Turkey’s New World

Turkey’s New World

Alan Makovsky
Sabri Sayarı

The Washington Institute

One of the most important developments of the past decade, for both the Middle East and neighboring regions, is the emergence of Turkey as a regional power. Several factors account for Turkey’s transformation: more prosperity, a stronger military, weaker neighbors, and a broadening of foreign policy priorities that has seen Ankara build up its ties with the Turkie states of the former Soviet Union and, dramatically, with Israel.
Turkey’s policies toward neighboring regions also have an important impact on U.S. policy. Indeed, Turkey has been central to countless U.S. policy initiatives over the past decade. In addition to the Gulf War and Operation Northern Watch, Washington and Ankara have been partners in NATO, the Middle East peace process, Bosnia, Kosovo, energy transport plans in Azerbaijan and Central Asia, and counter-terrorism efforts. Richard Holbrooke once aptly remarked that Turkey “stands at the crossroads of almost every issue of importance to the United States on the Eurasian continent.”
As the only Muslim-majority state in the Western alliance and the only Western ally in the Islamic Conference Organization, Turkey is a “pivotal state” par excellence. This book of essays by regional experts, covering the kaleidoscopic concerns of Turkish foreign poliey, will enlighten U.S. foreign-policy students, scholars, afificionados, and professionals alike about one of the world’s most strategically located nations and most important emerging powers.

Alain Makovsky is a Senior Fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Makovsky has written widely on both Turkish and Middle Eastern affairs, as well as U.S. regional policy concerns. He joined the Institute in 1994 after eleven years in the U.S. State Department, where he served in a variety of capacities, including division chief for southern Europe in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, political advisor to the Turkey-based Operation Provide Comfort, and advisor to the Special Middle East Coordinator.
Sabri Sayari is the executive director of the Institute of Turkish Studies (ITS), a private, nonprofit educational institution based at Georgetown University that promotes scholarly research on Turkey in American universities. Dr. Sayari also teaches at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. He currently serves as the chair of Turkish Area Studies at the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute and has published widely on Turkish polities, including issues related to democratization, political parties, the polities of economic reform, and foreign policy.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments / xii
Preface / ix
Note on Turkish Pronunciation / xi
Map / xii

Introduction / 1
Reflections on the Atatürkist Origins of Turkish
Foreign Policy and Domestic Linkages
by Andrew Mango / 9

Economic Issues in Turkish Foreign Policy
by William Hale / 20

Turkey and the Muslim Middle East
by Kemal Kirişçi / 39

Turkish Policy toward Israel
by Meliha Benli Altunışık / 59

Turkish Policy toward the Balkans
by Șule Kut / 74

Turkish-Russian Relations:
From Adversity to 'Virtual Rapprochement'
by Duygu Bazoglu Sezer / 92

Turkish Policy toward Central Asia and the Transcaucasus
by Gareth M. Winrow / 116

Turkish Policy toward Greece
by Tozun Bahcheli / 131

Turkey and the Cyprus Question
by Clement H. Dodd / 153

Turkey and the European Union in the Post-Cold War Era
by Atila Eralp / 173

U.S.-Turkish Relations
by George S. Harris / 189

Beyond 'Bridge or Barrier':
Turkey's Evolving Security Relations with the West
by Ian O. Lesser / 203

Contributors / 222
Index / 225

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Virtually all the chapters in this volume developed from papers presented at five seminars on Turkish foreign policy organized by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy in 1997-98. (An additional essay by Gareth Wirtrow was added after the seminars.) The seminars were made possible only through the very generous support of The Smith-Richardson Foundation of Westport, Connecticut. Known for its low-key approach, Smith-Richardson has been associated with many first-class foreign-affairs-related projects over the years, and we were honored by their confidence and by the opportunity to work with their personnel, especially program officer Nadia Schadlow.

Crucial additional funding for the fifth seminar, on Turkey's relations with the West, was provided by the United States Information Service offices of the U.S. embassies in Turkey, Greece, and Germany. We are deeply grateful to public affairs counselors Helena Finn in Ankara, T.J. Dowling (acting) and Arlene Jacquette in Athens, and David Arnett in Berlin both for deeming our project worthy of a place in their ever-scantier budgets and for their substantive suggestions regarding the seminar agenda.

