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Posted on 03/27/2003 5:25:20 PM PST by sarcasm
America and Turkey
A friendship on holdMar 27th 2003 | ANKARA
From The Economist print edition
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AS AMERICA and Britain keep up their war against Iraq, the finger of blame is turning towards one country for the higher risks being run by the coalition forces. By denying thousands of American troops the use of Turkish soil as a launching pad for a second northern front, Turkey stands accused of throwing Pentagon war plans into disarray and, with them, more than 50 years of strategic partnership with the United States.
“In tatters”, is how Morton Abramowitz, the American ambassador to Ankara during the 1991 Gulf war, described the strategic partnership between America and Turkey in a recent editorial. “The Turks were until last week Saddam's allies, now they are just about neutral,” says another American official, referring to Turkey's belated decision, after much wrangling, to allow coalition planes to use Turkish airspace in raids against Iraqi targets. Much of the blame is being piled on Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AK): a party new to power, whose lack of experience, critics feel, has done much to cause the current mess.
When America's deputy secretary of defence, Paul Wolfowitz, first sought Turkey's help in a war in December, he came away saying he had “very strong” support from all levels of government. In exchange for economic aid ($4 billion, later haggled to $6 billion), Turkey would allow as many as 90,000 American soldiers on its territory and the upgrading of at least ten air bases and two ports.
A still-secret memorandum of understanding, signed on February 8th, apparently allowed the Americans to set up at least nine logistic bases in the country's predominantly Kurdish south-east provinces. American warships, loaded with combat materiel, began docking at Turkey's south-eastern port of Iskenderun. But on March 1st the Turkish parliament refused, by three votes, to approve the troop deployment. Tayyip Erdogan, the AK leader, had underestimated the strength of opposition among his own deputies. So, too, had the country's generals.
The Americans were infuriated. Surely, they argued, had Mr Erdogan and the generals really wanted it, the bill would have passed. Maybe so; but other factors contributed to the parliament's reluctance. The Americans seemed to be asking Turkey to help with a war George Bush had not yet publicly declared he would wage, while much of the rest of the world was still scrambling to find a peaceful way out.
Besides, Turkey's and America's interests have never been so directly in conflict. The Turkish army has long feared that the removal of Saddam Hussein could encourage the Kurds of northern Iraq to declare independence, which is why they wanted to send thousands of their own troops into the Kurdish enclave to prevent this from happening. The Bush administration's natural refusal to provide written guarantees that it did not support Kurdish independence only deepened Turkish suspicions that the Americans had a secret agenda in northern Iraq, though this was, and is, unlikely. For the government, bloodying its hands in a war against fellow Muslims without UN sanction would have angered not only its many openly pious constituents but millions of other Turks who had helped it to power.
Above all, the presence of thousands of American troops in the country's troublesome Kurdish provinces was simply intolerable. Why then, did Turkey lure the Americans along? For that, both the generals and the government share blame. They should have told the Americans from the start that the best they could do was open their airspace, which is what they ended up doing, and no more than that. Allied war planners would have saved much time and, yes, perhaps British and American lives. In the event, AK leaders, and the then prime minister, Abdullah Gul, may have presumed that a northern front was indispensable to the Americans and that, by dragging their feet, they could avert war. Turkey's former foreign minister, Yasar Yakis, admitted last week that Turkey never believed that the Americans had a fallback position.
To make matters worse, when America's secretary of state, Colin Powell, at last let it be known that his government now wanted nothing more than overflight rights, to which the Turkish parliament agreed on March 20th, the government denied the Americans use of Turkish airspace, saying it wanted them to agree to the deployment of thousands of Turkish troops in northern Iraq. The Americans wisely said no, chiefly because their Kurdish allies have threatened to fight the Turks should they come in large numbers, and the government backed down.
Turkey's businessmen, who had been heavily counting on American aid, are in shock, as is the Istanbul stockmarket. The mainstream press, strongly in favour of support for the Americans, complained that the government had now achieved Turkey's complete isolation.
So is this the end of a steady friendship between Turkey and its most important ally? It cannot be, since, thanks to its geography, the country remains a strategic pivot. It is NATO's only Muslim member, a strong friend of Israel and, for all its flaws, a western-style democracy. It was no accident that President Bush this week sought congressional approval for $1 billion of aid for Turkey, which it can use to acquire loans of $8 billion or more. And on March 26th Turkey's chief of the general staff, Hilmi Ozkok, announced that he wanted Turkish troops to enter northern Iraq only in full co-ordination with the Americans. The Turks, said one American official, “still have a chance to prove that they remain our friends.”
Just wait until out own southwestern states try to separate just as the Kurds in the southeastertn Turkey: what will we do?
I do not know whether you are in the mood to answer a question that is particularly dumb. But if you could, I'd appreciate it.
Why wouldn't Turkey give up the arid land in the East and let the Kurds unite with the Northern Iraqi ones?
This does not seem to be a particularly important piece of real estate, and it is so costly for the Turks to maintain. The Kurds managed to maintain identity through centuries, and are unlikely to be ever loyal, in contrast to other minorities in Turkey. Why not let go?
Yeah, we all feel the same way. But then you have to face reality.
The reality is that the friendship is OVER. To say that we must somehow pretend otherwise because of "reality" is to ignore the truth. We did not seek this reality, but it is nevertheless very real.
The task now is to redefine the relationship in ways that minimize the damage, avoid war, and yet nevertheless recognize reality. An inescapable part of today's reality is that Turkey is most definitely NOT a friend.
Only a fool would build a new relationship around the assumption that the Turks are our friends. At best we will have a formally "correct", arms length relationship. The diplomats will smile and pretend, but both sides know the Turks stuck a knife in our back. It left a scar that will never go away.
It is an undeniable fact that the United States cannot trust Turkey. This is reality.
Well said.
The Sioux?
The problem is not how the Kurds are treated; it not like our history with Blacks, or Hispanics, or Catholics, or Jews. The Kurds can go to any school they want, any University, professions. They do not complain about prejudice: they want LAND.
Which is why I gave the parallel I did; hope you now see that it is indeed a parallel.
Unlike the Kurds, we had indenpendent states that tried to go their own way, and we beat the cr-p out of them. Despite their sovereigny (which the Kurds DID not have in the past). That's how we reacted to the situation here, in the good ol' U.S. of A.
And in the present of near furture, as "nationalism" in the Soutwest increases and calls to make that land independent --- which WAS once independent of the U.S. --- become stronger, what will we do?
I do not know what the Turks should or should not do. But I certainly do not feel like I can ride a high horse here. I am actually sympathetic with the Kurds, people of separate ethnicity, who maintained identity over centuries despite not having their own land. But I cannot see what the Turks should do. Would you give up the Southwest to go its own way?
I have turkish & Greek friends - that can get really interesting after everyone has had 1 too many
I learned the hard way dont try to stop the fight
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