced Turkey’s isolation from its neighbors, as did its protectionist economic policies. As the West’s security outpost, Turkey was expected to turn its borders into barriers and prevent exchange with adversarial regimes to the north and unsympathetic regimes to the south.6 It was energy connections that played the leading part in Turkey’s opening to its neighborhood in the late 1970s and 1980s. Two major agreements involved the construction of pipelines for the import and transit of energy. One was the Kirkuk (Iraq)–Ceyhan oil pipeline, the first phase of which became operational as early as 1977. With a parallel line constructed between 1985 and 1987, that dual pipeline became Iraq’s largest operable export pipeline, with a maximum capacity of 1.6 million barrels (bbl) a day (compared to Turkey’s total domestic crude oil consumption of 660,000 bbl a day three decades later).7 Because of Iraq’s war with Iran, the 1990–1991 Gulf War, and sanctions on Iraq that followed, that pipeline never reached anywhere near its full capacity of use. Before 2003, it was operating at around half its capacity, delivering some 800,000 bbl a day. After the US occupation of Iraq in 2003, it was often sabotaged and frequently closed. Its deliveries, subject to interruptions, continue to be a fraction of its capacity and amounted to an average of merely 132,278 bbl a day in 2010. The magnitude of that early project, nevertheless, reflects Turkey’s long-

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held ambition to become an energy hub and develop the port of Ceyhan into an energy trading platform (see Figure 5.1). The second agreement involved a much smaller but significant early project to import natural gas from the Soviet Union. Turkey began using gas for both general consumption and power generation in the early 1980s. In 1986 Ankara signed a long-term contract to import 6 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Soviet gas annually and began constructing a pipeline to connect western Turkey to the Bulgarian network. A year later the first gas was delivered to a power generation plant in Thrace, and later that pipeline brought natural gas from the Bulgarian border first to Ankara and later to Istanbul. In 1998 a second contract was concluded with the Russian Federation to import 8 bcm annually of additional gas from Russia through the same Bulgarian pipeline connection. Those early agreements harbingered Turkey’s dependence on Russian gas. According to the long-term contracts, which are still valid, Turkey is obliged to import through the Bulgarian network 14 bcm of Russian natural gas annually, an amount that represented more than a third of Turkey’s total domestic consumption as late as 2008.8 (See Figure 5.2.)

Figure 5.1 Oil Pipelines to Turkey

Source: Adapted from Saban Kardas, “Russia Joins the Samsun-Ceyhan Pipeline,” European Dialogue, n.d. http://eurodialogue.org/Russia-Joins-The-Samsun-Ceyhan-Pipeline.

Energy and Turkey’s Neighborhood 93 Figure 5.2 Bota≈s Projects: Turkey as an East-West Energy Corridor and East-West Energy Terminal

Source: United States Department of Energy, Turkey.

Turkey’s Post-Soviet Initiatives

Turkey’s neighborhood gained a Black Sea dimension following the demise of the Soviet Union. Ankara responded quickly to the decline of Soviet power by spearheading the formation of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), an organization that initially brought together all six Black Sea coastal states and five neighboring countries.9 Although its primary objectives were defined in terms of fostering economic development by means of trade liberalization and adaptation to the market economy, BSEC was nevertheless conceived as a means to provide an institutional framework to achieve “peace, stability, security and prosperity”10 in the broader region. Currently, with twelve members and seventeen observers (including the EU, a trade and development bank in Thessaloniki, and a research center [ICBSS] in Athens) and a permanent secretariat in Istanbul, BSEC stands out as the first significant result of the proactive role Turkey began taking in its neighborhood in the 1990s. BSEC has maintained its standing and even expanded its activities after the Black Sea arena underwent yet another major transformation with the EU

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accession of Bulgaria and Romania. The EU’s priorities with respect to regionalism are understandably different from those of an intergovernmental organization such as BSEC, which can pursue only those areas of cooperation mutually agreed upon among a range of sovereign states that have widely differing foreign policy priorities. The EU, on the other hand, seeks to establish a coherent form of regionalism that would promote continued cooperation on a range of areas not only among the regional actors but also between the region and the EU itself. Despite these fundamental differences in outlook, the EU’s regional cooperation initiative, Black Sea Synergy, embraced cooperation with BSEC.11 The demise of the Soviet Union also opened up the possibility of Western access to the Caspian basin. Turkey rose to the challenge and developed, with strong US backing, the concept of a new corridor to bring Caspian oil to the world markets through the south Caucasus. After it achieved its independence in 1991, Azerbaijan became the focus of attention of Western energy companies as a significant source of supply, first of oil and later of gas. Ankara saw the possibility, early on, of opening an East-West corridor for bringing Caspian oil to the global markets that would be independent of Russian-controlled pipelines. Less than four months after Turkey established diplomatic relations with Azerbaijan, on January 14, 1992, then prime minister Demirel called upon Azerbaijan as well as other Central Asian countries to export their energy resources through Turkey, which, he said, would provide the safest and most economical route for pipelines. A year later, on March 9, 1993, a framework agreement on the construction of the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline was signed between Azerbaijan and Turkey. In 1994, a consortium of energy companies from the United States, Britain, Norway, Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Azerbaijan itself, led by BP, formed the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC). That consortium signed what has been called “the deal of the century” with the government of Azerbaijan to develop Caspian energy resources. By taking a stake in AIOC, Turkey became a significant actor in energy production and transport in the region and beyond. Thereafter, Turkey was also instrumental in mobilizing support for an expanded East-West corridor. On October 29, 1998, coinciding with the seventyfifth anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic, the presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan signed the Ankara Declaration, which acknowledged the need for building more than one pipeline in order to optimize commercially the export of oil and natural gas from the Caspian basin to world markets and affirmed the signatory countries’ support for the BTC route for any further pipelines that would be constructed.12 Having taken the lead on opening Caspian resources to world markets, Turkey firmly stood by the BTC routing, which skirted around Armenia because of Azerbaijan’s objections over the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. When the AIOC consortium declared its preference for using existing Soviet-made pipelines to transport oil from Baku to the Russian port of Novorossisk, it met with strenuous Turkish objections, citing the dangers of increased tanker traf-

Energy and Turkey’s Neighborhood 95

fic through the Bosporus and the threat it posed to the city of Istanbul.13 Ankara was thus instrumental in preventing the Novorossisk connection and argued instead for the new pipeline from Baku through Georgia to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan that had been described in the 1993 framework agreement. That concept of an independent East-West corridor attracted strong backing in Washington, which supported diversification of energy supply routes to the West. An intergovernmental agreement to build the BTC pipeline was signed by Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey at the meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Istanbul on November 18, 1999, the same year the Silk Road Strategy Act was proposed and passed (on August 2, 1999) by the US House of Representatives “to support political and economic independence of the countries of the South Caucasus and Central Asia.”14 Construction began three years later, and the 1,100-mile BTC pipeline, with a capacity of 1 million bbl a day, was completed in 2006. With the completion of BTC, Turkey came closer to achieving its ambition of becoming a Mediterranean oil trading hub. In late 2009, BTC’s maximum capacity was raised to 1.2 million bbl a day, shortly after Ankara reached an agreement with Moscow to build a pipeline connecting the Black Sea terminal near the port city of Samsun with Ceyhan. This third major pipeline, planned in 2007 but expected to begin construction in 2011, will be capable of carrying up to 1.4 million bbl a day of Russian and Kazakh oil, shipped by tankers across the Black Sea (see Table 5.1). The total capacity of pipelines connected to Ceyhan will thus have exceeded 4 million bbl a day, compared to Turkey’s projected daily consumption of only 707 million bbl by 2013.15 Two other pipelines followed the BTC. One was the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (BTE) pipeline, laid along the same route as BTC to bring Azeri gas to Erzurum in eastern Turkey, as had been foreseen in the 1998 Ankara Declaration. Also known as the South Caucasus pipeline, BTE was commissioned in late 2006. Built to carry initially around 8 bcm of natural gas annually, it was designed so that its capacity could be expanded to handle as much as 20 bcm annually. It was thus planned to serve as a major link in the East-West corridor, capable of carrying additional gas from both new developments in Azerbaijan

Table 5.1 Oil Pipelines to Turkey Name

Source

Baku–Tbilisi– Ceyhan pipeline

Azeri oil

Kirkuk–Ceyhan Samsun–Ceyhan (planned)

Route

Capacity

Commissioned

Azerbaijan– Georgia–Turkey

1 million bbl/day

2006

Iraqi oil

Iraq–Turkey

1.65 million bbl/day

1987

Russian and Kazakh oil

Samsun–Ceyhan

1–1.14 million bbl/day

Source: United States Department of Energy, Turkey.

2012 (expected)

96 Ahmet O. Evin

and from Turkmenistan in the event the trans-Caspian underwater connection was built. In Erzurum, BTE was connected with the Tabriz (Iran)–Ankara gas pipeline, which had been commissioned in 2001 to carry Iranian gas, following a 1996 deal with Iran, to supplement imports from Russian sources at that time. With BTE, the eastern part of the East-West corridor was completed. (See Figure 5.3.) The second pipeline that became operational in 2007 was the TurkeyGreece interconnector. That pipeline was built with an initial capacity of 7 bcm per year, but it will be expanded to carry 12 bcm per year upon the completion of the Greece-Italy interconnector extension planned for 2012. These interconnector projects were developed following a trilateral meeting of Greece and Turkey with the European Commission in 2000, after the 1999 rapprochement with Greece and the formal recognition by the EU of Turkey’s candidate status in December that year. That trilateral meeting concluded that gas from diversified sources, particularly from the Caspian and other eastern production centers, supplied through Turkey, would enhance bilateral cooperation between Greece and Turkey and contribute to the “South European gas ring,” a designation that essentially refers to the supplies transited through Turkey and Greece to other destinations in southern Europe (see Table 5.2).

The Nabucco Connection

A pipeline that would bring Caspian natural gas from Turkey directly to central Europe had been conceived as the most significant component of the East-West corridor. The envisioned pipeline would extend from Erzurum through Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary to the Austrian terminal of Baumgarten. With such a connection in place, the East-West corridor (also called the Southern Energy corridor) would be completed and its main objectives—to diversify Europe’s natural gas supply sources and routes—achieved. Surprisingly, however, this essential link to the European markets turned out to be the most difficult component of the corridor to develop; as late as mid- 2011 it had not yet entered implementation stage. One reason for the delay was the difference between the approach to energy security of the Clinton administration and that of most European consumers of Russian energy supplies. As Nicklas Norling, a Central Asia expert, has argued, “US interest in developing Caspian Sea resources, in the first place, was driven partially by a willingness to assist Europe in diversifying energy supplies.”16 But the EU initially appeared to be far less concerned about dependence on Russian natural gas as a security issue. Rather, the EU’s primary objective was to prevent failure in the pipeline delivery systems after the breakup of the Soviet Union. To that end, in 1995 the EU launched the Interstate Oil and Gas Pipeline Management Programme (later the Interstate Oil and Gas Transportation to Europe cooperation program, INOGATE) in order to provide technical assistance

Figure 5.3 Natural Gas Pipelines to Turkey

Source: International Energy Agency, Turkey 2009 Review, p. 75.

98 Ahmet O. Evin Table 5.2 Natural Gas Pipelines to Turkey Name

Capacity

Commissioned

Turkey–Greece

11 bcm

2007

South Caucasus Azeri gas pipeline (Baku–Tblisi– Erzurum pipeline)

Azerbaijan– Georgia–Turkey

20 bcm

2006

Blue Stream

Russian gas

Russia–Turkey via Black Sea

16 bcm

2005

Iran–Turkey pipeline

Iranian gas

Iran–Turkey

11 bcm

2001

Romania–Bulgaria– Turkey pipeline

Russian gas

Romania–Bulgaria– Turkey

18 bcm

1991

Trans-Caspian Gas pipeline (proposed)

Turkmen gas

Turkmenista– Azerbaijan– Georgia–Turkey

28 bcm

—

Turkey–Greece Interconnector

Source Grid connection

Route

Source: United States Department of Energy, Turkey.

to the newly independent states (NIS).17 The aim was to enable those states to manage and operate oil and gas pipelines that they had inherited from the former Soviet Union. The program included eleven NIS states: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova. The EU also undertook to advise the governments of the participating states regarding the legal and regulatory framework of energy transmission, based on a market-oriented economy and in compliance with international rules and standards. This initial two-year program reflected EU’s typical approach to the stabilization of its neighborhood by assisting with the creation of institutions based on EU standards and regulatory frameworks in order to secure their sustainability in a market economy. After 1997, the INOGATE program was given the mandate “to support the development of energy cooperation between the European Union, the littoral states of Black and Caspian Seas and their neighboring countries.” With Turkey also having joined it, INOGATE is now “also concerned with broad energy security strategies of both the partner countries and EU.”18 The decision of the EU in 1999 to proceed with a major eastern enlargement alerted the EU policymakers to the new geopolitical dimension of energy supplies. The future member states in eastern Europe were likely to increase the union’s dependence on Russia, as they were almost totally dependent on Russian supplies. In response to expectations of Europe’s growing energy dependence, the European Commission published in 2000 the “Green Paper: Toward a European Strategy for the Security of Energy Supply,” with a view to initiating “a debate on the security of energy supply.” Given the extent of Russia’s gas reserves, the paper noted, “A certain increase in dependence on that country

Energy and Turkey’s Neighborhood 99

appears inevitable.” However, the commission did not see any negative security implications of that dependence; to the contrary, it noted, “The continuity of supplies from the former Soviet Union, and then Russia, over the last 25 years is testimony to an exemplary stability.”19 Despite this stated confidence in Russian supply, Brussels increasingly came to focus attention on energy supply diversification, replacing Washington as a major supporter of the Southern Corridor. A separate decision had been taken to build a gas pipeline from Baku to Erzurum at the OECD meeting of November 19, 1998, when the intergovernmental agreement was signed to build BTC. With European engagement, preparations began for the Erzurum-toVienna gas pipeline in 2001 at the same time the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Company was incorporated in London to build BTC. After initial talks in early 2002 between Turkey’s BOTA≈S (the state-owned pipeline company) and Austria’s OMV (the operator of the Baumgarten facilities), a cooperation agreement was signed on October 10, 2002, among the five partners responsible for the project: Bulgargaz, Transgaz of Romania, and Hungary’s MOL, in addition to OMV and BOTA≈S.20 This project, which is yet to secure financing for construction, has nevertheless occupied center stage in debates concerning not only energy issues, but also Turkey’s foreign policy and engagement with the region. The Nabucco debates, moreover, have brought into sharp relief transatlantic differences on energy security, reflected the volatility of Turkey’s relations with the EU, and precipitated hostile reactions from Russia.

Nabucco and Turkey’s EU Accession Process

As an alternative supply route intended to help reduce Europe’s dependence on Russia, Nabucco called renewed attention to Turkey’s potential contribution to Europe’s energy security. Europe’s need for an alternative energy supply corridor to provide access to Caspian resources had been continuously emphasized by Washington since the 1990s, but was only obliquely referred to in the European Commission’s “Green Paper” of 2000. With Nabucco on the agenda, US arguments dating from the Clinton era about Turkey’s geostrategic value began finding echoes in Brussels and some European capitals. In late 2003, the European Commission awarded a matching grant to finance half the estimated costs of feasibility studies for the Nabucco project. The following year, the European Commission took the lead in organizing in Baku a ministerial conference on energy that brought together representatives of the four Caspian littoral states and seven neighboring states with those of the European Commission and EU member states to try to “facilitate the progressive integration of the energy markets in the region into the EU market as well as the transportation of the extensive Caspian oil and gas resources towards Europe.”21 With the Baku initiative, the EU demonstrated for the first time its interest in engaging directly with the Caspian region with a view to seeking cooperation among “consumer, producer and transit countries.”22

100 Ahmet O. Evin

Turkey’s position as a key energy transit country was also recognized by the European Commission’s 2004 Report on Turkey’s Progress, which noted that Turkey was “strengthening its position as an energy transit country” and “increasing its role as a transit country for gas from Russia, the Caspian Sea region, and the Middle East, including through the development of the Nabucco gas pipeline.” The report concluded, “Turkey will play a pivotal role in diversifying resources and routes for oil and gas transit from neighboring countries to the EU.”23 The positive tone of the report reflected the commission’s support for opening accession negotiations with Turkey, the decision on which would be made at the European Council’s December summit that year. In anticipation of that summit, throughout 2004 a range of statements, publications, events, and research projects called attention to the geostrategic advantages that Turkey would offer to the EU, particularly in providing energy transit facilities. Using more direct language, a 2004 report by the Independent Commission on Turkey stated that “Turkey’s geopolitical position makes it a vital factor for Europe’s security of energy supplies.”24 Another report emphasized “Turkey’s importance as a natural tunnel through which the EU can access gas” and pointed to the EU’s role in ensuring its own “energy security by means of pipeline development to carry gas to the EU market via Turkey.”25 Several unrelated developments also had the effect of attracting support for Nabucco and for Turkey’s convergence with the EU. The US occupation of Iraq in 2003 helped refocus attention on Nabucco and encouraged Turkey’s pursuit of its EU membership goal. Prior to 2003, market expectations were that following regime change in Iraq after the US intervention, sanctions would be lifted and increased energy exports from Iraq would drive prices down. This prospect of cheaper energy, it was expected, would reduce the chances of attracting financing for Nabucco. But the consequences of the US intervention proved to the contrary. With Iraq’s oil and gas exports coming to a grinding halt as a result of the war, Nabucco once again appeared to be both feasible and necessary. In June 2004 the Nabucco International Company was established; a year later a joint venture agreement was concluded among the partners. The US intervention in Iraq also heightened Turkey’s interest in pursuing EU membership. The Turkish parliament’s failure, after long negotiations, to allow passage for US troops across Turkish territory to open a northern front in Iraq resulted in an acrimonious exchange of blame between Ankara and Washington. Turkish public opinion reacted negatively to what many saw as the Bush administration’s arrogant unilateralism. Increased violence and instability in Iraq following the US invasion reinforced the disapproval by the Turkish public of US military action in the neighborhood. Most Turks came to view the United States less as an ally than as an alien neighbor responsible for destabilizing Turkey’s own backyard. For the first time since Turkey had entered into the transatlantic alliance, scales were tipped in favor of Europe over the United States both among the Turkish leadership and in public opinion.

Energy and Turkey’s Neighborhood 101

Yet Turkey’s attempts to instrumentalize energy cooperation to further its EU membership goals failed to attract broad support in Europe. It is true that several European leaders made the link between Turkey’s contribution to Europe’s energy security and its membership. For example, speaking in Brussels about Nabucco as an alternative energy supply route, the European Commission president José Manuel Barroso stated that energy security was “one of these cases where we can show to the European public opinion how important Turkey is for the EU.”26 Earlier, Carl Bildt and Massimo D’Alema, foreign ministers of Sweden and Italy, respectively, described Turkey, in a joint article in which they urged progress in Turkey’s accession process, as “a key actor in the realm of energy security. Given the uncertain state of energy markets, and the stakes involved, it is our shared interest to incorporate Turkey in a functioning integrated system.”27 Olli Rehn, the enlargement commissioner, went so far as to say, “The EU and Turkey share essential strategic interests in security, economy and dialogue of civilizations. That is one of the reasons why the EU decided to open negotiations with Turkey.”28 However, officially, the EU has been careful to make a distinction between cooperation in the field of energy and membership. Speaking in Istanbul on the same day as Olli Rehn, the energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs posited that EU-Turkey energy cooperation had nothing to do with Turkey’s EU accession.29 The vagaries of the Nabucco project resemble Turkey’s uneven path toward EU membership. Although the project has received strong endorsements, as noted, from some of the top EU officials, who recognized Turkey’s strategic importance for the EU as an energy corridor, it failed to mobilize EU-wide support for Turkish membership on geopolitical grounds. Conflicting policies, in addition to gaps in perception of energy needs among member states, provoked disagreements on a topic that was expected to enhance Turkey’s relations with the EU. To begin with, EU accession is based on criteria other than geostrategic benefits. Moreover, energy cooperation had little chance of mobilizing EUwide support for Turkey, because member states had their own needs, priorities, and policies regarding energy supplies and would not compromise their arrangements in favor of an overall policy. France, for example, does not depend on energy imports from Russia. While Germany is significantly dependent on Russian natural gas, historically it has had little reason to doubt the security of Russian supply deliveries. For those two leading EU member states, in addition to Italy, which also has little energy dependence but significant cooperation with Russia on energy-related projects, the security implications of the East-West energy corridor were not compelling. A significant segment of public opinion in western Europe viewed energy dependence on Russia as a problem that confronted eastern Europe only, because of its pipeline infrastructure that allowed one-way flows and thus prevented diversification, and put the blame on the new accession states for bringing their problem into the EU. As for Turkey’s expectations from the EU, it may be recalled that its early agreements to import

102 Ahmet O. Evin

Soviet gas and, later, its opening to the Caspian Basin (as well as to the Black Sea region and Central Asia) to diversify its energy and trading networks had been initially undertaken irrespective of its relationship with Europe. Beginning in 2005, Ankara lost its enthusiasm for EU membership as resistance to Turkey’s membership increased across most of the EU member states. Membership negotiations came nearly to a standstill as several chapters were blocked by the EU as well as France. With the energy chapter blocked over an oil prospecting disagreement with Cyprus, little room was left for improving EU-Turkey energy cooperation, and relations with some member states assumed more of a confrontational character. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoÿan’s visit to Brussels on January 18, 2009, provides a telling example. Having taken the trip, ironically, to revive stalled membership negotiations, he served a warning at a Brussels think tank that Turkey’s support for Nabucco ought not to be taken for granted: “If we are faced with a situation where the energy chapter is blocked, we would of course review our position.”30 At a time when the Russian-Ukrainian dispute had led to a protracted gas crisis in Europe, his remarks turned out to be counterproductive, and he was accused by Germany’s economy minister, Michael Glos, of blackmailing the EU.31 Despite its increasing support for Nabucco and repeated crises involving Russian gas deliveries, the EU itself has not been able to unblock the energy chapter. Yet Ankara has also been responsible for causing delays in the Nabucco project and has even been blamed for obstructing the intergovernmental agreement, a prerequisite for project development. At issue has been Turkey’s insistence, until recently, on retaining at preferential prices 15 percent of the gas to be transported through the Nabucco pipeline. This initial “lift-off” would allow Turkey to have cheap gas for domestic consumption and to profit from selling the unconsumed portion of this gas for export at higher prices. The European Commission objected to these demands, pointing to Turkey’s role as a transit country, which means it could only charge an agreed rate for all the gas. While this remained for a long time a bone of contention between Ankara and Brussels, it was, in fact, a commercial, and not a political, issue. Nabucco was to be built by a consortium of six companies (Germany’s RWE having entered into partnership with the original five) responsible for its financing, construction, and management. Because Nabucco was not publicly owned, governments were not entitled to make claims on its commercial operations on the basis of territoriality. The issue of ownership was clarified in spring 2009 in time for the intergovernmental agreement signed on July 13.

Russian Rivalry to Nabucco

From Nabucco’s very inception, Russia had been opposed to the East-West corridor because the prospect of such a corridor challenged Russia’s monopoly over Eurasian energy supply routes. Its opposition became even more rigorous given

Energy and Turkey’s Neighborhood 103

that the Southern Corridor represented a competitor, for the first time, to its own natural gas pipelines to Europe. Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, as well as that of Turkey, has helped to make Russian opposition to Nabucco effective. The EU, for example, has been careful not to give the impression that its support for Nabucco was motivated by a desire to reduce Russia’s pipeline monopoly. Although the EU has included Nabucco among its Priority Interconnection Projects (PIPs) under the Trans-European Networks program, it has consistently refrained from highlighting Nabucco’s central mission of providing access to Caspian energy resources. Instead, it has referred to the pipeline as a means for carrying gas from various sources to Europe. The European parliament’s 2006 report EU-Turkey Relations in the Field of Energy, which stated that “politicalstrategic considerations” played “an important role in discussions about Turkey’s EU membership or closer relations with the EU,” emphasized the “potential of Turkey to become an important country for oil and gas transit from Russia, the Caspian Sea region and the Persian Gulf.”32 Russia has made a variety of moves to derail the Nabucco project, despite the fact that the project has the potential for exporting Russian gas to Europe. In 2007 Russia announced, as a rival project to Nabucco, the South Stream project, an underwater pipeline with a capacity of 63 bcm that would transport gas from Russia’s Beregovaya terminal on the Black Sea to the Bulgarian port city of Varna (see Figure 4.2 in Chapter 4). With the allure of such mega-projects, Moscow has been able to strike special relationships with European energy giants such as ENI, E.ON, and EdF, all of which are taking part in the South Stream project. In December 2007, Russia concluded an agreement with Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan to build a pipeline, with an annual capacity of 20 bcm, connecting Turkmen gas fields, through Kazakhstan, to the Russian pipeline network.33 As a consequence, the Trans-Caspian underwater pipeline (to bring gas from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan) was cast in doubt, as were the anticipated Turkmen gas supplies to Nabucco. Since the beginning of 2008, Russia has aggressively pursued a strategy of extending its control over gas distribution networks in southeastern and central Europe. It reached an agreement with Bulgaria, “committing the country to the South Stream pipeline,”34 although the subsequent Bulgarian government distanced itself from its predecessor’s decision. Russia then moved on to purchasing major or majority stakes in Serbia’s NIS, Hungary’s MOL, and even OMV, all partners in Nabucco.35 Although Turkish and Russian officials have repeatedly claimed that Nabucco and South Stream were complementary, and not rival, projects, and that there was scope for both to operate at the same time, the fact that they follow the same routes and are directed at the same markets belies those claims. The Nabucco project was nearly killed by Russia several times, but it has survived. Each time it has been resurrected, ironically, as the result chiefly of crises involving Russian gas distribution to Europe. When, for example, on January 1, 2006, Russia cut gas supplies to Ukraine as a result of pricing disputes and unpaid Ukrainian debt, Nabucco came back high on the European agenda

104 Ahmet O. Evin

as an essential connection to prevent energy shortages in eastern Europe. The same year, the World Economic Forum organized its first regional meeting in Turkey, focusing in large part on energy issues. The forum, in Istanbul and later in Davos, emphasized Turkey’s role as a “risk mitigator”36 and advocated, on that basis, its further integration into the EU structures. During the Russia-Georgia war of 2008, Russian forces came within firing range of BTC and BTE but refrained from directly hitting either of them. BTE was shut off as a precautionary measure, while BTC was already out of action because of a terrorist attack the previous week. The Russian show of force clearly exposed the Southern Corridor’s vulnerability, as a result of which one influential analyst, Borut Grgic, remarked, “Nabucco is all but dead.”37 Yet a few months later the European parliament woke up to the fact that the Nabucco project that would provide an essential link “ought to be carried out in cooperation with Russia” and stressed “the need to include Turkey in the European arrangements . . . on account of the key role it can play as a transit country.”38 Another gas crisis that erupted in January 2009, as a result once again of differences between Russia and Ukraine, lasted nearly three weeks and left many eastern European countries in the cold. That last crisis served to focus serious attention on the Nabucco project. On May 7–8, 2009, the Czech presidency of the EU convened in Prague a summit entitled the “Southern Corridor: The New Silk Route.” Representatives of the EU, along with representatives from some of the producer and transit countries, including Turkey, signed a declaration of support for the Southern Corridor. The Czech presidency’s efforts contributed significantly toward achieving the Nabucco Intergovernmental Agreement, which was concluded two months later. That intergovernmental agreement has neither dampened Russia’s opposition to the project (see below) nor led to any assurances that Nabucco would actually be built. Nabucco has not yet found guaranteed sources of supply, even though it would initially need as little as 8–9 bcm of gas annually, less than a third of its capacity, to become feasible. (See Figure 5.4.)

Lack of Energy Supplies

From the beginning, Nabucco’s sources of supply remained conditional on a variety of political factors beyond its stakeholders’ control. It was initially conceived to carry a combination of Caspian and Iranian gas. Under the 2001 agreement between Ankara and Baku, only 6.6 bcm of natural gas was available annually from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz I field, a part of which Turkey also wanted to use for its domestic consumption (see Table 5.3a). Nabucco, it was thought, would draw on a second field, Shah Deniz II, after it began production. However, work on that field was suspended due to a pricing disagreement between Ankara and Baku, a crisis precipitated largely by Azerbaijan’s reaction to Turkey’s opening to Armenia in the winter of 2009–2010.39 Subsequently, an agreement was reached, on June 7, 2010, according to which the price of the

Energy and Turkey’s Neighborhood 105 Figure 5.4 Total Energy Consumption and Natural Gas Demand in Turkey

Sources: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2009, www.bp.com; IEA Natural Gas Information 2008, 2009, www.oecd-ilibrary.org; Economist Intelligence Unit Energy Data Tool, Turkey, www.eui.com.

current supply of gas from Shah Deniz I was substantially increased, but the pricing of future deliveries from Shah Deniz II was postponed for later negotiations.40 This agreement resulted in preparations for resuming work on Shah Deniz II. On June 17, 2010, however, Edison SpA, the Italian energy company behind the ITGI (Interconnector Turkey, Greece, Italy) project, signed in Ankara a memorandum of agreement with the Turkish and Greek energy companies to transport gas from Shah Deniz II to Italy through an extension to the existing interconnector infrastructure.41 ITGI’s aggressive pursuit of Azeri gas means another serious competitor for Nabucco, given that Shah Deniz II, which is expected to begin producing 16 bcm annually in 2017, will not have the capacity to feed both pipelines intended to carry gas to Europe. With the largest proven reserves of natural gas in the Caspian region, Turkmenistan had been considered a key future supplier to the East-West corridor through the envisaged Trans-Caspian pipeline. However, because of disagreements about rights to offshore resources among the Caspian littoral states and, above all, Russia’s effective pressure to obstruct the Trans-Caspian underwater pipeline connection, the prospects for attracting anticipated quantities of Turkmen gas to the East-West corridor have thus far failed to materialize. Efforts to secure a Turkmen gas connection to feed Nabucco have picked up momentum

106 Ahmet O. Evin

since the German energy company RWE joined the Nabucco consortium in 2008. On April 16, 2009, RWE signed an agreement with the Turkmen government to develop offshore fields and construct delivery pipelines, following an initiative launched by the European Council in November 2008 to pursue the trans-Caspian link to secure greater volumes of gas for a “more ambitious” concept of a corridor.42 It is far from certain whether or when Turkmen gas may be linked to the East-West corridor, given Russia’s continued resolve to prevent such a connection. For example, on the night of April 8–9, 2009, less than a day after serving notice, Gazprom all but completely shut off the flow of gas from Turkmenistan, resulting in an explosion on the Turkmen side of the border. Russia’s refusal to abide by its long-term contractual commitments and the explosion resulting from its unilateral decision to hold imports served as a powerful reminder, less than a year after the Russia-Georgia war, of Moscow’s readiness to flex its muscles to defend its interests. So far, only small volumes of Turkmen gas have continued to be pumped to the Erzurum terminal through the Iran-Turkey pipeline, which has turned out to be a highly unreliable connection. (See Table 5.3a.) The supply of gas from Iran, originally envisaged to be used by Turkey for domestic consumption, as well as transiting to Europe, quickly became an increasingly remote possibility. In 1996 Turkey signed, despite US objections, a long-term contract according to which Iran would supply natural gas for a period of twenty-three years with volumes reaching 10 bcm in 2007. The pipeline was completed in 1999, but deliveries did not begin for another two years due to a range of disputes that have continued unabated. The highest volume of gas delivered by Iran so far was 6.2 bcm, consisting mostly of Turkmen gas, in 2007. Between 2002 and 2005 the flow of gas was cut several times while each side accused the other of misrepresentation of one kind or another. In 2004 Turkey even threatened to take the disputes to international arbitration. In January 2006, Iran cut off supplies to Turkey on account of a rise in its domestic demand due to exceptionally cold weather. In September 2006 and again in August 2007 the flow of gas was interrupted three times because of explosions set off by the Kurdish separatists. In both cases Turkey made up for the shortfall by Table 5.3a Natural Gas Agreements Supplier/Contract

Volume (bcm)

Agreement Date

Duration (year)

Status

Russia (West) Iran Russia (Black Sea) Russia (West) Turkmenistan Azerbaijan

6 10 16 16 16 6.6

February 1986 August 1996 December 1997 December 1997 May 1999 March 2001

25 25 25 25 30 15

Active Active Active Active — Active

Source: BOTA≈S Petroleum Pipelines Corporation, http://www.botas.gov.tr.

Energy and Turkey’s Neighborhood 107

increasing imports from Gazprom via the Blue Stream pipeline. When Turkmenistan cut off supplies to Iran for a protracted period during winter 2007– 2008, probably due to a pricing dispute, Turkey was forced to cut off supplies of Azeri transit gas to Greece and use it domestically to make up for the shortfall. The Iranian connection, at present, appears to be more of a liability than an asset for promoting the Nabucco project. Iraqi gas, considered to be another potential source for supplying Nabucco, remains a good future prospect. Security and stability will have to be established, and issues related to jurisdiction between the central government and the Kurdish-dominated northern regional government will have to be settled, before large investments can be made in Iraq to develop its gas fields. Egyptian gas, to be connected to Turkey from Syria, has also been considered as an additional supply source for Nabucco but increasingly appears to be an unrealistic proposition, given Egypt’s limited potential for export in the face of its increasing domestic demand.

Security of Demand

Despite its relatively modest capacity and likely shortfalls in supply, Nabucco has occupied the central place in energy debates because of its security implications. Since mid-2009, however, global energy markets have been experiencing a major transformation that is likely to result in significantly altered perceptions of Europe’s dependence on Russian gas deliveries and the related issue of its energy security. This transformation may also have implications with respect to Turkey’s role as an energy corridor. The 2008–2009 global financial crisis has fundamentally changed the dynamics of energy markets worldwide. In European markets, demand for and price of natural gas have been drastically reduced as a result chiefly of the economic downturn. In autumn 2009, exports of Russian gas to western Europe were down by some 50 bcm compared to the previous year, while Turkey also reduced its imports of Russian gas by 25 percent in the first half of 2009. Europe, including Turkey, imported far less gas from Russia compared to the volumes stipulated in long-term contracts. By autumn 2009 the value of undelivered gas stood at around US$2.5 billion.43 In the face of reduced deliveries to Europe, Russia sought to unburden itself from its obligations to buy Turkmen gas while it pressured its own customers to pay for the undelivered gas according to the long-term “take-or-pay” contracts. By late 2009, Western energy companies stepped up demands for introducing flexibility into the contracts, pointing to the fact that Russia itself was not honoring its obligations to buy the stipulated amount of Turkmen gas and that Moscow had allowed Ukraine to take much less gas than it had previously contracted for. Western European energy companies also pointed to the fact that they had not taken Russia to court over its failure to ensure the delivery of gas through Ukraine during the previous crises and were ultimately able to reduce significantly their obligations to Gazprom.44

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Significantly reduced spot market prices for Russian gas have become a regular feature since the most recent crisis. As a result of the financial crisis, Russia incurred substantial losses in its gas trade. Falling prices did not permit its export revenues to compensate for the subsidized gas Russia provides for its internal customers. A substantial fall in Russia’s domestic consumption during the crisis, moreover, has caused an oversupply that put further pressure on prices. The Kremlin’s chief revenue generator until recently, Gazprom had at the end of 2008 accumulated debts totaling US$49.5 billion.45 The net effect of this crisis on Gazprom has been a serious decline in its market capitalization: Whereas in 2008 it ranked as the world’s fourth most valuable company, with a market value of $300 billion, it had lost more than two-thirds of its value by mid-2009, when it was valued at around $90 billion. Under the circumstances, Russia has not been able to obtain funding for investments for further consolidating its position in the market by obtaining control of downstream facilities and distribution companies. With lower energy prices, it has not been able to raise the capital for upgrading and renewal of its pipeline network and for investing in new projects, such as bypass pipelines, to provide energy to western Europe. As a result, in order to implement its programs related to energy exports, notably gas, Russia has found itself in need of foreign investment in the form of joint ventures with European energy companies, even for implementing its high-priority projects, such as South Stream. The current situation does not appear to be a temporary aberration from the established market dynamics. Since the 1970s the Soviet Union and then its successor, the Russian Federation, have been the main exporters of natural gas to Europe, and since the 1980s to Turkey. Russia has found itself in an advantageous position as both an energy exporter and a transit country for getting the largest proportion of hydrocarbons from the Caspian Basin to Western consumers, thanks to the extensive Eurasian pipeline networks that it controls. The conventional wisdom, until recently, was that economic recovery would lead to increased demand, wipe out the temporary oversupply, and restore Russia’s dominant position as Europe’s energy supplier. New developments, however, point strongly to a long-term, if not permanent, change in the global energy market dynamics that would challenge Russia’s comfortable monopoly and result in a significant change in its relationship with both the Caspian Basin suppliers and its export markets. Several factors appear to indicate likely changes in the energy market dynamics, fundamentally altering the established pattern of interdependencies among producers and consumers in favor of the consumer. One is the technological advances that have consistently reduced the cost of converting natural gas into LNG (liquefied natural gas) that can be shipped around the world. In the fifteen years to 2005, liquefaction costs have been cut by 35–50 percent, while regasification costs at import terminals have been negligible. Although LNG is costlier to convert and ship compared to pipeline-transmitted gas, its delivery price in Europe has been well within the range of market prices for natural gas. Compared to long-term contracted gas, LNG offers flexibility as well as supply diversification. As a result,

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LNG consumption worldwide has grown 3.5 times faster than total gas consumption.46 The share of LNG imports to Europe, which represented 11 percent of the total gas market in 2006, was expected to increase in the long term to make up 25 percent of the total EU supplies.47 It may even rise significantly faster as a result of the discovery in the US of shale gas that substantially increased supplies available for the European market . In 2007, LNG accounted for only 13 percent of the EU’s imports of natural gas. EU energy companies are investing in new LNG terminals to take advantage of falling transport costs. At the beginning of 2009 there were thirteen LNG regasification terminals operating in Europe and a further nine under construction. Proposals for another twenty-five plants are under consideration, while several projects are under way to expand existing facilities.48 The discovery of shale gas in the United States and unconventional technology to extract gas from those new reserves is the second development that has fundamentally altered market expectations. The effects of those new supplies have already become visible. The United States has significantly reduced its LNG imports, and LNG import expectations for North America have been correspondingly reduced by half, from 108 bcm in 2015 to only 55 bcm.49 Because of “the increasing flexibility of the LNG industry,” gas can now be shipped to multiple markets. Part of the supplies originally intended for the United States but no longer needed, for example, is being diverted to Europe,50 where LNG imports are expected to rise from 46 bcm in 2010 to 66 bcm in 2015.51 The current glut of gas, stemming partly from a new wave of LNG supply, has put pressure on the very foundation of the natural gas industry: the longterm, take-or-pay, oil price–indexed gas sales contract.52 In the face of falling prices and LNG competition, Russia appears to be more concerned now about the security of market demand in Europe than Europe is about the security of supply. Gazprom has announced that 10–15 percent of its natural gas export sales will be linked to spot prices through 2012.53 The current oversupply of gas, along with market expectations based on further shipments of LNG that could be offered to the European market, is likely to depress gas prices for several years until demand picks up. In 2009, European industries were able to buy natural gas from independent suppliers at $116 per mcm (million cubic meters) compared to the negotiated Gazprom price of $287 per mcm under long-term contracts.54 According to International Energy Agency (IEA) projections, gas demand in Europe is not expected to recover to 2008 levels before 2015. Given that the total capacity of the pipelines that connect Russia to Europe stands at 140 bcm at present and that Europe’s LNG processing capacity will reach 165 bcm well before 2020, Russia might be faced with serious competition from other sources in its effort to maintain its share of the European market. With the planned completion of the Nord Stream pipeline to Germany in 2012, Russia will have reached the capacity to deliver gas in excess of what the European market will be able to absorb at that time. Increasing efficiency and low-carbon energy technology constitute a third factor that is expected to reduce the level of energy consumption in western Europe.

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Viewing the 2008–2009 economic downturn as an opportunity to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions, IEA has published revised projections for future energy consumption in Europe. One of these is based on the assumption that the EU would adopt stringent targets to reduce greenhouse emissions by 2020 and achieve a higher share of nuclear power and renewables in electricity generation. The IEA 450 scenario foresees a 3.7 percent reduction in natural gas consumption by 2020 and 10 percent by 2030, compared to 2008. Although investment in renewables, such as solar energy, is not likely to make a significant impact on supplies in the near future, in the medium term both renewables and nuclear energy are expected to contribute to the total European energy supply and thus reduce European dependence on imported hydrocarbons. The fourth factor is China’s entry into the Eurasian energy markets as a major player, which has begun to make an impact on the Eurasian energy balance, as well. As late as 2006, natural gas accounted for only 3 percent of China’s total energy consumption, while coal represented 70 percent.55 However, China is increasingly turning to natural gas instead of coal, and, as a result, its natural gas demand is expected to grow, on average, by 6.4 percent per year between 2005 and 2030, from 78 bcm in 2008 to 169 bcm in 2015, and nearly to double that amount to 331 bcm in 2030.56 Even according to low-demand “New-Policies” scenarios, China’s total imports are projected to rise to 52 bcm in 2015 and 164 bcm in 2030. China, along with India, is expected to account for 53 percent of global incremental demand for primary energy until 2030. A new pipeline for transporting Turkmen gas to China via Kazakhstan was inaugurated on December 13, 2009. Capable of transporting 40 bcm annually, that pipeline can handle five times the volume handled by the pipeline connecting Turkmenistan to Iran that was constructed in the wake of Ankara’s 1996 energy deal with Tehran. The new connection to China, which constitutes “the first high-volume export route for Turkmenistan that does not go through Russia,”57 harbingers the end of Central Asian countries’ dependence on Russia to reach external markets. Increased demand from China and other Asian markets, however, is not likely to reduce the potential of the Caspian energy producers to supply Western markets as well, given the vast reserves available for development in the region. The East-West corridor, moreover, would continue to offer to the landlocked countries of the region another option for an export route. It is still premature to make a prediction on whether Nabucco will actually be built, but it is safe to say that greater volumes of energy will be transported in the future through Turkey to European and global markets, given the extent of energy reserves in the Caspian Basin and the Middle East.

