Eurasia Insight:
TURKEY: ANKARA RAISING ITS MIDDLE EAST DIPLOMATIC PROFILE
Yigal Schleifer: 11/15/07

The Turkish capital Ankara is fast emerging as a hub for Middle Eastern diplomatic traffic.

On November 12, both Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas addressed the Turkish parliament, making it the first time that an Israeli head of state spoke in the legislative chamber of a Muslim country.

Only days before that, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah was in town, making just the second visit to Turkey by a Saudi monarch in the last 40 years. That trip came only a few weeks after an official visit by Syrian President Bashar Assad, who became the first Syrian president to have ever visited Turkey.

All of this would have seemed almost inconceivable only a few years ago. For decades, Turkey kept Arab and Muslim countries of the Middle East at arm’s length, as Turkish diplomacy focused on cementing the country’s alliance with the West, distancing itself from the Ottoman Empire’s Islamic past in the process.

But now Turkey – led by the liberal Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) – is trying to strengthen relations with its neighbors, while at the same time recasting itself as a mediator in the region.

“This has always been part of their game plan. The AKP has always felt that Turkey has punched below its weight internationally, that it had been too timid and sat in the corner,” says Henri Barkey, chairman of the international relations department at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and an expert on Turkey.

“These AKP guys don’t have any qualms about seeing Turkey as part of the Middle East. But they don’t see the future as restricted to the Middle East. They see Turkey as a conduit between the east and the west in the most expansive sense of the word,” Barkey adds.

In his speech to the 550-member parliament in Ankara, Peres suggested Turkey’s growing regional involvement gives it a role to play in reducing the tension in the Middle East. “Turkey can make a unique contribution ... as both a global architect and a local actor,” the Israeli president said, speaking in Hebrew translated into Turkish.

Peres and Abbas had come to Ankara to preside over the signing of an agreement to create a joint industrial park on the border between Israel and the West Bank, which would be operated with Turkish help.

Cengiz Candar, a leading Turkish political analyst, says the industrial park project is indicative of the niche Ankara – which has strong relations with Israel as well as Syria and Iran – would like to carve out for itself in the region. “This whole exercise is a display of Turkey projecting ‘soft power’ in the Middle East,” he says. “Turkey can play the role of a facilitator.”

Ankara’s deepening involvement in Middle East foreign policy does carry with it diplomatic risks. That fact was evident in February 2006, when a visit to Ankara by firebrand Hamas leader Khaled Mashal drew strong criticism from Israel and members of the US Congress.

Turkey, which has had strong relations with Israel since the late 1990’s, has also been working on strengthening its ties with neighbors Syria and Iran, something that could prove to be a difficult balancing act.

Despite the general sense of goodwill during the Peres visit, the topic of Iran was one that clearly separated Ankara and Jerusalem, at least publicly. “Turkey instills trust. Iran instills fear,” the Israeli president told parliament during his address. On the other hand, in a joint press conference the day before, Turkish President Abdullah Gul publicly defended Iran’s right to pursue nuclear energy for peaceful means, something Israel does not support. (The Turkish parliament has recently passed legislation allowing the country to build nuclear energy plants).

Mustafa Kibaroglu, a foreign affairs expert at Ankara’s Bilkent University, says the AKP’s approach to the issue of a nuclear Iran reveals shortcomings in the government’s Middle Eastern diplomacy. “I think Turkey should be seriously concerned with the possibility of Iran’s nuclear capability, but I don’t see that concern reflected in the government,” he says. “If and when, Iran has nuclear weapons capability, it will be Turkey’s position that will be dramatically altered, and not in the positive direction.”

On the domestic front, Ankara’s growing relations with its Muslim neighbors has led some critics from Turkey’s secular establishment to accuse the government of pursuing an “Islamic” foreign policy - one that would reorient Turkey eastwards.

The visit of King Abdullah, for example, was critically covered by many Turkish media outlets, which accused the government of bending over backwards to curry favor with the Saudi king. Among their complaints was the fact that the king refused to go visit the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the secularizing founder of modern Turkey, something that is usually the first agenda item on any visiting dignitary’s schedule.

“Domestically, there is both excitement and concern about this new foreign policy in the Middle East. The excitement comes from rediscovering a geographical area you were once familiar with. On the other hand, there is concern about getting engaged too much,” says Murat Yetkin, an Ankara-based columnist for Radikal, a leading daily newspaper.

Bilkent University’s Kibaroglu warns that Turkey should be careful not to overreach in the Middle East. To ultimately have an impact in the region, Ankara must first develop a kind of regional expertise that right now does not exist after decades of diplomatic neglect, he says. “If Turkey wants to play an active role in the Middle East, one of the first things it must do is have a cadre of experts who don’t only want to know the region, but are respected in the region as people who know the region,” Kibaroglu says.

“Right now, Turkey’s initiatives might be limited to public diplomacy, bringing people here for a few days, but it might not go beyond that.” Adds Kibaroglu: “It’s not an area where you can just do things for the sake of making your reputation. It’s an area where one must take his steps with utmost care.”

Editor’s Note: Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul.