Turkey risks alienating itself with dubious foreign policy choices
Turkey's strained ties with the military-backed interim government in Egypt have complicated Ankara's already troubled foreign policy relationships with major powers, including the US, EU and Russia, risking the alienation of Turkey in its not-so-friendly immediate neighborhood.
The strong criticism of the forceful removal of Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, by Turkish officials also put Turkey at odds with the Gulf powers, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which rushed to celebrate the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood leader from power for the sake of maintaining the status quo. The sharp divergence over the coup between the Gulf states and Turkey may put political and economic investments both sides have cultivated in the last decade at risk.
Turkey, already under stress from the civil war in Syria and a swelling refugee crisis, has bad relations with both Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government in Iraq and the mullah regime in Iran. Losing Egypt as well as the Gulf may put a more alienated Turkey in an unfriendly neighborhood. The normalization of relations with Israel, Turkey's former ally in the region, is yet to bear fruit, with the third round of negotiations still incomplete. Hence Turkey's eastern and southern flanks do not look good at the moment.
On the western and northern fronts, nothing is moving in Ankara's direction. The EU's relations with Turkey have practically halted, and progress on accession talks has stalled. The last negotiation chapter was opened on paper only after a three-year hiatus. Both sides constantly criticize each other; Turkey accuses the EU of cynicism and a two-faced approach, while the EU lambasts Turkey for curtailing freedoms and rights. Differences with the US are also increasing on a number of issues. Washington has come down strongly on the Turkish government over the Gezi Park protests, during which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were accused of taking a heavy-handed approach to demonstrators. In the north, Turkey maintains strong economic ties with Russia, yet political differences over the fate of Syria, the Caucasus and Central Asia still remain.
Faced with a bleak outlook for its international relations, Turkey should look out for its own interests and take changing balances of power in the Middle East into account if it doesn't want to be the odd man out in the region, experts say.
Mehmet Seyfettin Erol, an academic at Ankara's Gazi University and the head of the Center for International Strategic and Security Studies (USGAM), told Sunday's Zaman that Turkey's foreign policy is sputtering because of a disjunct between the nation's capabilities and the overblown ambitions of the current government. Turkey set off on the road to be a hero in the Middle East. But the extent and scope of its economic and military capabilities as well as political leverage were not taken into account while the government was setting this goal.
Today, not even the US acts alone in its foreign policy, it enlists partners to support its own goals. Turkey is having difficulties because it set goals beyond its capacity and is not willing to work with others that may have different takes on issues, Erol said.
Turkey's hard-line position on the issue of military intervention in Egypt left it standing alone as its key allies in the Gulf region, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, decided to back the military-led interim government. Turkey is sticking to the moral high ground, saying that its principles and morals dictate taking a strong position against the coup. That stance is being called into question, however.
Turkey shapes its foreign policy with its moral values. If you say, I don't want to negotiate with bad people,' than you should shut down the foreign affairs ministry, Gökhan Bacık, an international relations lecturer at İpek University, told Sunday's Zaman in a telephone interview. Instead, Turkey should reconcile its moral stance with the country's interests.
Saudi Arabia was among the first countries to welcome the military-backed government that toppled Morsi, and expressed its support for interim government by throwing a $5 billion financial lifeline to the beleaguered Egyptian economy. However, Turkey declined to even meet with Egypt's interim government, saying that Egypt wanted to use Ankara for its own legitimacy. Other Gulf countries like Kuwait and the UAE are also supporting Egypt's new government economically and politically; the $12 billion in aid from Gulf countries showed their delight with the Muslim Brotherhood's fading from the political scene.
Speaking to Sunday's Zaman, Beril Dedeoğlu, an academic at Galatasaray University, said that taking a stance different from that of the Gulf countries will be very costly for Turkey when economic relations are considered.
Once a pillar of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Turkey changed sides and stood against the Syrian government when the civil war began. In a bid to end the bloodshed, Ankara levied economic sanctions against the Syrian government and supported the opposition.