EU Demand, Russian Supply, and Turkish Policy

The four factors discussed in the preceding paragraphs, together, have essentially begun to transform the notion of energy security for Europe and Russia, with significant implications for Turkey’s role and its foreign policy.

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Turkey, with its domestic consumption having reached nearly 36 bcm in 2008, is the seventh-largest consumer of natural gas in Europe.58 The average annual increase of its natural gas consumption since 2001 has been over 9 percent, more than three times that of EU-27 during the same period. Turkey’s gas consumption is estimated to grow by about this rate in the near future. Its growing energy consumption has made Turkey a major player in the energy markets, as well as a vulnerable one, given its nearly total dependence on imports (see Tables 5.3a and 5.3b). Although its dependence on Russia remains high, Turkey’s exposure to any single source has been reduced as a result of long-term contracts with diversified sources of supply.59 Turkey’s energy policy was developed in the 1980s and 1990s, as was its policy of opening to its neighborhood. All of its currently functioning, as well as proposed, oil and natural gas pipelines that connect Turkey with its neighbors were planned and developed as projects throughout the 1990s. Even Nabucco has its origins, as noted, in Ankara’s early plans to gain access to the Caspian region. That policy embraced two primary objectives: (1) to ensure an energy supply for a rapidly increasing domestic demand; and (2) to create an energy hub complete with a trading platform, refineries, and petrochemical industries. All Turkish governments since then have pursued those long-term objectives, securing essential connections, improving the country’s energy balance, and contributing significantly to the country’s economic development. Because of its dependence on its neighbors for energy, Turkey has had to adopt regional policies that would serve to support its energy security objectives. As a result, its policy toward its neighbors has sometimes appeared to be contrary to its overall foreign policy objectives. For example, despite being a close US ally and a member of NATO, it signed a deal in 1996 to build a pipeline connection and to import natural gas from Iran.60 That agreement, which made Iran Turkey’s second-largest supplier of natural gas, was concluded, over Washington’s objections, at a time when Ankara was closely cooperating with the United States to open the East-West corridor. It was nevertheless explained as an essential move to achieve diversified energy supplies, as well as to open a connection for Turkmen gas to be exported to Turkey. Until the Russia-Georgia war of 2008, Turkey’s energy policy appears to have been driven by prudent realism, which resulted in the manageable balance between Turkey’s obligations and reliable supply sources. The Russia-Georgia war, however, appears to have made an indelible mark on the region, upsetting the balance of relations established gradually after the demise of the Soviet Union.

Table 5.3b LNG Agreements Supplier/Contract Algeria Nigeria

Volume (bcm)

Agreement Date

Duration (year)

Status

4 6.6

April 1988 March 2001

20 15

Active Active

Source: BOTA≈S Petroleum Pipelines Corporation, http://www.botas.gov.tr.

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Despite losing credibility as a result of disproportionate use of force against Georgia, Russia nevertheless continued to assert its dominant position in the region. Although Turkey presented itself as having a regional influence on par with that of Russia, it seems to have made concessions to Russia’s demands on energy-related projects. For example, only three weeks after the Nabucco deal was signed in Ankara on July 13, 2009, the Russian prime minister visited the Turkish capital, bringing with him several proposals. One was to lay the South Stream pipeline in Turkey’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) on the Black Sea bed in order to avoid Ukraine altogether, and the other was to establish a consortium to build a second Blue Stream pipeline (Blue Stream II) to supply additional gas to the Turkish market.61 Turkey’s positive response to those proposals was in keeping with Ankara’s policy of enhanced relations with Russia, driven by Turkey’s high dependence on Russia for its energy needs and the resulting trade deficit with Russia, hovering around $25 billion.62 By agreeing to those proposals, among others, Turkey left itself little room to operate an independent energy corridor without relying on Russian supplies. The emerging dynamics of energy markets may well put to the test the basic premises of Turkey’s current foreign policy. Although it is claimed that Turkey conducts its energy politics “from a purely realist perspective,”63 with little or no regard for its relationship with the Euro-Atlantic community or its EU membership objectives, its decisions concerning energy are not likely to be viewed in isolation from its behavior as a regional or international actor. The sustainability of one of its key foreign policy principles, that of “zero problems with neighbors,”64 came under scrutiny as a result of the 2008 Russia-Georgia war. Turkey at first appeared to lend support to Georgia but avoided taking any steps that would meet with Moscow’s objection. A few days into the war the Turkish prime minister unveiled the Caucasus Security and Cooperation Platform (CSCP), an idea originally promoted by President Süleyman Demirel in connection with BSEC.65 Presented as a new initiative, however, CSCP took many by surprise, including Washington. The initiative was taken to Georgia after the Turkish prime minister secured Moscow’s support. CSCP, which is directed at bringing together the actors involved in the conflict with Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey, has excluded other Black Sea neighbors, as well as the EU and the United States. Although still on the agenda in regional discussions, CSCP has yet to acquire any institutional framework to address the tensions in the region. Another recent development that has raised questions with respect to the focus and consistency of Turkey’s foreign policy toward the region is the initiative to seek rapprochement with Armenia. Turkey’s opening to Armenia has met with serious negative reaction from Azerbaijan and has also affected energy cooperation between those two countries. Ankara’s initiative to open the border with Armenia, a significant positive development in itself, has resulted in a rift with Azerbaijan, partly due to inadequate consultation with Baku on the part of the Turkish government before taking the step to sign protocols with Yerevan.

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Azerbaijan, in response, has agreed to supply additional gas to Russia, reducing from the amount available for transit through Turkey. Although the amount involved, merely 0.5 bcm, is too small to make a difference, that agreement with Russia was meant to be a warning signal to Turkey. More important, Baku has also obtained a substantial increase in the price of gas exported to Turkey, from the earlier contract rate of $120 to around $260–$300 per 1 mcm, retroactively from April 2008. Although Turkey has agreed to those terms, the price of gas from Shah Deniz II is yet to be negotiated, leaving open the possibility of even higher prices.

Transatlantic Implications

There have been inconsistencies in Turkey’s regional policy that appear to have resulted from Ankara’s overengagement in the neighborhood. Several of the five principles that define Turkey’s new foreign policy framework, according to its architect Ahmet Davutoπlu, can be said to encourage regional engagement as an end in itself. One of them, “develop relations with the neighboring regions and beyond,” explicitly promotes engagement as a policy objective. It is reinforced by another principle, that of “adherence to a multi-dimensional foreign policy,” which, by means of defining Turkey’s relations with all other actors “to be complementary, not in competition,” implicitly rules out the danger of any contradictions or inconsistencies that may result from simultaneous and even uncoordinated sets of bilateral engagements. A third principle, that of “rhythmic diplomacy,” further supports the goals articulated by the two described above by means of emphasizing the benefits of increased diplomatic engagement in all regions, as well as all international organizations.66 These principles have led to an unprecedented dynamism in Turkey’s foreign relations but have made it difficult to establish a coherent set of priorities and have resulted in too many initiatives launched simultaneously.67 In the realm of energy, Turkish policies have brought transatlantic differences into sharper focus. Turkey’s increasingly close cooperation with Russia has attracted broad attention. Ankara agreed to a variety of schemes proposed by Moscow merely weeks after the Nabucco agreement was signed in 2009 and again in early 2010.68 Some of those schemes pose a direct competition, as noted, to projects that Turkey itself has developed in partnership with the United States and the EU. Of particular concern, however, is Ankara’s intention to award to Russia, without competitive bidding, the contract to build Turkey’s first nuclear plant.69 Turkish leaders have claimed that national interest rather than a change of orientation toward Moscow has been the driver of heightened cooperation with Russia.70 But the fact that Russian leaders have defined Ankara’s relationship with Moscow as a “strategic partnership” has not been lost on Washington.71 Even more conspicuous has been Ankara’s pursuit, in an assertive manner, of an independent policy toward Iran. Despite its highly frustrating and unsuccessful

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commercial relationship with Tehran, the Turkish government has continued to seek enhanced cooperation with Iran on energy.72 First announced in 2007, a memorandum of understanding that was signed between Turkey and Iran on November 17, 2008, included Turkish participation in the development of the South Pars gas field, as well as the construction of a pipeline that would feed gas for both Turkey’s domestic consumption and transit to Europe. Despite increasing efforts by its transatlantic allies to put pressure on Iran because of its nuclear ambitions, Ankara has not dropped but merely postponed the implementation of the 2008 agreement. The Turkish government’s warm support of Iran has, for some, tested the limits of Ankara’s credibility as part of the transatlantic alliance.73 In March 2010, only weeks before the nuclear summit was to take place in Washington, Ankara reaffirmed its commitment to help develop the South Pars fields, a deal that may cost more than $3.5 billion, and participate in a project to construct a major pipeline to connect the South Pars fields to Pakistan.74 As a rotating member of the UN Security Council, Turkey, moreover, has sharply differed from all of its transatlantic allies by voting on June 9, 2010, against imposing sanctions on Iran, a decision that gave rise to speculations regarding whether Turkey was fundamentally changing its foreign policy orientation. The Turkish government, however, claims that its policy toward Tehran is motivated by its desire to mediate between its transatlantic partners and Iran with a view to seeking a diplomatic solution to the protracted impasse regarding Tehran’s nuclear program. Engaging Iran, rather than isolating it, Ankara argues, would be a more effective strategy for dissuading Tehran from manufacturing nuclear weapons. The Turkish government, some interpretations suggest, promotes good relations with Iran primarily with a view to increasing bilateral trade in addition to anticipating future benefits from the currently unreliable energy connection.75 Ankara’s cordial relationship with the Iranian government, however, is viewed with unease not only by the West but also by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, which perceive Iran as a security threat. In a similar manner, Ankara has not seen a contradiction between its cooperation with Moscow on energy projects, on the one hand, and its aim to provide an alternate supply route to Europe in competition with Gazprom, on the other. Turkey’s transatlantic commitments continue to be challenged by Ankara’s eagerness to engage with its neighbors even at the expense of diverging from its allies. Also, Ankara’s attempts to accommodate simultaneously many of its neighbors that have widely differing priorities erode rather than strengthen its objective of “zero problems with neighbors.” Conclusion

For more than a century the geopolitics of Turkey’s neighborhood have been defined by a competition for energy resources. Turkey’s opening to its own region

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since the mid-1970s, was in large part driven by its increasing energy needs. In the post-Soviet period, Turkey expanded its regional energy links with a view to both meeting its domestic demand and seeking to become a trading hub. Its commercial ambitions, however, did not reinforce, and even detracted from, its geopolitically significant desire to establish an East-West energy corridor. This was reflected in the protracted negotiations over Nabucco. Turkey’s neighborhood policy (driven increasingly by Ankara’s ambition to become a globally significant regional power) and its energy policy (driven by its overriding priority of ensuring supply security) have also shown signs of divergence. Ankara, for example, has sought increased import connections and energy cooperation with Moscow even at the expense of increasing further its energy dependence on Russia. A similar inconsistency can be detected in Ankara’s cooperative attitude toward the South Stream project, devised by Russia to counter Turkey’s influence as an alternative energy corridor to Europe. A new development, China’s entry as a major player into the Eurasian energy markets, is likely to transform fundamentally the geopolitics of Turkey’s neighborhood and bring new challenges to its regional policy. On December 13, 2009, Turkmen gas began flowing into China through a new pipeline financed, designed, and built in record time.76 Other oil and gas pipelines are being negotiated by Beijing with Russia and Central Asian states to help satisfy China’s enormous appetite. China’s energy demand (which, along with that of India, is expected to represent well over half of global incremental demand for primary energy until 2030), and its financial ability to build infrastructure to meet that demand, have resulted in the creation of a West-East corridor that has effectively changed the Eurasian region’s orientation. With China having become a powerful competitor for Eurasian energy resources, Turkey will face greater challenges in this broader and more complex neighborhood that now extends to the Great Wall of China and beyond.77 In keeping with its ambitious foreign policy, Ankara has begun to promote cooperation with this new competitor much in the same way it has forged its relationship with Russia. The joint military exercises conducted by the air forces of China and Turkey prior to the Chinese premier’s visit on October 8, 2010, “to deepen ties” with Turkey and establish a “strategic partnership” to cooperate in energy, transport, and infrastructure, may well be the harbinger of enhanced future cooperation between Ankara and Beijing.78 Ankara’s enthusiasm for a closer relationship with Beijing is also likely to put further strains on Turkey’s transatlantic relations.

Notes 1. The White House, “Remarks by President Obama to the Turkish Parliament.” http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-By-President-Obama-To-TheTurkish-Parliament/.

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2. http://www.tika.gov.tr/EN/Icerik.ASP?ID=345; see also Fidan and Nurdun, “Turkey’s Role in the Global Development Assistance Community.” 3. Aybet, “Turkey’s Energy Politics,” p. 30. 4. Roberts, “Pipeline Politics,” slide 7. 5. Yergin, “Ensuring Energy Security.” 6. Evin, “Turkish Foreign Policy”; Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774–2000, pp. 287–316. 7. BP Statistical Review of World Energy, June 2009, p. 11. 8. Ibid., p. 27. 9. Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. 10. Aydªn, Europe’s Next Shore, p. 23. 11. Emerson, “EU’s New Black Sea Policy,” pp. 266–270. 12. Aydªn, “Between Euphoria and Realpolitik,” p. 151; Baran, “The Baku-TbilisiCeyhan Pipeline,” p. 106; Kramer, A Changing Turkey, pp. 106–108. 13. Today, around “3.7 percent of the world’s daily oil consumption passes through the Turkish” straits: the oil transited represents a 240 percent increase over a decade. Babalª, “Turkey at the Energy Crossroads,” p. 27; see also, Kinzer, “Fearless Turks’ Big Fear?” New York Times, Oct. 24, 1998. 14. The US administration fully supported the act and BTC. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott said in his 1998 Turgut Özal Memorial Lecture in Washington: “This administration remains committed to the Caspian Basin Initiative and to the strategic imperative of developing multiple transportation routes for bringing oil and gas to world markets. Let me emphasize in the strongest terms that our plans and our policy continue to feature the prospect for a pipeline running through Baku to Ceyhan. We will continue to make the case for that pipeline as commercial negotiations among companies and transit states move forward in the weeks and months ahead.” See Sasley, “Turkey’s Energy Politics in the Post-Cold War Era,” http://www.gloria-center.org/meria/1998/11/ sasley.html. For the Silk Road Strategy Act, see, http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd? bill=h106-1152 15. Economist Intelligence Unit, Country Forecast: Turkey, Sept. 14, 2009. 16. Norling, “The Nabucco Pipeline,” p. 129. 17. Interstate Oil & Gas Pipeline Management Programme, see Inogate Energy Portal, www.inogate.org. 18. Inogate Energy Portal, “Objectives,” www.inogate.org 19. European Commission, Green Paper, p. 40. 20. This pipeline project owes its unusual and unforgettable name to the fact that the same evening the project partners watched a performance of Nabucco at the Vienna State Opera and decided to name the prospective pipeline after Verdi’s opera. See, Aras and I≈seri, The Nabucco Natural Gas Pipeline, p. 4. 21. European Commission, “Baku Initiative.” 22. Inogate, Baku Conference, “ Conclusions of the Ministerial Conference.” 23. European Commission, Regular Report on Turkey’s Progress Towards Accession, pp. 113–116. 24. Independent Commission on Turkey, Turkey in Europe, p. 18. 25. Roberts, Turkish Gate, p. 1. 26. Vucheva, “Turkey May Rethink Nabucco If EU Talks Stall,” EU Observer, Jan. 19, 2009, http://euobserver.com/9/27431 27. Tekin and Williams, “EU-Russian Relations and Turkey’s Role as an Energy Corridor,” p. 350. 28. European Commission, enlargement, “Joint Press Release,” Jun. 5, 2007, http:// ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/european_energy_policy/joint_pressrelease_en.pdf

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29. Piebalgs, “EU and Turkey”; quoted in ibid., p. 350. 30. Vucheva, “Turkey May Rethink Nabucco If EU Talks Stall,” EU Observer, Jan. 19, 2009. http://euobserver.com/9/27431 31. “Turkey Plays Energy Card in Stalled EU Accession Talks,” EurActiv.com, Jan. 20, 2009; “Turkey Blackmailing EU Over Gas Pipeline, German Minister Says,” dwworld.de, Jan. 20, 2009. 32. European Parliament, EU-Turkey Relations in the Field of Energy, p. 3. 33. Cornell, “Trans-Caspian Pipelines and Europe’s Energy Security,” p. 150. 34. Norling, “The Nabucco Pipeline,” p. 131. 35. Ibid. 36. Barysch and Grant, “Dealing with Risk”; Evin, “Risk Mitigation.” 37. Dempsey, “Georgia Crisis Could Thwart EU Project to Bypass Russia for Natural Gas.” 38. European Parliament, Report on the Second Strategic Energy Review, p. 7. 39. Chapter 4 in this volume. 40. Karda≈s, “Turkish-Azeri Deal May Herald New Competition in Southern Corridor.” 41. Strauss, “Transit Deal Boosts Edison’s Pipeline Hopes.” 42. Socor, “German RWE Signs Groundbreaking Agreement for Turkmen Gas.” 43. Kefferpütz, Gazprom’s Changing Fortunes, p. 1. 44. Socor, “Bulgarian Government Skeptical on South Stream Project.” 45. Kraemer, “Gazprom, Once Mighty, Is Reeling.” 46. European Commission, Joint Research Center, Liquefied Natural Gas for Europe, p. 6. 47. Eurogas, “Natural Gas Demand and Supply,” p. 7. 48. Brunsden, “EU Weighs LNG’s Pros and Cons.” 49. Schlesinger, “Global Implications of LNG and Unconventional Natural Gas.” 50. Gas Strategies Group, Viewpoint, p. 5. 51. Schlesinger, “Global Implications of LNG and Unconventional Natural Gas,” slide 18. 52. Gas Strategies Group, Viewpoint, p. 3. 53. “Gasprom Price Change to Last 3 Years,” Moscow Times, Mar. 1, 2010. 54. Kefferpütz, Gazprom’s Changing Fortunes, p. 2. 55. United States Department of Energy, Country Analysis Briefs, “China,” http:// www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/China/pdf.pdf 56. International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2010, http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/2010.asp 57. Pannier, “New Turkmen-China Pipeline Breaks Russia’s Hold Over Central Asian Gas.” http://www.rferl.org/content/TurkmenistanChina_Gas%20Pipeline_to_Open/ 1903108.html 58. Eurogas, “Natural Gas Consumption in EU27, Turkey and Switzerland in 2008.” 59. Russian gas accounted for over 65 percent of Turkey’s natural gas imports in 2008, while LNG represented 15 percent. 60. Kinnander, The Turkish-Iranian Gas Relationship, p. 3. 61. Winrow, Turkey, Russia and the Caucasus, p. 11–12. 62. Chapter 8 in this volume. 63. Aybet, “Turkey’s Energy Politics,” p. 30. 64. Davutoπlu, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy Vision,” p. 80. 65. Fotiou, “Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform,” p. 3. 66. Davutoπlu, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy Vision,” pp. 79–84. 67. Chapters 3 and 7 in this volume. 68. Pamir, “Which One Would You Like to Listen To?” pp. 42–43.

118 Ahmet O. Evin 69. Karda≈s, “Erdoÿan Fosters Nuclear Cooperation with Russia.” 70. See Aras, Turkey and the Russian Federation, p. 6. 71. Karda≈s, “Erdoÿan Fosters Nuclear Cooperation with Russia.” 72. Kinnander, The Turkish-Iranian Gas Relationship, pp. 3–15. 73. Schenker, “A NATO Without Turkey?” 74. Turan, “ABD’yi Kªzdªracak Boru Hattªna Imza Türkiye’de Atªldª.” 75. See Chapters 4 and 7 in this volume. 76. Blank, “The Strategic Implications of the Turkmenistan-China Pipeline Project.” 77. “Turkey Says to Expand ‘Zero Problem Policy’ to Eurasia,” worldbulletin.net, Feb. 4, 2010, http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=53648 78. Jones, “China, Turkey Deepen Ties During Rare Visit.”

6 Coming and Going: Migration and Changes in Turkish Foreign Policy Juliette Tolay Turkey has become an undeniably powerful and visible actor in its neighborhood, be it the Balkans, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, or the Middle East. One traditional way to comprehend this regional power is to look at how strong (militarily, economically, diplomatically) Turkey is compared to its neighbors. But another way to look at it is to understand how Turkey is anchored in the region through the different flows of capital, goods, people, and ideas. The more dense, multiform, and multidirectional those flows are, the more central and indispensable Turkey becomes in its neighborhood. Studying the movements of people in and out of Turkey offers a unique insight into a more subtle way in which Turkey exerts its influence abroad. Turkey is now a country of emigration, immigration, and transit migration all at once, and that is having a significant impact on the country’s foreign relations. First, its foreign relations have grown beyond state-to-state relations and encompass an increased number of nonstate, societal actors—migrants and their interlocutors— engaged in microlevel, daily interactions. Second, the nonstate actors themselves have become increasingly eager to have a say on state policies regarding migration and foreign policy. Third, the Turkish state itself has come to think of migration increasingly as a foreign policy issue, and consequently foreign policy concerns and migration concerns have become entangled. Therefore, observing the recent changes in Turkey’s migration policies presents an original way to understand some of the broader changes of Turkey’s foreign policy. It opens a window into areas of Turkish foreign policy that have been traditionally overlooked by internal and external observers. It also delves into some aspects of decisionmaking on migration that have been overlooked in traditional migration studies. In the past two decades, the Turkish government’s approach to migration policies has evolved in parallel with the transformation observed in the foreign policy arena. On the issues of asylum, irregular migration, and visa policy, the three areas covered in this chapter, Turkish policy is in the process of becoming more rule bound, less security oriented, and in some areas more liberal. What do these developments mean for the broader debates 119

120 Juliette Tolay

surrounding Turkish foreign policy? Do Turkish migration policies indicate a Western orientation (i.e., a Europeanization of Turkish policies and values), an Eastern one (i.e., a preference for relations with the Middle East), or some combination? Do these policies demonstrate a preference for a particular part of the “neighborhood”? What do they show about the way Turkey perceives its role in the region? And what do they reveal regarding domestic mechanisms of foreign policy making? In sum, it is appropriate to ask: What does migration reveal about the nature of Turkey’s new foreign policy? This chapter aims both at assessing the meaning of the changes in Turkish migration policies in the last two decades, and at demonstrating the intimate link existing between migration and foreign policy in Turkey. The first section describes the diversity of contemporary migration flows affecting Turkey and underlines how each of these flows creates a particular bilateral relation between Turkey and its neighboring countries and regions. The second section provides a short historical background of Turkish migration policies, highlighting the foreign policy dimension of some of these decisions. The third section presents an overview of the recent radical changes that have occurred in migration policies (on asylum, irregular migration, and visas) since the end of the Cold War. The fourth section offers an explanation for these changes, arguing that the trigger for change in policies was the dramatic changes in the global and regional migration landscape in the last 20 years. The direction for change was determined by two main developments: the end of the Cold War, which prompted Turkey’s rediscovery of its immediate neighborhood, and the emergence of the EU as Turkey’s most influential international partner. The mechanism for change in migration policies, however, was a domestic transformation in the conceptual and institutional approach to foreign policy making. The last section offers some reflections on the broader implications of these findings for the migration situation in Turkey and in the region, and for Turkey’s behavior on the international scene.

Migratory Flows: Turkey’s Thick Societal Foreign Relations

It has now become common to refer to Turkey as a country of emigration and immigration, as well as transit migration.1 However, because Turkey does not have an “immigration policy” in the sense that it does not actively and systematically seek control over incoming and outgoing flows, the Turkish state does not gather reliable data on those flows. The informal nature of many migratory flows also renders difficult the generation of precise data. Hence some of the numbers available are estimates. Regarding emigration, approximately 3 million Turkish citizens live abroad. During the 1960s and 1970s, Turkey’s emigration was very much oriented toward Western Europe. But starting with the late 1970s, there has been a clear diversification of the destinations, with large numbers of Turkish migrants going

Migration and Changes in Turkish Foreign Policy 121

to different places in the Middle East and, later on, to the area of the former Soviet Union (see Table 6.1).2 In terms of immigration, Turkey receives many different types of migrants, both on a regular and an informal basis. The large majority, about 200,000, of registered migrants each year come for employment or a long stay. These are mainly nationals from Europe and the former Soviet space. Another significant portion comes to Turkey as transit migrants on their way to Europe. On average for the period 2000–2008, 35,000 irregular migrants were apprehended each year by the Turkish police. Most of the transit migrants enter the country at the southeastern borders with Iran, Iraq, and Syria and exit from the western gates (Istanbul, Aegean Sea, and the Bulgarian and Greek borders). Finally, a smaller group comes to Turkey as asylum seekers, mainly from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Somalia (see Table 6.2). These numbers, however, capture only a portion of the millions of people crossing Turkish borders each year. As explained below, Turkey’s visa policy is relatively liberal, allowing nationals from many countries to come and go “as tourists” even if their activities in Turkey resemble those of migrants (employment, institutionalized business relationships, etc.). Figure 6.1 presents the numbers of entries into Turkey from 2000 to 2009; in that period, 183 million foreigners entered Turkey, two and a half times the overall Turkish population. The largest numbers of entries come from the EU area, and those numbers

Table 6.1 Turkish Emigrants Abroad in 1985, 1995, 2005, and 2008 1985

1995

2005

2008

# (x 1,000)

%

# (x 1,000)

%

# (x 1,000)

%

# (x 1,000)

%

Austria Belgium France Germany Netherlands Scandinavian Counties Switzerland Other European Countries

75.0 72.5 146.1 1,400.1 156.4

3.1 3.1 6.2 59.6 6.6

147.0 79.5 198.9 2,049.9 127.0

4.4 2.4 6.0 62.0 3.8

127.0 45.9 208.0 1,912.0 160.3

3.8 1.4 6.3 57.9 4.9

120.0 42.3 220.0 1,890.0 168.3

3.5 1.2 6.5 55.9 4.9

41.2 51.0

1.7 2.2

73.0 79.0

2.2 2.4

51.6 79.5

1.6 2.4

56.1 77.5

1.6 2.2

42.0

1.8

87.0

2.6

130.0

3.9

160.7

4.7

Total Europe

1,984.6

84.0

2,841.3

85.9

2,714.3

82.1

2,734.9

80.9

200.0 35.0 0.0 140.0

8.5 1.5 0.0 5.9

127.0 45.0 50.0 245.0

3.8 1.4 1.4 7.4

105.0 60.0 75.0 350.0

3.2 1.8 2.3 10.6

110.7 67.1 77.3 390.1

3.2 1.9 2.2 11.5

2,359.6

100.0

3,308.3

100.0

3,304.3

100.0

3380.1

100.0

Middle Eastern Countries Australia CIS Countries Other Countries Total

Source: ºçduygu, SOPEMI Report, p. 59.

Table 6.2 Indicative Number of Immigrants to Turkey, 2000–2008 2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

94,600 51,400 43,200

92,400 57,300 35,100

82,800 44,200 38,600

56,200 30,348 25,852

61,200 34,745 26,455

57,428 26,046 31,382

51,983 18,876 33,107

64,290 30,120 34,170

65,737 45,462 20,275

5,700 100 3,900 1,600

5,200 400 3,500 1,000

3,794 47 2,505 974

3,966 77 3,108 342

3,908 341 2,029 964

3,914 365 1,716 1,047

4,548 339 2,297 724

7,640 427 1,668 3,470

12,981 1,571 2,217 6,904

Residence Permits of which: work of which: study of which: other

168,100 24,200 24,600 119,300

161,254 22,414 23,946 114,894

157,670 22,556 21,548 113,566

152,203 21,650 21,810 108,743

155,500 27,500 15,000 113,000

131,594 22,130 25,240 84,224

186,586 22,805 24,258 139,523

183,757 25,475 22,197 135,365

174,926 18,900 28,597 127,429

Total

268,400

258,854

244,264

212,369

220,608

192,936

243,177

255,687

253,644

Undocumented Migration Illegal entries Overstays Asylum applications of which: Afghan of which: Iran of which: Iraq

Source: ºçduygu, SOPEMI Report, p. 43.

Migration and Changes in Turkish Foreign Policy 123 Figure 6.1 Regional Trends in Movement of People into Turkey, 2000–2009

Source: ºçduygu, SOPEMI Report, and data obtained from the Foreigners Department of MOI. Notes: 1. Data include Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom and after 2004 Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. About 70 percent of EU citizens coming to Turkey come from countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium, which have a significant number of citizens of Turkish origin. 2. Data include Russia, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. 3. Data include Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania. 4. Data include Syria, Iraq, and Iran.

mainly include tourism and family visits of European nationals of Turkish origin. But entries of nationals from the immediate neighborhood also increased substantially. The bulk of those are nationals of the Balkan and former Soviet Union neighboring countries. Those nationals tend to come for professional reasons. Entries of nationals from the Middle Eastern neighboring countries remain very low, even though the numbers are increasing; the large majority of those entries are from Iran. At the bilateral level, Turkey’s relations with each of its immediate neighbors are influenced by the types of migratory flows linking them. With Greece, apart from a long history of exchanges of population in the first half of the twentieth century,3 migration relations are characterized by growing concerns and tensions over the irregular migration and irregular deportations of migrants.4 Relations with Bulgaria are shaped by the Turkish and Pomak minorities living in Bulgaria, approximately 300,000 of which migrated en masse to Turkey in 1989.5

124 Juliette Tolay

Two decades later, many of those people use their double passports, Turkish and Bulgarian (the Bulgarian passport being an EU passport since 2007), to engage in cross-border businesses. Georgia also has a strong migration relationship, with an increased number of domestic workers finding employment in Turkey’s big cities. A similar migration from Armenia is evident, with an estimated 50,000 irregular Armenian nationals working in Istanbul alone. This issue seems to be increasingly politicized, as it has been mentioned in several political discourses, especially by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoÿan,6 but also as it seems to be one of the items on the agenda in the proposed rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia that started in 2009.7 Alongside the Iranian border, a very active migration relationship is taking place, which started with the Iranian revolution of 1979, after which about 1 million Iranians chose Turkey as their country of first asylum.8 Today the Iranian border continues to be an important point of entry for migrants, with about a million visitors from Iran every year, and intense cross-border trade. The Iranian border is also an important gate for migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Asian countries farther east. Since at least 1988, relations between Turkey and Iraq have contained a strong migration component related to security concerns. In 1988 and 1991, two successive waves of mass migration came from Northern Iraq to Turkey. This tested the reception capacity of Turkey and increased Turkey’s fear over migration flows that would unsettle an already unstable region (in the midst of the warfare against PKK insurgents).9 Even though no major flows have occurred since then (contrary to what was expected in 2003), the border remains closely controlled. Today the Iraqi border at the Habur gate is also the point of entry of “returnees” to Turkey, including refugees from the Mahmur Camps and PKK insurgents from the Kandil Mountains.10 Finally, relations with Syria have a very organic link to migration, as most families living in the border area are split across the border and movements of population are common. The historic decision, in fall 2009, to remove visa requirements between the two countries represents normalization of a cultural practice at the political level.11 Migratory flows also link Turkey with countries and regions farther away. Each year millions of people from the Balkans and Black Sea littoral countries, including 3 million from Russia, enter Turkey for tourism, trade, or employment. Turkey also seems to be increasingly a destination country for nationals of Gulf countries and North Africa. This is creating professional and personal ties between an increased number of nonstate actors in Turkey and abroad that enhances Turkey’s interdependence with neighboring regions.12 But from a migration standpoint, the EU stands as the most important actor for Turkey—not only because of the many flows and numbers of Turkish migrants in Europe, as well as some European migrants in Turkey, but also because migration has become a central political issue in the EU-Turkey relation in the past twenty years. Once mainly about Turkish immigrants in Europe, issues of asylum, irregular migration, and visa policies have now become part of

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the ongoing dialogue between Turkey and the EU, operating mainly within the framework of Chapter 24 of the accession process.13 The United States, as well, has shown interest in the migration situation in Turkey, though at a much lower level and confined to the aspects of human smuggling and trafficking, and international terrorism.14 In all of these issues, Turkey has policy options. Within the confines of political and pragmatic limitations, the Turkish government can decide whether to encourage or discourage the flows, whether to discriminate or not between different types of migrants or according to their geographical origin, whether to have flexible and ad hoc measures or a comprehensive and systematic immigration policy, among other things. Of particular interest in this chapter is to see how domestic and foreign policy concerns have influenced decisions among migration policy options. Historically, domestic policy concerns have been the main driver, but foreign policy concerns have also played a critical role.

Background: Migration Policies and Foreign Policy in Turkey (1923–1990)

Traditional understandings of migration policies look at them mainly from a domestic policy perspective: regulation of the labor market, achieving a demographic balance, management of a societal problem, cultivating a sense of national identity, and so forth. Few works have considered the foreign policy dimension of migration policies, and those works have focused mainly on the US and European experiences.15 In those analyses, some relationships between migration and foreign policy have been identified—for example, the impact of past migration on current foreign policy (via the lobbying actions of a diaspora or migrant group), the use of foreign policy to reduce or encourage migration flows, the use of migration policy as an instrument to pursue foreign policy goals. In this chapter, the focus is mainly on the latter but redefined in a broader sense: How are foreign policy concerns taken into consideration when decisions on immigration policy are made? In the case of Turkey, foreign policy concerns seem to have always played a central role in the decisions made over migration policies. However, those concerns would often be intermixed with domestic policy concerns or considered to be at the margins of domestic politics. For the founding years of the republic (1923–1946), the domestic politics part of the story has been told: The newly adopted migration policy was designed out of concerns for nation building and national security.16 Indeed, the Law on Settlement (ºskan Kanunu), adopted in 1934, foresaw that only people of Turkish origin or culture17 could come and settle in Turkey. The selection of who fit that criterion, as well as how and where they would be settled, demonstrated the government’s willingness to reinforce the ethnic and religious “Turkish” character of the population and ensured that only “Muslim-Turkish” (and not members of a “untrustworthy”

126 Juliette Tolay

non-Muslim minority) would live in strategic places, such as the vicinity of railways, highways, and natural resources.18 Yet Turkish migrants were settled in strategic places not only for internal security reasons but also for external security reasons. Settlement of “Turkish” migrants in Thrace in the early 1930s seems to have been done as a defensive move against the expansionist tendency of Italy and the Turkish fear of an ItaloBulgarian alliance.19 During that period, the Turkish government welcomed migration from the Balkans, whereas migration from the Soviet Union was discouraged. That can be seen as a foreign policy of maintaining good relations with the Soviet Union by not allowing exiles to organize anti-Soviet activities from Turkey, a critical concern for the Soviet Union, as well as a way of preventing infiltration from Soviet elements.20 On the other hand, encouraging the migration of Muslims to Turkey may have been a way of signaling to the Balkan countries Turkey’s new renunciation of imperial claims in the area and therefore worked as a tool for stabilization.21 The population exchange (mubadele) between Greece and Turkey in 1923, as well as similar bilateral agreements with Bulgaria, Romania, and Yugoslavia, meant, at the time, mutual recognition and willingness to coexist as good neighbors.22 It was also a way to reduce the number of Turkey’s non-Muslim minorities, which historically have been used as a pretext for foreign (European) interventions in the Ottoman Empire or Turkey.23 Because some migration policy decisions were motivated by foreign policy concerns, change in foreign relations meant a change in migration policy. Starting with the reconciliation process of 1930, immigrants from Greece were welcomed to Turkey up to the late 1950s, when bilateral relations started to deteriorate. After that, the Turkish government policy was to discourage immigration so as to keep a Turkish presence in western Thrace that could be used as leverage in bilateral relations.24 With the end of World War II and the advent of the Cold War, the foreign policy environment for Turkey changed radically. In 1951, Turkey signed the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (Geneva Convention), and that decision was a way for Turkey to signal its membership in the Western camp. Turkey adopted the convention with a “geographical limitation,” meaning that only asylum seekers coming from Europe, usually understood as meaning from east Europe or the Soviet Union, could be granted the status of refugee.25 Being a member of the convention was therefore a way for Turkey to signal three “belongings”: first, that it was part of the Western bloc, as it was implicitly understood that only the “oppressive” Soviet Union could produce refugees; second, that it was part of the international law system; and third, that its identity was European and not Middle Eastern, as it was deemed possible to receive people from Europe, while it would be a problem to receive people from the Middle East. As can been seen from those two historical periods, migration policy was clearly connected to the foreign policy of the time. It was used instrumentally to gain leverage on a particular issue and to avoid migration becoming a liability in bilateral or multilateral relations. Migration policies were also used symbolically

Migration and Changes in Turkish Foreign Policy 127

to signal to other countries which camp Turkey belonged to, which identity it embodied, and which values it embraced.

The Post–Cold War Changes in Migration Policies

By the late 1980s, the existing migration regulations had become mostly irrelevant. Not only did the nature of migration change in Turkey, but the Turkish government itself started to disregard existing regulations, preferring, for example, the use of ad hoc policies to deal with the arrival of Turkish migrants, rather than the existing Law on Settlement.26 By the end of the Cold War, the Turkish state regulation of migration issues overall was incomplete and inconsistent. Pieces that made up Turkish immigration policy were to be found in various places such as in the Law on Settlement, the Law on Foreigners (Yabancªlar Kanunu), the Citizenship Law (Vatanda≈slªk Kanunu), and in various institutions, mainly the Ministry of Interior (especially in the Foreigners Department within the General Directorate of Security) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as others.27 That situation has changed substantively in the last twenty years, however, the general tendency being one of slow movement toward the establishment of a comprehensive immigration policy.28 Yet that movement has occurred through radical and sometimes unexpected reversals in three areas of Turkish immigration policy: asylum, irregular migration, and visa policies. Policies on Asylum Seeking and Refugees: Toward a Turkish Asylum System?

As of June 30, 2009, there were about eleven thousand refugees in Turkey and seven thousand asylum seekers registered in Turkey. From 1998 to 2006, the total number of asylum seekers and refugees in Turkey was always below nine thousand, but since 2007, the total number has been above twelve thousand. By 2009, 45 percent of asylum seekers and refugees were Iraqis, 23 percent Iranians, 18 percent Afghans, and 7 percent Somalis.29 Since the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the violent years in Iraq between 1988 and 1991, most asylum seekers have come from the southeast neighbors of Turkey. Three different periods can be distinguished in the evolution of Turkish asylum policies in the past twenty years. The pre-1994 period is a time when Turkish authorities were reluctant to provide any systematic assistance to refugees. As Turkey applied the geographical limitation of the Geneva Convention, non-European asylum seekers were not entitled to the status of refugee in Turkey. The rationale behind that position was that refugee flows to Turkey could only be temporary, and that ad hoc measures were better suited to address those flows. That led to heightened tensions between Turkey and the international community, especially with the UN High Commissioner for

128 Juliette Tolay

Refugees (UNHCR). As documented by Kiri≈sci, over time those tensions also forced both Turkish authorities and the UNHCR to soften their positions and find compromises.30 That marks the beginning of the second period, during which the reluctance of Turkish authorities to grant protection to refugees did not change in theory, but the policies had to be softened in practice. The second period started in 1994, when Turkey introduced a new regulation that opened the door for non-European asylum seekers to apply for asylum in Turkey. Turkey would not grant the status of refugees to non-Europeans but would let them apply and receive temporary protection. Eventually though, such asylum seekers had to be resettled in a third country. To remain in a regular situation in Turkey and be considered for resettlement, they had to register with Turkish authorities within five days after their arrival in the territories, which appeared to be unrealistic, given that most asylum seekers were unaware of the rule. By 1999, Turkey had softened that regulation by extending the five-day limit to ten days. In 2006 the limit was lifted altogether.31 From 1994 to 2008, one can indeed see a gradual softening of the policies, even though the principle stating that Turkey itself should not grant refugee status remained strong among Turkish authorities.32 In the National Action Plan on Migration and Asylum of 2005, the idea of lifting the geographical limitation was considered but was made conditional on Turkish membership in the EU. For Turkish officials, this was a way of saying that while they disagreed with the principle, the limitation could be lifted only if associated with guarantees on burden sharing and EU membership. However, by 2009 another critical change, one of mindset, seemed to be taking place within the Turkish bureaucracy. A migration agency within the Ministry of Interior was set up to draft a new asylum law for Turkey.33 Even though that draft kept in place the geographical limitation,34 the possibility of lifting it was seriously considered and even supported by some actors within the agency.35 Given how strong and definitive the opposition in the Turkish bureaucracy had been to changing the limitation, the fact that the bureaucracy is now more divided on the issue demonstrates a striking change of mindset. Changes in Policies on Irregular Migration and Trafficking: Increased Activism

Similarly, the past twenty years have witnessed changes in Turkish policies toward irregular migration and trafficking. The number of irregular migrants in Turkey overall is unknown, given the very nature of irregular migration. The general consensus is that it is a phenomenon that started with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The only data available are from the Turkish Ministry of Interior, which compiles the number of irregular migrants arrested by police forces in each year. Between 2000 and 2008 the numbers fluctuated between 52,000 and 94,600, with 65,700 individuals arrested in 2008 (see Table 6.2, under “undocumented migration”). These numbers include not only individuals apprehended

Migration and Changes in Turkish Foreign Policy 129

when illegally entering or exiting Turkish territory, but also individuals that overstayed their visas. Irregular migrants in Turkey are indeed a composite group of clandestine migrants, transit migrants, trafficked persons, and rejected asylum seekers. Turkish policies toward irregular migration and trafficking were almost nonexistent throughout the 1990s. Important changes occurred in 2002–2003, when a series of regulations were adopted establishing stronger sanctions for illegal workers and employers and adopting measures to fight against migrant smuggling and human trafficking.36 Most of the work that remains to be done concerns the systematic implementation of the measures, especially in the case of trafficking.37 All in all, in terms of the decisionmaking on irregular migration, Turkey today has fulfilled most of the requirements that were demanded by internal and external actors such as national NGOs, the IOM (International Organization for Migration), the EU, and the United States, except for one: the readmission agreement. The readmission agreement is the main issue that remains on the table in the regulation of irregular migration. Such an agreement, whereby apprehended irregular migrants are sent back to the country they came from, has been under negotiation between the EU and Turkey since 2005. The slow evolution of the negotiations has been attributed to Turkey’s concern to ensure its own readmission agreement with the countries whose migrants transit through Turkey, such as Iran, Pakistan, and Moldova. Since 2001, Turkey has been able to sign readmission agreements (regarding nationals of the two parties and sometimes third countries, as well) with six countries,38 while negotiations or prenegotiations are under way with eighteen others.39 Even though negotiations on the readmission agreement with the EU had been stalemated for the past couple of years, it was announced in January 2010 that they had resumed. The readmission agreement with the EU would be part of a broader agreement whereby visa requirements for Turkish citizens to access the Schengen area would be lifted. Yet by September 2010, the Turkish and European counterparts could not settle on an agreement.40 Changes in Visa Policy: Either Schengen or a Liberal Visa Policy

The practice of using visas as a means to control and regulate the flows of people entering a country is a relatively new practice for Turkey that evolved during the Cold War.41 By the end of the Cold War, Turkey had indeed entered reciprocal visa agreements with most countries of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, as well as Middle Eastern countries except for Iran.42 Starting with Greece in 1965, all EU countries had established visa requirements with Turkey by 1991.43 By the end of the Cold War, Turkey had started to liberalize its visa policy. First, visa requirements were lifted with Greece in 1988. Then Turkey started to develop a new practice: the “sticker visa” (bandrol), whereby a visa is issued

130 Juliette Tolay

directly at the border (and not at the consulate), which is a facilitated procedure for travelers. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, that practice was applied to Black Sea countries, as well to the new emerging states of the Caucasus and Central Asia. In a less systematic manner, Turkey also relaxed visa requirements with some Middle Eastern countries, especially Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Tunisia, and Morocco.44 Things changed again in the early 2000s, with the prospect of EU membership and the adoption of the 2003 National Program for the Adoption of the Acquis, by which Turkey indicated it would align its visa policy with the Schengen regime. In practice, that meant reversing the liberal visa policy and adopting the Schengen “negative list” of countries requiring visas. Turkey started to align its policy, and by 2004, except for six countries, Turkey was approaching full alignment.45 But starting in 2005 yet another reversal occurred, and Turkey started to undo some of the visa requirements for countries of the negative Schengen list, such as Saudi Arabia. By 2009 and 2010, the Turkish government had actively accelerated that policy and looked for full-scale visa-free agreements, without consideration for the Schengen requirements. By April 2010, Turkey seemed to have reach visa-free agreements with Syria, Pakistan, Albania, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon, and Qatar, and was engaged in discussions in this regard with Russia and Egypt.46 On the three areas of asylum, irregular migration, and visas, there have been some clear changes between the early 1990s and the late 2000s. Almost all the regulations that were in place in 1990 have been (or are about to be) removed, and new regulations have replaced the old ones. From the perspective of a comprehensive policy, the overall tendency is one of greater coverage of the multiple facets of migration. Moreover, by summer 2009, a new Agency on Asylum and Migration had been created within the Ministry of Interior. It is currently composed mainly of a task force in charge of drafting a new law on asylum and refugees and a new Law on Foreigners, as well as drafting the responsibilities of this new agency. If the new laws come into effect, Turkey would come close to having a comprehensive immigration policy.

Explaining Change in Migration Policies Through Changes in Foreign Policy

The movement toward a more comprehensive coverage of migration issues in the past twenty years in Turkey has proceeded through uneven and sometimes contradictory developments. Some of the changes are moving in a more liberal direction. On asylum, on the fight against trafficking, and on visa policies, the tendency has been toward becoming more welcoming to migrants and more aware of the humanitarian side of the issue. However, on other issues the movement has been toward more restriction and control. On irregular migration and border control, most measures have ensured a higher level of apprehension, de-

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portation, and restrictions on the movement of irregular migrants in Turkey. This contradiction could be explained by the role of the European Union, which has been placing contradictory demands on Turkey regarding asylum and migration, asking it to be both more restrictive and more humanitarian at the same time. However, the EU alone cannot explain the changes in Turkey’s visa policy that have been moving away from the Schengen system. How then to explain them? There is a complex set of factors explaining why Turkish migration policies have changed over the past twenty years, why they have changed the way they have, and what the broader meaning is of those changes. As demonstrated below, external factors (regional and international), and often foreign policy considerations, play an essential role in this explanatory framework. More specifically, three sets of reasons can account for change: (1) changes in the migration landscape surrounding Turkey, (2) changes in the foreign policy environment, and (3) changes in the way decisions on foreign policy and migration policy are made in Turkey. Trigger: Change in the Migration Landscape

The striking changes that have occurred in Turkish migration policies are foremost a result of the changes in migration patterns surrounding Turkey. The Islamic Revolution in Iran, the repression and wars in Iraq starting in 1988, the anti-Turkish policies of the Bulgarian government, and the disintegration of Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s all created sudden mass movements of refugees into Turkey. The collapse of the Soviet Union also unleashed new movements of population across the East-West divide, and Turkey became a major destination country for many of those flows.47 Moreover, the broader forces of globalization, the easier means of transportation, and the internationalization of labor markets facilitated the movement of the labor force across the globe.48 Turkey itself became both a sending and a receiving country, and it became a major country of transit migration. Finally, the buildup of a “fortress Europe,” increasingly reluctant to receive migration from beyond the EU borders and implementing restrictive policies, has strengthened and reoriented the flows of irregular migration, which rely more on Turkey as a place of transit.49 The combination of all of these factors compelled Turkey to eventually take measures to address its new challenges. Direction: Change in the Foreign Policy Environment

These important changes in the migration landscape constituted a significant trigger for changes in Turkish policies, but by themselves they do not explain the nature and direction of the changes adopted. For that, one must look at the changes in Turkey’s foreign policy environment. Those changes have compelled Turkey to incorporate migration issues and policies into a broader new foreign

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policy vision. With the end of the Cold War, the foreign policy environment of Turkey was practically reset. The rationale behind the long Turkish isolation and nonengagement in the region disappeared, and under the initial leadership of Prime Minister and then President Turgut Özal, a new foreign policy of opening toward the country’s immediate neighborhood was put into place. Within Özal’s foreign policy vision, migration policies played an important role in improving relations with neighbors by encouraging political stability and by opening up to new markets. The decision to lift visa requirements with Greece in 1986, for example, had a clear goal of encouraging public contacts as a means to rapprochement with Greece and played a key part in the historic rapprochement with Greece in 1999.50 The decision to open the border with Iraq during the influx of Iraqi Kurds in 1991, which Turkey had been very hesitant to do in 1988, was also signaling Turkey’s emergent feeling of connection with the developments in the region.51 But the most important decision was made with regard to the countries of the former Soviet Union, with the decision to adopt a “soft” visa policy (the sticker visa system). By doing that, Turkey was able to absorb immediately some of the major benefits of the opening of this new area and benefited in terms of both trade and friendly relations with those countries, especially Russia.52 Yet the measures taken during Özal’s time, while very important and revealing, remained limited and sporadic. For instance, Özal was not able to apply the same liberal visa policy with the neighbors of the south as he did with the north.53 Indeed, the general foreign policy outlook of most state institutions of the time remained very much framed within a realist view of balance of power and zero-sum understanding of the relations with most neighbors. Conflictual and tension-ridden relations with Greece, Armenia, Iraq, and Syria remained the norm during the 1990s. However, toward the end of the decade, a second major change within the foreign policy environment occurred: the opening up of prospective EU membership with the recognition of Turkey’s candidate status in 1999 and the improved relations with the EU in the following six years. Through the application of the Copenhagen criteria and the acquis communautaire, the EU gained a unique leverage over Turkish policies. In the areas of asylum, migration, and visa policy, clear criteria were set and adapted to the Turkish context through the National Action Plan on Migration and Asylum in 2005.54 That led to the Turkish effort to think comprehensively about its immigration policy and to stimulate a more systematic approach to the migration issue. The National Action Plan was also in the background of the creation of the new Agency on Asylum and Migration within the Ministry of Interior. More broadly, Turkey’s improvement in immigration policy became at the same time both a substantial burden for Turkey and a useful foreign policy tool in keeping in good relations with the EU. On the one hand, Turkey feels compelled to institute a lot of changes, some of which are considered costly.55 On the other hand, the timing and unfolding of those changes can be used both

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symbolically, proving the compliance of Turkey with EU rules, and as a bargaining chip for a more friendly policy toward Turkey. The case of the readmission agreement between Turkey and Europe is a case in point: Turkey used it as a bargaining tool with other countries to sign readmission agreements, as well as with the EU to negotiate easier access to Schengen visas for Turkish citizens. The negotiations should not be seen only as strategic, however, but also as steps toward confidence building and credibility in an EU-Turkey relationship that often lacks both of those. Mechanism: Conceptual and Procedural Changes in Policymaking Within Turkey

Both the end of the Cold War and the EU accession process explain why Turkey has wanted to use migration policies as a way to be more engaged in its new neighborhood and to comply with EU demands and policies. However, a closer look at changes within the domestic structure can help us understand how those new policies became possible. Three recent developments in Turkey’s decisionmaking processes, especially on issues of migration and foreign policy, were responsible: a change in foreign policy outlook, a change in the distribution of power within the Turkish bureaucracy and government, and an increase in the role played by nonstate actors. First, there was a radical change of outlook regarding the way foreign policy should be conducted. This could occur only as the result of a new state of mind and openings undertaken by Turgut Özal in the early 1990s and by other personalities such as Ismail Cem at the turn of the millennium. Those key personalities started a process of creating a more open foreign policy. Subsequently, the victory of the AKP in 2002 opened the possibility to apply more consistently and directly such a liberal and outward-looking foreign policy. For example, the idea of opening toward and having interdependence with other countries, developed initially by Özal, and the idea that Turkey’s strength in the region would need to be pursued through engagement, trade, and peaceful relations with all neighbors, are now applied by the AKP through a liberal visa policy. As a high-ranking official from the prime minister’s office put it, the decision of September 2009 to remove visa requirements between Turkey and Syria was made out of three concerns: improving the local economy, presenting a goodwill gesture in the policy of rapprochement with Syria, and taking a measure of confidence building.56 The decision on visa policy was thus used as an instrument for broader goals of foreign policy. Because openings toward the north (former Soviet countries) were already made throughout the 1990s, most of the remaining work is being done with countries of the south (Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, etc.). This also fits conveniently with the AKP’s willingness to reengage the Middle East57 and revive the good days of pax Ottomana.58 Accepting migration is also a way of becoming linked with the fate of other countries’ citizens and a means to signal goodwill. As Prime Minister Erdoÿan said

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regarding the presence of irregular Armenian workers in Turkey, “They [Armenian workers] fled the country, they could not sustain themselves in their homeland, and we opened our doors. We could deport them, but we are not doing so.”59 As was often mentioned by interlocutors, being a country receiving migration and having the possibility to create liberal policies toward that migration is a kind of “soft power” for Turkey.60 Beyond the need for friendly foreign relations with neighbors, the new foreign policy outlook hinges on a broader idea: the ideal conception of a postmodern and borderless world, with equalities between people and equal access to wealth and knowledge.61 Even though it is unclear how important this conception is in decisions that are made, it is often used as an explanatory and legitimizing tool for some actions, such as the potential reversal of the geographical limitation. That limitation has not yet been lifted, for institutional and pragmatic reasons, but the idea that it could and should be done is often justified in terms of the universalist values of nondiscrimination against asylum seekers, wherever they come from.62 Finally, the new foreign policy outlook practiced by the AKP also entails a certain expression of frustration toward the West, in general, and the perceived normative arrogance of the EU, in particular. The AKP government, and especially Prime Minister Erdoÿan, is able to capitalize on that frustration by putting forth a foreign policy that is more independent, critical, and sometimes even provocative to a European (or US) audience.63 The idea of developing a “Shamgen system,”64 contrasting to the Schengen system, or a Middle Eastern regional Schengen zone,65 for example, uses European norms and practices in a region where Europeans have failed to introduce them.66 The very idea of visa has a negative connotation in Turkey, as well as other countries that are listed on the Schengen negative list.67 Because the visa is perceived as a problem or a source of tension in Turkey, it has become easy to associate agreements on “zero visa” as a subset of the policy of “zero problems” with neighbors. Several Turkish officials are indeed officially arguing that they are pursuing a policy of removing visa requirements with all of Turkey’s neighbors.68 As a consequence of that new outlook in foreign policy, the AKP government is much less tied by old understandings and is even proud of utilizing new and innovative policies. This has created a window of opportunity for change. A second development has also been necessary for this conceptual change to be realized: a change in the balance of power within key Turkish political institutions and the ability of the AKP and other actors in favor of change to use those institutions. The decline of the political power of the military has allowed the political authorities to adopt a less securitized approach to foreign policy.69 One interlocutor has even advanced the idea that opening the borders with formerly sensitive countries such as Syria, while in line with the spirit of the Adana Process, might also be a way for the government to further weaken the military branch by proving wrong the enemy image that the army has constructed through the years.70

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One of the most significant developments regarding migration issues is the shift of responsibilities between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Interior. Even though both ministries have always coordinated and are still coordinating their actions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had the most leverage on migration issues in the 1990s, while it is now the Ministry of Interior that carries most responsibility. This does not mean that migration is now considered more a concern for domestic policy than foreign policy, but rather that foreign policy–related issues such as migration have been transferred to different ministries beyond the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Consequently, decisions on migration that have important foreign policy implications can be decided by the Ministry of Interior. This can be considered as a strategic move, as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is often considered a more traditional actor, close to the vision of the army and its security approach to migration, while the Ministry of Interior could be more easily molded to fit the government’s views and projects.71 This dynamic has also created some level of competition between the two ministries, as both consider themselves more liberal and inclined to use soft power on migration issues, while reciprocally accusing the other of being all about hard-power politics.72 But even within the Ministry of Interior there has been a strategic reshuffling. Some of the high-level bureaucrats within the Foreigners Department in the General Directorate of Security who have been in their positions for decades, and were resistant to changes, have been moved to positions remote from their former responsibilities. Moreover, the new agency on migration and asylum created within the Ministry of Interior has been located directly under the undersecretary, rather than within the Security Directorate. The staff of that task force also seems to have been selected according to their openness to change and new practices in immigration.73 There, indeed, seems to be a tendency to diffuse foreign policy responsibilities within a plurality of institutions and agencies, so that the government can empower people more in agreement with its policy vision. Those changes are not necessarily orchestrated by the highest-level decisionmakers in the government. Rather, the change in foreign policy outlook rendered possible by the AKP’s government opened the possibility for motivated individuals within the government to interpret the meaning of this new outlook and exert influence over the bureaucracy. For instance, one former official who worked for the Office of the Prime Minister and feels strongly about the fate of refugees and asylum seekers in Turkey, mentioned in a meeting that he wrote letters to different ministries requiring them to have a more rights-based approach toward refugees. He did that in the name of Prime Minister Erdoπan, without Erdoÿan even being aware of the letters, and therefore was able to gain a lot of leverage on the issue. His actions may have been instrumental in the decision to create the new migration and asylum agency. Other influential individuals who have demonstrated an interest in issues of migration, such as Interior Minister Be≈sir Atalay and Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator

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Egemen Baπª≈s, have also been instrumental in encouraging change in migration policies.74 The third main development in the way foreign and migration policies are decided has been the increased role played by nonstate actors, especially international organizations, civil society organizations, and business organizations. The two main international organizations dealing with migration issues, the UNHCR and IOM, have over time become relatively successful in establishing regular contacts with the government. Since the 1990s the UNHCR, and more recently the IOM, have become important actors pushing for reforms in policies in their respective domains. There has also been an explosion in the number of NGOs working with migration-related issues. In the early 1990s, there were almost none working with refugees and migrants apart from some local churches running small-scale assistance programs. Now several NGOs work exclusively on rights and assistance to refugees, asylum seekers, and irregular migrants. These include ASAM (Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants), Multeci-Der (Association for Solidarity with Refugees), and Multeci-Net (Refugees-Network). Many other established NGOs, such as the Turkish branch of HCA (Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly), MazlumDer (Association for Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed People), Amnesty International, the Human Rights Association, IHH (Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian relief), and Deniz Feneri, among others, have also created special migrant and refugee programs. Besides providing relief on the ground, the main achievements of such organizations has been to bring international pressure on the Turkish government by publishing “embarrassing” public reports75 or by opening and often winning cases against Turkey at the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights).76 Some officials have recognized the importance of these organizations and are willing to change policies in order to stop the constant finger pointing.77 Although the relations between the government and civil society organizations are still often tense, a change seems to be occurring within the bureaucracy that might indicate a new era of cooperation between civil society organizations and the government. The new agency on migration and asylum has decided to institutionalize consultations with the UNHCR, NGOs, and academicians in its deliberation over the design of new policies. Consideration has also been given to delegating some responsibilities, such as the management of the future reception centers for asylum seekers, to local NGOs.78 On visa policies, there is also evidence that some business organizations have played an active role. While Ankara’s Chamber of Industry, for instance, has been very vocal and critical toward European actors regarding the unfair visa requirements for Turkish businessmen going to Europe, the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce was apparently able, in February 2010, to strike a deal with Italy and France to facilitate the visa procedure for its members.79 While the Ankara and Istanbul chambers were putting pressure on European visa policies, the Diyarbakir Chamber of Commerce was pressuring the Turkish government to facilitate visa procedures for Iraqi businessmen.80 Interestingly, one of the

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rationales presented by government officials behind the decision to remove visa requirements for Syria is to open more space for “Turkish non-state actors, NGOs, businessmen, journalists, so that it is their demands that will lead the relations with Syria,” as opposed to solely the demands of the Turkish government.81 One of the reasons decisions on migration issues are so closely related to the evolution of foreign policy is that there are no real domestic debates on immigration in Turkey. It is not a highly politicized issue within public opinion, and therefore policymakers face little internal pressure. Even the civil society organizations use international public opinion, rather than national public opinion, to make their voices heard. And on the visa issues, the mobilized business and student associations are mainly trying to pressure the European states rather than the Turkish government itself. As such, foreign policy considerations prevail when decisions on migration issues are made. Within the Turkish political system, that seems to have empowered more liberal voices on migration issues.

Conclusions: The Migratory Link Between Turkey, Its Neighborhood, and Beyond

The movement of people coming in and going out of Turkey has become an important aspect of Turkish foreign policy. Not only has it created a multitude of actors engaged in Turkish foreign relations, it has also created important actors at home influencing decisionmaking on migration and foreign policy, and it has diversified the number of issues on which and through which the Turkish government can act. Today, as yesterday, Turkey uses migration both instrumentally and symbolically to further foreign policy goals: Migration policies are used as a bargaining chip with the EU to pressure accession negotiations but also to signal to the EU its commitment to the EU project and to its neighborhood the sincerity of new friendly relations. But beyond that, migration and foreign policy concerns have become closely entangled with one another so that it is often difficult to distinguish them. What does this analysis of Turkish migration policy reveal about Turkey’s new foreign policy? The main implications are threefold. First, from the perspective of migration issues, there is an obvious trend of continuous Europeanization of Turkish norms and policies. The overall story is one of gradual compliance with the standards set by the EU in terms of migration and asylum policy. Critical changes occurred in 2009, especially with the establishment of the new agency on migration and asylum. Beyond the public impression of and discourse on the stalled implementation of the EU acquis in Turkey, less-visible but important reforms have been made in the migration field. These changes seem to reveal a more profound and genuine adoption of the norms of the EU asylum and migration regime. Ankara’s visa policy, which apparently contradicts the requirements of the Schengen system and European demands, seems to have internalized the very European norm of freedom of movement as a tool for prosperity and

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friendship, which was behind the idea of the European project. At a time when the EU is having a hard time diffusing the benefits of free movement beyond the external borders of the EU and seems to be locked into a restrictive, securitydriven understanding of migration, Turkey is the country that is attempting to spread and apply those values in the Black Sea and Middle East regions.82 Second, because Turkey has learned a lot from Europe in terms of migration issues, it is also becoming more self-confident. Not only did it internalize some of the European norms, but Turkish officials have also become acquainted with the politics of those norms, as well as the weaknesses of the European system. It is not uncommon for officials in Turkey to mention how the new Turkish migration and asylum systems are better, or will be better, than the European ones.83 This has also led to a rise in self-confidence among Turkish officials, who have gained a better understanding of how to negotiate the adoption of the acquis. They now know how to negotiate over the timing and how to attach conditionality requirements to some of the changes. For example, the asylum geographical limitation will be adopted only once Turkey is a member of the EU; the readmission agreement with the EU can be signed only if visa requirements for some categories of Turkish citizens are facilitated. As to future reversals of the implementation of the Schengen visa system, high-ranking officials are saying not that they gave up on the Schengen visa system, but rather that it can be applied later, at which point there will be, in principle, a change in the visa-free agreements with most Middle Eastern countries. Some officials even believe that by then Turkey will have succeeded in convincing its European partners that a liberal external visa policy would also be beneficial to the EU.84 More generally in the negotiations with the EU, Turkish authorities want the process to be “open-ended” on their side, as well.85 This combination of Europeanization and self-confidence has clear advantages as well as risks. The fact that some segments of the Turkish bureaucracy have internalized the idea of having a more systematic and rule-based policy toward migration will ease the path of reform in the future by decreasing the fear that EU demands will go against Turkish interests. It might also have a positive impact on the EU side, with Turkish counterparts better able to present their arguments (using EU norms), and might help the EU learn from the Turkish experience. However, if Turkey becomes a more difficult partner in negotiations, it also risks alienating some EU actors, already skeptical toward Turkey’s place in the EU. Finally, the role played by Turkey in the region is still incomplete in the area of migration but promises to have a positive impact on the region. Improvements are needed in terms of the consistency of some policies regarding the fight against human trafficking, the recognition of non-European refugees, and the conditions of apprehension and detention of irregular migrants. But if Turkey keeps implementing those reforms, it might become an important model in a region where other countries tend to have underdeveloped immigration policies. Already, with the domino effect of the readmission agreement, Turkey

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has contributed, in parallel with Europe, to the politicization of the question of irregular migration farther south and east. But more important, by opening borders and encouraging flows of people, trade, and ideas, Turkey is encouraging the development of a zone of peace and collaboration in the traditionally unstable regions of the Middle East, Balkans, Black Sea, and Caucasus. Given the serious political hurdles that are preventing peace in those regions, it is unlikely that visa-free agreements alone can achieve stability, but it clearly represents a step in the right direction. Turkish foreign policy has entered a new era. Even though in some other areas this new paradigm is raising questions in the West, in the field of migration changes are critical and positive overall. Promoting Turkey as a hub for migration will benefit both Turkey and its neighborhood at the political and economic levels. It is important for Turkey’s transatlantic partner to recognize and encourage it.

Notes 1. There is also a massive movement of internal migration within Turkey, from village to towns, from smaller towns to large cities, and overall from the east to the west of the country. Kiri≈sci, “Migration and Turkey,” pp. 175–198. However the internal migration dimension will not be covered in this chapter as it is not as strongly related to foreign policy as international migration flows. 2. See also Chapter 8 in this volume. 3. Arª, Bµyµk Mübadele; Clark, Twice a Stranger. 4. Irregular deportation refers to the documented practice of apparently both Greek and Turkish authorities to “dump” apprehended irregular migrants on the other side of the border without due deportation process or informing the authorities of the other side. Human Rights Watch, “Stuck in a Revolving Door.” 5. Vasileva, “Bulgarian Turkish Emigration and Return.” 6. Bozkurt, “Armenian Workers May Boost Turkey’s Hand in Foreign Policy”; Anadolu Ajansª, “Gerekirse 100 bin Ermeniyi gönderebiliriz.” 7. Remarks made by Armenian foreign policy official during an interview with the author in Washington, DC, Nov. 2009. 8. Akçapar, “Conversion as a Migration Strategy in Transit Country,” p. 825. 9. Danª≈s, Taraghi, and Perouse, “Integration in Limbo,” p. 491. 10. The Mahmur Camps is a refugee camp set up in the 1990s in northern Iraq sheltering individuals who had been displaced during the Turkish military practice of “emptying” security-sensitive villages of the Kurdish-populated areas of southeast Turkey. ≈Safak, “Kurdish Initiative Crosses a Border.” 11. Özgen, “Sªnªrªn Iktisadi Antropolojisi.” 12. Bulut, “Friends, Balkans, Statesmen Lend Us Your Ears.” 13. See, among others, Kiri≈sci, Harmonization of Migration Policy and Turkey’s Security Challenges. 14. US Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report, pp. 286–288; and interview, Turkish police official, Oct. 2009. 15. Teitelbaum, “Immigration, Refugees, and Foreign Policy”; Mitchell, “International Migration, International Relations and Foreign Policy”; Teitelbaum and Weiner, Threatened Peoples, Threatened Borders; Van Selm, ”Immigration and Asylum or Foreign

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Policy”; Geddes, “Europe’s Border Relationships and International Migration Relations”; Lavenex, “Shifting Up and Out.” 16. Kiri≈sci, “Disaggregating Turkish Citizenship and Immigration Practices”; Aktar, “Homogenising the Nation, Turkifying the Economy”; Çaπaptay, “Race, Assimilation and Kemalism”; ºçduygu, Tokta≈s, and Soner, “The Politics of Population in a NationBuilding Process”; ˜lker, “Assimilation of the Muslim Communities in the First Decade of the Turkish Republic”; ˜lker, “Assimilation, Security and Geographical Nationalization in Interwar Turkey.” 17. “Tµrk soyundan” or “Tµrk kültürüne baπlª,” Iskan Kanunu. 18. ˜lker, “Assimilation, Security and Geographical Nationalization in Interwar Turkey.” 19. Aktar, “Homogenising the Nation, Turkifying the Economy”; Ibid. 20. Kiri≈sci, “Disaggregating Turkish Citizenship and Immigration Practices,” p. 16. 21. Özcan, “Continuity and Change in Turkish Foreign Policy.” 22. Aktar, “Homogenising the Nation, Turkifying the Economy,” p. 83; Kiri≈sci, “Disaggregating Turkish Citizenship and Immigration Policy,” p. 17. 23. Aktar, “Homogenising the Nation, Turkifying the Economy,” p. 87. 24. Kiri≈sci, “Disaggregating Turkish Citizenship and Immigration Policy,” p. 9; Antonious, “Western Thracian Muslims in Athens,” p. 85. 25. This option is offered in Article I B 1 of the Convention. Most signatories of the convention lifted the geographical limitation, but Turkey, to this day, retains the geographical limitation. 26. By the 1970s, Turkey had started to avoid receiving refugees or migrants as “groups” (ºskanli yerle≈sim) but rather receive them as “individuals” (serbest yerle≈sim), under which less state involvement and assistance is required. Danª≈s and Parla, “Nafile Soyda≈slªk,” p. 4. 27. The Gendarmerie, the Coastal Guard, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security are also involved in migration issues. Kiri≈sci, Asylum, Immigration, Irregular Migration and Internal Displacement in Turkey, pp. 4–9. 28. The term of “immigration policy” is used in the immigration literature with a certain level of ambiguity. It often relates to the fact that a country has a comprehensive and coordinated body of regulations and institutions dealing with the different facets of migration. It is in this sense that I use this concept. However, the concept of immigration policy is also sometimes used to mean the policy through which a country actively import labor force from abroad, as most Western European countries did in the 1960s. Turkey however never resorted to such a policy and is unlikely to do so in the near future. 29. United Nations High Commisioner for Refugees, Republic of Turkey Since 1960, pp. 9–10. See also Table 6.2 for data on asylum in Turkey. 30. Kiri≈sci, “Is Turkey Lifting the ‘Geographical Limitation?’”; Kiri≈sci, “UNHCR and Turkey.” 31. The situation today is that asylum seekers are supposed to inform the Turkish authorities as soon as possible after their entry into the territory, but the number of days that passed since the entry into the territory are not taken into consideration in the asylum application. However, if they get arrested by the police before they registered, they will be considered illegal migrants and will not be given a chance to apply for asylum. Interview, police officer, Oct. 2009. 32. Kiri≈sci, Harmonization of Migration Policy and Turkey’s Security Challenges. 33. “Mµste≈sarlªk ºltica ve Göç Mevzuatª ve ºdari Kapasitesini Geli≈stirme ve Uygulama Bµrosu” (translation). 34. As of Sept. 2010. 35. Interview, officials from Ministry of Interior, Oct. 2009. 36. Such as the amendments made to the penal code to criminalize human smug-

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gling and trafficking in women, the additional protocols against migrant smuggling and human trafficking of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the Law on Work Permits for Aliens, and an amendment to the Turkish Citizenship Law. Kaya, Legal Aspects of Irregular Migration in Turkey; Erder and Ka≈ska, Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Women. 37. According to the US State Department report on trafficking, Turkey moved from Tier 3 to Tier 2 between 2003 and 2005. This suggests that Turkey still needs to make some improvements, especially regarding the assistance to victims of trafficking. US Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report, pp. 286–288. 38. Syria, Greece, Kyrgyzstan, Romania, Ukraine, and a similar agreement with the UK. Interview, official from the Ministry of Interior, Oct. 2009. 39. Russia, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and prenegotiations with Iraq, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bangladesh, Georgia, Lebanon, Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka, Belarus, Hungary, Macedonia, Moldava, and Libya. Interview, official from the Ministry of Interior, Oct. 2009. 40. Interview, high-ranking EU official, Sept. 2009 and May 2010; Özcan, “Readmission Agreement.” 41. Torpey, The Invention of the Passport; Doπan, Impact of Visa Regimes over Travel Decisions and Patterns of Turkish Citizens. 42. Since 1964, there is a visa-free regime between Turkey and Iran. Kiri≈sci, “A Friendlier Schengen Visa System as a Tool of ‘Soft Power,’” pp. 351–353. 43. Doπan, Impact of Visa Regimes over Travel Decisions and Patterns of Turkish Citizens, p. 11. 44. Kiri≈sci “A Friendlier Schengen Visa System as a Tool of ‘Soft Power,’” p. 353. 45. The six countries were: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Morocco, and Tunisia. Kiri≈sci “A Friendlier Schengen Visa System as a Tool of ‘Soft Power,’” p. 348. 46. Anka Haber Ajansi, “58 ˜lke.” 47. Kiri≈sci, “Turkey”; Erder, “Uluslararasª Göçte Yeni Eπilimler.” 48. Castles and Miller, The Age of Migration, pp. 7–12. 49. Geddes, Immigration and European Integration; Içduygu, “The Politics of International Migratory Regimes.” 50. Kiri≈sci, “A Friendlier Schengen Visa System as a Tool of ‘Soft Power.’” 51. The influx of Iraqi refugees in 1991 immediately overwhelmed the border authorities, who could not contain these populations. The “decision to open” the border was therefore made out of necessity more than political vision. Subsequently, however, Özal was able to successfully frame the decision as act of “brotherhood.” 52. See Chapter 7 in this volume. 53. Except for Iran, with which Turkey has had a visa-free agreement since 1964. 54. In 2004, Turkish authorities started a twinning project with the EU so as to put together a National Action Plan on Migration and Asylum. The objective of this project was to compare and contrast the dispositions existing in Turkish laws to the ones existing in the EU legal framework and envision how the Turkish regulations could be aligned with the EU ones. This exercise was mainly a technical and intellectual work, but it forced authorities to consider all of the existing immigration policies at once and resulted in a published document on what needs to be done and how. Accessible at http:// www.egm.gov.tr/hizmet.iltica.asp 55. Kiri≈sci, Harmonization of Migration Policy and Turkey’s Security Challenges. 56. Interview, high-ranking official from the prime minister’s office, Oct. 2009. 57. See Chapter 3 in this volume. 58. See Chapter 2 in this volume. 59. Cited in Bozkurt, “Armenian Workers May Boost Turkey’s Hand in Foreign

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Policy.” Of course, the argument can also be reversed. A year after that declaration, in March 2010, Erdoÿan made a statement regarding the possibility “to deport the 100,000 illegal Armenians” living in Turkey (Anadolu Ajansª, “Gerekirse 100 bin Ermeniyi gönderebiliriz”). Following this statement, the Turkish government immediately had to engage in damage control to discount Erdoÿan’s remarks. 60. Interview, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oct. 2009. See also Bozkurt, “Armenian Workers May Boost Turkey’s Hand in Foreign Policy.” 61. Interview, high-ranking official from the prime minister’s office, Oct. 2009. 62. Interview, Ministry of Interior, October 2009. 63. See Chapter 9 in this volume. 64. “Sham” (≈Sam) is the Turkish name for Damascus. Mentioned during an interview with a high-ranking official in the government, Oct. 2009. 65. Cited in Moubayed, “Turkey’s ‘Regional Schengen’ System.” 66. Most Middle Eastern countries are indeed on the negative list of Schengen, meaning that it is particularly difficult for citizens of these countries to have access to European territories. The lifting of visa requirements between Turkey and many of these countries stands in sharp contrast to the European practice. 67. In November 2009, a hotline designed to receive the complaints of Schengen visa applicants in Turkey was put in place, demonstrating the negative connotations with which visas are associated. See Altªnta≈s, “Hotline Highlights Anti-Turkish Practices in EU Visa Issuance.” 68. Meeting with high-ranking officials of the government, Oct. 2009. 69. Özcan, “Facing Its Waterloo in Diplomacy”; Cizre, “Ideology, Context and Interest.” 70. Interview, civil society leader, Izmir, Oct. 2009. 71. Interview, UNHCR official, Ankara, Dec. 2009. That person mentioned how, as an international organization, they are supposed to communicate with the bureaucracy through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but because they can find more agreeable voices within the Ministry of Interior, they try to establish direct contacts there. 72. Interview, Ministry of Foreign Affairs official; Interview, Ministry of Interior official, Ankara, Oct. 2009. 73. Interviews, Ministry of Interior, Oct. and Dec. 2009. 74. Interview with a high ranking official in the government, Oct. 2009. 75. See especially Helsinki Citizens Assembly, “Unwelcome Guests”; Human Rights Watch, “Stuck in a Revolving Door.” 76. There have been many cases, starting with the Jabari v. Turkey case in 2000; the most recent was Abdolkhani and Karimnia v. Turkey in September 2009. HCA and MazlumDer in particular have developed experience bringing cases to the ECHR (and winning). 77. Interview, Ministry of Interior, Oct. 2009. 78. Interview, Ministry of Interior, Oct. 2009. 79. Anadolu Ajansª, “Turkish Chamber to Sign Visa Simplification Agreement with Italy.” There are also talks about a similar agreement with Spain. Izmir’s Chamber of Commerce is also said to have had agreement with the Netherlands to facilitate the delivery of visas for their members. 80. Turkey’s current visa policy toward Iraqi nationals is indeed peculiar. Iraqi nationals coming by plane to Istanbul or Antalya can easily get a sticker visa upon entrance. However, Iraqi nationals entering Turkey from a land border (especially through the Habur gate), need to have obtained a visa beforehand at one of the Turkish consulates, and visas are not easily granted there. Military and security reasons seem to explain this measure. According to the Diyarbakir Chamber of Commerce, this approach is creating a substantial trade loss. Interview, Diyarbakir Chamber of Commerce official, Oct. 2009.

Migration and Changes in Turkish Foreign Policy 143 81. Interview, high-ranking official at the prime minister’s office, Oct. 2009. 82. Davutoπlu, “Turkish Foreign Policy and the EU in 2010”; Düzgit and Tocci, “Transforming Turkish Foreign Policy.” 83. Interview, Ministry of Interior, Oct. 2009. 84. Interview, high-ranking official in the prime minister’s office. 85. Kiri≈sci, Harmonisation of Migration Policy and Turkey’s Security Challenges, p. 10.

7 Democracy Diffusion: The Turkish Experience Kemal Kiri≈sci The aim of this chapter is to address a question that at first may seem unusual: Does or can Turkey have a role to play in assisting or diffusing democracy in its neighborhood? The idea of Turkey as a partner that could contribute to democracy diffusion and promotion may at first be puzzling. The reaction of a leading scholar of democracy promotion, Richard Youngs, to that idea associated Turkey more with the “nondiffusion” of democracy.1 Turkey is not exactly a bastion of pluralist democracy, let alone a declared agent for diffusing democracy into its neighborhood. Yet in policy circles there is also a long tradition of citing Turkey as a “model.” Larry Diamond takes the idea of Turkey as a model of democracy back to the early 1970s but notes how Turkish democracy drifted into trouble, especially with the violence and instability of the late 1970s, which were followed by a military coup in 1980. He underlines how in spite of an initial round of economic and political reforms in 1987, when Turkey applied for EU membership, Turkey was at best an “illiberal democracy.”2 While the history of Turkish democracy is more than half a century long, it is clearly characterized by ups and downs.3 Turkey’s engagement with the EU did improve and liberalize its democracy. In 2009, Freedom House listed Turkey only as an “electoral” not a “liberal” democracy.4 But, as Youngs points out, “Democracy has been increasingly acknowledged to be less a simple absolute—either entirely present or fully absent . . . and more a matter of degree, with states possessing different strong and weak attributes along a spectrum of democratic quality.”5 Does that mean Turkey could be a promoter of democracy in its neighborhood? The thesis of this chapter is that in spite of an absence of experience in democracy assistance and deficiencies in its own democracy, Turkey, by default, is actually involved in a modest exercise of democracy diffusion. The “default” diffusion of democracy from Turkey is mediated through at least three channels: demonstrative effect, various government initiatives that indirectly address democracy promotion issues, and the transnational activities of Turkish civil society. In this chapter a broader than usual definition of democracy diffusion and promotion is adopted by including in the definition efforts to promote 145

146 Kemal Kiris¸ci

social and political reforms with respect to good governance, transparency, and women’s rights, in addition to activities and programs that would otherwise be centered directly on the promotion of formal institutions of democracy such as free and fair elections, a multiparty political system, a civil society, an independent judiciary, and the rule of law. The very fact that Turkish democracy is a work in progress is in itself an asset from the perspective of cooperation with recipients or targets of democracy promotion. It diffuses the tension resulting from the real or perceived hierarchical relations between donor and recipient and engenders a sense of solidarity. At a time when the debate in the United States and the EU on reforming democracy promotion and assistance policies is expanding, Turkey could well be considered a partner and an asset.6 Engaging Turkey could contribute to the reform process of democracy promotion, bring added value to democracy promotion in Turkey’s neighborhood, and also assist Turkey in broadening and deepening its own democracy.