In addition to the authors and co-editors, several others participated in the discussions in the seminars and offered valuable suggestions, rich insights, and thought-provoking debate. These include Oya Akgoneng, Bulent Aliriza, Bülent Aras, Ekavi Athanassopoulou, Sencer Ayata, Mahmut Bali Aykan, Hüseyin Bagci, Henri Barkey, Fuat Çalişir, Oguz Çelikkol, Van Coufoudakis, Theodore Couloumbis, Metehan Demir, Nadir Devlet, Cem Duna, Selim Egeli, Șükrü Elekdag, Asım Erdilek, Sedat Ergin, Andrew Finkel, Graham Fuller, Paul Goble, Thomas Goltz, Jean-Marie Guehenno, Șukrü Gürel, Talat Halman, Famil Ismailov, Charles Jenkins, Paul Jureidini, Bahadir Kaleağasi, Ali Karaosmanoğlu, İbrahim Karawan, Dimitris Keridis, Hakan Kirimli, Sami Kohen, Fehmi Koru, Martin Kramer, Ömer Kürkçüoğlu, Gün Kut, Barry Lowenkron, Heath Lowry, Carol Migdalovitz, Malik Mufti, Vitaly Naumkin, Selim Oktar, Ümit Özdağ, Soli Özel, Erdal Öztürk, Necdet Pamir, Daniel Pipes, Hugh Poulton, Harold Rhode, Philip Robins, John Roper, Özdem Sanberk, Mahmood Sarioghlam, Robert Satloff, Martin Sletzinger, Udo Steinbach, Seyfi Taşhan, Maria Todorova, Alexandre Toumarkine, Dimitrios Triantaphyllou, Baran Tuncer, Hasan final, Ross Wilson, James Wolfe, and Paul Wolfowitz. Advice from Keith Weissman and Birol Yeşilada in the post-seminar phase of production of this book was also most useful.

Our diligent copy editor Bob Greiner did a superb job with this volume, even while handling with aplomb two demanding co-editors. The Washington Institute's director of publications, Monica Neal Hertzman, made crucial contributions as preparations for publication neared the home stretch. When she left the Institute to pursue opportunities elsewhere, publications associate Alicia Gansz was punctilious and tirelessly dedicated in seeing the project through to completion. We thank all three of them for their help.

We also wish to thank The Washington Institute's executive director Robert Satloff for his backing of the project and the staff of The Washington Institute for tireless work that facilitated the seminar proceedings and the subsequent volume. Edward Finn, James Green, Niyazi Günay, Yola Habif, Laura Hannah, Rebecca Medina, Michael Moskowitz, Levent Onar, Benjamin Orbach, Yoav Schlesinger, Sulay Oztürk, and Liat Radcliffe made particularly valuable contributions.

Yonca Poyraz-Dogan was indispensable. As seminar organizer, she handled much of the seminar planning and contact with participants, as well as all the logistics, and she did so with a rare and admirable combination of thoroughness, intelligence, grace, and good cheer. We are most indebted to Yonca.

Preface

One of the most important developments of the past decade, for both the Middle East and neighboring regions, has been the emergence of Turkey as a regional power. As Alan Makovsky and Sabri Sayan point out in their Introduction, several factors have enabled Turkey to transform itself from a staid political actor into a more assertive one: more prosperity, a stronger military, weaker neighbors, and a broadening of foreign policy priorities that saw Ankara build up its ties with the Turkic states of the former Soviet Union and, dramatically, with Israel.

Nowhere have the new dynamics of Turkish foreign policy been more evident than in the Middle East. The late President Turgut Ozal's decision to align Turkey firmly with the U.S.-led war against Saddam Husayn's Iraq in 1991 marked a turning point for Turkey in the region. Since that time, Turkey has been involved in numerous initiatives in the Middle East—although sometimes more to fend off danger than to cultivate opportunity. As part of its fight against the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Turkey has several times sent its forces into northern Iraq, which the PKK has used as a staging area. In autumn 1998 it warned Syria to end its support for the separatists and to expel PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan; fearful of Turkey's superior might, Damascus quickly complied.

Its role as a crucial Middle East actor has naturally made Turkey a focus of interest for The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Turkey is the only nation in the world that borders three countries on the State Department's list of "state-sponsors of terrorism": Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Moreover, Turkey's relationship with Israel has reinforced its credibility in the region; indeed, it probably explains the late Syrian president Hafiz al-Asad's ready surrender to Turkish threats in 1998. Turkey's relations with Israel presently consist of several dimensions in addition to security, including trade, tourism, and a vigorous intellectual exchange through universities; and in 1999, Israel emerged as Turkey's leading export market in the Middle East.
As the following essays illustrate, Turkey is indeed a "pivotal state" par excellence, and uniquely so. In November 1999, President Clinton declared that "at Turkey... Europe and the Muslim world can meet in peace and harmony." Turkey is the only Muslim-majority state in the Western alliance and the only Western ally in the Islamic Conference Organization. The United States has strongly backed Turkey's bid for membership in the European Union, and it sees this secular, democratic, pro-Western country as a role model for the Islamic world.

Turkey's policy approaches to neighboring regions have an important impact on U.S. policy not only in the Middle East but elsewhere. Richard Holbrooke aptly remarked that Turkey "stands at the crossroads of almost every issue of importance to the United States on the Eurasian continent." Indeed, Turkey has been central to countless U.S. policy initiatives over the past decade. In addition to the Gulf War and Operation Northern Watch, Washington and Ankara have been partners in NATO, the Middle East peace process, Bosnia, Kosovo, energy transport plans in Azerbaijan and Central Asia, and counterterrorism efforts.

For all these reasons, it is important that Americans learn more about this strategically crucial nation. It is hoped that this book of essays by regional experts, covering the kaleidoscopic concerns of Turkish foreign policy, will enlighten U.S. foreign-policy students, scholars, afficionados, and professionals alike about one of the world's most important emerging powers.

Fred S. Lafer
President

Michael Stein
Chairman

Introduction

During 1997 and 1998, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy-organized a series of seminars in Washington, D.C., to examine changing dynamics and trends in Turkish foreign policy. The decision to organize the seminars was prompted by the realization that Turkish foreign policy in the post-Cold War era was passing through one of its most crucial and volatile periods since the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923.

During the long Cold War era, Turkish foreign policy was restricted to just a few basic, if difficult and crucial, questions: how to ward off the Soviet threat, how to protect Turkish interests vis-a-vis Greece and Cyprus, and how to maintain and strengthen ties with the United States and NATO. Slightly less pressing but still important were questions of how to further Turkey's integration with Western Europe and, during the latter part of the Cold War, how to defend against terrorism supported by neighbors like Syria, Iraq, and Iran. These issues were problematic, rendered more complicated in combination. As the U.S. arms embargo of Turkey in the mid-1970s bears witness, managing relations with Cyprus and Aegean rival Greece while building bilateral ties with Washington were goals not always easily reconciled.

Turkey's foreign policy challenges during the Cold War were high-risk, posing existentially threatening dangers, even in addition to the threat of nuclear annihilation shared by all NATO allies. Thousands of Turks died in political violence and terrorism in the late 1970s, with Turkey apparently targeted for destabilization by the Soviets.

On the other hand, the Cold War also imposed a certain amount of order, regularity, and predictability. Stalin's claims on northeastern Turkey and the Turkish Straits in the immediate aftermath of World War II definitively sealed the era of Turkish-Soviet friendship established by Ataturk and Lenin and pushed Ankara toward alliance with the West. By the mid-1950s, however, Ankara and Moscow had established a modus vivendi, at least at the overt level, that would last throughout the Cold War. U.S. support for Turkey and Turkish membership in NATO were instrumental in deterring the Soviet Union's aggressive intentions. Turkey's long border with the Soviets and its short one with their Warsaw Pact ally Bulgaria remained quiet. At no point during the Cold War, with the possible exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, did direct hostilities with the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact appear imminent.

…..

Alan Makovsky
Sabri Sayarı

Turkey’s New World

The Washington Institute

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Turkey’s New World
Changing Dynamics in Turkish Foreign Policy
Edited by Alan Makovsky and Sabri Sayarı
Andrew Mango
William Hale
Kemal Kirişçi
Meliha Benli Altunışık
Șule Kut
Duygu Bazoglu Sezer
Gareth M. Winrow
Tozun Bahcheli
Clement H. Dodd
Atila Eralp
George S. Harris
Ian O. Lesser

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

© 2000 by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Published in 2000 in the United States of America by
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
1828 L Street NW, Suite 1050,
Washington, DC 20036.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Turkey's new world: changing dynamics in Turkish foreign policy/
edited by Alan Makovsky and Sabri Sayari.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-944029-43-4 (pbk.)
1. Turkey—Foreign relations—1980-
2. Turkey—Foreign economic relations.
I. Makovsky, Alan, 1950- II. Sayari, Sabri.
DR477. C445 2000
327.561—dc21 / 00-043711
CIP
Cover design by Alicia Gansz.
Additional cover art by Equator Graphics, Inc.