Turkey's stance on the Syrian civil war caused relations with Tehran to drop to a new low.[/B] Iran stood by Assad, who Turkey criticized severely because of his failure to meet the expectations of his nation and for leading the bloody civil war in the country. Turkey's decision to allow the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) missile defense system, which was designed to prevent an Iranian missile threat, to be deployed in Malatya in November 2011 further strained Turkish-Iranian ties. Iran's support of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging a bloody war against the Turkish government, is among the many contentious issues between the two countries.
Having independent energy relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, Turkey placed relations with the central Iraqi government on the backburner. Economic relations with Arbil, particularly dealings on oil, angered Baghdad as it stressed that Turkey should ask the Iraqi government before taking any action in the region. Turkey claimed it was acting in compliance with the Iraqi federal constitution which allocated shares of energy revenues to the KRG.
Apart from neighboring countries, Turkey also has differences on several issues with its key ally, the US. Turkey's firm stance on issues like the Egyptian coup, its prime minister's insistence on a Gaza trip and its oil accord with the KRG irked the US government. The game has changed and the cards have been dealt to the players once again. If Turkey wants a seat at the table, it should try to normalize its relations with other countries, Dedeoğlu said.
Turkey's relations with Israel are also one of the more worrying issues for the US. In a bid to improve soured relations between the two countries, US President Barack Obama, during his visit to Israel in late-March, mediated for a normalization of relations. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu apologized to the Turkish prime minister over the telephone for a 2010 Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that resulted in the deaths of eight Turks and one Turkish-American. The normalization process stalled however over a compensation deal even though a framework agreement on compensation was reportedly reached. This normalization process is a sticking point in terms of Turkey's relations with the US.
Erdoğan's intentions of visiting Hamas-ruled Gaza continues to ruffle feathers in Washington as well. US Secretary of State John Kerry's statement saying the planned visit to the Palestinian Gaza Strip was "objectionable" was not welcomed by Turkey, which said that only the Turkish government decides when and where the prime minister or any other Turkish official travels to.
Turkey should be very careful about its relations with big powers. Instead of getting angry it should cooperate with other countries. There is no point in getting into a fight, said Dedeoğlu, stressing that Turkey should sing a different tune.
The US also firmly objected to the KRG's attempts to trade energy independent of federal government control from Baghdad and warned Turkey, which has expanded the scale of its oil and gas imports from the KRG. The US fears that while Turkey has been searching for new alternatives for its oil needs, the energy trade bypassing Baghdad would undercut the unity of Iraq.
Another issue that places pressure on Ankara is the Greek Cypriot approval of a deal with an American energy company backed by the US government. Turkey says the Greek Cypriot government has to share its energy resources with Turkish Cypriots and cannot unilaterally sign deals with energy companies for offshore drilling.
Turkey's long European Union journey also seems to have come to a dead end because of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's unwillingness to see Turkey in the EU. The 22nd chapter on neighborhood policy was postponed to another date because of Turkey's Gezi Park protests which started as an environmental movement and turned into nationwide demonstrations. Merkel used the protests as an excuse to delay Turkey's accession talks with the EU.
Concerns over the EU process have changed on both sides. Before, EU countries were worried about Turkey's economy and the social conditions of its society but now they are concerned over whether Turkey can manage democracy and meet the rights of its citizens. The EU discussion has taken on a philosophic dimension. The physical conditions of Turkey are not the issue right now, said Bacık, noting that Turkey covered considerable ground on its EU journey and has already missed the crossroad to turn back.
Economic relations between Russia and Turkey seem to be on track, with Turkey being granted dialogue partner status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2012. Despite the boosting of economic relations, there is nothing new in terms of bilateral political relations. Turkey and Russia have been at odds over the Syrian crisis, as Ankara has been calling for Assad's departure while Moscow favors an Assad-led transition. During his trip to the US in mid-May, Erdoğan said he planned to visit Russia to talk about Syria but there is no indication that the visit will take place anytime soon.
With the pullout of US troops from Afghanistan by 2014, Russia plans to have a bigger influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The American-Russian cooperation on that may be at the expense of Turkish interests.
Analysts strongly urge the government to revise its foreign policy choices to prevent Turkey from being isolated in the region and the world. What is essential in foreign policy is continuity and consistency. You also need deterrence and reliability to avoid being alienated in international politics, Erol said, highlighting the reasons behind Turkey's loneliness on the international scene.