Mapping the Sea Changes

The Turkey of the 1980s and 1990s was deeply marked by internal problems. The economic and political instability of the 1970s had translated into both a military coup and a decision to completely overhaul the Turkish economy. Both developments triggered a long and painful process of change. During that period Turkey was very much consumed by its own problems, ranging from the Kurdish question to the rise of political Islam, not to mention its economic woes. At the international level one important consequence of domestic troubles was that Turkish foreign policy became aggressive, and Turkey came to the brink of war with a number of its neighbors. A leading figure of Turkish diplomacy, ≈Sükrü Elekdaπ, a retired ambassador and former undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), advocated that Turkey prepare itself to fight “two and a half wars” simultaneously against Greece, Syria, and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).7 Turkey mounted frequent military operations into Northern Iraq and came close to a military confrontation with Greece in 1996, as well as with Syria in 1998. Furthermore, in 1997 Turkey threatened Cyprus with military action if Russian S-300 missiles were to be deployed on the island. There were also threats of force made against Iran, and relations with Russia were particularly strained. Relations with an important part of the Arab world were foul, aggravated by an exceptionally intimate military relationship with Israel. Yet that was also a period when the seeds for Turkey’s massive economic and political transformation were sewn. Most important, the structure of the Turkish economy changed drastically from the early 1980s onward. The agricultural sector, which once used to dominate the Turkish economy, had by the early 2000s been replaced by a manufacturing sector, which grew significantly, along with the service sector, especially in banking, communication, health, and tourism. As can be seen from Table 7.1, this helped the Turkish economy

Democracy Diffusion: The Turkish Experience 147 Table 7.1 Foreign Trade and the Turkish Economy Between 1975 and 2008 (in billion $)

GDP Total Export Total Import Overall Trade GDP per Capita (in $) GDP Rankinga

1975

1985

1995

2005

2008

64.5 1.4 4.7 6.1 1,564 17th

67.5 7.9 11.3 19.3 1,316 25th

244.9 21.6 35.7 57.3 2,773 24th

484 73.5 116.8 190.2 6,801 17th

794.2 132.0 201.9 333.9 10,745 17th

Sources: Turkish Statistical Institute, www.tuik.gov.tr; World Bank, www.worldbank.org; World Bank Quick Query, http://ddp-ext.worldbank.org/ext/DDPQQ/member.do?method=getMembers& userid=1&queryId=135. Note: a. The rankings for 1975 and 1985 need to be interpreted cautiously because a large number of data are missing for those years. The missing data are mostly for former socialist/communist countries.

to grow from a GDP of US$64.5 billion in 1975 to almost US$800 billion in 2008, making Turkey the seventeenth-largest economy in the world. Simultaneously, Turkish exports grew significantly, from less than US$8 billion in 1985 to US$132 billion in 2008; by 2003 more than 94 percent of exports were manufactured goods.8 The Turkish economy also became increasingly integrated with the global economy, and Turkey’s economic engagement of its neighborhood expanded. Turkey’s foreign trade with its immediate neighbors increased from under US$5 billion in 1991 to more than US$88 billion in 2008 (Table 7.2). This was accompanied by a growing number of Turkish enterprises investing in neighboring countries, especially in Bulgaria, Romania, and Russia as well as some Middle Eastern countries. In this context another very important change has been the increase in the number of people moving into Turkey. Turkey had eased its visa requirements for nationals of first Greece, then the Soviet Union, and then the successor states of the Soviet Union by the early 1990s.9 The total number of third-country nationals entering Turkey increased from just over 1 million in 1980 to around 25.5 million in 2009 (see Table 7.3), with an ever larger number of people entering Turkey from the surrounding regions. In 1980, a mere forty thousand people from the Soviet Union entered Turkey. By 2009, the figure had increased to almost 5.4 million entries from the ex-Soviet world. A similar trend can be observed for the Balkans. Entries from the Middle East, with the exception of Iran and Israel, have been relatively low. Indicative of these movements of people is the way Turkish Airlines (THY) flights to its neighborhood have boomed from 17 in 1971 to 113 destinations in 2009, many of them in Turkey’s neighborhood.10 Overall, it is clear that Turkey is becoming much more integrated with the region. A remarkable sea change has occurred in Turkish politics, as well. The 1990s was characterized by weak coalition governments that failed to address serious political challenges such as the Kurdish question and the rise of political

148 Kemal Kiris¸ci Table 7.2 Foreign Trade Relations Between Turkey and Its Neighbors (in million $), 1991, 2000, and 2008 1991

2000

2008

Export

Import

Total

Export

Import

Total

Export

Import

Total

144 76 105 0 0 611 0 0 487 122 264 169 79

77 140 199 0 0 1,097 0 0 91 492 67 48 78

221 221 304 0 0 1,708 0 0 578 614 331 217 157

438 253 326 26 2,188 644 132 230 236 0 184 376 650

431 465 674 7 6,106 3,887 155 96 816 0 545 141 505

869 718 1,000 33 8,294 4,531 287 326 1,052 0 729 517 1,155

2,430 2,152 3,987 198 2,188 6,483 998 1,667 2,030 3,917 1,115 1,426 1,935

1,151 1,840 3,548 70 6,106 31,364 525 928 8,200 1,321 639 943 1,448

3,581 3,992 7,535 268 8,294 37,847 1,523 2,595 10,230 5,238 1,754 2,369 3,383

Total

2,057

2,289

4,346

5,683

13,828

19,511

30,526

58,083

88,609

EU US

7,348 913

9,896 2,255

17,244 3,168

14,510 3,135

26,610 3,911

41,120 7,046

63,390 4,300

74,802 138,192 11,976 16,276

Grand Total 13,593

21,047

34,640

27,775

54,503

82,278

Greece Bulgaria Romania Moldova Ukraine Russia Geogia Azerbaijan Iran Iraq Syria Egypt Israel

132,027 201,964 333,991

Source: Turkish Statistical Institute,” Foreign Trade by Countries” report, www.tuik.gov.tr. Notes: 2008 values are not final. Réunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guiana have also been added to the EU values for 1991. For 1991, the values for Russia are values for the USSR, therefore, separate data do not exist for Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan for 1991. For 2000, no data exist for Iraq.

Islam. Turkey was a country with a poor human rights record, sporadic violence, and the closure of political parties. Those developments played an important role in reinforcing the view of Turkey as an “illiberal democracy.” However, the situation began to change once the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, was apprehended in 1999 and put on trial. A process of rapprochement with Greece was initiated and reinforced by an outpouring of reciprocal public empathy in response to the earthquakes in Turkey and Greece. Those developments opened the way to Turkey being declared a candidate country for membership to the EU in December 1999. That decision was initially followed by a slow reform process resisted especially by the right-wing nationalist party, Nationalist Action Party (MHP), in the coalition government. That was overcome when the Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the national elections in November 2002 on a ticket of reform. For the first time in republican history, lively public debates occurred on taboo subjects ranging from the place of Islam in the public realm and civilian-military relations to the Cyprus question, Armenian genocide claims, the Kurdish question, and the rights of non-Muslim minorities. It is only in the course of the past ten years or so that a civil society in the modern

Democracy Diffusion: The Turkish Experience 149 Table 7.3 Entry of People from the Neighborhood of Turkey

Soviet Union Russia Rest of ex-Soviet countries except Baltic states

1980

1990

1996

2005

2009

40,015 —

222,537 —

— 1,235,290

— 1,855,900

— 2,682,333

385,966

1,551,794

2,764,647

1,621,256

3,407,694

5,446,980

Total for ex-Soviet Union except Baltic states Balkan countries Middle East General Total

59,817 82,612

854,521 390,377

597,359 529,202

2,760,694 1,415,307

2,578,980 2,217,797

1,057,364

2,301,250

8,538,864

20,275,213

25,529,375

Source: Compiled from data obtained from the Foreigners Department of MOI and State Statistical Institute Annual Reports. Notes: Balkan countries include Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia-Montenegro; figures for 1980, 1990, and 1996 are for Yugoslavia only. Middle East countries include Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the Gulf states.

sense began to develop. The CIVICUS Civil Society Index Country Report on Turkey, published by the Third Sector Foundation of Turkey (TUSEV), points out that civil society in Turkey compared to its counterparts in the West remains limited but is rapidly growing and becoming increasingly effective in contributing to the deepening of democracy in Turkey.11 Most of that civil society is focused on Turkey itself, but, as will be discussed later in this chapter, an increasing number of civil society groups from Turkey are engaged in transnational activities. Some of them are contributing directly or indirectly to democratization in Turkey’s neighborhood. Possibly the most significant change has come in the area of foreign policy. Various aspects and manifestations of this “new” Turkish foreign policy have been discussed in detail in Chapters 3, 4, and 5. The most striking manifestations include the rapprochement with Greece that started in 1999 and with the decision of the Turkish government in 2004 to lend its support to the Annan Plan of the United Nations aiming to reunite the divided island and encourage the Turkish-Cypriots to vote yes in the referendum. This was accompanied by an effort to improve relations with Syria soon after Öcalan was sent out of the country and the Turkish president attended the funeral of Syrian president Hafez al-Assad in 2000. Turkey’s diplomatic efforts to normalize relations with Armenia culminated in the signing of two sets of protocols between the countries in October 2009. In a rather unexpected and surprising manner, relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) improved just as Turkey was mounting a carefully executed military operation against the PKK early in 2008. The former foreign policy chief advisor to the Turkish prime

150 Kemal Kiris¸ci

minister and current minister of foreign affairs Ahmet Davutoπlu describes these initiatives as part of a policy of “zero problems with neighbors.”12 There also have been efforts to extend that policy to regional problems. The government launched efforts to encourage better dialogue and cooperation between the Shi’a and the Sunni in Iraq, between Hamas and Fatah in Palestine, between Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as between Iraq and Syria. As Tocci and Walker discuss in Chapter 3, Turkey was also involved in efforts to mediate between Syria and Israel, and in Chapter 4 Linden notes similar efforts to reconcile differences between Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia. As Tocci and Walker point out, this should not be understood to mean that Turkey is about to resolve all the neighborhood’s problems single-handedly. Moreover, as noted in several chapters, certain aspects of this “new” foreign policy look to some like Turkey is being “lost” and is turning its back to the West. But it would be misleading to attribute aspects of Turkey’s new foreign policy to ideological or identity-driven factors such as Islam.13 The current policies of Turkey are much more driven by pragmatic considerations than ideological ones, as has always been the case.14 Moreover, there is a strong relationship between domestic changes and reforms in Turkey and the new Turkish foreign policy. Openness at home has spilled over into improved and expanded relations with the Middle East. That transformation reinforces the prospects of Turkey playing the role of a “model” or “example” for the diffusion of democratic values and entrepreneurship in its neighborhood, especially in the Arab world.

Explaining Change

Causal factors operating at three different levels have played a role in bringing about the above changes in Turkish policy. The first level involves the role of international actors ranging from the United States and the EU and other European regional organizations such as the Council of Europe in pushing Turkey toward greater democratization. Throughout the period after the end of the Cold War, Turkey became a target of democracy transmission. Human rights abuses, restrictions on freedom of expression and association, frequent political party closures, and the widespread use of torture and extrajudicial executions in the context of the Kurdish problem attracted extensive criticism in the West. Major human rights organizations, along with the European Parliament, Council of Europe, US Congress, and US State Department, as well as various EU member governments constantly criticized Turkey and exerted pressure on the country to improve its democracy. The signing of the Customs Union agreement between the EU and Turkey in 1995 was a turning point in precipitating a series of constitutional amendments providing for some improvements in respect to freedom of association and political rights in general. The European Parliament was especially insistent to see reforms in Turkey before ratifying the

Democracy Diffusion: The Turkish Experience 151

Customs Union. That did not prevent the Turkish military from mounting a “soft or postmodern coup” in February 1997, forcing the dissolution of a coalition government that included the Islamist Welfare Party. However, at the same time, the reluctance of the military to mount a full-fledged military intervention is attributed to concerns not to damage relations with the EU.15 That was also a period when the US government was constantly involved in efforts to pressure Turkey to reform. One striking and effective example occurred in 1999, when the US State Department persuaded Turkey to allow a civil society conference to be held before the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) summit. That gave Turkish civil society organizations (CSOs) a rare occasion to mix with international CSOs. The US government believed that such an experience would make an important contribution to the development of civil society in Turkey.16 After Turkey became a candidate for membership in December 1999, the role of the EU in inducing reform in Turkey became much more conspicuous. The reform process initially started in 2001 with a set of critical constitutional amendments. Those were followed by a series of reform packages that brought inter alia much greater freedom of expression and association, banned capital punishment, reduced the influence of the military over the civilian government, and improved the rights of minorities.17 Through those reforms the EU also helped to catalyze the growth of civil society in Turkey.18 A case in point was the complete revision of the law on associations, which made it much easier to form associations but also to develop contacts with the external world and receive funds.19 It was undoubtedly the desire to get accession negotiations started that created the dynamics behind the reforms. Hence, the EU’s “conditionality” principle clearly contributed to the improvement of Turkey’s democracy.20 Furthermore, the EU’s engagement of Turkey has helped the transformation of the Islamist movement from one that strongly opposed the EU to one that embraced the idea of membership, as well as the reforms associated with EU accession.21 The rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemning Turkey for violating basic principles of human rights and democracy were also important factors inducing reform.22 Finally, Turkey’s economic transformation was also influenced by the international level. The terms of stabilization programs of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank played a central role in inducing trade, especially with respect to promotion of exports and financial reform; bringing Turkish inflation under control; strengthening financial institutions; and increasing economic transparency.23 Subsequently, the Customs Union led the way for the further opening up of the Turkish economy.24 There were also developments at the regional level. The Iran-Iraq war turned both countries into a major market for Turkish exports, especially in the first half of the 1980s. Indirectly that contributed to the transformation of the Turkish economy and the expansion of its manufacturing sector. In that sense Turkey became the “silent victor” of the Iran-Iraq war.25 The Gulf War in 1991 and the sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had the opposite effect and

152 Kemal Kiris¸ci

cost Turkey dearly in lost markets in Iraq, as well as beyond Iraq. However, that forced Turkey to seek markets in the post-Soviet world, especially in Russia and Central Asian republics.26 In terms of trade and movement of people, the collapse of communism opened up the possibility for Turkey to trade and interact with regions with which it had had extremely limited relations during the Cold War. Greece’s own European transformation also contributed to the launching of a rapprochement with Turkey.27 The conflict in the former Yugoslavia drew Turkey into close cooperation with the United States, the UN, and NATO, as it provided assistance in peacekeeping as well as state building.28 In this context Turkey may also have displayed its first mediation effort when Turkish diplomacy contributed to the reconciliation between Croats and Bosnian Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1994.29 More recently, the US invasion of Iraq created a completely new environment for Turkey. In particular, Turkey needed to develop closer relations with all of Iraq’s neighbors to prevent instability and, especially, the breakup of Iraq. Those concerns pushed Turkey to engage in mediation efforts between the Shi’a and the Sunni in Iraq but also between Syria and Iraq. Once Turkey and the Bush administration were able to overcome the legacy of the Turkish decision of March 2003 not to allow US troops through Turkey, a much more cooperative climate emerged between the two countries with respect to combating the PKK. That had important repercussions on Turkish domestic developments, most importantly the government’s decision to improve relations with the KRG during the course of 2008 and 200930 and to launch the “Kurdish Opening” in July 2009 aiming to provide a solution to the Kurdish problem in Turkey. Finally, as Tocci and Walker note in Chapter 3, the collapse of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, accompanied by Israeli military operations against Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, also had a profound impact on Turkish foreign policy. Domestically, there is a strong relationship between the economic transformation that Turkey has been going through since the early 1980s and democratization. Scholars have long pointed to the relationship between economic development and democracy, while research has also shown a strong relationship between level of development and the probability of sustaining democracy.31 Economic development transforms societies in a number of ways. Most important, it enlarges the middle class, making it difficult to sustain the concentration of political power in the hands of a narrow elite and encourages social capital to emerge, enriching civil society.32 As Straubhaar notes in Chapter 8, the Turkish economy for a long time was closed and oriented toward import substitution. It was dominated by a small elite closely allied with the state. Reforms beginning in the early 1980s drastically transformed the Turkish economy. Turkey’s per capita income increased from about US$1,300 (current) in 1985 to US$2,773 in 1995 and finally almost to US$11,000 in 2008, as noted in Table 7.1. The liberalization of the Turkish market and transformation of the economy into an export-oriented one saw the rise of the infamous “Anatolian

Democracy Diffusion: The Turkish Experience 153

Tigers.” The term refers to cities in Anatolia, where a boom occurred in production and capital accumulation led by companies in cities such as Aksaray, Çorum, Denizli, Gaziantep, Kayseri, Konya, and Yozgat.33 An important consequence of these developments was a substantial growth of civil society, especially in the 1990s, representing a diverse set of business interests. Many business organizations sought reforms and greater democratization while also supporting integration with the EU.34 Economic development, better education, and the emergence of a professional middle class contributed significantly to the expansion of civil society. Symbolically, the failure of the state as well as the military to effectively respond to the disastrous earthquakes in 1999 was an important turning point. That failure provided a chance for “search-and-rescue” CSOs to catch the imagination of the public and also led ordinary citizens to take matters into their own hands and organize humanitarian assistance. The earthquake shattered the image of the omnipotent Turkish state and exposed its weaknesses.35 The media also participated in the democratization of Turkey, especially after the government was forced by public protests to amend the constitution to break the state monopoly over radio and television broadcasting in 1993. That opened the way for a multitude of channels to emerge that offered lively political debate programs.36 In 2001 additional constitutional amendments opened the way to broadcasting in minority languages, including Kurdish. In December 2008 the government launched a television channel completely in Kurdish as a precursor to the dramatic Kurdish Opening. The role of the military also changed. The military in Turkey has had a notorious reputation for meddling in politics in the name of protecting the secular nature of the state. However, reform packages adopted in the context of EU pre-accession steadily reduced the military’s influence and precipitated a revolutionary change in the military’s mind-set.37 That led the military to a somewhat grudging acceptance of the limits of its power, while at the same time it maintained a degree of nervousness in respect to dangers posed to Turkey’s secularism.38 The changes associated with the military need also to be seen in the light of the transformation of political Islam in Turkey. The AKP in many ways represents that transformation. The party emerged from the closures of the Welfare and later the Virtue political parties. Its electoral victory in 2002, based on promises of reform and closer ties with the EU, constituted a political tsunami that held the promise of becoming “the agent of Turkey’s transformation from a spotty and in too many ways illiberal democracy into a fully fledged specimen of the liberal breed.”39 The AKP delivered on its promises of reform and improved Turkish democracy significantly. Changes opened a public space for expressing a greater diversity of cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity while softening the more rigid aspects of Turkish national identity and secularism. The party leadership insisted on maintaining a distance from political Islam, and many members of the AKP have tended to shy away from being labeled as Islamists or even moderate Islamists.40 Instead, they have tended to define themselves simply as conservatives. In turn, many outsiders have actually labeled

154 Kemal Kiris¸ci

them as Muslim democrats.41 The accompanying “politics of engagement”— that is, between the AKP and some secularists—has been seen as a characteristic that sets Turkey apart from other Muslim countries, especially in the Middle East.42 However, the limits of that politics of engagement have been tested severely in the past three years as the reform process has slowed down. Also, Turkish society and politics have become considerably polarized between growing religious conservatism and advocates of hard-core secularism. That has been aggravated by a weak opposition in the parliament led by the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and MHP, which have not been able to offer a vision for reform. Against that background there is some concern being expressed about the resilience of Turkish democracy and its ability to cope with the conflicts that the polarization is generating.43 There are even those who have compared the conflicts resulting from deep divisions within the country to a “war at home.”44

Turkey’s Experience in Democracy Diffusion Demonstrative Effect

Turkey is by default contributing to democracy assistance in a manner considerably different than the EU and the United States. It is doing that basically through three channels of democracy diffusion. The first and possibly most important one is by a demonstrative effect. In his seminal work on the “third wave” of democratization, Samuel Huntington highlights the importance of that demonstrative effect as a means of showing that democratic change can happen and how it can happen.45 The rise of an effective Polish civil society in the late 1980s, for example, inspired neighboring countries that saw Communist parties surrender their monopoly over power within months of Solidarity forming a government in August 1989.46 The influence of the demonstrative effect is noted especially in the case of the “color revolutions” of the mid-2000s—for example, in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan.47 Huntington notes that the most powerful demonstrative effects are regional ones.48 The changes occurring in eastern and central Europe have also affected Turkey. The case of Bulgaria, especially, with regard to its treatment of the Turkish minority, had a particular influence on Turkey. One of the difficult and controversial reforms that Turkey faced was the issue of cultural rights for minorities, especially for Kurds. The fact that postcommunist Bulgaria next door had adopted similar reforms for the Turkish minority did indeed attract attention and was heatedly debated in Turkey. In a similar manner Turkey constitutes an example for the efforts of countries of the region—especially in the Middle East— to reform. A prominent Syrian academic has noted how Arabs of all political inclinations, ranging from socialists to Islamists, are debating among themselves Turkey’s experience and what it means for them.49 A survey conducted

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by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) in seven Arab countries specifically asked questions that seem to capture Turkey’s demonstrative effect. Overall, 61 percent of the respondents considered Turkey to be a model for the Arab world. This is particularly significant considering that some have long argued that Turkey’s secular system prevents it from being a model. Fully 63 percent of the respondents agreed that “Turkey constituted a successful example of coexistence of democracy and Islam.”50 There is also an economic dimension of the demonstrative effect. It is not surprising that Turkish democracy has expanded hand in hand with the growth of its economy and its per capita income. Especially as the Turkish economy is increasingly engaging its neighborhood, a greater interaction between the Turkish business elite and the businesspeople of the region has been occurring.51 Inevitably, issues of rule of law, accountability, and transparency come up during conversations between businesspeople, as well as officials. Similarly, as Turkish companies consider investing in the regional economies, similar issues and pressures emerge accompanied by demands for setting up representative organizations. For example, the KRG has been keen to attract Turkish investment and experience into its region in an effort to learn from Turkish companies.52 In a similar fashion Syria has tried to learn from Turkey’s banking experience as an important step in its efforts to liberalize its economy. A concrete example of the demonstrative effect involves the way businesspeople from a number of countries around the Black Sea actually approached the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TUSIAD) to seek assistance in setting up a regional umbrella association to represent business interests in the region and learn from Turkey’s business experience. This culminated in a process that led to the establishment in November 2006 of the Union of Black Sea and Caspian Confederation of Enterprises (UBCCE), its secretariat located in TUSIAD’s headquarters in Istanbul. The process of setting up UBCCE and its subsequent activities have provided occasions for a transfer of experience and know-how to take place with regard to doing business in liberal markets and defending business interests in the political arena.53 Turkey has a vibrant higher education sector that is attracting a growing number of university students from its region. The government also runs a scholarship program that has been incorporated into the functions of the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA). In 2009 there were more than seven thousand foreign students studying on scholarship programs. A high-ranking governmental official argued that that was a unique practice in Turkey’s neighborhood and added that in time those students begin to want their countries to become like Turkey.54 Most of the students come from countries, such as Central Asian countries, that lack democratic traditions. Although the government does not run this program with an overt objective of democracy promotion, it recognizes the program’s demonstrative effect as it offers students the possibility of observing Turkey firsthand as an open society, with its strengths and weaknesses.55 That is recognized by the students, too. One such

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student, who held a high-ranking position in the Azeri bureaucracy, recognizing the significance of that experience, has argued that education in Turkey is contributing to the long-term formation of Putnam’s “social capital”56 in Azerbaijan, critical to developing and sustaining democracy.57 There is also a recognition on the part of governmental officials that adoption of a liberal visa policy should allow people to travel to Turkey freely and, as one official put it, “see Turkey for themselves and take back with them whatever they wish from their experience with Turkish democracy and economy.”58 Additionally, Turkish media and especially Turkish TV series are increasingly recognized as having an important demonstrative effect in the Arab world. They are seen as a bridge between the Arab world and a Western way of life, as depicted in a Muslim but democratic, liberal, and secular Turkey.59 The fact that the TV series are particularly popular among, for example, Saudi women, must indeed have a demonstrative effect. In a survey of Saudi women above the age of fifteen, held in March 2009, more than 71 percent of respondents said that they enjoyed Turkish TV series. The programs depict Turkish women as having a much more liberal and free way of life than women do in Saudi Arabia. Travel offers a channel for a demonstrative effect in the use of Istanbul by some Western nongovernmental organizations as a venue for meetings that gather activists from neighboring regions. This is partly done for logistical reasons; Turkey has a liberal visa policy, and Istanbul is easily accessible from most countries of the region. However, a more important and pertinent factor is that such meetings can be held much more freely and without fear of government surveillance or repression. Such meetings also become occasions when visitors from the region get to experience a lively and critical debate among Turkish participants over the problems of Turkey. Civil society and democracy activists have noted these experiences as examples of the demonstrative effects that Turkey has to offer.60 The most potent demonstrative effect may be that Turkish democracy is itself a work in progress. This closes the otherwise large gap, and hierarchical relationship, that inevitably forms between well-established democracies and countries that are receiving democratic assistance. Turkey acting as a venue for gathering activists from the region becomes critical, as they get both firsthand experience from their Turkish counterparts and they see the work in progress for themselves. A case in point would be women’s rights and honor killings. Arab and Turkish women activists find it easier to discuss those problems among themselves than their Western counterparts, who will treat the issue as a problem of the “other.”61 That may explain why when Abdullah Gµl, minister of foreign affairs at the time, addressed a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in late May 2003, he received a standing ovation. In his speech Gµl took a very critical view of the state of democracy in the Muslim world. He stressed the need for Muslim countries to pay greater attention to human rights and women’s rights, as well as to greater transparency in governance. However, his speech

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was very much framed from the perspective of being part of the membership and one of those who needs to improve. That was made clear when he noted, “We should first put our house in order.”62 The use of “we” was critical in relating to an audience that was meant to be a target of democracy diffusion. Additionally, when Gµl’s speeches are studied closely it is possible to recognize his preference for a discourse that resonates with his audience.63 He comfortably employs a detailed language of democracy when addressing a Western audience compared to an audience from countries lacking a democratic experience. In the latter case he puts emphasis on concepts such as “good governance,” “improving political participation,” and “transparency.” That ability to resonate with target audiences is probably the most important aspect of Turkey’s demonstrative effect. A Turkish official noted that when Western countries become engaged in democratic assistance with some of Turkey’s neighbors, they “sort of put a project down on the table like a brick and say, ‘Here it is. If you will implement it, you will become democratic.’” He then added how that approach usually leaves the receiving parties staring at the “brick” in an utter state of puzzlement. In contrast, when Turkey engages in democratic assistance, a sense of “we are in it together” develops.64 Government Policy

Currently, Turkey does not have an institutionalized democracy assistance policy. That is in stark contrast to the United States and the European Union. Since the end of the Cold War, both have developed elaborate democracy assistance policies with a large “democracy promotion industry”65 composed of state agencies, foundations, and civil society organizations often supported by generous public and private funds. However, this does not mean that Turkey has not had an interest in the democratization of its neighborhood. There have been numerous occasions when Turkish ministers of foreign affairs, as well as the prime minister, have stressed the importance of democratization, especially in the Muslim world. In addition to Gµl’s speech to the OIC, there are numerous occasions when similar points were raised at other regional and bilateral meetings. At the Fifth Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia in January 2004, Prime Minister Erdoÿan’s speech stressing democratization received a standing ovation, especially from the women, who had been segregated from the men in the conference hall. However, perhaps the most elaborate expression of Turkey’s approach to the question of democratization came during Erdoÿan’s speech at Harvard University later the same month. The speech was critical of the idea of Middle East’s “exceptionalism” and appealed to the Muslim world and the countries of the Middle East to recognize that “democracy is not particular to a specific group of societies. Democracy is universal, and a modern-day requirement.”66 There were also developments that went beyond speeches. The Turkish MFA worked actively to develop an approach to democratization for both the OIC and NATO summits in Istanbul in June 2004. It played a central role in

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drafting the Istanbul Declaration, with its emphasis on the need to move toward greater democracy in the Muslim world, which was adopted in June 2004 by the OIC summit. At that summit, Turkey was rewarded with the election of Ekmeleddin Ihsanoπlu, a Turkish national, as secretary general for the OIC. At the insistence of the Turkish side, he became the first secretary general to be elected rather than appointed. Since then, the OIC secretariat has been active in efforts to promote democracy-related projects, often under the title of “good governance.” The Turkish MFA has been actively involved in the implementation of the Broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA) initiative launched by President George W. Bush. At the G-8 Summit meeting in Sea Island, the Turkish prime minister announced Turkey’s support for the Foundation for the Future and offered cosponsorship of one of its projects, called Democracy Assistance Dialogue (DAD).67 The government made a modest financial contribution, and the MFA actively encouraged a Turkish think tank, TESEV, as will be discussed later on, to become the Turkish partner of one of the projects launched under the DAD.68 More recently, an informal discussion about developing a policy on democracy promotion has emerged in Turkey.69 The debate was started by Ibrahim Kalªn, who subsequently was appointed as chief foreign policy advisor to the prime minister, when he raised the question “What is the extent to which Turkey can support and promote an agenda of democratization, good governance, accountability, human rights, minority rights, transparency and representative democracy?”70 The question was accompanied by the awareness that “democracy promotion” is not a well-received term in Turkey’s neighborhood and that Turkey must be sensitive to the principle of “noninterference” in domestic affairs. This is clearly reflected in the speeches of, for example, the former minister of foreign affairs (at the time), Gµl, when he shied away from presenting Turkey as a model, preferring the term “inspiration” or “example,” and constantly emphasized the importance of domestic ownership of reform in place of external imposition.71 This approach very much explains the success that the Turkish side had in getting the OIC to include “good governance” and “expansion of political participation” in the Ten Year Program of Action in 2005. Those principles were subsequently incorporated into the new charter of the OIC at the Dakar Summit in March 2008.72 At a conference entitled Democracy, Security and Stability held in January 2010 for all serving Turkish ambassadors, Ahmet Davutoπlu, the Turkish minister of foreign affairs, underlined that “the greatest strength of Turkey is its democracy.”73 This is particularly significant because at least some of the ambassadors do not believe that Turkey is in a position to diffuse democracy, let alone run democracy assistance policies. One such ambassador remarked that the idea of Turkey “exporting democracy to its neighborhood would be a bit like Turkey trying to export manufactured goods back in the 1970s.” He thought that Turkey needed to consolidate and deepen its own democracy before attending to democracy promotion.74 One point on which most ambassadors and government officials concur is not to make a crusade out of democracy promotion. The concern over not making a

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crusade out of democracy promotion is, of course, most strikingly reflected in the way Turkey has chosen to handle its relations with countries such as Azerbaijan, Iran, and Sudan. The Turkish government has remained silent on the Azeri government’s imprisonment of young bloggers who took a critical view of the regime and its general human rights approach. Young Azeri human rights and democracy activists expressed their disappointment about this silence and said worse was the fact that with the exception of one Turkish CSO, the ARI Movement, no other Turkish civil society group had expressed any solidarity in support of their imprisoned colleagues.75 It was also reported that the Turkish Embassy actively discouraged Turkish human rights and democracy groups from coming to Azerbaijan. The fact that Prime Minister Erdoÿan and Minister of Foreign Affairs Davutoπlu were quick to congratulate Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after the controversial elections in June 2009 raised questions about the Turkish government’s commitment to the cause of democracy in the neighborhood. Similar concerns were also expressed about Erdoÿan’s remarks concerning the issue of “genocide” in Xinjiang, as well as Darfur, and Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir’s desire to participate in Istanbul at an OIC event in November 2009. One newspaper responded to the government’s support of al-Bashir with headlines that read “utanç” (embarrassment).76 Numerous commentators in Turkey were critical of Erdoÿan’s earlier populist remarks and drew attention to his employment of blatant double standards.77 A retired ambassador with considerable experience on democracy assistance issues took a critical view of those double standards, especially on Azerbaijan, noting that the government was too inconsistent and seemed afraid of offending leaders of certain countries.78 In terms of an institutional setup, the organization that comes nearest to resembling counterparts in the West is TIKA. Since the end of World War II, Turkey has been a major recipient of foreign aid, but in the past couple of years it has also become a major donor country. TIKA was founded in 1992 with the specific intent of assisting transition countries. Its initial activities remained modest, but from 2003 onward it became involved in the Middle East and Africa. Turkey’s first official aid was provided to a group of African countries in 1985. The sum at the time was a modest US$10 million; by 2008 that sum had reached US$780 million.79 Today TIKA provides developmental assistance to ninety-eight countries from a wide range of regions. The bulk of the assistance goes to support the Reconstruction of Afghanistan Program, which receives almost 45 percent of the overall funds. The next sixteen major recipient countries are all from the Balkans or Turkey’s immediate neighborhood, with the exception of Ethiopia and Sudan.80 TIKA’s goals and vision do not explicitly include democratic assistance. Neither the word “democracy” nor terms closely associated with it, such as “good governance,” “transparency,” “rule of law,” and “accountability,” appear in its 2008 annual report. Nevertheless, a close examination of the projects that TIKA has funded and supported does reveal programs that one could easily associate with a reform agenda that could help democratization in the longer run,

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such as training for judges, journalists, and the police. Furthermore, TIKA is committed to adhering to the United Nations Millennium Declaration Goals, which include promoting gender equality and giving greater power to women.81 Finally, TIKA works closely with CSOs both from Turkey and from recipient countries. Turkey’s experience in this respect is not limited to TIKA. The military in Ankara has run a NATO-certified Partnership for Peace Training Center since 1998,82 and some of the courses the center offers to foreign personnel touch upon issues to do with democracy, even if indirectly.83 Similar observations can be made about the police. At the Turkish Police Academy, training programs for various countries of the region are offered that address policing issues while highlighting principles and norms associated with human rights and the rule of law. In March 2010, in cooperation with the European Commission and the German government, the police organized a conference to bring together officials from Turkey’s neighborhood. The conference aimed at addressing issues related to asylum and comparing practices with a view to improving policies. One of the high-ranking Turkish officials responsible for the organization of the event noted that the meeting was the first of its kind primarily aimed at achieving a better management of asylum issues in the neighborhood. He recognized the link to democracy diffusion through the effort to implement the principles of international refugee law but noted that the initial objective for organizing the conference did not include the objective of democracy assistance.84 Finally, Turkish bureaucratic experience with a direct connection to democracy assistance includes the personnel support offered to the OSCE’s election-monitoring missions. Turkey held its first competitive national election in 1946 and since then has held sixteen such elections generally considered to be “free and fair.”85 Between 2002 and 2009 Turkey provided more than 210 observers to electionmonitoring missions and also assisted a number of elections in the Middle East, such as in Palestine and Yemen.86 The observers have been mostly drawn from universities and civil society and are offered on the basis of requests from the OSCE rather than as part of a Turkish democracy assistance program. As with the work in progress effect, the fact that Turkey does not have a full-fledged official democracy promotion policy may actually enhance its influence. Former president Süleyman Demirel’s warning in respect to the role that Turkey could play in the democratization of the Middle East—that “Turkey should not interfere” in the internal problems of neighboring countries and instead “lead them, advise them when help is needed”—is reflective of that approach.87 The absence of an official democracy promotion policy ironically earns Turkey considerable goodwill and trust. It dampens the kind of fears that Western policies engender in the minds of ruling elites that Western governments are more interested in overthrowing regimes than in promoting democratic transition and reform. It is not surprising that a Syrian columnist stated that “Turkey enjoys massive goodwill and trust with the Syrian regime” and believed that that would help efforts for reform in Syria considerably.88 The nonintrusive nature of

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the Turkish approach to democracy assistance, accompanied by the “trust” element, may well be one of the most important “added values” that Turkey can bring to efforts to assist democratization in its neighborhood in general and the Middle East in particular. Civil Society

Civil society has long been considered one of the essential institutions of a wellfunctioning pluralist democracy. Hence, it is not surprising that both the United States and the European Union have developed democracy promotion policies that give considerable significance to supporting and engaging civil society. Undoubtedly, not all civil society groups are involved in activities that directly relate to democracy promotion. It may be difficult to see the relationship between democracy promotion and, for example, an association representing enthusiasts of classic automobiles or bird watchers. There can also be civil society groups whose activities may well run against pluralist democracy, such as nongovernmental organizations that support racial supremacist interests.89 Clearly, those organizations that are involved in activities that advocate for improvement in human rights; call for greater national and local governmental transparency and accountability; struggle for greater and wider participation in politics, especially for women and minorities, can easily be considered as organizations that strive to create or improve pluralist democracy. Nongovernmental organizations that advocate for improvements in education, protection of the environment, and cultural diversity in a country can also be seen as contributing indirectly to the expansion of democracy. Similar observations can be made about organizations that attempt to promote conflict resolution, peace building, and greater economic interdependence. Finally, some civil society organizations are involved in transnational activities that contribute to democracy diffusion across borders as “activists beyond borders” and “norm or policy entrepreneurs.”90 They become part of “epistemic communities” where their specialized knowledge and legitimacy allow them the opportunity to raise and promote new ideas “from societies to governments as well as from country to country.”91 In Turkey, a section of the growing civil society is indeed involved in networks of activists, as well as epistemic communities, in their respective areas of specialization. For example nongovernmental organizations such as the Turkish branch of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly (HCA-Turkey), the Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed People (MAZLUM-DER), TESEV, and TUSIAD have all developed reputations for promoting activities and projects that directly support democratization at least since the mid-1990s. There are also Turkish organizations that are part of networks of activists promoting greater democracy, good governance, human rights, and political reform and which belong to epistemic communities in their respective areas of specialization. Internally, the Civil Society Platform (STP) and TUSEV are two umbrella organizations for a multitude of CSOs that are engaged in activities to expand

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democracy. External ties, however, are dominated by relations with civil society organizations, particularly in western Europe, and have primarily aimed to deepen and expand the quality of democracy in Turkey rather than promoting a “Turkish model” elsewhere. Nevertheless, in the past couple of years it has also been possible to notice Turkish nongovernmental organizations that are becoming engaged in Turkey’s immediate neighborhood and beyond. Business-related groups such as the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (MUSIAD), Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK), Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM), Turkish Union of Chambers (TOBB), TUSIAD, and Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON) are, of course, the most visible ones in terms of their transnational relations. Most even have offices abroad in places like Washington, Berlin, Brussels, and Paris. There are also a growing number of think tanks with increasing international links, such as TESEV and the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA). Slowly but surely, civil society organizations dealing with issues including cultural diversity, the environment, humanitarian assistance, and women are also beginning to develop transnational links, including with Turkey’s neighborhood. They are all in one way or another engaged in external activities. Those activities are mostly dominated by groups oriented to development and humanitarian assistance, such as the Anatolian Development Foundation (AKV), the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), and the International Blue Crescent Relief and Development Foundation (IBC). There are also nongovernmental organizations involved in projects in Turkey’s neighborhood that have a closer link to democracy promotion, ranging from promoting women’s rights to exercising the freedom to organize. One example is the Women for Women’s Human Rights (WWHR), part of a very vocal women’s movement in Turkey that played a critical role in the reformulation of the Turkish Penal Code during the EU reform process. It was also a member of a coalition of women’s organizations that successfully resisted government efforts to criminalize adultery in 2004.92 Most important, in 2001 it led the formation of a solidarity network known as the Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies (CSBR) in an effort to break taboos on sexuality and the sexual rights of women in the Muslim world. WWHR is recognized by many members of the network as having played a critical role in diffusing the Turkish experience elsewhere in the Muslim world and also in having encouraged organizations to work together to share their experiences and to raise their voices more effectively.93 Another example of a Turkish CSO is the Association of Art, Culture and Ecology (GOLADER). GOLADER is composed of a small group of highly educated young people who since 2006 have organized pastoral festivals in the mountains along the northeastern Black Sea coast of Turkey close to Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.94 The region is famous for such festivals, but what sets the activities of GOLADER apart from the others are the values that guide

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its activities. GOLADER representatives are extremely sensitive with respect to organizing festivals that are environment friendly. They also aim to promote the cultural and ethnic diversity of the region, as well as better relations across the borders of the region. They try to achieve this by inviting participants to the festivals from the neighboring countries. They also provide assistance to local civil society groups wishing to develop contacts with neighboring countries; for example, they actively encourage Georgian youth to organize themselves around similar values. These examples are very much representative of the involvement of most CSOs in Turkey’s immediate neighborhood. One of the most striking common denominators is that an overwhelming proportion of the funds for their projects come from abroad, especially from the United States and the EU, but also from individual European countries. Those funds are mostly governmental, but also include funds from private foundations such as Open Society. A consequent second characteristic of CSOs involved in democracy projects that receive external funding from the West is that they are often accused of being “Soros’s children.”95 Turkish political culture continues to remain sensitive toward the involvement of the external world in Turkey’s internal affairs. A constant fear and concern that the West actually has a hidden agenda to weaken and undermine Turkey’s unity and integrity permeates the society. That phenomenon is often referred to as the “Sèvres phobia.”96 Many CSO representatives have complained that they often get publically criticized, if not attacked, for being stooges of Western imperialism.97 Third, Turkish CSOs involved in projects and activities that have some connection to democratization lack an open and direct democracy promotion agenda. They carefully refrain from soliciting projects and prefer to be approached. Their objectives are often narrowly defined and, if anything, the democracy promotion implications of the activities are recognized only as an afterthought.98 The exceptions to that appear to be TESEV and the Corporate Social Responsibility Association of Turkey (TKSSD). TESEV, for example, was involved in Syrian efforts to develop and adopt a higher education law for private universities. The consultations started in the spring of 2002 and culminated in the opening of the first private university in Syria in 2004.99 In terms of democracy, experts working for TESEV contributed to the process of drafting a reform law on local government. TESEV has had considerable experience in efforts to reform Turkey’s local government law for some time and played a critical role in Syria’s efforts, too.100 However, the project that has earned TESEV the reputation of possibly being the first Turkish CSO engaged in outright democracy promotion in the Middle East is its involvement in efforts to set up a gender institute in the region as part of the Democracy Assistance Dialogue within the Foundation for the Future. TESEV has led the process, including holding conferences on women’s issues with the participation of civil society group representatives from the Arab world, and have neared the point where such an institute is close to being established in Jordan.101

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TKSSD is a relatively new CSO that works closely with a Turkish private university in Istanbul. Two of its projects involve Iran and Ukraine and aim to raise corporate responsibility especially with respect to human rights. Although in the case of the project in Iran there is a conscious effort to refrain from making references to a democracy agenda, the president of the CSO is quite categorical regarding the organization’s role with respect to democracy promotion.102 Among all the Turkish civil society groups, the one that has attracted the most controversy and attention recently is the Gµlen Movement. The movement is led by Fethullah Gµlen, a religious preacher who has been living in the United States since the late 1990s. The movement has been called “the largest and most influential Islamic group in Turkey and the most widely recognized one internationally.”103 The movement is also seen by some, together with AKP, as contributing to the emergence of the notion of “Muslim democracy.” In the West, especially in the United States, the movement has been recognized as a “moderate and pro-democratic force” that also supports liberal market values.104 It supports an extensive network of schools and businesses across the world through which it disseminates its views on politics. At the same time there are those who look at the movement with growing skepticism and question the commitment of the movement to truly liberal democratic values. Concerns have been expressed with respect to the movement’s transparency, finances, political agenda, and commitment to women’s rights and pluralist democracy.105 There are also allegations that the movement has placed members and sympathizers in the Turkish police and intelligence service and that those people have played an important role in the revelations concerning the Ergenekon affair, centered around allegations of several coups attempts against the AKP government during their first term of office and the arrest of military officers implicated in this affair.106 These developments are contributing to growing concerns within the EU and the United States about Turkish democracy and the rule of law, as well as the Turkish government’s commitment to being part of the West. Nevertheless, the Gµlen Movement has become an actor with considerable influence in Turkey and beyond it. It is also likely to increase its current engagement of Turkey’s neighborhood in the coming years.

Conclusion

One striking aspect of Turkey’s transformed external relations is that, especially through its demonstrative effect, governmental policy, and civil society, the country has become involved in the diffusion of democracy in its neighborhood. However, the form and nature of its engagement of the countries in its neighborhood is quite different from the engagement of the EU and the United States in other countries. First, the fact that Turkey is far from having consolidated its own democracy in many ways facilitates its engagement of countries that are trying to reform. Turkey’s democracy being a work in progress makes it much

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easier for the Turkish experience and efforts to be received more favorably compared to Western players. It offers an engagement that is perceived to be independent of a hierarchical or hegemonic relationship, one that enjoys considerable trust and credibility. This is also very much a function of Turkey’s policies not being tainted by a “regime change” agenda, which stands as a pervasive source of suspicion of Western democracy promotion efforts especially among the Arab public.107 Second, neither the Turkish government nor Turkish civil society groups consider democracy assistance to be the central objective of their activities. Instead, more often than not, diffusion of democracy is an indirect product of Turkey’s demonstrative effect. The government is particularly conscious of not ruffling feathers and stays clear of a democracy discourse when it comes to its relations with countries with authoritarian regimes. This has even led to criticism from within the ranks of the Turkish MFA on the grounds that the government shies away from offending countries close to Turkey such as Azerbaijan and Central Asian republics.108 Yet Turkish officials argue that in such cases of authoritarian regimes, they prefer to take a long-term approach and a much broader view of democracy diffusion. This is an approach that is consistent with Turkey’s own Sèvres phobia and its desire not to be seen as interfering in the internal affairs of other countries. Hence, wherever the Turkish government does get involved in activities that resemble democracy assistance, it is done in an indirect manner and by linking the exercises to Turkey’s own efforts at home. The importance of local ownership of reform is stressed against imposition from the outside. Third, Turkey does not have a “democracy industry” of its own. The advantage here is that in countries where democracy promotion has become tainted, Turkish government and civil society activities do not suffer from problems of legitimacy. This is reinforced by the fact that Turkish CSOs do not use language or discourse associated with democracy assistance. Their focus is on the task to be done, such as improving the rights of women, promoting better education, encouraging civic efforts to address public problems, and advocating liberal market values—even if the long-term implications of such activities for democray promotion are evident. In this way Turkey is contributing to a process of “social capital” formation, in Putnam’s sense of the term, and assisting in the formation of “epistemic communities” and “transnational advocacy networks.” Finally, Turkey’s own democracy is not yet consolidated. The democracy assistance activities that the Turkish government and civil society are involved in inevitably contribute to Turkey’s own democratization process. These are activities that by their very nature engage groups and personalities that have a stake in Turkey’s transformation toward a more pluralistic and consolidated democracy. The recognition of Turkey’s demonstrative effect as a source of reform and democratization in its neighborhood is also a recognition that Turkish democracy has to continue to be improved. As a former Turkish ambassador noted, this becomes “all the more reason for us to sincerely continue with democratization.”109

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A case in point is the way the Turkish government, through TIKA or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is increasingly cooperating with CSOs in their overseas programs. Interestingly, in many of his speeches addressing the issue of democratization, Abdullah Gµl has stressed the importance of encouraging and working with civil society. This is in stark contrast to a political culture in Turkey that once looked at civil society with suspicion. At a time when a critical debate is taking place in both the United States and the EU on reforming democracy promotion, there may well be lessons to be learned from the Turkish experience. This is important for a number of reasons. Despite the fact that this experience is of a very modest and preliminary nature, in the past couple of years both the Turkish government and its civil society have been acquiring experience in developing, negotiating, and running a variety of projects in neighboring countries. First, this experience offers a “cultural match” between the “norm makers” and “norm takers”110 and could benefit efforts to reform democracy promotion policies of the United States and the EU. Second, partnerships between Turkish actors and their US and European counterparts ought to be considered. Currently, Turkey is often thought of as a recipient or target of democracy promotion policies rather than a partner. Partnership could help both sides to benefit from each other’s know-how and networks. If handled and managed well, such partnerships could help the United States and the EU overcome the stigma of illegitimacy that democracy promotion is suffering from. More important, such partnerships could help support Turkey’s own democratization process by strengthening democratic thinking, as well as civil society. Paradoxically, they could also help Turkish civil society avoid mistakes similar to those of their Western counterparts related to the sensitivities of recipient societies. Third, as Brown and Hawthorne have pointed out, the democracy promotion industry in the West has relied more on “techniques associated with supporting the consolidation phase of democratization than in stimulating” the initial stages of democratization.111 A Turkish civil society that is itself still a fledgling one encounters problems similar to those in neighboring countries and could help develop the relevant techniques to address those problems. One such technique concerns strategies to deal with and manage accusations of being “Soros’s children” while continuing to cooperate with Western actors. Turkey engaging in democracy diffusion in its neighborhood has an additional very important strategic benefit. Turkey sits over a major fault line in a political geography where pluralist democracies and authoritarian regimes such as Iran and Russia face each other. That fault line is dotted with a string of weak democracies, as well as countries in dire need of reform. Hence, what happens to Turkey’s democracy will have critical implications for at least the Caucasus and the Middle East if not beyond. Though it is still not a consolidated liberal democracy, Turkey has come a long way, and what could be called pockets of liberal democracy have emerged in the country. This is reflected in Turkey’s governmental and civil society efforts to assist democratization in its neighborhood,

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even if in a shy and indirect manner. That is occurring at a time that a backlash against democracy promotion is being led by states such as China, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela. Those states are also actively promoting their regimes as alternative models to weak democracies and to countries that are struggling with high energy costs.112 In Turkey, as well, there are sympathizers of this alternative approach built around the notion of “sovereign democracy.” Therefore, engaging Turkey in democracy promotion partnerships has also a critical strategic value. The call by Asmus et al. to anchor Turkey in transatlantic efforts involving democracy promotion made during the launching of the BMENA project back in 2004 is still valid today.113 In that context, keeping Turkey’s EU membership prospects real becomes even more important. It is doubtful that Turkey would have managed to improve the quality of its democracy significantly without the engagement of the EU. The prospects of EU membership are inevitably going to strengthen the demonstrative effect, as well as the “government” and civil society channels of Turkish democracy diffusion. The fact that 64 percent of the surveyed Arab public in 2009 supported the view that the prospect of EU membership is what makes Turkey an attractive partner as a model for the Arab world speaks for itself.114 A recent International Crisis Group report makes a similar observation for the elite of the Middle East.115

Notes 1. Remark made at an internal meeting on democracy promotion at the Transatlantic Academy, November 23, 2009. 2. Diamond, The Spirit of Democracy, p. 139. 3. Özbudun, Contemporary Turkish Politics; Kalaycªoπlu, Turkish Dynamics. 4. Freedom in the World, 2009, http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page= 363&year=2009 (accessed Jan. 7, 2010). 5. Youngs, International Democracy and the West, p. 1. 6. In the last couple of years, in both the United States and the EU, there is a debate on reforming and revitalizing democracy promotion. For this debate see Burnell and Youngs, New Challenges to Democratization; Youngs, Survey of European Democracy Promotion Policies 2000–2006; Emerson and Youngs, Democracy’s Plight in the European Neighbourhood; Carothers, U.S. Democracy Promotion During and After Bush; Cohen and Küpçü, Revitalizing U.S. Democracy Promotion; International IDEA, Democracy in Development. 7. Elekdaπ, “2-1/2 War Strategy.” 8. Kepenek and Yentµrk, Türkiye Ekonomisi, p. 334. 9. Kiri≈≈sci, “A Friendlier Schengen Visa System as a Tool of ‘Soft Power.’” 10. In 1971, THY flew to eleven countries, overwhelmingly in Western Europe. There were no flights whatsoever to the former Soviet world and one flight to Lebanon and Israel, respectively. In 2009 this picture was dramatically altered, and THY flew to 39 destinations in the former Communist bloc and 23 destinations in the Middle East and North Africa. Data obtained from Nergiz, Türkiye’de Sivil Havacªlªπªn Geli≈simi ve THY and the head offices of Turkish Airlines. 11. Bikmen and Meydanoπlu, Civil Society in Turkey, pp. 35–38. For a critical analysis of Turkish civil society see S ≈ im≈sek “The Transformation of Civil Society in Turkey”;

168 Kemal Kiris¸ci

Kubicek, “The European Union and Grassroots Democratization in Turkey”; Toros, “Understanding the Role of Civil Society as an Agent for Democratic Consolidation.” 12. For the original articulation of the policy see Davutoπlu, “Türkiye merkez ülke olmalª”; Davutoπlu, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy Vision.” 13. Kiri≈sci, Tocci, and Walker. “A Neighborhood Rediscovered”; Karda≈s, “Turkey.” 14. Danforth, “Ideology and Pragmatism in Turkish Foreign Policy”; Kalªn, “Turkey and the Middle East.” 15. Jung, “Turkey and the Arab World,” pp. 118–119. 16. Interview with a former US ambassador to Turkey, Mar. 2010. 17. For a detailed study of these packages Özbudun and Gençkaya, Democratization and the Politics of Constitution Making in Turkey. 18. Kubicek, “The European Union and Grassroots Democratization in Turkey.” 19. Göksel and Güne≈s, “The Role of the NGOs in the European Integration Process,” p. 62. 20. Keyman and Aydªn, “European Integration and the Transformation of Turkish Democracy.” 21. Alpay, “The Declining ‘Soft Power’ of the EU Regarding Turkey,” p. 67; Yavuz, Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey. 22. Smith, “Leveraging Norms.” 23. Ye≈silada and Fisunoπlu, “Assessing the January 24, 1980 Economic Stabilization Program in Turkey,” p. 202. 24. Togan, “Turkey’s Economy,” p. 73. 25. Barkey, “The Silent Victor.” 26. Toksöz, “The Economy,” pp. 144–145. 27. Heraclides, “Greek-Turkish Relations from Discord to Détente.” 28. Uzgel, “Doksanlarda Turkiye Için I≈sbirliπi ve Rekabet Alanª Olarak Balkanlar.” 29. Glenny, “Heading Off War in Southern Balkans,” p. 105. 30. Larrabee, Troubled Partnership, pp. 21–24. 31. Przeworski, et al., Democracy and Development. 32. Diamond, The Spirit of Democracy, pp. 98, 102–103. 33. Demir, Acar, and Toprak, “Anatolian Tigers or Islamic Capital,” p. 168; Pamuk, “Economic Change in Twentieth Century Turkey,” p. 291; ESI, Islamic Calvinists. 34. Öni≈s and Türem “Entrepreneurs, Democracy and Citizenship in Turkey.” 35. Kubicek, “The Earthquake, Civil Society and Political Change in Turkey”; Jalali, “Civil Society and the State.” 36. Bayraktaroπlu, “The Media Change and Impact,” pp. 122, 127. 37. Aydªnlª, Özcan, and Akyaz, “The Turkish Military’s March Towards Europe,” p. 84. 38. Cizre, “Ideology, Context and Interest.” 39. Özel, “Turkey at the Polls,” p. 93. 40. Yavuz, Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey, pp. 1–4. 41. Nasr, “The Rise of Muslim Democracy”; Tepe, “Turkey’s AKP.” 42. Turam, Between Islam and the State, pp. 30–32. 43. Çarkoπlu and Kalaycªoπlu, The Rising Tide of Conservatism in Turkey, p. 149. 44. Cook, “Turkey’s War at Home”; Turan, “War at Home, Peace Abroad.” 45. Huntington, The Third Wave, p. 101. 46. Whitehead, “Democracy and Decolonization,” p. 361. 47. Diamond, The Spirit of Democracy, p. 109. 48. Huntington, The Third Wave, p. 105. 49. Al-Azm, “Islam and Secular Humanism,” p. 48. 50. Akgün et al, The Perception of Turkey in the Middle East, pp. 21, 22. 51. Kiri≈sci, “The Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy.”

Democracy Diffusion: The Turkish Experience 169

52. Interview with businessman in Istanbul representing the Süzer Holding in northern Iraq and a former president of the Diyarbakªr Chamber of Commerce (DTO), Oct. 2009. 53. Interview with the current secretary general of UBCCE, Aug. 2009. 54. Interview with a high-ranking official from the prime minister’s office, Oct. 2009. 55. Interview with a high-ranking official at the prime minister’s office, Oct. 2009. 56. Putnam, Making Democracy Work. 57. Interview held in Baku in Oct. 2009. 58. Interview with a high-ranking official at the prime minister’s office, Oct. 2009. 59. Al Sharif and Saha, “Turkey’s European Membership,” p. 25. 60. Interviews with representatives of European Stability Initiative, Hollings Center, and the Henrich Böll Foundation. See also Kalªn, “Debating Turkey in the Middle East” for similar observations. 61. Interview with a leading member of Women for Women’s Human Rights (WWHR), Aug. 2009, Istanbul, and a Syrian women activist, Oct. 2009, Damascus. 62. Gµl, Horizons of Turkish Foreign Policy in the New Century, p. 528. 63. All his speeches delivered during his term as Minister of Foreign Affairs can be found in Gµl, Horizons of Turkish Foreign Policy in the New Century. 64. Interview with a diplomat at the Turkish embassy in Washington, DC, Sept. 2009. Similar observations were also made by an AKP member of parliament familiar with issues of democratic assistance, interviewed Aug. 2009, and a high-ranking official from the Office of the Prime Minister, Oct. 2009. Both remarks were made during interviews held in Ankara. 65. Brown and Hawthorne, “New Wine in Old Bottles?” p. 16. 66. For the full text of the speech entitled “Democracy in the Middle East, Pluralism in Europe: Turkish View” see http://www.turkishweekly.net/article/8/erdogandemocracy-in-the-middle-east-pluraliism-in-europe-turkish-view-.html (accessed Jan. 11, 2010). 67. Akçapar, Turkey’s New European Era, pp. 107–108. 68. Interview with a member of TESEV, Aug. 2009, and e-mail correspondence with a former Turkish ambassador and BMENA Coordinator of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey. 69. Interviews with high-ranking officials from the prime minister’s office, Oct. 2009. 70. Kalªn, “Turkey and the Middle East,” p. 32. 71. See speeches in Gµl, Horizons of Turkish Foreign Policy in the New Century. A similar point was also highlighted by Süleyman Demirel, a seasoned politician who served as prime minister and was the ninth president of Turkey. In an interview he argued that Turkey should focus on its own democratization to better serve as an “example of a democratic republic,” Göksel, “Turkey and Democratization in the Middle East,” p. 17. 72. Interview with an official from the secretariat of OIC, Oct. 2009. 73. “Davutoglu: Türkiye’nin gücü demokrasisindedir,” www.Haberinbeyi.com, Jan. 4, 2010. Actually, the minister in an earlier elaboration of the principles of his government’s foreign policy had said “First, if there is not a balance between security and democracy in a country, it may not have a chance to establish an area of influence in its environs. The legitimacy of any political regime comes from its ability to provide security to its citizens; this security should not be at the expense of freedoms and human rights in the country.” He had put the issue of “democracy” before his infamous “zero problem policy towards Turkey’s neighbors” principle, Davutoπlu, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy Vision,” p. 79. 74. Interview held in Oct. 2009 in Ankara.

170 Kemal Kiris¸ci

75. Interview held with members of the Youth Movement in Baku, Oct. 2009. 76. Radikal, Nov. 7, 2009. The reactions in Turkey and abroad culminated in the Sudanese president’s decision not to come to Istanbul. 77. For example Riza Türmen, “Darfur and Gazze,” Milliyet, Mar. 6, 2009; Semih Idiz, “Diplomasi AKP’ye birkaç gömlek bµyµk gelmeye basladª,” Milliyet, Mar. 6, 2009; Semih Idiz, “≈Sincan ile populism damarª yine depre≈sti,” Milliyet, July 13, 2009; Sami Kohen, “≈Sincan açmazª,” Milliyet, July 15, 2009; “Tahran’a da one minute denmeliydi,” Milliyet, June 30, 2009. 78. E-mail correspondence with a former Turkish ambassador. 79. Kulaklªkaya, “Turkey as an Emerging Donor.” 80. Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency, Turkish Development Assistance Report, 2008, p. 10. 81. Fidan and Nurdun, “Turkey’s Role in the Global Development Assistance Community,” p. 94. 82. Baπcª and Karda≈s, “Exploring Turkey’s Role in Peace Operations,” p. 134. 83. A long list of the courses run by this center can be viewed at www.bioem.tsk.tr. An example on this point are the courses run on the management of refugee crises that covers norms and principles of international refugee law. 84. Telephone interview with a police chief responsible for organizing the meeting, Mar. 2010. 85. For a coverage of these elections up to 2002 see Kalaycªoπlu, Turkish Dynamics. 86. E-mail exchanges with Turkish MFA officials. 87. Göksel, “Turkey and Democratization in the Middle East,” p. 17. 88. Interview held in Oct. 2009 in Damascus. 89. Diamond, The Spirit of Democracy, pp. 158–160. 90. Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norms and Political Change.” 91. Haas, “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” p. 27. 92. Ilkkaracan, “Introduction.” 93. Interview with the president of WWHR, Aug. 2009. 94. Interview with the president of GOLADER, Aug. 2009. 95. There are quite a few Islamist, nationalist as well as left-wing groups in Turkey that saw the “color revolutions” very much perpetrated by “Soros’s children.” For example, the public protests in Iran against the result of the Iranian presidential elections were attributed to a group of “well dressed Soros’s youth,” Taha Akyol, “Iran’da Soros komplosu!” Milliyet, June 23, 2009. 96. In essence the term reflects the fear that the Treaty of Sèvres of 1920 (drawn up by the victorious powers at the end of World War I and carving up the remaining Anatolian regions of the Ottoman Empire into small states and occupation zones) will be revived. The “Sèvres phobia” becomes important not only because it constitutes a filter through which the world is perceived, but also because especially nationalists and sometimes government and military officials too are able to manipulate it to influence public attitudes toward the external world. In this manner “national security” becomes defined and stressed with respect to concerns and threats, real or imagined, that might undermine Turkey’s territorial integrity. 97. For example, a representative of Flying Broom, a Turkish women’s organization, recalled how members of the Turkish Workers Party, a left-wing nationalist group, raided an international event and accused the participants of being “Soros’s children” and of betraying the country, interview held in Washington, DC, Dec. 2009. Similar concerns were expressed to the author by practically every NGO representative interviewed. 98. The overwhelming majority of civil society representatives with activities in Turkey’s neighborhood did not mention democracy promotion as their major objectives

Democracy Diffusion: The Turkish Experience 171

during interviews. However, all the interviewees immediately recognized the link between their activities and democracy promotion but expressed their explicit reluctance to raise the issue with their counterparts. 99. Interview with a member of the faculty at Damascus University who participated in the process, Nov. 2009. 100. Interview with an international expert assigned to the Municipal Administration Modernization Project, Syria, Nov. 2009. 101. TESEV, Geni≈sletilmi≈s Orta Doπu ve Kuzey Afrika Toplumsal Cinsiyet Enstitutüsu Için Fizibilite Raporu. 102. Interview with the president of TKSSD in Ankara, Aug. 2009. 103. Turam, Between Islam and the State, p. 19. 104. Ibid., p. 20. 105. Probably the most striking criticism of the movement comes from a TurkishAmerican academic, Hakan Yavuz, who in his previous writings described the movement as one contributing to pluralist democracy. However, more recently he has become critical of the movement on the grounds that its commitment to democracy, freedom of thought, and secularism is becoming suspect. For these views see a series of articles by Özdemir Ince in Hµrriyet, June 13–15, 2008. On women’s rights see Turam, Between Islam and the State, pp. 117–119. 106. S ≈ ener, Ergenekon Belgelerinde Fetullah Gµlen ve Cemaat. For coverage of the Ergenekon affair see Cizre and Walker, “Conceiving the New Turkey after Ergenekon.” 107. Brown and Hawthorne, “New Wine in Old Bottles?” p. 24. 108. E-mail correspondence with a former Turkish ambassador. 109. Remark made by Ömür Orhun, former Turkish ambassador to the OSCE. 110. For the importance of “cultural match” in diffusing and ensuring the absorption of norms see Checkel, “Norms, Institutions, and National Identity in Contemporary Europe.” 111. Brown and Hawthorne, “New Wine in Old Bottles?” p. 24. 112. Gat, “The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers”; Gershman and Allen “New Threats to Freedom”; Diamond, “The Democratic Rollback.” 113. Asmus, Diamond, Leonard, and McFaul, “A Transatlantic Agenda for the Promotion of Democracy in the Broader Middle East.” 114. Akgün et al., The Perception of Turkey in the Middle East, p. 25. 115. The report notes that “Middle Eastern elites worry about any sign of Ankara turning its back on its EU accession process. Much of their recent fascination with Turkey’s achievements derives from the higher standards, greater prosperity, broader democracy, legitimacy of civilian rulers, advances towards real secularism and successful reforms that have resulted from negotiating for membership of the EU,” Turkey and the Middle East, p. ii.

8 Turkey as an Economic Neighbor Thomas Straubhaar

The end of the Cold War changed the political landscape of the Black Sea area and the Middle East completely. In the northeast, the collapse of the Soviet Union was followed by the nascence of new sovereign nation states—with all the problems of nation building and all the costs of going through a fundamental economic and social transformation from communist systems to marketoriented economies. In the west, the European Union widened geographically and deepened structurally, increasing the number of full members from twelve to fifteen (1995), then to twenty-five (2004), and finally to twenty-seven (2007). Furthermore, a European Monetary Union with a common currency for seventeen members was established. Finally, the southeast—in the past disturbed by political crisis and wars—has become more important as a supplier of energy (i.e., gas and oil) not only for the area itself but even more for Europe and other world regions.1 At the same time, new telecommunication and information technologies have lowered dramatically the costs of globally exchanging news, knowledge, and data, leading to new forms of international business. Gigantic container ships, huge oil tankers, powerful aircrafts, and high-capacity pipelines have made long-distance transport and travel cheap. As part of this globalization, specialization and the international division of labor have increased to a global scale. Trade, capital, and migration flows have risen. Countries that had been on the periphery of international activities have moved to the center. This is especially true for Turkey and its neighbors.

From the Periphery to the Core

For almost fifty years between the end of World War II and the end of the Cold War, Turkey was a border state between West and East, between communist and capitalist economic systems. It was an economically isolated country with no strong relationships with its neighbors. In the Black Sea area, the political 173

174 Thomas Straubhaar

borders with the Soviet Union and its satellites were almost hermetically sealed. In the east, the geographical impediment of the Caucasus Mountains restricted cross-border movements of goods and factors. In the nearby western neighborhood, long-standing animosities prevented strong trade and migration flows with Greece and Cyprus. The end of the Cold War completely changed Turkish economic relations with its neighbors. Turkey moved from the periphery to the center of a region that is transforming politically, socially, and economically very fast. It is now surrounded by thirteen sovereign nation-states, which are more or less open to international trade and factor movements.2 All those new nation-states have become potential partners for all kinds of economic activities. Due to their proximity, they are easily accessible markets for Turkish exports of goods or for imports of energy. Furthermore, they could provide the Turkish economy with a cheap labor force—either as migrants to Turkey or as workers for Turkish plants to be established in the neighborhood. A Very Heterogeneous Neighborhood

Turkey and its neighbors have developed rapidly in the past twenty years. The gross domestic product (GDP) of the whole area has grown from about US$1 trillion in 1990 to US$3.7 trillion in 2008. That is an increase by a factor of 3.5, which is much more than the economy of the United States (which increased by a factor of 2.5) or the euro area (2.4) experienced in the same period. Consequently, Turkey and its neighborhood have widened their economic size compared to the size of the US economy by almost 8 percent, from about 18 percent in 1990 to more than 26 percent in 2008. Turkey was and is a regional power within the Black Sea area and the Middle East. Its economy produced a GDP of about US$800 billion in 2008 (see Table 8.1). That is about one-fifth of the total GDP of the area and 38 percent if the Russian economy is not counted. The Turkish GDP is half as big as the Russian GDP but is twice the size of either the Iranian or Greek GDP. It was about 2.6 percent of the US GDP in 1990. Since then the Turkish economy has caught up remarkably. It has gone through a period of dynamic growth (with some deep crises in between). Table 8.1 shows that the Turkish economy has had the fastest growth of all economies in the area (with the exception of Romania and Armenia, which began from an extremely low level). The size of the Turkish economy compared to that of the United States has more than doubled, to 5.6 percent in 2008. Turkey has become the seventeenth-largest economy worldwide and, consequently, is a member of the G20 group. Finally, Table 8.1 shows how heterogeneous the Black Sea area and the Middle East was and still is. While the Russian economy has produced a GDP of US$1.6 trillion in 2008, most of the countries of the area generate only a tiny fraction of that.

Turkey as an Economic Neighbor

175

Table 8.1 Economies of Turkey and Its Neighborhood, 1990 and 2008 1990

1990

2008

2008

1990–2008 1990–2008

GDP GDP GDP GDP Increase in billion $ US = 100a in billion $ US = 100a 1990 = 100b Russia Turkey Iran Greece Romania Ukraine Syria Bulgaria Azerbaijan Cyprus Georgia Armenia Moldova Turkey plus its neighborhood US Euro Area

2008

Change to USc

Population in millions

517 151 116 116 38 81 12 21 9 6 8 2 4

9.0 2.6 2.0 2.0 0.7 1.4 0.2 0.4 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.1

1,608 794 385 385 200 180 55 50 46 21 13 12 6

11.3 5.6 2.7 2.7 1.4 1.3 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.0

311 526 332 380 526 222 458 238 511 350 163 600 150

2.3 3.0 0.7 0.9 0.7 –0.1 0.2 0.0 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.1 –0.1

142 74 72 11 22 46 21 8 9 1 4 3 4

1,059 5,757 5,686

18.4 100.0 98.8

3,727 14,204 13,565

26.2 100.0 96.0

352 247 239

7.8 0.0 –2.8

446 304 326

Source: World Bank, Quick Query Database. http://data.worldbank.org/ Notes: a. US = 100 sets the GDP of the United States to hundred; values for single countries show the size of their economy compared to that of the United States. b. Increase 1990–2008 with 1990 = 100 shows the total growth for a single economy between 1990 and 2008 in percent. c. Change to US 1990–2008 = the change between 1990 and 2008 of the size of national GDP vis-àvis that of the United States. No reliable data available for Iraq.

Table 8.2 presents the GDP per capita. It confirms the heterogeneity of the Black Sea area and the Middle East. There are high-income countries in the West with an average national per capita income that is almost 3.5 times (Greece) or more than 2.6 times (Cyprus) the average per capita GDP of the region as a whole. And there are very poor countries, like Moldova and Syria, with an average national per capita GDP that is about one-quarter (Syria) to one-sixth (Moldova) of the average GDP for the group. There is an income gap of almost twenty to one between the richest and the poorest countries of the area. Table 8.2 also reproduces the variation coefficient (VC) as an indicator to measure and compare the heterogeneity of an area.3 It shows a value of 0.98 for Turkey and its neighborhood, 0.78 for the current EU with twenty-seven member states, and 0.34 for the EU of fifteen member states (i.e., the “old” EU excluding the ten new members in eastern Europe, Malta, and Cyprus). The variation coefficient clearly demonstrates that Turkey and its neighborhood are a much more diverse region than the EU is.

176 Thomas Straubhaar Table 8.2 GDP per Capita in Turkey and Its Neighborhood, 2008 All data for 2008

GDP per Capita in current $

GDP per Capita Average = 100

Greece Cyprus Russia Turkey Romania Bulgaria Iran Azerbaijan Armenia Ukraine Georgia Syria Moldova

31,875 24,306 11,340 10,744 9,302 6,579 5,350 5,287 3,900 3,888 2,955 2,594 1,667

346 264 123 117 101 71 58 57 42 42 32 28 18

Average (Mean) VC for the Areaa US Euro Area VC for the EU-27a VC for the EU-15a

9,214 0.98 46,724 41,610 0.78 0.34

100 507 452

Source: World Bank, Quick Query Database. http://data.worldbank.org/ Notes: a. VC = variation coefficient = standard deviation divided by the mean. No reliable data available for Iraq.

Increasing, but Still Low Neighborhood Trade

Turkey has taken up the opportunities and the risks that have occurred as a consequence of the end of the Cold War. It has changed from a rather closed (import-substitution) economy to a much more open (export-oriented) economy with a still very strong share of state-owned and state-run enterprises. As Table 8.3 shows, in 1970 the openness indicator (defined as the sum of imports and exports of all goods and services divided by GDP) for Turkey was about 10 percent. In the past twenty years the openness indicator has risen from 31 percent (1990) to more than 50 percent in 2008. However, Table 8.3 also shows that the openness of the Turkish economy is still modest compared to that of other countries with a similar level of development. Worldwide middle-income countries have an average openness indicator of about 60 percent; the EU countries have an indicator of about 80 percent (both are unweighted averages). Turkish trade relations are characterized by a large trade deficit, of about US$70 billion in 2008 (Table 8.4b). In 2008, Turkey exported goods in the value of about US$130 billion and imported goods of about US$200 billion value.4 With regard to trade partners, Table 8.4 shows that the EU-27 has played and still plays the central role for Turkey by far, with Germany being the most important European trade partner. However, the EU has lost a part of its dominant trade position to Turkey’s close neighborhood. The EU accounted for

Turkey as an Economic Neighbor

177

Table 8.3 Degree of Openness of the Turkish Economy, 1970–2008 percentage 1970

1980

1990

2000

2008

4.4

5.2

13.4

20.1

23.6

6.4

11.9

17.6

23.1

28.7

10.8 40.3

17.1 52.8 44.3 32.5

31.0 54.7 57.3 39.3

43.2 72.9 79.8 52.8

52.3 80.1 44.3 59.7

Turkey Exports of goods and services (percentage of GDP) Imports of goods and services (percentage of GDP) Degree of Openness (Exports plus Imports percentage of GDP) Turkey Euro Area Low-Income Countires Middle-Income Countries

19.7

Source: World Bank, Quick Query Database. http://data.worldbank.org/ Table 8.4a Foreign Trade Relations Between Turkey and Its Neighbors, 1991 Trade Export Million $ Russia Iran Iraq Syria Greece Bulgaria Romania Neighborhood EU US Grand Total

Import

Total

Balance

%

Million $

%

Million $

%

Million $

611 487 122 264 144 76 105

4.5 3.6 0.9 1.9 1.1 0.6 0.8

1,097 91 492 67 77 140 199

5.2 0.4 2.3 0.3 0.4 0.7 0.9

1,708 578 614 331 221 216 304

4.9 1.7 1.8 1.0 0.6 0.6 0.9

–486 396 –370 197 67 –64 –94

1,809 7,348 913

13.4 54.1 6.7

2,163 9,896 2,255

10.2 47.0 10.7

3,972 17,244 3,168

11.5 49.8 9.1

–354 –2,548 –1,342

13,593

100.0

21,047

100.0

34,640

100.0

–7,454

almost half of all trade flows in 1991. That share has declined by more than 8 percent, to slightly more than 40 percent in 2008. Turkish trade with the United States almost halved in relative terms between 1991 and 2008. In 1991, the United States was the most important market for Turkish exports outside the EU, with 6.7 percent of all Turkish exports. In 2008, Turkish exports to the United States reached only about 3.3 percent of all Turkish exports, not much more than Turkish exports to Romania or Iraq. On the other hand, the neighborhood has significantly increased its share of Turkish trade flows. About one-quarter of all Turkish trade now goes or comes from the close neighborhood. That is 13.4 percent more than twenty years ago. However, most of that increase stems from the intensified exchange with Russia and is mostly the consequence of Russian energy flows to Turkey.

178 Thomas Straubhaar Table 8.4b Foreign Trade Relations Between Turkey and Its Neighbors in 2008 Trade Export

Russia Moldova Ukraine Georgia Azerbaijan Iran Iraq Syria Greece Bulgaria Romania Neighborhood EU US Grand Total

Import

Total

Balance

Million $

%

Million $

%

Million $

%

Million $

6,483 198 2,188 998 1,667 2,030 3,917 1,115 2,430 2,152 3,987

4.9 0.1 21.7 0.8 1.3 1.5 3.0 0.8 1.8 1.6 3.0

31,364 70 6,106 525 928 8,200 1,321 639 1,151 1,840 3,548

15.5 0.0 3.0 0.3 0.5 4.1 0.7 0.3 0.6 0.9 1.8

37,847 268 8,294 1,523 2,595 10,230 5,238 1,754 3,581 3,992 7,535

11.3 0.1 2.5 0.5 0.8 3.1 1.6 0.5 1.1 1.2 2.3

–24,881 128 –3,918 473 739 –6,170 2,596 476 1,279 312 439

27,165 63,390 4,300

20.5 48.0 3.3

55,692 74,802 11,976

27.7 37.0 5.9

82,857 138,192 16,276

25.0 41.4 4.9

–28,527 –11,412 –7,676

132,027

100.0

201,964

100.0

333,991

100.0

–69,937

Table 8.4c Foreign Trade Relations Between Turkey and Its Neighbors: Difference 2008–1991 Trade Export Percentage

Import Percentage

Total Percentage

Ex–Soviet Union Iran Iraq Syria Greece Bulgaria Romania

4.2 –2.0 2.1 –1.1 0.8 1.1 2.2

14.1 3.6 –1.7 0.0 0.2 0.2 0.8

10.2 1.4 –0.2 –0.5 0.5 0.6 1.4

Neighborhood EU US

7.3 –6.0 –3.5

17.2 –10.0 –4.8

13.4 –8.4 –4.2

Source: Turkish Statistical Institute, Foreign Trade by Countries Report, www.tuik.gov.tr. Note: For 1991, the values for Russia are values for the USSR; separate data do not exist for Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan for 1991.

Thus, energy is the key that has opened up Turkey to its neighbors, and the import of energy and the rise of the oil and gas prices are the main causes of the shift of the shares of trade volumes from Europe to the neighborhood. Nevertheless, Russia has become an important export market for Turkey, with a share of 4.9 percent of all exports in 2008.

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Finally, China has come into the Turkish orbit, mainly as a source for intermediate goods, parts, and resources, which are further improved in Turkey to be exported into other markets (mostly in Europe). Table 8.4b shows that with regard to the trade balance, Turkey has the largest deficit with Russia, which reflects the strongly growing Turkish import of Russian gas and oil. At least parts of the trade deficit have been compensated by exporting Turkish services to Russia in the form of Russian tourists visiting Turkey. Turkey also has a negative trade balance of US$11.4 billion vis-à-vis the EU-27 and of US$7.7 billion vis-à-vis the United States. This makes clear that the West has strong economic interests in securing good political relationships with Turkey, in order to keep easy access to the Turkish market and to preserve the trade surplus with Turkey. Turkey also has a trade deficit with Iran. It imports energy from but is unable to export manufactured goods there. One reason is the political struggles in the area. Another reason is the high level of protectionism of Iranian markets from Turkish economic activities (including barriers for Turkish personnel selling Turkish products in Iran). However, there are some countries in the neighborhood with which Turkey has generated an export surplus. To this group belong all of the bordering EU neighbors (i.e., Greece, Romania, and Bulgaria), as well as the smaller ex–Soviet Union countries and Syria. Syria is of special interest for Turkey. After the Turkey-Syria free-trade agreement came into effect in 2004, trade flows between the two countries picked up, and it is expected that Turkey might become Syria’s economic gateway to Europe, and Syria become Turkey’s gateway to Arab markets.5 The two sides signed far-reaching protocols on trade, development, and cultural exchanges in March 2010.6 But even though the Turkish-Syrian trade flows have more than quintupled in the past twenty years, from US$331 million in 1991 to US$1.75 billion in 2008, they made up only 0.5 percent of the total Turkish trade in 2008—actually a smaller share than in 1991. Neighborhood markets have become much more important on the regional level than on the country level for Turkish border areas. That is especially true in areas along the Syrian border and in the southeast, where a rapidly growing exchange just over the border has taken place in the past years. Cross-Border Movements of People and Remittances

Located at the geographical intersection between East and West, with both Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts, Turkey has always been a country with large movements of people.7 There were several waves of forced (ethnic) movement of people as a consequence of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the following nation-building process in the Turkish neighborhood. In the post– World War II period, Turkey became a country of emigration. After the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union, immigration from the neigh-

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borhood to Turkey increased substantially. A lively cross-border movement with the countries of the former Soviet Union, but also with the Middle East countries (especially Iran), has occurred. Nowadays Turkey is a country of emigration, immigration, and transit. As can be seen from Table 8.5, about 3.38 million people with a Turkish background live outside Turkey today, 40 percent more than in 1985. While the total has not changed a lot since the mid-1990s, the geographical distribution has shifted. While in the mid-1990s about 86 percent of Turks living abroad were in Europe, that share has declined to about 80 percent today. Migration flows to Europe are down to between fifty and sixty thousand a year. Overwhelmingly, they happen through family formation or unification. More Turkish citizens have gone to the countries of the former Soviet Union than in the 1980s and 1990s. However, compared to the total, emigration flows to the close neighborhood have remained very small. That is also true for the emigration flows from Turkey to the Middle East. Only about 3 percent of all Turkish citizens living abroad have gone to the Middle East. In 2009, 25.5 million foreigners arrived in Turkey, more than twice the number of 2000 and eleven times the number of 1990.8 The largest entries continue to come from EU member countries. Tourism is the major force behind Europeans coming to Turkey, yet short business trips from managers and staff members related to international activities of multinational firms, as well as movement of retirees and students, increasingly play an important role in this picture. Entries from neighboring countries, especially from the areas of the former Soviet Union, have been steadily increasing. They have risen overproportionally by a factor of 24 between 1990 and 2009 (while the average factor for the total of all entries to Turkey was 11). In contrast to those coming from Europe, many more people from the neighborhood come not for fun, but for work. They get engaged in small-scale businesses (suitcase businesses) or seasonal work or work in private households (cleaning, performing child and elderly care, gardening). Tourism has only started to play a role, with respect to entries from Russia. Except for those from Iran, entries from the Middle East have been relatively low. But they are likely to increase in the coming years following

Table 8.5 Turkish Migrants Abroad in 1985 and 2008 (in millions)

Germany Total Europe Middle East Ex–Soviet Union Total

1985

Percentage of total

1995

Percentage of total

2008

Percentage of total

1.40 1.99 0.20 0 2.36

59 84 8 0 100

2.05 2.84 0.13 0.05 3.31

62 86 4 2 100

1.89 2.74 0.11 0.08 3.38

56 81 3 2 100

Source: ºçduygu, SOPEMI Report, p. 59.

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the recent decision of the Turkish government to lift visa requirements for a number of countries from the Middle East and the Black Sea area.9 The number of foreign nationals living with an official residence and work permit in Turkey is relatively small (just over 170,000).10 However, there are also citizens of countries of the former Soviet Union, such as Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova, the Central Asian republics, Russia, and Ukraine, who come to work in Turkey, often illegally in the household and tourism sectors. The Turkish visa system allows those people to commute between their home countries and their jobs in Turkey. Furthermore, there are Turks with dual citizenship from EU countries, especially Bulgaria and Germany, who come to work in Turkey. To those groups one can add students and retirees. Finally, about 30 percent of all migrants arrive as undocumented migrants and remain in Turkey for an undetermined length of time. In sum, the dynamically growing Turkish economy needs people with all kind of qualifications and skills and thus attracts citizens from the neighborhood countries. While Turkish migration to the EU has declined significantly (because Europe has turned into a kind of fortress), Turkey has begun to act as a migration hub for the Black Sea area and the Middle East. Often these movements to Turkey are only the first transit step on the way to further destinations in Europe or elsewhere. Related to the issue of migration is the flow of funds in both directions. Remittances from citizens living abroad sent to support families and relatives back home have been a very important source of capital accumulation for Turkey. Before the recent decade, they played an important role in feeding the Turkish economy with capital. At that time, the level of remittances was about four to six times higher than the level of foreign direct investment (FDI).11 Today remittances are still a substantial source for the accumulation of capital, but due to a dramatic increase in FDI, remittances have lost their overall significance. They reached only one-sixth of the level of FDI in the past six years.12 More recently, remittances from Turkey to the neighborhood have become more important. An increasing number of workers from the Black Sea area and the Middle East have come to Turkey to get better-paying jobs. They remit parts of their income to the family members left behind in their region of origin. That economic activity has come to be known as the “suitcase trade,” as not only money but also goods of all kinds are sent back home. Along with the remittances sent home from Turkey, a growing number of joint ventures and increased Turkish FDI have appeared in other countries of the neighborhood.13 Neighboring Cross-Border Investments

Besides trade and migration, investments are another aspect of international activities. While Turkey has opened up for trade, and export orientation is seen as an important tool for development, FDI has lagged behind. Turkey has not attracted a lot of FDI. Less than US$1 billion in FDI per year came to Turkey

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before 2000 (see Figure 8.1). In the past decade, FDI to Turkey rose sharply, to a peak of about US$22 billion in 2007, but with a significant decrease since (as a consequence of the worldwide international financial crisis). More and more multinationals (Microsoft, BASF, Coca-Cola) use Istanbul as a base for their regional operations in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia.14 With regard to the geographical distribution of FDI flows to Turkey, the EU is the most dominant source by far. About three-quarters of all FDI to Turkey came from the EU-27 in the period 2004–2009, most of it from the Netherlands (22 percent) and remarkably little from Germany (5 percent). Almost no FDI has come from the nearby non-European Turkish neighborhood.15 On a macroeconomic level, neighboring cross-border investments do not really play a significant role. FDI to and from Turkey is (too) low, and overwhelmingly it comes from Europe or the United States. Turkish FDI from and into the neighborhood is even lower still. However, seen from a neighborhood perspective, those low Turkish FDI levels look high. Turkey is among the top

Figure 8.1 Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Inflows to Turkey, in billion current US $, 2000–2009

Source: Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, Electronic Data Delivery System (EDDS), http://evds .tcmb.gov.tr/yeni/cbt-uk.html.