Turkey risks alienating itself with dubious foreign policy choices
Turkey's strained ties with the military-backed interim government in Egypt have complicated Ankara's already troubled foreign policy relationships with major powers, including the US, EU and Russia, risking the alienation of Turkey in its not-so-friendly immediate neighborhood.
The strong criticism of the forceful removal of Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, by Turkish officials also put Turkey at odds with the Gulf powers, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which rushed to celebrate the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood leader from power for the sake of maintaining the status quo. The sharp divergence over the coup between the Gulf states and Turkey may put political and economic investments both sides have cultivated in the last decade at risk.
Turkey, already under stress from the civil war in Syria and a swelling refugee crisis, has bad relations with both Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government in Iraq and the mullah regime in Iran. Losing Egypt as well as the Gulf may put a more alienated Turkey in an unfriendly neighborhood. The normalization of relations with Israel, Turkey's former ally in the region, is yet to bear fruit, with the third round of negotiations still incomplete. Hence Turkey's eastern and southern flanks do not look good at the moment.
On the western and northern fronts, nothing is moving in Ankara's direction. The EU's relations with Turkey have practically halted, and progress on accession talks has stalled. The last negotiation chapter was opened on paper only after a three-year hiatus. Both sides constantly criticize each other; Turkey accuses the EU of cynicism and a two-faced approach, while the EU lambasts Turkey for curtailing freedoms and rights. Differences with the US are also increasing on a number of issues. Washington has come down strongly on the Turkish government over the Gezi Park protests, during which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were accused of taking a heavy-handed approach to demonstrators. In the north, Turkey maintains strong economic ties with Russia, yet political differences over the fate of Syria, the Caucasus and Central Asia still remain.
Faced with a bleak outlook for its international relations, Turkey should look out for its own interests and take changing balances of power in the Middle East into account if it doesn't want to be the odd man out in the region, experts say.
Mehmet Seyfettin Erol, an academic at Ankara's Gazi University and the head of the Center for International Strategic and Security Studies (USGAM), told Sunday's Zaman that Turkey's foreign policy is sputtering because of a disjunct between the nation's capabilities and the overblown ambitions of the current government. Turkey set off on the road to be a hero in the Middle East. But the extent and scope of its economic and military capabilities as well as political leverage were not taken into account while the government was setting this goal.
Today, not even the US acts alone in its foreign policy, it enlists partners to support its own goals. Turkey is having difficulties because it set goals beyond its capacity and is not willing to work with others that may have different takes on issues, Erol said.
Turkey's hard-line position on the issue of military intervention in Egypt left it standing alone as its key allies in the Gulf region, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, decided to back the military-led interim government. Turkey is sticking to the moral high ground, saying that its principles and morals dictate taking a strong position against the coup. That stance is being called into question, however.
Turkey shapes its foreign policy with its moral values. If you say, I don't want to negotiate with bad people,' than you should shut down the foreign affairs ministry, Gökhan Bacık, an international relations lecturer at İpek University, told Sunday's Zaman in a telephone interview. Instead, Turkey should reconcile its moral stance with the country's interests.
Saudi Arabia was among the first countries to welcome the military-backed government that toppled Morsi, and expressed its support for interim government by throwing a $5 billion financial lifeline to the beleaguered Egyptian economy. However, Turkey declined to even meet with Egypt's interim government, saying that Egypt wanted to use Ankara for its own legitimacy. Other Gulf countries like Kuwait and the UAE are also supporting Egypt's new government economically and politically; the $12 billion in aid from Gulf countries showed their delight with the Muslim Brotherhood's fading from the political scene.
Speaking to Sunday's Zaman, Beril Dedeoğlu, an academic at Galatasaray University, said that taking a stance different from that of the Gulf countries will be very costly for Turkey when economic relations are considered.
Once a pillar of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Turkey changed sides and stood against the Syrian government when the civil war began. In a bid to end the bloodshed, Ankara levied economic sanctions against the Syrian government and supported the opposition.
Turkey's stance on the Syrian civil war caused relations with Tehran to drop to a new low.[/B] Iran stood by Assad, who Turkey criticized severely because of his failure to meet the expectations of his nation and for leading the bloody civil war in the country. Turkey's decision to allow the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) missile defense system, which was designed to prevent an Iranian missile threat, to be deployed in Malatya in November 2011 further strained Turkish-Iranian ties. Iran's support of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging a bloody war against the Turkish government, is among the many contentious issues between the two countries.
Having independent energy relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, Turkey placed relations with the central Iraqi government on the backburner. Economic relations with Arbil, particularly dealings on oil, angered Baghdad as it stressed that Turkey should ask the Iraqi government before taking any action in the region. Turkey claimed it was acting in compliance with the Iraqi federal constitution which allocated shares of energy revenues to the KRG.
Apart from neighboring countries, Turkey also has differences on several issues with its key ally, the US. Turkey's firm stance on issues like the Egyptian coup, its prime minister's insistence on a Gaza trip and its oil accord with the KRG irked the US government. The game has changed and the cards have been dealt to the players once again. If Turkey wants a seat at the table, it should try to normalize its relations with other countries, Dedeoğlu said.
Turkey's relations with Israel are also one of the more worrying issues for the US. In a bid to improve soured relations between the two countries, US President Barack Obama, during his visit to Israel in late-March, mediated for a normalization of relations. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu apologized to the Turkish prime minister over the telephone for a 2010 Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that resulted in the deaths of eight Turks and one Turkish-American. The normalization process stalled however over a compensation deal even though a framework agreement on compensation was reportedly reached. This normalization process is a sticking point in terms of Turkey's relations with the US.
Erdoğan's intentions of visiting Hamas-ruled Gaza continues to ruffle feathers in Washington as well. US Secretary of State John Kerry's statement saying the planned visit to the Palestinian Gaza Strip was "objectionable" was not welcomed by Turkey, which said that only the Turkish government decides when and where the prime minister or any other Turkish official travels to.
Turkey should be very careful about its relations with big powers. Instead of getting angry it should cooperate with other countries. There is no point in getting into a fight, said Dedeoğlu, stressing that Turkey should sing a different tune.
The US also firmly objected to the KRG's attempts to trade energy independent of federal government control from Baghdad and warned Turkey, which has expanded the scale of its oil and gas imports from the KRG. The US fears that while Turkey has been searching for new alternatives for its oil needs, the energy trade bypassing Baghdad would undercut the unity of Iraq.
Another issue that places pressure on Ankara is the Greek Cypriot approval of a deal with an American energy company backed by the US government. Turkey says the Greek Cypriot government has to share its energy resources with Turkish Cypriots and cannot unilaterally sign deals with energy companies for offshore drilling.
Turkey's long European Union journey also seems to have come to a dead end because of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's unwillingness to see Turkey in the EU. The 22nd chapter on neighborhood policy was postponed to another date because of Turkey's Gezi Park protests which started as an environmental movement and turned into nationwide demonstrations. Merkel used the protests as an excuse to delay Turkey's accession talks with the EU.
Concerns over the EU process have changed on both sides. Before, EU countries were worried about Turkey's economy and the social conditions of its society but now they are concerned over whether Turkey can manage democracy and meet the rights of its citizens. The EU discussion has taken on a philosophic dimension. The physical conditions of Turkey are not the issue right now, said Bacık, noting that Turkey covered considerable ground on its EU journey and has already missed the crossroad to turn back.
Economic relations between Russia and Turkey seem to be on track, with Turkey being granted dialogue partner status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in 2012. Despite the boosting of economic relations, there is nothing new in terms of bilateral political relations. Turkey and Russia have been at odds over the Syrian crisis, as Ankara has been calling for Assad's departure while Moscow favors an Assad-led transition. During his trip to the US in mid-May, Erdoğan said he planned to visit Russia to talk about Syria but there is no indication that the visit will take place anytime soon.
With the pullout of US troops from Afghanistan by 2014, Russia plans to have a bigger influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The American-Russian cooperation on that may be at the expense of Turkish interests.
Analysts strongly urge the government to revise its foreign policy choices to prevent Turkey from being isolated in the region and the world. What is essential in foreign policy is continuity and consistency. You also need deterrence and reliability to avoid being alienated in international politics, Erol said, highlighting the reasons behind Turkey's loneliness on the international scene.
Turkey risks alienating itself with dubious foreign policy choices