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ten foreign investors in Iraq, building roads, bridges, and other infrastructure projects, especially electricity supplies and oil and gas exploration. By 2009, about five hundred Turkish companies had invested in Iraq, among them Anadolu Group’s bottling facility in Arbil; Genel Enerji’s subsidiary, which invests in the Taq Taq field; and PETOIL’s A&T Petroleum, which drills for oil.16 On a mesoeconomic level, for Turkish border areas and for the lowerdeveloped neighbors that are lacking capital even more than Turkey, Turkey has become an important source of financing local investments. This is especially true for the part of the region that has an increasing share of daily cross-border activities. Again, the frontier region between Turkey and Syria might be a good example. From both countries there is a strong interest in reestablishing a natural economic zone including Gaziantep, Aleppo, and Damascus and in reinforcing long-existing economic, social, and family relations.17

The (Economic) Options for Turkey and Its Neighbors

The end of the Cold War and recent political developments have broadened the alternatives for Turkish external policies. Basically, Turkish economic policy could follow one of the following three different strategies: (1) The “open-toall-directions option” is in some ways an economic correspondent to the political goal of “zero problems” with neighbors. It would treat all neighbors the same, because going together with a few but not all neighbors in an integrated economic area always means preferential treatment for some and discriminating treatment for others. (2) The “European option,” which follows the Kemalist’s view, sees Turkey as a Western-looking secular state strongly anchored politically in NATO and economically in the European Union. This option would continue the Turkish struggles for a successful accession to the European Union. (3) The “hub-and-spoke option” sees Turkey as a gravity power of the Black Sea, the Caucasus, and the Middle East, and its neighbors as economic satellites. In some ways this alternative is the economic counterpart of the political concept of “neo-Ottomanism,” seeing Turkey as “the epicenter of the Balkans, the Middle East and the Caucasus.”18 The Open-to-All-Directions Option

The open-to-all-directions option sees Turkey as a strong, independent economy opting for good bilateral economic relations with every country worldwide, regardless of whether they are neighbors or not. This option follows the first-best strategy of international economics, namely that the gains of trade are the largest if no politically set borders (national or regional) hinder the best possible exploitation of comparative advantage, international division of labor, and specialization. In the simplified economic view of the world, political or social

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issues, path dependencies, historical experiences, and some costs such as transaction and transport are typically neglected. Under these assumptions the establishiment of global open free markets is always the best strategy. The open-to-all-directions option makes use of a “clash of geography” that has happened in the past decades. New technologies have lowered substantially the costs of trading goods and services and transferring information, knowledge, people, and capital over longer distances. Transport costs have declined. Communication costs have almost disappeared. The economic significance of the “neighborhood” has declined because distance does not matter so much anymore. In principle, it is easier than ever to exchange goods and services with everybody, independent of the distance between the trading partners. The open-to-all-directions option is for Turkey the economic correspondent to the political goal of “zero problems” with neighbors because it would not aim to integrate Turkey into a regional economic area with some of its neighbors. It would be a continuation of the export-led strategy that Turkey has followed since the end of the Cold War, which has led Turkey to become a “trading state.”19 To continue the open-to-all-directions strategy effectively, Turkey would have to rely on the further success of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to open up national markets to the world economy.20 However, WTO negotiations for further liberalization of world trade have been stuck for a while, and protectionism of national markets has returned in several ways in the aftermath of the financial crisis and the world recession in 2009. Therefore, the issue of regional integration has gained additional interest. In reality, neighborhood matters greatly, independent of the clash of geography. Historically, vicinity has been important, and distance has played an important role in the allocation of resources and the international or regional division of labor. It has an impact on trade flows, migration, and investments. As a consequence, path dependency and political, social, and cultural factors have to be included in the analysis of trade relations. These determinants might explain why nations prefer to pursue a slower, regional integration process rather than to establish worldwide open markets. Regional integration means that neighbors agree to give each other preferential treatment (i.e., to resist applying trade restrictions among themselves but not against third countries). It acts as a second-best solution and a substitute for the infeasible first-best option (i.e., worldwide free markets). However, establishing a regional integration agreement is not cost free. It leads to preferential treatment for the members and discrimination against others.21 Regional integration could be reached more easily than worldwide open markets because that approach takes into account at least some of the factors that are neglected in the simplified economic view of the world. Furthermore, it could be easier to get an economic agreement among neighbors because fewer actors are involved (than on a global level), interests might be more homogeneous, and costs and benefits of mutual market access might be better identified.

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These were the reasons many integration agreements were established in the past (the EU being one of the most impressive examples). Will they also be valid for Turkey and its neighborhood? The European Option

The European option follows the Kemalist’s view, seeing Turkey as a Westernlooking secular state strongly anchored politically in NATO and economically in the European Union. Of course, in the foreground of the European option stands the question of Turkish EU membership. Turkey has struggled to become a full member of the EU since the early 1960s and the Ankara Association Agreement in 1963. The prospect of full membership and the promise of reconsideration of further steps “as soon as the operation of the Agreement has advanced far enough” were followed by a Customs Union (CU) that came into effect on December 31, 1995. In 1999, Turkey was recognized as a candidate for EU accession. In 2004 the European Council agreed that Turkey had fulfilled the Copenhagen political criteria as a precondition for opening the negotiations on the acquis communautaire. On October 3, 2005, the official accession negotiations started. However, they have “proceeded at a snail’s pace, with twelve (out of thirty-five) chapters opened in five years and only one chapter (science and research) provisionally closed by early 2010.”22 The likelihood is rather low that Turkey will become a member of the EU in the next decade. Therefore, two questions arise: (1) What would not being a member of the EU mean economically for Turkey? (2) Are there European alternatives to being an EU member? There are four answers to these questions. First, being or not being an EU member does not change much for Turkey in the short run. With respect to the trade in goods, Turkey is almost part of the single market due to the CU. That means there is not much additional potential for trade in goods left to an EU membership for Turkey. More than 80 percent of the goods traded between Turkey and the EU are manufactured goods (for the year 2008), a clear indication of the already close integration of the Turkish economy into the EU.23 Most Turkey-EU trade activities are directed to the manufacturing business and intermediate or processed products; products related to final consumption are rather the exception. Turkey exports machinery and transport equipment (almost 40 percent of total exports) and clothing and textiles (about 25 percent) to the EU-27 and imports similar products from the EU-27 (i.e., a little more than 40 percent of all Turkish imports are machinery and transport equipment, chiefly intermediate parts for the European automotive industry). Chemicals account for almost 20 percent. Agricultural products play an important but not dominant role, accounting for about 8 percent of all Turkish exports to the EU and about 4 percent of all Turkish imports from the EU. However, together with clothing and textiles, those product groups yield a trade surplus for Turkey vis-à-vis the EU-27.

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Second, there is a much larger potential for trade between the EU and Turkey in the field of services, public procurement, and agricultural goods. However, from an EU perspective those issues are of high sensitivity, and the EU will be extremely reluctant to go further than the current agreements. Even in the event of Turkish membership, those sensitive areas would be kept protected for long transition periods. There will be no free access for Turkish service workers for a long time, because in most cases trade in services goes along with the free movement of people and the necessity of establishment that are evaluated as especially severe problems. The same is true for free trade in agricultural goods and for financial aid. Regional, structural, or cohesion funds will not flow in greater amounts to Turkey, regardless of whether it is a member of the EU.24 That means that in economic terms, in the short run (of a decade), not much more will be gained for Turkey from EU membership.25 Of course, from a political point of view, things might look completely different. Third, trade figures show that at least with regard to quantitative aspects and the composition by sectors, both sides, Turkey and the EU, need each other. The EU still is and will be for the next decade by far the most important economic neighbor to Turkey. On the other hand, seen from a European perspective, Turkey is the seventh-largest trading partner of the EU-27, with a share of 3.5 percent of total trade, 4.1 percent of all exports, and 3.0 percent of all imports (all data for 2008).26 EU exports to Turkey amount to about 54 billion euro, imports about 45 billion euro, resulting in a large EU trade surplus vis-à-vis Turkey. This shows that EU exporters need the Turkish market even more strongly than the Turkish exporters need the EU markets. But also with regard to the movement of persons, the EU and Turkey are closely related already. The number of people with a Turkish background living in the EU was about 2.7 million in 2009. This figure is not only important from a labor market perspective; the purchasing power of so many people is also important for the EU consumer markets. Fourth, independent of the future speed of the EU accession negotiations, Turkey should seek to improve the efficiency of the current EU-Turkey CU. That CU was established at the end of 1995 to make bilateral trade easier between the EU and Turkey. For both sides, but certainly especially for Turkey, the CU was seen as an intermediate and temporary step on the way toward full EU membership. That view should be corrected. The CU will last much longer than expected at the beginning, and it might even become a (if not the) long-term agreement between the EU and Turkey. In Turkey, the CU was evaluated as a price the country had to pay for further negotiations about EU membership. That view has made the CU a symbol for anti-EU campaigns in Turkey. The negative public perception is that Turkish interests are not well served by the CU and that Turkey has had to accept too many disadvantages. One example of this negative evaluation is that the EU is still demanding a visa for the entrance of Turkish citizens (including students and businesspeople), which has undermined the smooth functioning of the CU between Turkey and the EU.27

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Various studies have analyzed and measured empirically the effects of the CU on the Turkish economy.28 Analyzed comprehensively, the empirical data does not confirm the negative public perception of the CU for Turkey. Although the Turkey-EU CU has functioned on a sound basis,29 its macroeconomic impact has been modest. The different studies make clear that other factors (i.e., complementary policies adopted by Turkey) have played a more important role than the CU in the macroeconomic performance of the Turkish economy. General equilibrium models have supported the result that the impact of the CU on the Turkish economy has been marginal, calculating benefits for Turkey at around 1 percent of GDP.30 However, it is difficult to isolate the effects of the CU because Turkey has undergone far-reaching political and structural changes since the CU came into effect. For example, the country suffered from a structural crisis in 2001, which was followed by an economic reform program supported by the IMF. A recent study that investigated the major macroeconomic impact of the implementation of the CU on the Turkish economy concludes that the “Customs Union Agreement has been instrumental in speeding up the process of trade liberalization in Turkey and exposing the Turkish industrial sector to international competition.”31 In other words, even if the CU is not working as it should, or as had been hoped from the Turkish side, and even if the benefits are not shared equally between the EU and Turkey, the CU has been beneficial to Turkey. It has made the Turkish economy more productive and more competitive. The CU, along with the negotiations about Turkey’s EU membership, has “also facilitated crucial regulatory reforms in the areas of competition and intellectual property rights in order to lift Turkey to the global norms of competition.”32 Thus, working on an improvement of the existing CU might be a pragmatic (i.e., feasible) step as part of the European option.33 A two-sided approach could be followed: deepening the CU by refining the arrangement and addressing its shortcomings, on the one hand, and widening the CU by incorporating areas such as services and agriculture, on the other hand.34 Issues such as the external trade policy, the anti-dumping and countervailing duties, the role of safeguards and dispute-settlement mechanisms, technical barriers, competition law, state assistance, and intellectual property rights are the key issues for the deepening of the CU. The liberalization of business and contracting services and the (temporary) movement of service providers, business visitors, traders and investors, intracompany transferees, and professionals are crucial points for the widening of the CU. Thereby, a stepwise, case-by-case procedure following the concept of mutual recognition rather than a harmonized common policy might be a good strategy. Further steps on the European option path could follow the concept of an “autonomous adaptation” of the acquis communautaire.35 This means that Turkey should start to adopt and implement some parts of the acquis anyway—independent of the speed of the accession negotiations. Economically, Turkey might primarily concentrate on the so-called “pro-growth” part of the acquis, leaving the other parts for later, when the prospects of EU accession might

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have improved.36 The concept of “autonomous adaptation” is politically not easy to sell to the Turkish population because it means “Europeanization without representation.” From an economic point of view, however, it is at least feasible. This is different from the concept of “flexible opting in or opting out cooperation” or the ideas of “variable geometry,” “two-speed or multi-speed Europe,” or the concept of “flexible integration” that have been discussed in the EU in earlier times. All these concepts of the past have a relatively small probability of being feasible in the future, because the European Commission is not very much in favor of them anymore.37 The Hub-and-Spoke Option

The hub-and-spoke option follows the political and historical perception of neoOttomanism, which sees Turkey as a strong regional power of the Black Sea, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. It takes into account political, social, cultural, and historical issues and path dependencies, as well. This option is in line with Turkish initiatives in 1992 to establish the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), intended to strengthen economic cooperation among the Black Sea countries and to enhance peace, stability, security, and prosperity in the region.38 It supports recent actions that have led to a common free-trade area between Turkey, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, going beyond the existing bilateral councils between those countries and Iraq.39 Also, Turkey is the most important gateway to the external world for the politically isolated Iranian and Syrian regimes. In reality, the grand ambitions for closer economic integration within the Turkish neighborhood have been followed by disappointment. Often national vested interest groups have successfully protected their home markets against competitors from the neighborhood. Sometimes historical rivalries or political fears of becoming too close with neighbors and becoming dependent on them have slowed down intraregional economic activities. Thus, despite Turkey’s efforts to intensify economic relations with all neighbors, Russia has remained the dominant political and economic power, especially in the energy sector, as key pipelines bringing gas and oil to the outside world run through Russia. This makes the other countries of the area very dependent on Russia.40 Furthermore, the potential economic benefits for Turkey of establishing formal cooperation agreements with its neighbors have been greatly overestimated. There are several reasons for the limited economic success in making Turkey the hub of a strong and prospering neighborhood. First, with the exception of Russia, the countries of the Turkish neighborhood are relatively small, not only with regard to population but also with regard to their GDP (see Table 8.1 above). Iran has 72 million people, Iraq 30 million, and Syria 21 million. Compared to the 326 million people in the euro area and the almost 500 million in the EU as a whole, the neighborhood cannot substitute for the markets of the EU. This becomes even more obvious if GDP is taken into account. In 2008 the aggregated GDP of the total Turkish neighborhood

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was about 2.9 trillion, which was only 22 percent of the GDP of the euro area and only 17 percent of the GDP of the EU-27. Excluding Russia and the EU members Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and Cyprus, the GDP of the Turkish neighbors in the Black Sea area and the Middle East in the same year was about 0.7 trillion, which was only 5 percent of the GDP of the euro area and only 4 percent of the GDP of the EU-27. Second, the Turkish neighborhood is relatively poor. As measured by GDP per capita, most countries of the Turkish neighborhood belong to the group of low-income countries (see Table 8.2 above). Therefore, their purchasing power to import goods from other countries of the neighborhood is small. They cannot become strong buyers of Turkish products (or products from other neighboring countries) for the moment. Third, the countries of the Turkish neighborhood are extremely heterogeneous in their level of economic development (see Table 8.2 above). There is an enormous income gap between the richest and the poorest countries of the Turkish neighborhood. The interests of the national economies are heterogeneous, and the platform for common goals, policies, and priorities is small. Fourth, the Turkish neighborhood is still very much agrarian, with many people working and earning their income in rural areas. The value added in agriculture as a percentage of total GDP was about 20 percent in Syria and 18 percent in Armenia, but only 1.8 percent in the euro area and only 1.1 percent in the United States (see Table 8.6). Those figures reveal that besides energy (mostly gas and oil), the Turkish neighborhood has an undiversified product palette. Because the area still specializes in trading agricultural products, countries do not have much to offer to their neighbors (especially Turkey) that the neighbors could not produce on their own (with the exception of gas and oil). Thus, the Turkish neighborhood lacks the potential for strong intra-area trade, and the benefits of inter-area trade creation and trade expansion are small. For all these reasons, the potential for strong economic activities between Turkey and its neighborhood remains restricted. From a macroeconomic point of view (with the exception of energy) the Turkish neighborhood has played and will play only a marginal role for the Turkish economy as a whole. However, on the mesoeconomic (i.e., regional) level of the eastern and southern Turkish regions, cross-border economic activities with the nearby

Table 8.6 Value Added in Agriculture as Percentage of Total GDP in 2008 (or Latest Year Available) Syria Armenia Moldova Georgia Iran

20.0 17.8 11.2 10.4 10.1

Turkey Iraq Ukraine Romania Bulgaria

9.5 8.6 8.3 8.0 7.3

Azerbaijan Russia Greece US Euro Area

Source: World Bank, Quick Query Database. http://data.worldbank.org/

5.9 4.8 3.6 1.1 1.8

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neighborhood have gained momentum recently. Turkey—especially Istanbul— has become a hub for a flourishing trade for small and very small, mostly family-owned firms from neighboring spokes. The same Turkish enterprises have established branches in the neighborhood, especially in Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine. Usually, very small initial investments are followed by bigger companies. Finally, family and small business networks have become an engine of cross-border activities. The “Anatolian Tigers” are a very good illustration of these developments. Starting in the Özal period, small- and medium-scale enterprises “have formed a new business community by improving their business practices, learning technology, and searching out new markets. Even without direct support from the government, the advantages brought about by openness have triggered a process of production and capital accumulation in Anatolia.”41

Conclusions

The new political formula “zero problems with neighbors,” used by the Erdoÿan government, has provoked worrisome considerations among Western allies about Turkey’s stronger economic cooperation with or even integration into its Islamic neighborhood. And it has raised concerns that Turkey might be moving away from the West. As the analysis in this chapter has shown, from an economic perspective those worries are not valid. The Turkish economy is strongly anchored in Europe. For Turkey, Europe is the most important trading partner, with a share of almost half of all exports going to Europe and about 2.7 million people of Turkish background living in Europe. For the EU, Turkey is an important export market, with about 74 million consumers and a growing population with increasing purchasing power. True, Europe’s share of Turkish total trade has declined slightly in the past decade, but that decline has almost completely to do with energy and almost nothing to do with structural economic change. It simply reflects the fact that the fast-growing Turkish economy imports more energy than ever from its neighborhood, mostly from Russia. Turkey needs Europe economically, as Europe needs Turkey. For several reasons, there is no substitute for strong economic relations between Turkey and Europe. The most important reason has to do with the economic weakness of the non-European Turkish neighborhood. With the exception of Russia, that neighborhood consists of rather smaller, poorer, agrarian economies. They simply do not have the purchasing power to buy Turkish goods in large magnitudes nor to supply the strong demand of European customers. For Turkey, however, another question remains—Does the strong economic relationship with Europe necessarily need a strong political backup in the form of a Turkish EU membership? The answer is no, as the economic analysis of this chapter shows. Economically, being or not being an EU member does not change as much for Turkey in the short run as might be expected. The short-run welfare gains accrued by joining the EU are marginal for two reasons. First,

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Turkey is already well integrated into the European single market as a consequence of the existing EU-Turkey CU. And second, even if the EU negotiations come to a successful end soon and Turkey becomes an EU member in the near future, there will be long transitional periods, restricting the free movement of services and labor for a long time. Furthermore, independent of EU membership some important issues for Turkey, such as free trade for agricultural products, will not be touched. The analysis of this chapter has shown that Turkey has many options. It has not a single either-or choice between the West and the East. It can have both, a European and a neighborhood option. Therefore, it might be wise to follow a multidimensional strategy. First, an open-to-all-directions option is a relevant general strategy. Protectionism works against “the interests of a Turkish economy that has grown more comfortable with globalization in its various forms.”42 Consequently, Turkey should use its important political power to stimulate the multilateral efforts to eliminate restrictions on free trade and the free movement of people and capital. That would facilitate access to more open markets and help Turkey to profit most from the benefits of the international division of labor and specialization. From a transatlantic perspective, the United States should support Turkey on a multilateral level to fight jointly against a global retreat to protectionism. In that regard, the open-to-all-directions strategy best serves both Turkish and transatlantic interests. Second, an open-to-all-directions approach does not mean that Turkey’s neighbors do not matter for its economy. On the contrary, a good strategy might seek increased trade and investments with European markets while continuing to promote economic activities with the Black Sea and Middle East neighborhood. Realistically, for the next decade, Turkey needs a European option, allowing it to live with Europe without being a member of the EU. The current EU-Turkey CU is a good fallback option during the current time of slow accession negotiations. Although it functions on a sound basis, it faces some problems. Addressing and eliminating those problems and working toward both the deepening and the widening of the CU are options that should be taken in any case—independent of the speed and success of the EU accession negotiations. The CU could be deepened by providing easier access to the partners’ markets and finding a means for giving Turkey a say on decisions it is obliged to carry out. The CU could be widened by incorporating areas such as services and agriculture. Third, as part of a hub-and-spoke option, which has already started but needs further development, Turkey could support all efforts to strengthen regional cross-border activities. That would allow an increase in the potential for trade creation and trade expansion for Turkish products in the long run. However, as long as the neighboring areas are characterized by relatively low standards of living, with low purchasing power and mostly agricultural structures, the potential for international economic activities is too weak. Once those countries are further developed and their purchasing power increases, they will become

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an attractive market for Turkish exports. The neighboring markets are of special importance for small and medium-size enterprises from the eastern and southern Turkish regions. For them the local neighborhood markets are the genuine sellers’ markets right in front of their own doors. Furthermore, they are providers of cheap inputs, such as labor and energy. Finally, a prospering Turkey is important for the political stability of its neighborhood. If Turkey is doing well, the neighbors will also do better. Furthermore, an economically successful Turkey would be a model of change and transformation and might become a prototype for its neighbors in ways that would improve the political stability of the Black Sea area and the Middle East regions. Thus, the EU is faced with a trade-off with regard to the EU membership negotiations with Turkey. In the short run, EU membership might generate some adjustment costs in the EU and in Turkey, as well. However, in the long run, EU membership might support modernization in Turkey and help to speed up economic growth. Further improvements of the Turkish economic performance should produce positive spillovers and trickle-down effects on the standard of living, first in Turkey and later in the neighborhood. They would occur through intensified cross-border trade, commuting, money and capital transfers, and movements of people (including intensified tourism activities within the area). That would increase the chances for the Middle East area to become stabilized. Thus, the long-run benefits for the EU might outweigh the short-term concerns of some EU countries about a Turkish EU membership.

Notes 1. See Chapter 5 in this volume. 2. In this chapter, countries having either a direct common border with Turkey or having a sea border with the Black Sea are called Turkish neighbors. Thus, Turkish neighborhood consists of the following thirteen countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Syria, and Ukraine. 3. The variation coefficient (VC) is a dimensionless normalized measure, defined as the ratio of the standard deviation σ to the mean ∝. It allows a comparison of the spread of GDP or GDP per capita between different areas. 4. For 2009, very preliminary data show that both imports and exports have fallen dramatically due to the financial market crisis and the resultant world recession. Consequently, the trade deficit has become smaller. 5. See Kiri≈sci, Tocci, and Walker, “A Neighborhood Rediscovered,” p. 21. 6. See International Crisis Group, Turkey and the Middle East, p. 10. 7. For a broader treatment of Turkish migration issues see Chapter 6 in this volume. 8. These figures contain back-and-forth movements, several entries, and commuting. See Kiri≈sci, Tocci, and Walker, “A Neighborhood Rediscovered,” p. 21. 9. See ibid. 10. For all data in this paragraph see º≈cduygu, “Turkey,” Table 7. 11. See World Bank: Quick Query Database. Officially recorded remittances show only a fraction of the total. For several reasons that are related to banking fees but also to tax avoidance and trust, migrants use many other channels to remit money. Thus,

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officially recorded remittances were greatly surpassed by “luggage trade” made by migrants to Turkey. Nonrecorded remittances may have reached US$6 billion, surpassing by far the recorded remittances of about US$1.2 billion; see ºçduygu, “Turkey.” 12. While in the times of the “Gastarbeiter” system most of the remittances were either consumed (for buying a car, apartment, or house) or invested in trade (bazaar shops) or transportation facilities (taxis), more recently remittances have increasingly been used to develop businesses, farms, or small manufacturing enterprises. This is especially true for the use of Anatolian capital. Companies in Anatolia, such as Kombassan, Bµyµk Anadolu Holding, Yimpa≈s, Endüstri, Sayha, Ittifak, and Jet-Pa, were founded primarily with the savings sent by workers abroad (see Ömer, Acar, and Toprak, “Anatolian Tigers”). 13. See See Kiri≈sci, Tocci, and Walker, “A Neighborhood Rediscovered,” p. 19. 14. Kiri≈sci, “The Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy.” 15. See Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, Electronic Data Delivery System (EDDS) available at: http://evds.tcmb.gov.tr/yeni/cbt-uk.html. Sometimes the top ranking is the consequence of one single big deal. Examples include the Vodafone–Telsim, DexiaBank-Denizbank deal, the NBG-Finansbank deal, and the OMV-Petrol Ofisi deal. Other notable actions include the acquisition of Oyakbank by ING Bank, the Turk Telekom privatization (for the UAE), the privatization of Turkish airports, and the Russian takeover of TURKCELL (see YASED, Foreign Direct Investments Report, for further details). 16. See International Crisis Group, Turkey and the Middle East, p. 10. 17. In February 2010, after investments of US$70 million, the railway line between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq was reopened and a fast train service will soon be added between Aleppo in northern Syria and Gaziantep in southern Turkey, see International Crisis Group, Turkey and the Middle East, p. 12. 18. See Chapter 2 in this volume. 19. Kiri≈sci, “The Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy.” 20. With regard to trade, the WTO plays the crucial role and cannot be substituted by other multilateral institutions or platforms where Turkey has become better integrated. 21. This is the famous trade-creation versus trade-diversion argument in the literature on FTA. An example for these costs is the Turkish migration policy: If Turkey would become a member of the EU, it would have to restrict in one way or another its new, very liberal and very open visa regime vis-à-vis its non-European neighborhood because the EU will not accept a visa-free entrance of citizens from the Middle East or the Black Sea area. For details see Chapter 6 in this volume. 22. See Chapter 9 in this volume. 23. All trade data in this section come from the European Commission, DirectorateGeneral Trade, Turkey. 24. While this statement might appear harsh, it is based on the reaction to the Greek financial crisis in 2010 in the more developed EU countries (like Germany). The mood in those countries was, “enough is enough”—poorer countries should solve their problems with less and not with more support from the outside. 25. With the support of a general equilibrium model, Lejour and De Mooij, “Turkish Delight,” have estimated that Turkey would experience a moderate (static) welfare gain of 1.4 percent by joining the EU in the short run. This result is completely in line with the analysis of this chapter. The effects look different in the long run and under the assumption that the single market is open with no restriction at all to the Turkish economy, including free migration and capital movements. If for the (very) long run, dynamic effects in the form of knowledge and technology spillovers associated with increased trade, higher productivity effects through intensified competition, and innovation effects are included, the benefits for Turkey of becoming a member of the EU

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could go up to about 20 percent of GDP, see also Lejour, “The Economics Do Not Hamper, but Do Not Support turkish Accession to the EU.” 26. Data from European Commission, Directorate-General Trade, Turkey. 27. For a study of the visa problem between Turkey and the EU see Doπan, Impact of Visa Regimes over Travel Decisions and Patterns of Turkish Citizens. 28. See for example Harrison, Rutherford, and Tarr, Economic Implications for Turkey; Halicioglu, “Dynamic Effects of the Customs Union”; Halicioglu, “Static Effects of the Customs Union”; Merceiner and Yeldan, “On Turkey’s Trade Policy”; Bekmez, “Sectoral Impacts of Turkish Accession”; Bildirici and Ersin, “Domestic Debt.” 29. ˜lgen and Zahariadis, The Future of Turkey-EU Trade Relations. 30. See Harrison, Rutherford, and Tarr, Economic Implications for Turkey of a Customs Union with the European Union. 31. See Karata≈s and Uz, “Turkey’s Accession to the European Union and the Macroecnomic Dynamics of the Turkish Economy.” 32. Ibid. 33. The dispute over the additional protocol to the CU agreement that would have allowed access to Cypriot-flagged flights and vessels in Turkish airports and seaports is an example that illustrates the difficulties that will be related with a further development of the CU. While the EU was in favor of this additional protocol, Turkey was not and has not implemented it with the consequence that eight chapters of the acquis have been suspended in the membership negotiations between Turkey and the EU in late 2006 (see Chapter 9 in this volume). 34. See ˜lgen and Zahariadis, The Future of Turkey-EU Trade Relations. 35. This concept has played a role in the discussion of the European options for Switzerland. 36. See Togan, “Turkey’s Economy.” His analysis is based on Messerlin, “The EC Neighbourhood Policy,” which divides the directives of EU law into “pro-competition” and “norm-setting.” Togan divides them into “growth promoting” and “other” rules and regulations. 37. See Togan, “Turkey’s Economy,” especially p. 78, and references given in footnote 128. 38. See Chapter 5 in this volume. Today, BSEC has become a project-oriented organization with twelve member states (Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, the Russian Federation, Turkey, and Ukraine, which are littorals of the Black Sea, as well as Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Greece, Moldova, and Serbia). 39. See International Crisis Group, Turkey and the Middle East, p. 13. 40. Larrabee, Troubled Partnership, also argues that the elites of Central Asia remain highly russified, using Russian as the common language of communication with their neighbors (with the exception of Azerbaijan). Furthermore, he addresses the increasing importance China has gained in the past few years. 41. Ömer, Acar, and Toprak, “Anatolian Tigers,” pp. 168–169. 42. Lesser, Turkey and the Global Economic Crisis.

9 Turkey as a Transatlantic Neighbor Nathalie Tocci

This book maps the dramatic transformation that Turkey has undergone as an actor in its neighborhood since the early 1990s. Across its neighborhood and in policy areas as diverse as security, trade, energy, migration, and civil society, Turkey in the 2000s represents a fundamentally different actor. In some cases, such as Turkish policies in eastern Europe or in the field of migration, the transformation since the end of the Cold War has been incremental, whereas in the case of Turkish policies in the Middle East the shift has been more abrupt and visible. But the transformation of Turkey’s neighborhood policies is undeniable. When it comes to Turkey’s relations with its transatlantic partners, there has not been a U-turn. Change has taken the form of an intensification and diversification of Turkey’s relations with the United States and the European Union. Most significantly, during the Cold War the predominant rationale of Turkey’s relations with the West was security and defense. To the United States and western Europe, NATO member Turkey acted as a barrier to Soviet expansionism. To Turkey, NATO was pivotal in designating Turkey as a member of the West. Turkey’s inclusion in the “free world” in view of its NATO membership was also critical in securing its Association Agreement with the European Community in 1963.1 Since the end of the Cold War, Turkey’s NATO membership has been a necessary but insufficient glue between Turkey on the one hand and the United States and the EU on the other. As detailed in this chapter, Turkey’s relations with the United States, while still heavily grounded in security and defense, now span a broader set of regions and policy domains. When it comes to the EU, relations with Turkey have been upgraded from the framework of association to the far more meaningful yet contentious domain of accession. Like its membership in NATO during the Cold War, Turkey’s accession process with the EU has been—for Turkey and the EU, as well as the United States— the prime indicator of Turkey’s identity affiliation with the West. The chapters in this book also delve into the many actors and factors explaining Turkey’s transformed foreign policy in its neighborhood. The determinants of change include developments in Turkey’s domestic political scene, 195

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its economy, and its civil society, as well as shifts at the regional level, including the resurgence of Russia, pressing global concerns over energy security and migration, and mounting conflict and instability in the Middle East. Beyond those domestic and regional determinants, there is a set of transatlantic factors that have shaped Turkey’s foreign policy from the early 1990s to this day. Those determinants do not account entirely for the transformation of Turkey’s neighborhood policies, but any analysis of that transformation would be incomplete without them.

Transatlantic Causes of Turkey’s Transformation in the Neighborhood

The 1990s began with two parallel shocks at the international and transatlantic levels, which induced greater Turkish activism in its neighborhood: the end of the Cold War, followed by disintegration and violence in the former Soviet space and Yugoslavia; and the 1990–1991 Gulf War and the ensuing Western policies toward Iraq. In eastern Europe and the Balkans, much of Turkey’s post–Cold War activism was in line with the declared transatlantic commitment to “reunite Europe” and, in the process, to stabilize, pacify, and encourage the post-communist transition of the region. In the process, Turkey also seized the political, social, and economic opportunities that arose from its changing northern neighborhood. Turkish engagement took two principal forms. First, Turkey opened its borders and economy to trade with and investments in the former Soviet space; promoted the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) organization; and liberalized its visa system, encouraging trade, travel, employment, and social and educational exchanges with the former communist bloc.2 Second, Turkey became actively involved in Western policy initiatives in the region. It contributed financially to assist with the transition; participated in Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) missions; and contributed to peacekeeping operations, particularly in the former Yugoslavia, in what has been interpreted as an attempt to reinstate its commitment to the West and NATO in the aftermath of the Cold War.3 Turkey participated in UNPROFOR, IFOR, SFOR, EUFOR Althea, the International Police Task Force, and the EU Police Mission in Bosnia; in the UN Preventive Deployment Force in Macedonia; in Operation Alba in Albania; and in KFOR in Kosovo, as well as in multilateral efforts such as BLACKSEAFOR, the Multi-National Peace Force for SouthEastern Europe, and the Southeast European Brigade. In the Middle East, Turkey’s activism in the 1990s was also often in line with Western interests. The Gulf War pushed Turkey into the Middle East and above all provided Ankara with an opportunity to reconfirm its Western credentials. The end of the Cold War, while greeted as a boost to Turkey’s security, had in fact also triggered an intense period of soul searching in the country.4

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Turkey’s place in the West, formerly driven by the imperative of containing Soviet expansionism, was openly questioned both within the country and outside. In Turkey, some actors toyed with alternative geostrategic options such as panTurkism or regional leadership in the Middle East and Eurasia.5 In the United States, the early 1990s were marked by a general concern and suspicion that what had once been an unbreakable strategic alliance had become directionless and risked fizzling out.6 The Gulf War provided Turkey with the opportunity to reconfirm its strategic value to the West in the post–Cold War era. As discussed in Chapter 3, it is in that context that Turkey participated in the war and the sanctions regime that followed and cooperated in the formulation and implementation of the US-led Operation Provide Comfort (and the ensuing Operation Northern Watch).7 However, sometimes Turkey’s activism in eastern Europe and the Middle East in the 1990s was not in line with transatlantic interests and policies. As discussed by Makovsky, Turkey’s foreign policy in the 1990s was characterized above all by assertiveness, aggression, and conflictual behavior.8 Turkish policies triggered equally confrontational counter moves and alliances between actors as diverse as Armenia, Greece, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Serbia, and Syria, requiring constant US crisis management to prevent further destabilization in the volatile region. In the former Soviet space, Turkey sent significant military aid to Azerbaijan, almost became embroiled in the Nagorno-Karabakh war in 1992– 1993, and closed its border with Armenia in 1993. Turkish-Russian relations were also marked by mounting tension in the 1990s in view of Turkey’s activism in Central Asia, the naval buildup in the Black Sea, the Russian sale of S-300 missiles to Cyprus, and Turkey’s support for Chechen separatism during the first Chechen war.9 In the Middle East, Turkey repeatedly intervened militarily in Northern Iraq to combat the PKK; had tense relations with Iran over the Kurdish question and political Islam; threatened war with Syria over disputes regarding the PKK and water; and concluded what was generally viewed in the Arab world as an aggressive military alliance with Israel, principally aimed at pressuring Damascus.10 The tectonic global shifts of the 1990s thus gave rise to two parallel and seemingly contradictory trends. On the one hand, Turkey became increasingly active in its neighborhood, and important aspects of that activism, particularly in the realms of trade, visa policy, and peacekeeping, were in line with transatlantic interests. On the other hand, Turkey’s activism often fueled the volatile and conflict-prone nature of the region, requiring frequent US intervention in order to avert crisis.11 These opposing trends generated an acute need to redefine Turkey’s relationships with the United States and the EU. As instability in Turkey’s neighborhood grew, the strategic significance of Turkey became as important as during the Cold War context. Yet the Cold War no longer provided the glue to bind the allies together. Turkey’s place of belonging in the West was no longer self-evident. During the Cold War, political ideology had acted as the principal signifier of identity and alliances, hence, the perceived imperative in

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the United States, the EU, and Turkey to “anchor” Turkey to the West in order to reconfirm its membership of it. The United States, EU, and Turkey in turn developed a set of discourses and policies that shaped Turkey’s transformation in the neighborhood in the twentyfirst century. These transatlantic discourses and policies contributed to creating a Turkey that gradually became both more cooperative and more constructive in its region but also increasingly independent from its Western allies. Redefining Turkish-US Relations

The end of the Cold War and the eruption of the Gulf War raised Washington’s concerns regarding the future of its relationship with Turkey. The Cold War no longer provided the driving rationale for the alliance, yet the Gulf War highlighted how much Washington still needed Ankara’s cooperation. Turkey’s participation in the war had been critical, and in its aftermath Washington remained dependent on Turkish cooperation in Iraq. In that context, senior US officials in the early years of the Clinton administration appreciated that, with the “BushÖzal love affair” over, Turkish-US ties were in dire need of an impetus and a diversification from the military realm, which had dominated the relationship throughout the Cold War.12 As put by a former senior State Department official, “We needed a new story between the US and Turkey. The alliance was no longer natural and inevitable.”13 In order to find such a story, the United States drew and capitalized on specific aspects of Turkey’s own redefined foreign and domestic policies in the late 1980s and early 1990s—policies designed by Turkish prime minister and president Turgut Özal precisely to reconfirm Turkey’s credentials as a member of the Western community. Most significantly, those policies included Turkey’s efforts to enter the global system, open to and engage its neighbors, apply for EC membership (1987), and make the first tentative steps toward democratization after the 1980 military coup. Much to Turkey’s satisfaction, the strategy through which the United States redefined, strengthened, and diversified its alliance with Turkey was by promoting the country as a “bridge” at the crossroads of multiple regions and issue areas, and as a member of the European Union.14 Turkey, like Germany during the Cold War, was reconceptualized as a country at the center of US interests. Yet in order to play a constructive role as a bridge, Turkey had to be anchored to the West through the EU. The US strategy toward Turkey in the 1990s entailed three elements: Turkey’s cooperation over Iraq; US promotion of Turkey as a bridge, particularly in the energy realm; and US advocacy in favor of Turkey’s European integration. Those three elements formed the tripod of the US strategy toward Turkey throughout the 1990s.15 The idea of Turkey as a bridge had its roots in the military realm, in view of Turkey’s pivotal role in the Gulf War and its aftermath.16 Throughout the 1990s Turkey represented an essential partner in the “double containment” of Iraq and Iran. More specifically, Ankara provided the key to Operation Provide

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Comfort: Every six months the Turkish parliament voted on the US-UK use of the Incirlik air base to implement the no-fly zones in Northern Iraq.17 Turkey was also critical in the sanctions regime and in allowing the recurrent US-UK interventions in Iraq.18 As the 1990s progressed, the bridge metaphor was applied to other policy fields, as well. Rather than simply acting as a staging ground for US military operations in the Middle East, Turkey was seen by the Clinton administration as a bridge, a meeting point, and a hub in terms of trade, communications, democracy promotion, and interfaith dialogue.19 Above all, Washington pinpointed Turkey as a bridge in energy terms, elevating Turkey as the most stable and politically preferable route for the export of Caspian energy, one that would enable the West to bypass concomitantly Russia and Iran. Hence, the strong US political backing of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, even in the mid- and late 1990s, when the project was viewed as commercially unviable.20 The ultimate success of the BTC project in the twenty-first century affirmed in practice Turkey’s role as an energy bridge. It also provided the stimulus for successive projects in which Turkey has featured prominently, first and foremost the Nabucco gas project, also strongly backed by the United States, as well as the European Commission. Adding to that, in the 2000s a further “alignment of the stars” bolstered Turkey’s role as an energy bridge. Increasing Russian dominance of the gas sector, European energy insecurity, and US and European concentration on the transport of Caspian reserves to the West have all elevated Turkey’s status as an energy hub (see Chapters 4 and 5). In the late 1990s and above all in the 2000s, Turkey has also been presented by the US as a bridge or “model” in cultural and religious terms,21 though the metaphor has made many secular Turks feel uncomfortable.22 The argument regarding “Turkey as a model for the Muslim world” took two related forms. The first was a general claim that “democracy” and “Islam” were compatible; that the lack of democracies in the Muslim world was therefore not a foregone conclusion; and consequently that US intervention to secure regime change to install “democracy,” even through military means, was strategically and morally imperative. Turkey represented the living proof of that logic. As a Muslim and democratic country, it “proved” that another way was possible. As pointed out by George W. Bush in Istanbul, “Turkey as a strong, secular democracy, a majority Muslim society, and a close ally of free nations . . . stands as a model to others.”23 Likewise, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz declared, “In the United States we understand that Turkey is a model for those in the Muslim world who have aspirations for democratic progress and prosperity.”24 The second aspect of this argument was that Turkey, as a Muslim country, could help spearhead Western liberal values in the Muslim world. Hence, as elaborated by Kiri≈sci in Chapter 7, President Bush engaged Turkey in a set of initiatives, including the Broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA) initiative, NATO’s Istanbul Cooperative Initiative, and the G8 Partnership for Progress and Common Future with the Region of the Broader Middle East and North Africa.

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Turkey, as a Muslim country with ties to the Muslim world, would thus act as a representative for the West, putting its cultural weight behind the promotion of Western “democratization” policies in the region.25 Alongside the idea of Turkey as a bridge, the United States began promoting Turkey’s European integration in the 1990s. As former US president Bill Clinton put it, Our vision of a Europe that is undivided, democratic and at peace for the first time in all of history will never be complete unless and until it embraces Turkey. . . . There are still those who see Europe in narrower terms. Their Europe might stop at this mountain range or that body of water or, worse, where people stopped to worship God in a different way. But there is a growing and encouraging consensus that knows Europe is an idea as much as a place—the idea that people can find strength in diversity of opinions, cultures and faiths, as long as they are commonly committed to democracy and human rights; the idea that people can be united without being uniform, and that if the community we loosely refer to as the West is an idea, it has no fixed frontiers. It stretches as far as the frontiers of freedom can go.26

Support for Turkey’s EU accession had a threefold rationale for the United States.27 First, it would add an important nonmilitary aspect to and bolster further US-Turkey relations. More specifically, through its European integration, Turkey would develop politically and economically, inducing a parallel expansion in its political and economic ties to the United States, as well. Second, Turkey’s EU accession would yield critical strategic assets to the EU and thus, more broadly, to the transatlantic alliance. With Turkey as a strategic bridge, the transatlantic community would greatly enhance its external projection, particularly in those regions and policy areas where Turkey adds critical advantages. Third, and related, by promoting closer ties with the EU, Turkey would be anchored to the West and become more stable, pluralistic, democratic, and liberal. That was felt as particularly important in the 1990s, when Turkey was marked by political and macroeconomic instability and gross human rights abuses. Throughout the Cold War, NATO had provided an important identity anchor for Turkey. In the post–Cold War era, while NATO remained important, it was recognized as being a limited vehicle to anchor Turkey politically, and not purely militarily, to the West. The EU was instead viewed as the most natural avenue to anchor Turkey, not only in the Western community of interests, but also in the Western community of values.28 For all these reasons, summarized former US ambassador to Turkey Morton Abramowitz, supporting Turkey’s EU membership became a “no-brainer” for the United States.29 In the mid- and late 1990s this strategy was remarkably successful. The United States aimed at including Turkey into the EU Customs Union, an idea that was first conceived in 1991.30 In order to secure this objective, US officials proceeded on two parallel tracks. On the one hand, and alongside Turkish officials, the United States lobbied for Turkey’s inclusion in the Customs Union by highlighting that in the aftermath of the 1989 rejection of Ankara’s applica-

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tion for membership, the EU had been compelled to move forward in its relationship with Turkey. On the other hand, US officials pressed Turkey to embark on democratic and human rights reforms, particularly in the realms of the freedom of expression and ending torture. Those were viewed as critical, especially by the European Parliament, which would have had to ratify the Customs Union agreement.31 The policy was successful, as evidenced by the entry into force of the Customs Union agreement in 1996. The agreement marked the beginning of higher levels of economic integration between Turkey and the EU and, in Ankara’s and Washington’s eyes, the prelude to Turkey’s full EU membership. The success of this strategy in the mid-1990s induced the Clinton and the ensuing Bush and Obama administrations to proceed further, by first pressing for Turkey’s inclusion in the accession process between 1997 and 1999, then for the opening of accession negotiations between 2002 and 2005, and since then for the continuation and acceleration of the negotiation process. The concept underpinning the strategy remained the same. If Turkey could be made to reform through the EU incentive, then EU-Turkey relations would unfold through a virtuous dynamic, culminating in Turkey’s democratization, full membership in the EU, and strengthened strategic relationship with the United States. Hence, with the exception of some neoconservative voices whose strident anti-Europeanism may have led them to question the desirability of “losing Turkey to Europe,”32 there has been a consistent bipartisan consensus across three US administrations on the goal of supporting Turkey’s EU membership. Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, appeared to be as committed to the goal of Turkey’s EU membership as his predecessor: “America believes that as a European power, Turkey belongs in the European Union.”33 The same can be said of President Barack Obama: “The US strongly supports Turkey’s bid to become a member of the EU. . . . Turkey is bound to Europe by more than bridges over the Bosphorous. Centuries of shared history, culture and commerce bring you together. Europe gains by diversity of ethnicity, tradition and faith—it is not diminished by it. And Turkish membership would broaden and strengthen Europe’s foundation once more.”34 Proceeding with European Integration

Beyond US support, EU-Turkey relations have had a life of their own. Following Turkey’s application for membership in 1987 and the European Commission’s rejection of it in 1989, EU institutions and member states nevertheless recognized the imperative of deepening ties to Turkey. The Customs Union agreement was an important step in the right direction, but the EU was well aware that it was insufficient. This was because not only had Turkey’s 1963 Association Agreement opened the prospect of full membership,35 but Turkey’s eligibility for membership had also been reconfirmed in the European Commission’s 1989 Opinion on Turkey’s application. The EU consensus was thus that Turkey could join in principle, but in practice its domestic situation meant that it was still unfit for a meaningful accession process to be launched.36

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Turkey nonetheless continued to press for its inclusion in the accession process, eager to join the fifth enlargement round alongside the eastern European countries Cyprus and Malta. The attempt to upgrade the relationship suffered a setback at the December 1997 European Council in Luxembourg, when the European Union underlined that Turkey did not yet meet the standards for candidacy. Unlike the rejection in 1989, this second rejection was perceived in Ankara as a clear case of discrimination, given the political and economic shortcomings of the eastern European candidate countries at the time. In response, Turkey froze its political dialogue with the union and threatened to withdraw its membership application and integrate with the unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.37 The tide turned with the December 1999 Helsinki European Council, when Turkey’s long-sought candidacy was recognized.38 Given the downturn in EUTurkey relations in 1997–1999, the member states acutely felt the need to move those relations forward, and there was a growing urgency within the union “not to lose Turkey.” Alongside that, strong pressure was exerted by the Clinton administration to grant Turkey candidacy.39 The European Council in Helsinki recognized Turkey’s candidacy, yet stopped short of opening accession negotiations, arguing that the country first had to fulfill the Copenhagen political criteria, which require the stability of institutions, democracy, human and minority rights, and the rule of law. In turn, the Commission was given a mandate to monitor Turkey’s progress in reform and to draft a first Accession Partnership document for Turkey, recommending areas for further reform. The EU also adapted its financial assistance to Turkey, redirecting aid to provide more explicit support for Turkey’s political, social, administrative, and economic reforms. After a slow start in 2000 and 2001, Turkey’s reform momentum accelerated in 2001–2005. The first major breakthrough came in October 2001, when thirty-four constitutional articles were amended. An even more significant turning point came in August 2002, when the Turkish parliament approved a farreaching legal harmonization package, including the abolition of the death penalty; the right to broadcast and teach in languages other than Turkish; the liberalization of the freedoms of speech, association, and assembly; and the recognition of religious minorities’ property rights. As Turkey struggled to gain its “date” to begin accession negotiations, incentives for reform peaked, and consequently 2003 and 2004 were the years of highest intensity in the reform process. In those years, another major constitutional reform, a series of legislative packages, a new penal code, and numerous laws and regulations modified many of the most restrictive features of Turkey’s legal and political system.40 As Turkey transformed domestically, its allies in the EU grew in strength and numbers, leading the Copenhagen European Council in December 2002 to conclude that it would determine whether and when to open accession negotiations with Turkey in December 2004.41 The December 2004 European Council decided that Turkey “sufficiently” fulfilled the political criteria and that accession talks could begin in October 2005. Despite the opening of accession

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negotiations, several EU actors underlined the need to sustain Turkey’s reform efforts. Hence, the European Council foresaw a continuing EU role in determining Turkey’s reform priorities through updated accession partnerships, monitoring compliance through the Commission’s progress reports, and threatening to suspend negotiations in the event of a backtracking of the reform process. All seemed in place for the virtuous circle between Turkey’s domestic reforms and its EU integration process to continue. Yet since the opening of accession negotiations on October 3, 2005, the golden years in EU-Turkey relations have come to a (temporary) halt, and the relationship has slipped back into a vicious dynamic more resembling the 1997– 1999 period.42 Until 2002–2003, EU skepticism of Turkey’s membership was rarely voiced in the open. With a few notable exceptions, European declarations normally focused on Turkey’s shortcomings in the areas of democracy and human rights. However, when the prospect of Turkey’s membership became more tangible with the approaching launch of accession negotiations in 2005, the underlying concerns of the member states came out in the open, concerns that went well beyond Turkey’s compliance with EU criteria.43 Key personalities in France have voiced their fears that Turkey’s entry would dilute the EU’s loosely defined esprit communautaire, imperil the EU’s deepening integration, and push the EU’s borders into the volatile Middle East and Eurasia. Actors in Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Austria have argued that Turkey’s economic development would entail excessively high levels of redistribution of EU funds to Anatolia, bankrupt the Common Agricultural Policy, and lead to an invasion of “Turkish plumbers” into the union. Greece and Cyprus have mobilized EU conditionality to win bargaining points in their bilateral disputes with Turkey. Moreover, politicians, journalists, and civil society actors across the EU have been reluctant to embrace an allegedly “different” country, which might hamper the emergence of a cohesive European identity based on culture, tradition, and religion.44 More precisely, as 9/11 and its repercussions shaped perceptions of the world, EU-Turkey relations became entangled in and hijacked by a far broader conflictual dynamic, one that placed the two parties on opposite sides of a presumed civilizational divide.45 According to this civilizational logic, Turkey should be rejected because its borders lie within the Muslim Middle East, because its cultural-religious distinctiveness would disrupt the EU’s institutional cohesion, because its Muslim character means that it is incapable of fulfilling EU criteria. Muslim Turkey could and should thus be an inspirational model for the Muslim East, as advocated by the United States. By definition, however, it is incapable of meeting the EU’s “standards of civilization.”46 Turkey is considered bon pour l’Orient, not for the EU. In turn, Turkey’s accession negotiations have proceeded at a snail’s pace, with thirteen (out of thirty-five) chapters opened in six years and only one chapter (science and research) provisionally closed by July 2011. France has informally vetoed the opening of five chapters on the grounds that they are too closely linked to the prospect of full membership, about which Paris is openly

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negative. Moreover, and beyond hindering EU-NATO cooperation,47 the Cyprus conflict risks grinding Turkey’s accession talks to a halt. An organic link between EU-Turkey relations and the Cyprus conflict has existed since the launch of Cyprus’s accession process in 1990 and the upgrading of EU-Turkey relations with the 1995 Customs Union agreement. However, up until the 2004 referendum on the Annan Plan and the EU entry of the Republic of Cyprus (one week later), the expectation was that Cyprus’s accession process would act as a “catalyst” for a solution on the island, which would accelerate the momentum in Turkey’s own accession process.48 With the failure of the Annan Plan, the link with the Cyprus conflict has persisted and deepened, and rather than taking the anticipated virtuous form, it has locked EU-Turkey relations into a vicious dynamic. On the grounds of Turkey’s nonimplementation of the Additional Protocol to the Customs Union agreement to allow Greek Cypriot–flagged flights and vessels into Turkish air and seaports, the Union decided in December 2006 to suspend negotiations with Turkey on eight chapters of the acquis. A further six chapters were blocked by Cyprus in December 2009 in view of the pending dispute. To date, the Damocles sword of the Additional Protocol continues to hang over Ankara’s head. Insofar as Turkey links its ratification to progress in the Cyprus peace process or, at the very least, to the lifting of the EU’s isolation of northern Cyprus—an unkept promise by the EU since the 2004 failure of the Annan Plan—the Cyprus quagmire has become increasingly entangled in EUTurkey relations. Indeed, much like Greece’s complicated progress in EU-Turkey relations in the first two decades of Greek membership of the EC,49 the Republic of Cyprus does likewise today, failing to recognize in practice that as an EU member, Turkey would be the best (if not the only) genuine guarantee for its security. Repercussions for Turkey as an Actor in Its Neighborhood

US and EU policies have played a critical role in both shaping Turkey’s neighboring milieu and defining Turkey domestically and beyond its borders. The United States has been pivotal in presenting and transforming Turkey into a bridge in its neighborhood. In the security domain, the US-led 1990–1991 Gulf War positioned Turkey as a critical partner in the US strategy of double containment of Iraq and Iran that prevailed until 2003. The run-up to and aftermath of the US-led war in Iraq in 2003, however, triggered a broad reconfiguration of the Middle East and Turkey’s role in it. Simply put, while the first Gulf War opened the way for Turkish assertiveness in the region, the second ushered in an era of Turkish cooperation with its southern neighbors. Partly as a result of the failures of US (and European) policies in Iraq and the broader region, the twenty-first century has witnessed a vacuum in the region. Turkey felt compelled to fill the gap, first in military terms, as the war fanned the flames of an anti-American brand of Turkey’s “Sèvres syndrome,”50 then—and as US-Turkey security cooperation picked up in 2006–2007—in more constructive economic, social, and political

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terms. The unintended consequence of the 2003 war has been an increase in cooperation between Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.51 In the energy sector, it is highly unlikely that BTC would have seen the light of day without strong US support. The completion of BTC (in 2006) and parallel pipelines in the East-West corridor affirmed in practice Turkey’s role as an energy bridge in the twenty-first century.52 It thereby also provided a stimulus for the Nabucco gas pipeline intended to bring 30 bcm from the Caspian to Europe per year, which again posits Turkey as the bridge in the East-West corridor. In the field of democracy promotion, the impact of the United States on Turkey was less linear but equally important. The idea of Turkey as a model for the Muslim world generated strong backlashes both among Turkey’s secular elites and across the Muslim world, particularly in view of the reputational problems of the Bush administration in the region.53 Yet the idea of Turkey as a model, or more modestly, as a source of inspiration, did trickle down both in Turkey and in its surrounding regions.54 As discussed in Chapter 7, that has led to democracy promotion–like activities by Turkish officials and civil society actors in the neighboring regions. These have become all the more relevant in view of the Arab Spring in 2011. The EU accession process triggered a profound domestic transformation or Europeanization in Turkey,55 which has had significant repercussions on Turkish foreign policy.56 On the one hand, the EU accession process provided the security reassurances that enabled conservative actors in the Turkish foreign policy establishment—including the military—to contemplate shifts in foreign policy.57 On the other hand, it induced Turkey to embark upon a path of political transformation. Turkey has abandoned the gross human rights abuses of the 1990s and has made important steps toward political pluralism and democracy in the twenty-first century. Openness at home has spilled over into policies abroad. That is the case both because a broader set of actors within and beyond the state has acquired a stake in foreign policy making (see Chapter 7) and because a more pluralistic domestic environment has allowed new ideas to permeate foreign policy (see Walker’s discussion of the appropriation and use of Turkey’s Ottoman heritage as a foreign policy asset in Chapter 2). In turn, Turkey today refrains from engaging in brinkmanship in its neighborhood; has significantly improved its relations with former foes such as Armenia, Greece, Iraq, Iran, Russia, and Syria; is filling the void left by the US withdrawal from Iraq; has attempted mediation in the Middle East; and has supported reconciliation in the Caucasus and Cyprus. As a US diplomat in the region put it, “It is hard to take issue with Turkey’s approach because it is principled, diplomatic and it attempts at solving regional problems,”58 all features that constitute the declaratory goals of the EU’s foreign policy. Yet what is equally true is that the travails of Turkish democracy have not ceased. Since 2005 there has been a worrying wave of prosecutions limiting the freedom of expression of activists and intellectuals, along with a resurgence of violence in the southeast.59 Particularly since 2007, the country has become in-

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creasingly polarized in view of the acrimonious power struggle between different domestic forces, epitomized by the crisis over the election of President Abdullah Gµl in 2007, the judiciary’s closure case against the ruling AKP in 2008,60 the acrimonious referendum campaigns on the constitutional reform package in September 2010, and the Ergenekon case since 2009.61 Viewed from a different angle, Turkey, having undertaken groundbreaking reforms on paper in 2002–2005, has since been undergoing “real” domestic transformation in its political, economic, administrative, and social structures and belief systems. As argued by Tolay in Chapter 6, we should be wary of the “stalled reform” discourse, insofar as technical change is ongoing away from the limelight of political and media attention. Like any profound transformation, Turkey’s political change has now acquired a life of its own, and that has entailed a complex and multifaceted power struggle between and within various sectors of society, the outcome of which cannot be assured. Yet what can be ascertained is that as the EU started manifesting its reluctance to embrace Turkey and US policy in the Middle East unleashed and exacerbated anti-Americanism in Turkey, the country’s domestic transformation has become, for the time being, more detached from transatlantic influences. Arguably, a prime reason underpinning the difficulties in revamping the reform momentum in 2009 and 2010 through the various democratic, Kurdish, and Alevi “openings” is precisely the detachment of Turkey’s reform process from the EU umbrella. In the early years of the twenty-first century, the EU provided the glue binding liberal secularists, AKP reformists, and ethnic minorities together, generating a critical mass of support for reform. With that glue gone missing, centrifugal forces have prevailed, and reform impulses have become embroiled in and poisoned by the country’s political polarization. In turn, Turkey has become more democratic and Europeanized, but also more independent and nationalistic. That has meant that whereas its external policies are far more cooperative and constructive than in the past, they are at times formulated and implemented differently from those of the United States and the EU. As Turkey transforms domestically and gains in self-confidence at home and abroad, it no longer acts simply as Washington’s or Brussels’s mouthpiece.62 Four examples drawn from the reflections in this book highlight this point. First, as explained by Tocci and Walker in Chapter 3, although Turkey has manifested its independence from the United States and the EU in the Middle East, its policies are more democratic and cooperative than in the past. In Iraq, the United States learned the hard way that a politically transformed Turkey entailed the risk of being told no when asking for assistance. Despite its involvement in the origins of Operation Provide Comfort,63 Turkey became uneasy with US-UK use of the Incirlik base, particularly in the mid-1990s.64 Notwithstanding that, Turkey acquiesced to Western demands. But in 2003 Turkey surprised the United States, Europe, and itself when in March the Grand National Assembly refused to approve US use of the country’s territory to invade Iraq,65 largely in response to the overwhelming Turkish public opposition to the war.

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The decision was viewed as a blow by many US strategists. But insofar as the refusal signaled that Turkish foreign policy had become more responsive to the parliament and public, those who opposed the war welcomed the new age of democracy in Turkish foreign policy, while its proponents accepted the decision with resignation.66 More broadly in the Middle East, the leitmotif of Turkish foreign policy has been conditionality toward Israel and a distancing from policies of isolation and sanctioning of Iran, Hamas, and Syria. Turkey has also mobilized to mediate the manifold conflicts afflicting the region, particularly in view of the failure of US and EU policies to achieve any breakthroughs. Turkey’s success in mediation has been limited, but the principles on which Turkish policy is construed are quintessentially European: They aim at promoting a peaceful, multicultural, law-abiding, and integrated neighborhood, and they consistently apply soft-power tools in pursuit of those goals. Second, as discussed by Tolay in Chapter 6, Turkey has undergone a significant transformation in its asylum, irregular migration, and visa policies. When it comes to the first two areas, there has been a progressive alignment of Turkish policy to EU standards since the late 1990s, and Turkey has not challenged the ethos and practice of EU norms. Yet as far as its visa policy is concerned, not only has Turkey’s openness toward its neighbors not been reversed, as called for by the EU’s Schengen acquis, but it has also expanded further, with the liberalized visa policies toward its northern neighbors now being applied to the southern neighbors, as well. In late 2009 and early 2010 Turkey signed no less than five visa-free agreements, with Libya, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and long-time foe Syria. Turkey’s policy of visa liberalization contrasts with EU policy. Yet Turkey’s opening to its neighbors through encouraged trade, investment, and movement of people replicates and applies the model of European integration to the wider neighborhood. In many respects, Turkey can be viewed as “doing the European Neighborhood Policy for the EU,” the latter being a policy that had promised deeper integration with the neighbors but has failed to deliver in practice.67 Third, as argued by Linden in Chapter 4, in the Caucasus, Turkey’s foreign policy can be characterized by a rapprochement to former foes Russia and Armenia. Turkey’s muted response during the 2008 Georgia-Russia war stood in contrast to US and EU opposition to the war, although neither Washington nor Brussels mobilized effectively to prevent the escalation into war or a reversal of its consequences. In addition, Turkey’s normalization with Armenia, while welcomed by the EU and the United States, has led to a distancing between Ankara and Baku. This has fed the trend of Azerbaijan’s warming relations with Russia, bolstering Russia’s primacy in the region, a development that both Washington and Brussels view with unease. In other words, Turkey is increasingly shaping the broader dynamics between Russia on the one hand and the United States, the EU, and NATO on the other, not always and necessarily in the latter’s favor. Yet the resurgence of Russia is due to a variety of reasons, among them the inability of the EU to forge a common policy toward Russia and the

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acquiescent attitude toward Moscow of several member states, such as Germany and Italy. Moreover, Turkey’s rapprochement with Armenia has entailed the implicit fulfillment of the EU criterion of good neighborly relations and has represented a critical step in averting recognition by the US Congress of the 1915 Armenian genocide. Finally, in Chapter 5 Evin has shown how Turkey has become an increasingly independent actor in the energy realm. While representing a pivotal state for the EU and the United States as far as the realization of the Nabucco pipeline is concerned, Turkey has also pursued a more vigorous energy policy toward Russia, which has been viewed with caution by Washington and in several eastern European capitals. In the summer of 2009 and a few weeks after Turkey’s signing of the Nabucco agreement, Ankara also signed on to Russia’s South Stream project, intended to transport gas to Europe, bypassing Ukraine. In addition, Turkey has hinted at the possibility of eventually filling the Nabucco pipeline with Iranian gas, alongside Azeri and Turkmen sources, a prospect that is heavily opposed by Washington. Yet Turkey’s policies in the energy realm both mirror those of some EU member states and are dictated by questions that neither Turkey nor the United States and the EU can afford to ignore. As far as South Stream and Russia are concerned, Turkey is not an outlier among European states, and its policies resemble those of member states Italy and Bulgaria. As for Iran, Turkey and indeed all other EU and US supporters of the Nabucco project are left with the very real question of how to fill the planned pipeline, particularly in view of Russia’s resurgence in Eurasia and the growing inclination of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to orient themselves toward Moscow (and in Turkmenistan also China).

Transatlantic Implications of Turkey’s Neighborhood Policies

Turkey’s neighborhood policies in the twenty-first century have thus become more democratic, cooperative, and integrationist, but also more independent from the United States and the EU. What are the implications for Washington and Brussels? Does divergence from the United States and the EU necessarily represent a problem, or could it be an asset for the transatlantic alliance? If the latter is the case, under what conditions? Transatlantic Interpretations of Turkey in Its Neighborhood

In the West, the traditional manner of judging Turkey’s neighborhood policies has been to gauge the degree to which those policies “converge” with or “diverge” from those of the United States and the EU. On the upside, commentators point to the improvement of Turkey’s relations with Iraq and Armenia, as well as to its mediation in the Middle East. In view of the withdrawal of its troops from Iraq, the United States has been thoroughly supportive of Turkey’s

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efforts to fill the vacuum, and both Americans and Europeans have praised Turkey’s Kurdish initiative. The United States and France (along with Russia) have been heavily engaged in the process of normalization between Turkey and Armenia, brokering the protocols agreement in October 2009 and insisting on prompt ratification and implementation of the protocols thereafter. The United States and the EU have also praised Turkey on its efforts to mediate conflicts in the Middle East, in particular between Israel and Syria and Israel and Hamas, as well as between the United States and Iran. Regarding Israel and Syria, President Obama acknowledged Turkey’s efforts in his December 2009 meeting with Prime Minister Erdoÿan. Regarding Iran, then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised Turkey’s efforts in July 2006, and the ensuing Obama administration has repeatedly mentioned Turkey’s role in delivering its messages to Tehran. Regarding Israel and Hamas, in the midst of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, French president Nicolas Sarkozy called for Turkey’s mediation,68 and following the end of the Israeli offensive, Turkey’s efforts were openly congratulated by France and the EU.69 Yet when Turkey’s policy has diverged from those of the EU and the United States, Turkey’s openings to the neighborhood have been interpreted as symptomatic of the country’s dangerous slide to the East. The cause of that presumed slide is unambiguously viewed as the rise of political Islam in Turkey, embodied in the AKP. The consequence is Turkey’s increasing warmth toward Muslim countries of the likes of Iran and Syria, its open political channels with Islamist movements such as Hamas and Hizballah, and its pro-Islam double standard in denouncing genocide in Xinjiang while denying it in Darfur.70 The implication for the United States and Europe is that Turkey and Turkey’s Western orientation is being “lost.”71 The debate on the loss of Turkey to the East took a particularly strident tone in 2009–2010 as the Turkish-Israeli military alliance faltered, reaching an all-time low in the aftermath of the June 2010 Gaza flotilla crisis; Turkish-Iranian relations warmed; and, alongside Brazil, Turkey mediated a deal on the Iranian nuclear question.72 These incidents have led some to provocatively question Turkey’s NATO membership.73 While wording their concerns more softly, some European observers have also raised eyebrows at Turkey’s foreign policy, voicing a growing concern that Ankara may be losing its European vocation.74 We have adopted a different reading of the implications of Turkey’s foreign policy, focusing on how the policies of a more democratic yet independent Turkey could be complementary to those of the United States and the EU.75 The underlying question addressed in this alternative interpretation of Turkey’s neighborhood policies is whether and how, even when they diverge from those of the West, they could represent an asset for the transatlantic alliance. The starting point in this analysis is the appreciation that across a whole array of areas, including conflict resolution in the Middle East and the Caucasus, democracy promotion, managing migration, averting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and dealing with political Islam, EU and US policies remain largely unsuccessful. Because

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of that, Turkish approaches that diverge from those of the EU and the United States, while having the same declared intent, could represent a valuable asset for the transatlantic community by pointing to an alternative route to the desired policy outcomes. As argued by Ibrahim Kalªn, “At a time of Western confusion in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and the Middle East, Turkey feels it has a ‘story,’ something to offer the region.”76 More substantially, “divergent” Turkish policies could represent an asset in a number of ways. As discussed by Tocci and Walker in Chapter 3, in the Middle East, Turkey, through its ties to Syria, Hamas, and Iran, could complement US mediation efforts in the Arab-Israeli conflict and act as a go-between with those actors and the West. It is acknowledged by many that solutions to problems in the Middle East are unlikely to be found without the engagement of those actors, yet it is equally recognized that Turkey alone does not have the influence to broker any breakthroughs—hence, the potential for complementarity between the two.77 Turkey could also help insert the logic of conditionality in relations with Israel, which the United States and the EU have persistently shied away from in a manner that has detracted from the prospects for peace in the region.78 Turkey’s “tough love” toward Israel, if proportional (i.e., not excessive) and consistent (i.e., toward all parties based on similar criteria), would mark a welcome change from US and EU policies in the Middle East. As discussed by Kiri≈sci in Chapter 7, as a democratizing state, Turkey can complement US and EU democracy promotion policies in the neighborhood, policies that suffered a considerable reputational blow during the presidency of George W. Bush and are now struggling to regain currency.79 Partnering with Turkey at the official and civil society levels could enrich EU and US democracy promotion policies. At the same time that would generate positive transatlantic influences on Turkey’s own democratizing efforts, which are in need of external support, not least because Turkey sits between two geopolitical regions: one characterized by democracy to its west and the other characterized by either very weak democracies or authoritarianism to its north, east, and south. As a neighbor of powers such as Iran and Russia that offer alternative paths to development and promote alternative understandings of democracy, Turkey continues to require the support of its EU and US partners if its own democracy is to consolidate and develop in a liberal manner. In terms of movement of people, Turkey’s openness to its neighborhood eases the exclusionary effects of and marks a welcome difference from the “paper wall” erected by the EU’s Schengen system. As discussed Chapter 6, by diverging from the EU in terms of visa policy, Turkey provides a critical route connecting its neighborhood to the West, allowing the neighbors to experience the relative openness of Turkey’s political, economic, and social systems. Furthermore, the positive consequences of over two decades of Turkish openness to its neighbors could enrich the EU’s debate over the wider Europe and encourage a move away from conceptions of “fortress Europe,” which have increasingly

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acquired “civilizational” undertones. In this respect, it is as notable as it is deplorable that, with the exception of Brunei, all predominantly Muslim countries are included on the EU “black” Schengen list.80 Finally, unlike the United States and the EU, Turkey is an actor “of” and not simply “in” the Middle East and Eurasia. As such, its policies can help realign those regions geopolitically and ideationally by fostering bilateral and regional integration and unsettling their balance-of-power logic. Turkey’s ambition of “zero problems” with its neighbors, and its policies of openness and engagement with all parties, may be viewed as fanciful and unrealistic. Given that Turkey’s neighborhoods are conflict ridden, Ankara will be unable to improve relations with some actors without hampering its ties to others. Yet to the extent that Turkey, by engaging all actors, succeeds in making the net effect of its policies positive, it will represent a constructive actor in its neighborhood and an asset to the EU and the United States. More specifically, in the Middle East, Turkey’s rapprochement with Syria and Iran can help Syria diversify its alliances, a goal supported by the United States and the EU, without triggering aggressive countermoves by Tehran. In the Caucasus, Turkey’s rapprochement with Armenia, its developing ties to Russia, and its efforts at damage limitation with Azerbaijan could inject positive momentum into the stalled Karabakh peace process. The Conditions for Success: Turkey as a Constructive Transatlantic Neighbor

Exploring how Turkey’s transformed foreign policy could represent a constructive force in its neighborhood and thus, directly or indirectly, be an asset for the EU and the United States, even when it diverges from Western policies, is a more useful approach than simply judging convergence in US-EU-Turkey policies. That is not to say that Turkey’s foreign policy transformation is always and necessarily constructive, or that it is always and necessarily beneficial to the transatlantic alliance. Furthermore, what may be viewed as “constructive” in the region may not be viewed as such by the EU and the United States or may not be in line with European or US perceived interests.81 By way of conclusion, let us assess the domestic and international conditions that might allow Turkey’s foreign policy to contribute to the stabilization and development of its neighborhood, basing our discussion on the assumption that such dynamics would be in line with the declared aims and interests of the EU and the United States. In order for Turkey to act as a constructive force in its neighborhood, its foreign policy must be consistent and based on universal values. Denouncing Israeli policies in Gaza while warmly welcoming Sudanese president al-Bashir, who faces an indictment for war crimes at the International Criminal Court (as Turkey did in the fall of 2009), opens Turkey up to criticism and accusations of double standards. Likewise, signing protocols with Armenia in 2009 but making their parliamentary ratification dependent on the solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh

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conflict is at least a case of inconsistency. Using the word “genocide” to describe treatment of the Uighur minority in Xinjiang, while the word is still treated with severe caution regarding the Armenian question could be mentioned as another example of inconsistency. Turkish foreign policy must act in the name of universal values and not of particularistic ethnic or religious affinities. Sticking to universal values may be the only way to walk the tightropes in Turkey’s conflict-ridden neighborhoods and avoid simply switching alliances, in either the Middle East or the Caucasus.82 Whereas at first sight the United States and the EU might view exclusive Turkish alliances with Israel and Azerbaijan as more palatable than alliances with Iran and Russia, they are equally detrimental to the quest for peace and development in the neighborhood. It is far more likely that Turkey will succeed in pursuing a consistent and universal value-based foreign policy if its domestic transformation proceeds toward greater democracy, pluralism, and a widened and entrenched respect for rights and law. The expansion in the range of actors engaged in foreign policy, as well as in the scope for open and transparent debate at home, is more likely to induce a rule-bound and consistent conduct of policies abroad. As mentioned above, Turkey has made important steps forward in its democratic process, yet many problems remain to be tackled, while new ones have surfaced on the horizon. In 2009–2010 the handling of the Doÿan case, which led to a curtailment of the freedom of press; the shaky respect of the rule of law in the conduct of the Ergenekon trial; the closure of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP); and the highly polarized political environment in which the September 2010 constitutional reform referendum took place are all cases in point. Revamping a democratic reform agenda, following the 2011 elections, while not succumbing to authoritarian tendencies is no small feat, yet it is an essential one if Turkey’s neighborhood policies are to represent an asset to the transatlantic community. In order to facilitate the fulfillment of such a feat, it is essential that Turkey’s domestic commitment to the EU remain firm. Rather than being blinded by ambitions of grandeur, Turkey must realize that its value added in the neighborhood largely hinges on its ongoing domestic transformation, which in turn is dependent on its EU accession process. To reinforce that point, it is notable that a survey of Arab public opinion revealed that 64 percent of those surveyed believed that Turkey’s EU membership prospects made Turkey an attractive partner for the Arab world.83 The EU, of course, cannot be and is not the sole driver of reform in Turkey. Nevertheless, the accession process has been critical in kick-starting the process of political change and continues to be necessary to avoid authoritarian tendencies, which flourish in the regions to Turkey’s north and south. Yet for the EU to play a constructive role in Turkey’s domestic transformation, Turkey’s reforms must be viewed by the EU as the prime determinant of the evolution of Turkey’s accession process. When other factors, such as history, geography, and religion, lying beyond the volition of candidate Turkey, are flagged as determinants of Turkey’s European future, Turkey’s incentive to

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transform in line with EU standards dramatically falls. That is because the absence of a strong European commitment to Turkey’s membership fuels Turkey’s insecurity, ignites a sense of rejection, and reawakens Turkey’s Sèvres syndrome. Thus it provides ammunition for those in Turkey who abhor the prospects of a Europeanized country and those in the EU who prefer that Turkey’s accession process grind to a halt. Finally, the United States can play a crucial role in ensuring that Turkey transforms into a constructive transatlantic partner in its troubled neighborhood. The stakes in doing so are high, as Turkey represents a critical NATO ally on several issues topping the US foreign policy agenda, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. As argued above, Washington was pivotal in kick-starting Turkey’s accession process in the latter half of the 1990s. When the process began and EU rules and conditions set the nature and tempo of it, US influence inevitably waned. Yet Washington continues to play a critical role in inducing the European Union to conduct its relations with Turkey according to Ankara’s compliance with EU conditionality. It also can engage EU actors in debates over criteria unrelated to the Copenhagen criteria that bedevil Turkey’s negotiation process. Such a transatlantic dialogue would be best conducted behind closed doors rather than through public statements, which EU actors generally interpret as serving US-Turkey relations rather than genuinely promoting Turkey’s EU membership. Alongside this, the United States must continue to spur Turkey’s domestic reforms. The success underpinning Washington’s strategy in the early 1990s to include Turkey in the EU Customs Union consisted in a parallel lobbying of EU capitals and the spurring of Turkey’s reforms such as ending torture and broadening freedom of expression. In the twenty-first century precisely the same twofold logic applies. The positive turn in US-Turkey relations in 2006–2007 has already been critical in heralding a new era in Turkey’s ties to Northern Iraq, which have made Turkey’s moves toward a Kurdish Opening possible. The Turkish-Armenian reconciliation would have also been unlikely without Washington’s consistent support and pressure. Equally important is the US contribution to a solution in Cyprus, which the EU, as an actor in the conflict since the 2004 enlargement, can no longer advance. By engaging in the Cyprus peace process in order to induce a permanent solution on the eastern Mediterranean island, Washington could extract the single most important thorn in the side of Turkey’s accession process and remove all alibis on the continent regarding the country’s European future. Notes 1. Challand, “From Hammer and Sickle to Star and Crescent.” 2. Kiri≈sci, “A Friendlier Schengen System as a Tool of ‘Soft Power’”; Kiri≈sci, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy in Turbulent Times.” 3. Oÿuzlu and Gµngör, “Peace Operations and the Transformation of Turkey’s Security Policy.”

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4. Larrabee and Lesser, Turkish Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty. 5. Landau, Pan Turkism. 6. Interview with a former assistant secretary of state, Washington, DC, Dec. 2009. 7. Barkey, “The Endless Pursuit.” 8. Makovsky, “The New Activism in Turkish Foreign Policy.” 9. Kªnªklªoÿlu, “The Anatomy of Turkish-Russian Relations.” 10. Lundgren, Unwelcome Neighbour. 11. A critical case of US intervention to avert crisis in the 1990s was the participation of US Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke in the Greek-Turkish conflict over the Aegean islets of Imia/Kardak in 1996. 12. Interview with congressional official, Washington, DC, Nov. 2009. 13. Interview with former State Department official, Washington, DC, Dec. 2009. 14. Interview with congressional official, Washington, DC, Nov. 2009. 15. Interview with congressional official, Washington, DC, Nov. 2009. 16. Larrabee and Lesser, Turkish Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty, p. 116. 17. Interview with former State Department official, Washington, DC, Nov. 2009. 18. Barkey, “The Endless Pursuit.” 19. Clinton, “Remarks by President Clinton to the Turkish Grand National Assembly.” 20. Joseph, “The Pipeline Diplomacy.” 21. The “model” argument was used at times also under the Clinton administration. Anthony Blinkmen, President Clinton’s special assistant and senior director for European affairs at the National Security Council, for example, stated that: ‘Turkey sits at the crossroads—or, if you prefer, atop the fault lines—of the world. Because of its place . . . its history . . . its size . . . and strength, and most important, because of what it is— a nation of mainly Islamic faith that is secular, democratic, and modernizing—Turkey must be a leader and can be a role model for a large swath of the world.” See Blinkmen, “Address to the Washington Institute’s Third Annual Turgut Özal Memorial Lecture on Turkey and Turkish-US Relations.” 22. Ta≈spªnar, “The Old Turks Revolt.” 23. Bush, “President Bush Discusses Democracy, Freedom from Turkey.” 24. Wolfowitz, “Building Coalitions of Common Values.” 25. Larrabee, “American Perspectives on Turkey and Turkish-EU Relations,” p. 23; Ta≈spªnar, “The US and Turkey’s Quest for EU Membership.” 26. Clinton, “Remarks by President Clinton to the Turkish Grand National Assembly.” 27. Interview with congressional official and former State Department official, Washington, DC, Nov. and Dec. 2009. 28. As argued by former Assistant Secretary of State Mark Grossman, Turkey’s EU membership is a prerequisite for “Turkey to become an even more successful 21st century democracy in terms of pluralism, the balance between secularism and religion, women rights, minorities, rule of law and a strong market economy.” Remarks at the Opening Conference of the Transatlantic Academy “Trends in the American Strategic Debate on Turkey,” Sept. 24, 2009, Washington, DC. 29. Abramowitz, “Introduction,” p. 17. 30. Interview with former State Department official, Washington, DC, Dec. 2009. 31. Krauss, “The European Parliament in EU External Relations.” 32. Larrabee, “American Perspectives on Turkey and Turkish-EU Relations.” 33. Bush, “President Bush Discusses Democracy, Freedom from Turkey.” 34. Obama, “Remarks by President Obama to the Turkish Parliament.” 35. Article 28 of the Association Agreement specified that “as soon as the operation of the Agreement has advanced far enough to justify envisaging full acceptance by Turkey of the obligations arising out of the Treaty establishing the Community, the Contracting Parties shall examine the possibility of the accession of Turkey to the Community.” 36. Narbone and Tocci, “Running Around in Circles?”

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37. Tocci, EU Accession Dynamics and Conflict Resolution, pp. 65–93. 38. Öni≈s, “Luxembourg, Helsinki and Beyond.” 39. Öni≈s and Yilmaz, “The Turkey-EU-US Triangle in Perspective.” 40. Tocci, “Europeanization in Turkey.” 41. Tocci and Evin, Towards Accession Negotiations; Dervi≈s, Emerson, Gros, and ˜lgen, The European Transformation of Modern Turkey. 42. Redmond, “Turkey and the European Union.” 43. Tocci, Conditionality, Impact and Prejudice in EU-Turkey Relations. 44. Casanova, “The Long, Difficult and Tortuous Journey of Turkey into Europe and the Dilemmas of European Civilization.” 45. Challand, “From Hammer and Sickle to Star and Crescent.” 46. Jung, “Conditionality Impact and Prejudice in EU-Turkey Relations.” 47. In view of Cyprus’s EU membership and Turkey’s concerns about giving Cyprus access to NATO resources and information while Turkey is excluded from Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) decisionmaking, Turkey has refused, since 2007, to approve NATO activation orders for Kosovo and Afghanistan operations that involved cooperation with the EU. 48. Tocci, EU Accession Dynamics and Conflict Resolution. 49. Ibid., pp. 119–143. 50. The Sèvres syndrome indicates the preoccupation in parts of Turkish political culture with the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, which redesigned and drastically scaled down the size of the prospective Turkish state after the end of World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The collective memory of Sèvres has deeply influenced the psychological development of the Turkish Republic, inducing it to highlight “territorial integrity” as the leading principle underpinning laws and policies as well as wider political and popular cultures. The memory of Sèvres has also led to the interpretation in Turkey of international recommendations and pressures as undue external interference aimed at disintegrating the Turkish state. See Jung and Piccoli, Turkey at the Crossroads. 51. Interview with Syrian analyst, Damascus, Oct. 2009. 52. That is, the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline and the Turkey-Greece Interconnector completed in 2008 and 2007, respectively. 53. Ta≈spªnar, “The Old Turks Revolt.” 54. Altunª≈sªk, “The Turkish Model and Democratization in the Middle East.” 55. Keyman and Aydªn, “European Integration and the Transformation of Turkish Democracy”; Grigoriadis, “Upsurge Amidst Political Uncertainty.” 56. Aydªn and Açªkme≈se, “Europeanization Through EU Conditionality”; Özcan, Harmonizing Foreign Policy. 57. Aydªnlª, Özcan, and Akyaz, “The Turkish Military’s March Towards Europe.” In 2004, a retired Turkish four-star general openly acknowledged that the EU would represent an anchor for Turkey’s internal as well as external security allowing for reform. See Kiri≈sci, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy in Turbulent Times,” p. 37. 58. Interview with US diplomat, Damascus, Oct. 2009. 59. Grigoriadis, “Upsurge Amidst Political Uncertainty.” 60. European Stability Initiative, Turkey’s Dark Side. 61. Ergenekon is the name of an alleged clandestine, secular, and ultra-nationalist organization in Turkey, including members from wide sectors of society (academia, media, politics, administration, judiciary, and military) with ties to members of the country’s military and security forces. The group is accused of terrorism in Turkey and the aim of toppling the AKP government and derailing Turkey’s accession process. Over one hundred people, including generals, party officials, lawyers, and a former secretary general of the National Security Council have been detained or questioned since July 2008. Hearings began on October 20, 2008, and were ongoing at the time of this writing in 2011.

216 Nathalie Tocci

See Jenkins, “Between Fact and Fantasy”; European Stability Initiative, “Issues: The ‘Deep State’ and Ergenekon.” 62. Fuller, “Turkey’s Strategic Model”; Lesser, “Turkey, the United States and the Delusion of Geopolitics.” 63. Barkey, “The Endless Pursuit,” p. 217. 64. Oran, Kalkik Horoz. 65. Robins, “Confusion at Home, Confusion Abroad.” 66. In a debate in the US Congress regarding the approval of US loan guarantees to Turkey in April 2003, several representatives, while disappointed by the Turkish parliament’s vote, recognized that in a country in which over 90 percent of the population was against the war, the Turkish parliament acted no differently than how the US Congress would have in a similar situation. Interview with congressional official, Washington, DC, Nov. 2009. 67. Aydªn and Tocci, “Transforming Turkish Foreign Policy.” 68. “Turkish PM Speaks to Sarkozy on the Phone,” Time Turk English, Jan. 7, 2009. 69. “Turkey Key to Convincing Hamas on Gaza Cease-Fire,” Turkey NY.com, Jan. 28, 2009, http://www.turkishny.com/tr/ingilizce-haberler/1639-turkey-key-to-convincinghamas-on-gaza-cease-fire-.html 70. In March 2006, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoÿan declared: “I do not believe that there has been assimilation or genocide in Darfur.” See “Prime Minister Erdoÿan Reiterates ‘No Genocide’ in Darfur,” Today’s Zaman, Nov. 9, 2009. In July 2009, Erdoÿan likened the violence against the Uighur minority in Xingiang to genocide. See “China Tells PM Erdoÿan to Withdraw Uighur Genocide Remark,” Today’s Zaman, July 15, 2009. 71. Menon and Wimbush, Is the United States Losing Turkey?; Caÿaptay, Turkey at a Crossroads. 72. The agreement between Turkey, Brazil, and Iran was brokered in May 2010 as the United States and the European members of the UN Security Council were attempting to rally support for a resolution on new sanctions on Iran. The agreement foresaw Iran’s depositing of 1,200 kg of low enriched uranium in Turkey in one installment, in exchange for the equivalent amount of fuel from the Vienna group (United States, Russia, France, and the International Atomic Energy Agency) delivered within a year to Iran. 73. Schenker, “A NATO Without Turkey?” 74. Kramer, “Turkey’s Accession Process to the EU.” 75. Kiri≈sci, Tocci, and Walker, “A Neighborhood Rediscovered.” 76. Kalªn, “Neo-Ottomanism.” 77. Scham and Abu-Irshaid, “Hamas”; Emerson and Youngs, Political Islam and European Foreign Policy; Leverett, “U.S.-Iranian Rapprochement Enhances Regional Security for All.” 78. As argued by a former Israeli official and negotiator: “Turkey is currently doing what neither the US nor the EU have the courage to do.” Interview with the author, Oct. 2009, Jerusalem. 79. For example, the failure to consolidate the outcomes of the color revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan; Russia’s increasingly autocratic rule; the faltering US and EU commitment to democracy in the Middle East following the 2005–2006 elections in Lebanon and Palestine; as well as the challenges that democracy faces in the West in view of anti-terrorism policies. See Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm”; Diamond, The Spirit of Democracy, pp. 56–87. 80. The list includes all countries that require a Schengen visa in order to enter the EU Schengen area. 81. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this chapter for raising this important point.

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82. The significance of this was best captured by Syrian president Asad, who unequivocally underlined that Turkey must have good relations with Israel if Turkey wants to support the peace process. Ertuπrul Özkök, “Interview with Syrian President Bashar al-Asad,” Hurriyet, Nov. 9, 2009. 83. Akgün et al, Orta Doÿu’da Türkiye Algªsª, p. 25.

10 Turkey and Its Neighborhood: Past, Present, and Future Ronald H. Linden, Ahmet O. Evin, Kemal Kiri≈sci, Thomas Straubhaar, Nathalie Tocci, Juliette Tolay, and Joshua W. Walker As the epigraph of this volume indicates, the current leaders of Turkey have set themselves a remarkably ambitious agenda: to achieve a situation of tranquility among and fruitful cooperation with all of the country’s neighbors. They are trying, to paraphrase Atatürk, to secure peace abroad in order to promote peace (and development) at home. If Turkey were surrounded by vast oceans or stable subordinate neighbors, this task would still take considerable energy and skill. As it happens, Turkey’s neighborhood is volatile, complex, and possessed of both threats and opportunities. Turkey borders the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Middle East—regions whose very names conjure up visions of enduring conflict. Turkey’s diverse neighbors include Shi’a Muslim Iran and SunniAlawite Syria, Orthodox Slavic Bulgaria and Orthodox non-Slavic Georgia and Armenia. It shares the Black Sea with Romania and Bulgaria, both EU and NATO members, and Russia, suspicious of and even hostile to both of these international organizations. To complicate Turkey’s interactions with the region even more, much of it was once under the control—sometimes direct and brutal, sometimes indirect and tolerant—of the Ottoman Empire, which can confuse contemporary relations. In the present day, the neighborhood has come to the attention of all the major powers—the EU, the United States, Russia—because of its broad geostrategic location, including its role as a transit route for crucial energy supplies. In short, the gap between what Turkey wants as a foreign policy goal—zero problems with neighbors—and what it can achieve in its neighborhood may be a wide one. The aim of this volume has been to analyze Turkey’s policies and relations with its complex neighborhood in light of legacies from the near and more distant past, for example, Ottoman dominance and post–Cold War policies, with a view toward enlightening us as to the driving causes of contemporary Turkish foreign relations. The authors are agnostic and divergent as to theoretical frame, open to recognizing both domestic and international factors ranging from the individual (e.g., personality) to the regional and global. 219

220 The Authors

But the authors agree on several counts: (1) A single-factor analysis of contemporary Turkish policy is unlikely to be very satisfying. (2) A more complex and nuanced understanding of Turkey’s political development, including in foreign relations, is needed to replace all-too-common stereotypes. (3) The cultural, political, and economic forces underlying Turkish actions are deeply intertwined. Could one really understand the deepening Turkish involvement in the Balkans and the Middle East, for example, without recognizing the heightened profile of expansive Turkish businesses, and can that role be separated from the cultural and political orientation of those newly empowered people? At the same time, can one fully assess Turkey’s ambitious search for influence in its neighborhood without an appreciation of its long-standing sense of being alienated from and taken for granted by the West, including both the United States and Europe? (4) The world’s interactions with Turkey, especially those of its allies and would-be allies in the West, need to be based on a better understanding of the sources and aims of Turkish policy. This should include an assessment of Turkish actions on their own terms, not through the lens of policies made elsewhere. This does not necessarily mean that Turkish actions will be hostile to the policy goals of Washington or Brussels—indeed, they might even be beneficial. But they will—perhaps for the first time in modern Turkish history—be more a product of Turkish political visions and processes than of those formulated elsewhere.

Understanding the Past and Present

In constructing their analyses of Turkey’s neighborhood relations, the authors have divided the complex task into regional, conceptual, and policy-related areas. In Chapter 2, Joshua Walker traces the way the Republic of Turkey at first rejected its Ottoman past in favor of a more narrowly focused national identity centered on Atatürk’s vision of a Westernizing modern Turkey. Subsequent leaders have slowly begun to reshape historical memories of the Ottoman Empire and attempted to glorify Turkey’s imperial experiences. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoÿan, building on an assertiveness begun under Turgut Özal, has promoted Turkey as the natural leader of the Muslim world, largely on the basis of its imperial legacy. Walker shows that Turkey’s historic place between East and West has often led to various “identity crises” in the country. Turkey’s imperial legacy thus serves as both a constraint and an opportunity for Turkish grand strategy and, like all legacies, Turkey’s is used by various governments as one of several policy instruments. By being alert to the possible role of the Ottoman legacy in Turkey’s contemporary strategic culture and decisionmaking, policymakers and scholars of international politics can better understand Turkey’s interactions with its neighborhood. From a regional perspective, nowhere has the transformation of Turkey’s foreign policy been as evident as in the Middle East. Chapter 3, by Joshua Walker and Nathalie Tocci, points out that in the 1990s Turkey’s policies were

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marked by cooperation with the United States; a military alliance with Israel; and hostility toward and even confrontation with many of its Middle Eastern neighbors, notably Syria, Iraq, and Iran. But now we see unprecedented levels of cooperation in the political, economic, and social realms between Turkey and those neighbors, a sharp deterioration of its ties to Israel, and several attempts by Ankara to mediate crises in the Middle East. The external causes of that profound transformation include a deep regional transformation engendered, inter alia, by two Gulf wars and the rise and fall of the Arab-Israeli peace process. Domestically, the rise of new leadership under the AKP and changes in Turkey’s economic, social, and political structure are also responsible for new ties in the Middle East. Turkey’s neighborhood extends north and northwest, as well, and, as in the Middle East, includes former imperial territories. In Chapter 4, Ronald Linden highlights important domestic changes that underlie Turkey’s increased involvement in the Balkans, the greater Black Sea area, and especially Russia. Those changes include the role of businesses eager for trade and investment opportunities and the influence of domestic lobbying groups. At the same time, Linden ascribes the course and especially the outcome of Turkey’s policies in the region to external factors, including the changing roles of Russia, the United States, and the EU. Changes in Turkish policy orientation have occurred in several dimensions. Turkey’s energy policy, discussed by Ahmet Evin in Chapter 5, is characterized by the dual goal of securing its energy supply, on the one hand, and pursuing the commercial ambition of becoming a major energy-trading hub in the Mediterranean, on the other. Turkey’s position as an energy corridor between the rich reserves of its neighbors and the high-paying European market constitutes a significant geopolitical advantage, one the AKP government has been eager to exploit. However, its strategic position has not helped promote its EU membership objectives and has not eroded—may have even increased—Russian domination of its own energy markets. That has been the result, Evin shows, of both limited supplies of gas available from other neighbors and the government’s eagerness to promote deals with Moscow, allowing Russia a broader role in Turkey’s energy sector, including nuclear power generation. Turkey is also much more involved now in the movement of people in its neighborhood than it was at the end of the Cold War. Cross-border movements from and into Turkey bring with them greater social, cultural, and economic interdependence. As Chapter 6, by Juliette Tolay, demonstrates, these have recentered Turkish attention toward its neighbors. Turkey has not passively accepted these new contacts. On the contrary, it has used visa policy as a tool in foreign policy, complementing its increased involvement in the Middle East, for example, with new migration policies. That has become possible because of a conceptual convergence of the AKP’s rhetoric (about Muslim and Ottoman solidarity) and, ironically, the norms underlying the European project (regarding freedom of movement and a rights-based approach to migration).

222 The Authors

An additional striking aspect of Turkey’s transformed external relations has been its involvement in the diffusion of democracy in its neighborhood. As a democratic “work in progress” Turkey offers an experience that is received more favorably in its region than that of Western players. Chapter 7, by Kemal Kiri≈sci, shows that Turkish efforts have been indirect and, though linked to movement at home, stress local “ownership” of reform. Turkish actors do not use language associated with broad democracy promotion; instead, they focus on specific tasks, such as improving the rights of women, promoting better education, and encouraging efforts to address public problems. While most of this work is directed eastward, democracy assistance activities contribute to Turkey’s own democratization process and thus open space for Turkey to cooperate more closely with Western supporters of democratization. Turkey’s economic involvement with its neighborhood has also increased, including trade flows and capital movements. As Thomas Straubhaar shows in Chapter 8, the end of the Cold War has been a catalyst for Turkish economic interactions with its neighbors. Due to their proximity, Turkey’s neighbors are easily accessible markets for Turkish exports of goods or imports of energy. As a result, the neighborhood has become a very important and steadily increasing complement to the trade flows and capital movements to Europe and North America. After nearly a decade of Turkish activism, the profound transformation in Turkey’s foreign policy has changed Turkey’s relations not only with former rivals in the neighborhood, such as Russia, Syria, and Iran, but also with allies and partners such as the United States and Europe. The environment for recent Turkish actions has been affected by US actions, such as the two Gulf wars and various US-mediated peace processes in the Middle East, and by the EU accession process. The latter, in particular, has triggered a process of “Europeanization” of both domestic and foreign policy. Thus, as Nathalie Tocci discusses in Chapter 9, what Turkey does now has significant implications for ties with both the United States and Europe. Because Turkey is a NATO ally, a candidate member of the EU, and a long-time member of the “Atlantic community,” its actions— and reactions—in specific regions such as the Caucasus, the Balkans, and the Middle East and on specific issues such as democracy promotion, migration, and conflict resolution, matter to those communities. Not surprisingly, along with some support, Turkey’s new activism also produces a degree of criticism.

Anticipating the Future

In this volume, the authors for the most part eschew specific policy recommendations, having addressed those in a policy report published by the Transatlantic Academy in the spring of 2010.1 That kind of assessment of contemporary events and their policy implications has its own challenges, and does allow for upto-the-minute participation in policy debates. In a book like this, it is appropriate

Turkey and Its Neighborhood 223

to take a somewhat longer view and address, however briefly, the question of what our analyses portend for the future. We should ask, What crucial issues does Turkey face in its neighborhood relations, and what should we, as observers, analysts, or simply people who care about the fate of this country and its people, pay attention to in the coming years? We have seen that Turkey’s Ottoman legacy is an important part of its contemporary identity and its foreign policy grand strategy. But what does that tell us about how Turkey may act in the future? For one, having ruled for the better part of six centuries as the Ottoman Empire, the Turks expect a certain level of respect in their international dealings. Given their proud history, Turks can be particularly nationalistic and prickly when they see themselves being treated as less than equals. Such treatment might occur if other powers see Turkey instrumentally—that is, as a means to an end in their policies—for example, as the United States did in its attempt to “buy” Turkey’s support for its operations against Iraq. This awareness should also help us understand the frosty Turkish reaction to France’s suggestion that Turkey be offered less than full membership in the EU. As we watch Turkey adjust to and try to influence its changing neighborhood, an appreciation of the connections between the country’s imperial past and the turbulent present, especially in its neighborhood, can help a great deal. That blend of a not-always-beneficent past with a seemingly always threatening present is evident most starkly in the Middle East, where Turkey is an actor “of” rather than simply “in” the region. Given Turkey’s unique culture, geography, and both pre– and post–Cold War history, its actions cannot be fit into simple dichotomies of Muslim versus secular, European versus Middle Eastern, or imperial versus republican. Precisely because of their unique contemporary context, Turkish actions offer the prospect of realignment in the Middle East and of helping that region break with its own dichotomies of the past. For example, Turkey has been in a position to develop relations with all parties in conflicts there. This does not mean that Turkey’s mediation efforts will always succeed or that its ties with all actors will always be good. But “tough love” and conditionality, if measured (i.e., not excessive) and consistent (i.e., toward all parties), could mark a welcome difference from US and EU policies in the region. Yet that potential would be squandered if Turkey were to be viewed as acting purely according to particularistic identity affiliations rather than in the name of international rights and law, or if its external policies were to be captured by vocal domestic constituencies. Moreover, Turkish actions do not take place in a vacuum, and, as this volume shows, many of Turkey’s neighbors have their own ideas about how best to adapt to a changing political, economic, and energy environment. Whether Turkey will help shape or be shaped by the Middle East, a recalibration of Ankara’s previously exclusive relationship with the West will be part of the future. As President George W. Bush learned the hard way, Western policymakers cannot categorically count Turkey as either “with us” or “against us” and need to take into account Turkey’s views of its own national interests in the Middle East—as elsewhere.

224 The Authors

Like the Middle East, the Black Sea part of Turkey’s neighborhood embodies legacies of the past and presents dilemmas for the future. In this region, the dilemmas involve the touchy sensibilities of a resurgent Russia, which, by virtue of its political and military prominence in the region, its dominance of the energy landscape, and, most important, its clear willingness to view the region as an area of “special interest,” will present a challenge for Turkey. Policymakers in Turkey have a similar view of the region—though not the resources available to Russia. Moreover, unlike Russia’s leaders, Turkish leaders appear to still hold out hope of joining the EU as a full member and, for now at least, value their close relationship with the United States. Thus, Turkey’s sometimes too ambitious goals will be trimmed, not only by the preferences of those states in its northern and northwestern neighborhoods but also by the pressures that can sometimes come from Washington and Brussels—something Moscow does not worry about. Going forward, Turkey’s neighborhood policy will have to deal with challenges that emanate from that region, as well as some that are global—for example, the uncertain nature of the energy market, on which Turkey’s desire to become an “energy hub” rests. For Europe, the urgency of ensuring energy security (and reducing dependence on Russia) has diminished as a result of the recent economic downturn and the appearance of substantial new supplies available at competitive prices. Turkey’s ability to act as an indispensable East-West conduit for energy will also be compromised by China’s entry into Eurasia as a major energy consumer and investor and by continuing instability in Iraq, which makes prospects for the much vaunted Nabucco pipeline problematic. In the next few years, Turkey will be challenged by the need to respond to the changing European context with regard to the movement of people. Turkey will need to find common ground with the EU on highly politicized issues such as the readmission agreement, the geographical limitation of the refugee convention, and Schengen visa requirements for Turkish nationals. Developing a strategy that constructively engages European partners while completing the process of policy reforms on migration and asylum at home will affect Turkey’s position in its relation to both EU and its neighborhood. In that respect, Turkey’s efforts to promote freedom of movement as a means for peace and prosperity in its neighborhood (for example, by extending visa-free travel) may complicate an already difficult Turkey-EU relationship, but they may also present an opportunity to commence a regional dialogue on those issues with the EU and the neighborhood. While such actions have a high degree of salience in the Middle East—especially because they represent a reversal of long-standing policies—Turkey’s efforts in democracy promotion occur mostly “below the radar.” But that makes them no less crucial both to the neighborhood and to Turkey’s own future. Turkey sits over a major fault line between a political geography where pluralist democracies and authoritarian regimes such as Iran and Russia face each other. That fault line is dotted with a string of weak democracies, as well as countries in dire

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need of reform. A Turkey that continues to democratize and at the same time contributes to democracy promotion efforts in its neighborhood can help to ensure that the strategic balance does not tip in favor of authoritarian regimes. At the same time, efforts in real, if subtle, democracy promotion and assistance will likely contribute to the broadening and deepening of its own democracy and reinforce that important dimension of contemporary Turkish identity. As observers, it will be incumbent on us to assess whether Turkish actions are indeed having an impact, and what that tells us about the conventional wisdom on democracy promotion. Economically, Turkey’s future role in the region could go in a number of directions. A “hub-and-spoke option” might place Turkey as a center of gravity in the Black Sea, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. That would be the economic counterpart to “neo-Ottomanism,” with Turkey as the epicenter, supporting efforts to strengthen regional cross-border activities. While there is potential for trade creation and trade expansion in the long run, the current low standards of living, low purchasing power, and mostly agricultural structure of most of Turkey’s neighbors make those possibilities less immediately attractive. Yet a fully realized “European option” with Turkey as a Western-looking secular state strongly anchored politically in NATO and economically in the European Union will depend crucially on both domestic political outcomes in Turkey, which still might be favorable, and a changed attitude in Europe toward full Turkish integration, which seems less likely. Realistically, for the immediate future Turkey needs a European option that allows it to live with Europe without being a member of the EU—for example, one that includes an improved Customs Union. Thus, an “open-to-all-directions option” seems most likely and would be an economic complement to the political goal of “zero problems” with neighbors. It would facilitate access to more open markets and help Turkey profit most from the benefits of the international division of labor and specialization, as well as changes in the energy market, and might help insulate Turkey from economic troubles in Europe over which it has little policy control. In all of these policy areas and in all parts of Turkey’s neighborhood, the actions by the Turkish state, its representatives, its military, and its private groups and citizens will likely have an impact on a scale not seen since the days of the Ottoman Empire. That is not to say that Turkey can again be imperial— or even wants to be. Rather, it is to recognize that Turkey is now actively engaged, economically, militarily, and politically, as an actor both “in” and “of” the region. That regional activism, though relatively recent, makes a difference in the neighborhood and reverberates beyond its boundaries, among leaders and publics farther away who claim an interest in the region. Turkey’s orientation toward Iran, its initiatives on migration and energy, its involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict all affect Turkey’s relations with the United States and the European Union. At the same time, the resulting course of Turkey’s transatlantic relations has repercussions on the overall direction of Turkish foreign policy and, not incidentally, on Turkish domestic politics. While precise prediction of the course

226 The Authors

of any country’s foreign relations is always risky, a good way to start in this case is by keeping in mind the delicate triangular relationship between Turkey, the United States, and the European Union. People, social psychologists tell us, are “cognitive misers.” Faced with a complex world of information overload and multiple variables, they need to simplify, and tend to operate, therefore, on the basis not of a complete picture of the world but of a simplified one. Observers of countries, including Turkey, are no less subject to that tendency, maybe more so. We are tempted to ask, What is our “picture” of Turkey? What model does it fit? How can we categorize it? Is contemporary Turkey “neo-Ottoman”? Is it still “Kemalist”? Is the military still the country’s guardian or a guardian only of its own privilege? Is Turkey a “bulwark against radical Islam” or, more ominously, a subtle and deceptive purveyor of that ideology? Is it a Western outpost? Asian anomaly? European partner? Turkey has been a NATO member for more than fifty years, but it is not yet in the EU. It holds the chair of the Organization of the Islamic Conference and has military ties with Israel. It is an energy hub with little energy of its own. It is a democracy with one party holding virtually all the reins of power. It is, one might say, a state of contradictions. This volume does not resolve those contradictions, nor is that the intention. Rather, the aim is to reintroduce some needed complexity to the simplified models currently circulating about Turkey. All such models, being abstractions, are incomplete, as is this volume. But the aim here is a contribution, a step, toward an improved appreciation for just that complexity and those contradictions, in this case, in the realm of neighborhood relations. As can be seen from this volume’s component parts, such complexities are part of what makes contemporary Turkey what it is today: a country whose identity is unresolved. For its citizens, that is the focus of an ongoing struggle. For those who study the country, it is a challenge to use models that are less miserly and more informative.

Note 1. Evin, Kiri≈sci, Linden, Straubhaar, Tocci, Tolay, and Walker, Getting to Zero.

Acronyms

AIOC AKP AKV ASAM AWACS bbl bcm BLACKSEAFOR BOTA≈S BP BSEC BTC BTE CENTO CHP CSBR CSCP CSDP DAD DEIK DP DTO DTP EC

Azerbaijan International Operating Company Justice and Development Party [Adalet ve Kalkªnma Partisi] Anatolian Development Foundation [Anadolu Kalkªnma Vakfª] Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants Airborne Warning and Control System barrels (unit of crude oil) billion cubic meters Black Sea Naval Cooperation Task Group BOTA≈S Petroleum Pipeline Corporation British Petroleum Company Black Sea Economic Cooperation Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyan oil pipeline Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline Central Treaty Organization Republican’s People Party [Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi] Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform Common Security and Defence Policy Democracy Assistance Dialogue Turkish Foreign Economic Relations Board [Dª≈s Ekonomik ºi≈skiler Kurulu] Democrat Party [Demokrat Parti] Diyarbakªr Chamber of Commerce [Diyarbakªr Ticaret Odasª] Democratic Society Party [Demokratik Toplum Partisi] European Community 227

228 Acronyms

ECHR EdF EEA EEZ ENI E.ON EU EUFOR Althea FDI FTA GDF GDP GERB GOLADER HCA IBC ICBSS IEA IFOR IHH INOGATE IOM ITGI KFOR KRG LNG mcm MFA MHP MOL MRF MUSIAD NATO NGO NIS OECD OIC OMV OSCE

European Court of Human Rights Electricité de France European Economic Area Exclusive Economic Zone Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, Italy The Integrated Power and Gas Company, Germany European Union European Forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina Foreign Direct Investment Free Trade Agreement GDF Suez French energy company gross domestic product Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria [Grazhdani za Evropeisko Razvitie na Bulgaria] Association of Art, Culture and Ecology [Gola Kültür, Sanat ve Ekoloji Derneπi] Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly International Blue Crescent Relief and Development Foundation International Center for Black Sea Studies International Energy Agency Implementation Force (Bosnia) Foundation for Humanitarian Relief [ºnsani Yardªm Vakfª] Interstate Oil and Gas Transport to Europe International Organization for Migration Interconnector Turkey-Greece-Italy pipeline Kosovo Force Kurdish Regional Government liquefied natural gas million cubic meters Ministry of Foreign Affairs Nationalist Action Party [Milli Hareket Partisi] Hungarian Oil and Gas Plc Movement for Rights and Freedoms (Bulgaria) [Dvizhenie za Prava i Svobodi] Independent Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association [Müstakil Sanayici ve º≈sadamlarª Derneπi] North Atlantic Treaty Organization nongovernmental organization Newly Independent States Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Organization of the Islamic Conference Austrian Mineral Oil Administration Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

Acronyms

PIP PKK RWE SETA SFOR STP TESEV THY TIKA TIM TIPH TKSSD TOBB TUSEV TUSIAD TUSKON UBCCE UNHCR UNPROFOR WTO WWHR

229

Priority Interconnection Projects Kurdistan Workers’ Party [Parti Karkerani Kurdistan] Rheinisch-Westfälische Elektrizitätswerke [Rhine-Westphalian Electric Company] Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research [Siyaset, Ekonomi ve Toplum Ara≈stªrmalarª Vakfª] Stabilization Force (Bosnia) Civil Society Platform [Sivil Toplum Platformu] Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation [Türkiye Ekonomi ve Sosyal Etüdler Vakfª] Turkish Airlines [Türk Hava Yollarª] Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency [Türkiye Uluslararasª º≈sbirliπi ve Kalkªnma Ajansª] Turkish Exporters Assembly [Türkiye ºhracatçªlar Meclisi] Temporary International Presence in Hebron Corporate Social Responsibility Association of Turkey [Türkiye Kurumsal Sorumluluk Derneπi] Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges [Türkiye Odalar ve Borsalar Birliπi] Third Sector Foundation of Turkey [Türkiye Üçüncü Sektör Vakfª] Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association [Türkiye Sanayici ve º≈sadamlarª Derneπi] Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists [Türkiye Sanayici ve º≈sadamlarª Konfederasyonu] Union of Black Sea and Caspian Confederation of Enterprises United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees United Nations Protection Force (Middle East) World Trade Organization Women for Women’s Human Rights [Kadªnªn ºnsan Haklarª-Yeni Çözümler Derneπi]

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About the Authors

During 2009–2010 all of the authors of this volume except Thomas Straubhaar were fellows at the Transatlantic Academy, based at the German Marshall Fund in Washington, DC. During this time Thomas Straubhaar was the Helmut Schmidt Fellow at the academy. Ahmet O. Evin is founding dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabanci University and founding member of the Istanbul Policy Center. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, New York University, as well as universities in Turkey and Germany. Professor Evin has authored or edited more than ten volumes including: Towards Accession Negotiations: Turkey’s Domestic and Foreign Policy Challenges Ahead (with Natalie Tocci, 2004) and The Politics of the Third Turkish Republic (with Metin Heper, 1994). Kemal Kiri¸sci is professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Boπaziçi University, Istanbul. He holds the Jean Monnet Chair in European Integration and was also the director of the Center for European Studies at the university between 2002 and June 2008. He has taught at the Universities of Carleton, Minnesota, and Michigan among other universities. He has published a number of books, chapters, and articles on Turkish foreign policy, EU-Turkish relations, immigration, and identity issues in Turkey. Recent publications include “The Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy: The Rise of the Trading State,” in New Perspectives on Turkey, Special Issue on Turkish Foreign Policy (2009) and Turkish Immigrants in the European Union: Determinants of Immigration and Integration (coedited with R. Erzan, 2007). Ronald H. Linden is professor of political science and director of the European Union Center of Excellence and European Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of numerous works on the international relations of Central and Southeast Europe, including “EU Accession and the 251

252 About the Authors

Role of International Actors,” in Sharon Wolchik and Jane Curry (eds.) Central and East European Politics: From Communism to Democracy (2010); “The Burden of Belonging: Romanian and Bulgarian Foreign Policy in the New Era,” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies (2009) and “Balkan Geometry: Turkish Accession and the International Relations of Southeast Europe,” Orbis (2007). During 1984–1989 and 1991–1998 he was director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at Pitt and from 1989 to 1991 Dr. Linden served as director of research for Radio Free Europe in Munich, Germany. Thomas Straubhaar is professor of economics at the University of Hamburg and director of the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI), a German think tank of about 40 researchers and staff members. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Berne and has been a professor at the University of Basel, Konstanz, Freiburg, and the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg. He has written several books on issues of international economics, migration, and economic integration and has published articles in professional journals including: International Migration Review, International Migration, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of Economic Integration, International Review of Applied Economics, and Population Research and Policy Review. Nathalie Tocci is deputy director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, Rome, and associate editor of The International Spectator. She has held previous research positions at the Centre for European Policy Studies, the European University Institute, Florence, and the Transatlantic Academy, Washington, DC. Dr. Tocci is the winner of the 2008 Anna Lindh award for the study of European foreign policy. Her book publications include: Bullying Brussels: US Involvement in EU-Turkey Relations (2011); The EU, Civil Society and Conflict (2010); Conflict, Civil Society and the Politicization of Human Rights (with R. Marchetti, 2010); Conflict Society and Peacebuilding (with R. Marchetti, 2010); Cyprus: A Conflict at the Crossroads (with T. Diez, 2009); The EU and Conflict Resolution (2007); and EU Accession Dynamics and Conflict Resolution: Catalyzing Peace or Consolidating Partition in Cyprus (2004). Juliette Tolay is a doctoral candidate in political science and international relations at the University of Delaware, where her dissertation examines Turkish approaches to immigration. Ms. Tolay is a graduate from Sciences Po, Paris in international politics and Institut National de Langues et Civilisation Orientales in Turkish studies. She has conducted extensive research in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Tajikistan, and authored a number of articles on Turkey, migration, asylum, and foreign policy. She is the recipient of the 2010 Sakip Sabanci International Research Award for a paper on multiculturalism in Turkey. Joshua W. Walker is Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund and

a nonresident fellow at the Crown Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Bran-

About the Authors

253

deis University. He is currently visiting scholar of the Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University and has been affiliated most recently as a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, Tokyo University, Pacific Council, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Walker has a Ph.D. in politics and public policy from Princeton University. His forthcoming book focuses on the role of historical memories in postimperial successor states, including Japan and Turkey. Walker has written extensively on Turkish foreign policy in Foreign Policy, International Affairs, Mediterranean Quarterly, Washington Quarterly, Turkish Policy Quarterly, and numerous US and Turkish news and public affiars outlets.

Index

AKP (Justice and Development Party). See Political Parties Arab conflict with Israel, 41–44, 48, 213, 221 League, 47, 52–53 relations with Turkey, 21,36, 47 Arab World, 25, 40, 42, 146 diffusion of Turkish Democratic Model, 150, 156 Turkish mediation within, 53–57 See also Turkey’s Middle East Policy Armenia energy issues and conflict with Azerbaijan, 36, 71 GDP, 176, 189 relations with Turkey, 61; and the Black Sea Energy Initiative, 62–69; genocide (Armenian), ix, 46, 78; migration to Turkey, 124, 134; normalizing relations with, ix, 3, 7, 207; Turkey’s overture, 77–79 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal and Islam, 18–20, 24 Kemalism and, 22, 24, 81 legacy: and CHP 21; and military 226 and modern Turkey, 14, 17–21 and the Ottoman Empire, 14 and public trust, 48 and Turkey’s economic options, 183–185 and Turkish War of Liberation, 17, 19 vision of foreign policy, 219 Azerbaijan and Armenia, 3, 36, 71,77 democracy, 159 and energy Issues, 65, 78, 94, 95, 98, 104, 106, 208

trade, 148, 178 Balkans Bosnia: migration, 149; NATO missions in, 62, 67; Turkish development assistance, 82; Turkish diplomatic relations with, 76–77, 152 Bulgaria; energy, 65–66, 75, 92–98, 103; and EU, 62, 75; GDP, 176, 179, 180; migration, 121–124, 196; trade with Turkey, 73–76, 148, 178; Turkish imperial past, 82 Kosovo, 62–64, 71; migration from, 123, 126; Turkey’s recognition of, 82 Romania: energy, 62, 72, 98; EU enlargement fatigue, 67, 94; GDP, 176, 189; NATO, 62, 72 and Turkey, 2, 62ff, 72–77, 173 Blackseafor, 67, 69, 196 Bosnia. See Balkans BSEC (Black Sea Economic Cooperation), 66, 67, 93, 94, 188, 196 Bulgaria. See Balkans Bush, George W., 25, 67, 100, 152, 158, 198–200, 223 CENTO (Central Treaty Organization), 91 CHP (Republican Peoples Party). See Political Parties Clinton, Bill, 96, 198–201 Davutoπlu, Ahmet foreign policy vision 8, 26 and zero problems with neighbors, 1, 4 Demirel, Suleyman, 36, 43, 94, 112, 160

254

255 Index

Energy, 3, 5–6, 9 pipelines, 30, 42, 64, 65, 92, 97–98; Bourgas, 75; Blue Stream, 68, 70, 98, 107, 112; BTC (Baku–Tbilisi– Ceyhan), 68, 94, 95, 99, 104, 199, 205; BTE (Baku–Tbilisi–Erzurum), 95–96, 98, 104; Nabucco, 65, 68, 70, 72, 75, 77, 96, 99–104, 112, 199, 205, 208 See also Balkans, EU, Russia Erdoπan, Recep Tayyip and Armenia, 77, 134 and the Middle East, 39, 42, 81, 157; and Iran, 37, 71, 209 and the Ottoman Legacy, 26 the role of personality, 8 populist remarks and double standard on human rights, 159 and Turkish–US relations, 1, 45, 53 visit to Brussels, 102 Europe energy (oil & gas), 68; and Nabucco, 96; gas crisis, 102, 103, 107–110 and history of Turkey, 17–26 trade, 177, 185, 186 Turkey’s shift away from, 46 European Commission. See European Union European Parliament. See European Union European Union accession and integration, 45; and energy, 98–101 enlargement: application, 45; and Nabucco, 99–100 European Commission, 74, 80, 96, 98– 102, 160, 188, 201 European Parliament: and Nabucco, 104; and democracy diffusion, 150 identity, 126 migration, 120, 137–138 Foreign Policy regional engagement, 113 strategic depth and zero problems policy, 83, 150, Gül, Abdullah and civil society, 166 democracy promotion, 56, 157 Iran and the West shuttle diplomacy, 53

visit to Armenia, 77 Hamas Turkey’s involvement in mediation, 9, 36, 43, 48, 52ff in relations with the West, 55–56, 207, 209 and zero problems policy, 150 Hizballah and Iran and Syria, 52, 60 Israeli operations against, 152 and Turkey’s impact in the Middle East, 51, 209 Huntington, Samuel and the “clash of civilizations,” 6 and the third wave of democratization, 154 Immigration from Armenia, 124, 134 from Bulgaria, 123, 126 from Iran, 122, 124 from Russia, 124, 142,149 from Syria, 121–124 Iran energy, 36–37, 65, 114; Baku Tbilisi Erzurum (BTE) Pipeline, 96; Iran Turkey Pipeline, 98, 106 (see also Energy) and Nagarno Karabakh, 36 relations with Turkey, 2, 5, 36ff; immigrants to Turkey, 122, 124; nuclear question, 37; on PKK, 36–37, 47; sanctions 52, 53, 114; transformation of relations 44–51 UN sanctions, 71 Islam, 21, 22 revolution in Iran, 24, 36, 131 and Turkish synthesis, 23 Israel deterioriating relations with Turkey, ix, 3 military ties with Turkey, 40, 146, 198, 221 Turkish-Israeli Relations, 41–43, 46; and Arab-Israeli conflict, 48–53; and Turkish mediation, 51–53, 209–211; and US mediation, 210 Trade, 148 Kosovo. See Balkans Kurds, 25, 36–40, 47–48

Index

“opening,” 7, 152–153, 206 See also PKK MHP (Nationalist Action Party). See Political Parties Middle East Turkey’s impact on, 51–56ff Turkey’s Middle Eastern policy, 3, 29–31, 35–56ff, 78, 81, 129–131, 158–161, 180–182, 195–197, 207–210, 221–223 Turkey’s turning toward, 3, 4, 49, 72 Military, Turkish and Atatürk’s legacy, 48, 226 coup allegations and arrests, 164 and the coups of 1960, 1971, and 1980, 23, 50 and foreign policy, 49, 81; European Union, 134, 151 high public trust, 48 and Islam, 24 and Kurdish problem, 39 power, 7, 31, 134 153 ties with: Israel, 35, 41–43, 209, 221; US, 198, 204 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the expansion to: Balkans, 62; Eastern Europe, 63 and Russia, 63; and Turkey, 70–71 and Turkey’s membership, 49; during Cold War, 66, 195; in Afghanistan, 80; for peacekeeping, 67; for membership of Bosnia, 76; and TIKA, 160 and Turkish foreign policy, 26, 200, 209 Obama, Barack, 45, 53, 72, 89, 201, 209 OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), 77, 95, 151, 160, 196 Ottoman Empire and its legacy, 13, 18–20ff Özal, Turgut, 8, 15, 23–25, 38, 40–42, 122–124, 198 PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) camps, 36, 38, 40 and capture of leader Abdullah Öcalan, 148

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and Iran, 36–38, 197 and Iraq, 38–40 and Israel, 40 and Syria, 40 as a terrorist organization, 37 and US, 45, 152 Political Parties AKP (Justice and Development Party): and Islam, 28–29, 48–50 CHP (Republican Peoples Party), 18– 20, 28, 154; and Kemalist legacy, 21 MHP (Nationalist Action Party), 148, 154 multiparty vs. single party system, 21–23, 146 See also PKK Putin, Vladimir, 63, 70, 79 Romania. See Balkans Russia divergent foreign policy views, 71; during Cold War, 69; energy, 63, 68, 92–95, 96–99, 106–109ff, 112, 113, 221; migration to Turkey, 124, 149 (see also Immigration); military cooperation, 69, 71; post–Cold War, 2, 66–72, 79–81, 100; trade, 70 147, 177–179 energy, 72–73, 80 and the EU, 207, 208 GDP, 175, 176 influence in the Black Sea region, 63 invasion of Georgia, 6, 63, 71, 80 relations with Turkey: and Armenia, 78; “Axis of the excluded,” 3; and Azerbaijan, 78 Turkey’s zero problems policy, 1, 29, 71, 83, 112, 114, 115, 224 134, 150, 183, 190, 211, 219, 225 TESEV (Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation), 155, 158, 161–163 TIKA (Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency), 43, 89, 155, 159–160, 166 TKSSD (Corporate Social Responsibility Association of Turkey), 163, 164 TOBB (Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges), 43, 162

257 Index TUSEV (Third Sector Foundation of Turkey), 149, 161 TUSIAD (Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association), 155, 161, 162 US Relations with Turkey and Armenia, 46, 78 and the Black Sea, 69–72 since Cold War, 198 democracy diffusion, 150, 151 democracy promotion, 210 energy, 89; Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan, 199; Caspian oil, 94–95; Iranian oil, 111; Kirkuk–Ceyhan Pipeline, 91,

207–208; Nabucco, 96–100; Nabucco and the EU, 99 and the EU 2, 13, 30 and Iran 37–38, 53, 80 and Iraq, 36; security domain, 204; refusal to use bases in the beginning of the invasion, 67 PKK, 45, 47 Russia, 44 See also Energy, EU, and Iraq West, Turkey’s relations with, 220–225 See also EU, NATO, and US Relations with Turkey

About the Book

Recent years have seen dramatic changes in the nature, direction, and impact of Turkey’s foreign relations in its neighborhood—a region that encompasses Europe, the Middle East, the Black and Caspian Seas, and the Caucasus. The authors of this original collection explore those changes, the causes behind them, and their impact on Turkey’s ties with its traditional allies in the West. Ronald H. Linden is professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh. Ahmet Evin is the founding dean of Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabanci University. Kemal Kiri¸sci is professor of international relations at Boÿaziçi University. Thomas Straubhaar is professor of economics at the University of Hamburg. Nathalie Tocci is senior fellow at the Istituto Affari Internazionali, Rome. Juliette Tolay is a doctoral candidate in political science and international relations at the University of Delaware. Joshua W. Walker is

Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund.

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