Well-meaning and with lofty goals, Turkey's "zero problems with neighbors" foreign policy came crashing down once the advent of the Arab uprisings exposed some of the policy's internal contradictions and shortcomings.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with striving to have no problems with neighboring countries, but Ankara's overly optimistic approach -- which, among other things, failed to see how its own ambitions for regional leadership would set off alarm bells in the capitals of other countries with similar aspirations -- was not able to withstand the tensions and dynamics unleashed by the new crises in the Middle East, especially in Syria.
But it's fairly clear now that Ankara is working on rebooting its regional foreign policy, with its strained relations with Iraq being used as a test case of what a new version of the "zero problems" policy might look like.
Ties between the two countries hit rock bottom in April of last year, when Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, upset about Ankara's support for his political rivals, labeled Turkey an “enemy state” bent on interfering in his country's internal affairs. In response, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his Iraqi counterpart – leader of a Shiite party – was fanning the flames of sectarianism in Iraq. The exchange of words led to ambassadors being summoned in both capitals.
In recent weeks, though, Turkey and Iraq have had reciprocal visits by their foreign ministers, and visits by their prime ministers are in the works. Writing in Today's Zaman, analyst Yavuz Baydar provides the background to all the action taking place on the Turkey-Iraq front:
The quickly changing “picture” of reality in the Middle East has been forcing Ankara to revisit its ambitious, but seemingly stagnant regional foreign policy and come closer to a crucial and more pragmatic approach.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will meet Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) leader Massoud Barzani in the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakır on Saturday. This meeting is another sign of Ankara's efforts to readjust to the regional picture. The rendezvous in Diyarbakır follows talks in Baghdad between Ahmet Davutoğlu and Hoshyar Zebari, the foreign ministers of Turkey and Iraq, respectively, and a visit to Ankara by Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan. Traffic will intensify between the capitals and Arbil in the coming weeks.Not only that, a similar intensity of contacts between Ankara and Tehran has also been noted, with a meeting held between Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, and Davutoğlu, who announced that he will travel to Teheran in two weeks. Erdoğan is also due to go there in January....
....Behind the reasoning in Ankara these days is the assessment that foreign policy must be driven by economic and security interests, with intense focus on energy resources. The realization seems to have crystallized that sectarian, “over-ideologized,” excessively tactical ways of conducting foreign policy is destined to lose.
Turkey's attempt to patch things up with Iraq (as well as similar effort to restore its frayed ties with Iran) is certainly a welcome development, but there are still some big hurdles standing in the way of the two countries getting their relations back on track. On a practical level, the issue of Ankara's efforts to secure energy deals with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, is one that will require some very flexible, mature and creative thinking among policymakers in Ankara, Baghdad and Erbil.
On a deeper level, the challenge Ankara faces in reviving its foreign policy in Iraq is one that it will face as it tries to renew its regional outreach, and that is to whether it can do this without getting tripped up by the overly ambitious – if not occasionally grandiose – visions of what is its regional role and capability?
In that sense, some of the reports from Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's recent two-day visit to Iraq are discouraging, with the FM -- the original architect of the now failed "zero problems" policy -- utilizing some of the same overblown rhetoric used in the past to describe his visit. Yes, after being accused of taking sides in Iraq's sectarian conflict, Davutoglu worked hard to reach out to the country's Shiite leadership, visiting with both Muqtada al-Sadr and Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and even donning a black suit and green tie for his visits to cities of Karbala and Najaf and their Shiite holy sites. But as the Hurriyet Daily News's Serkan Demirtas reports, Davutoglu described his visit to those places in rather florid terms. “Whoever saw me, wanted to hug me calling ‘Oğlu is here, Oğlu is here’. One of them nearly broke my glasses while hugging. We have a received a very warm reception in both of these cities. Would they embrace us if we were implementing a Sunni-based sectarian policy?” the Turkish FM told reporters, according to Demirtas.
This kind of language smacks dangerously of the old "zero problems" Turkey, which, by virtue of its Ottoman past, naively and romantically saw itself as somehow floating above the various divides of the Middle East and as a kind of dividing force wanted by all. Recent events, needless to say, showed that was hardly the case.
Turkey has a central role to play in the Middle East and rebuilding its ties with Iraq is an important step towards recapturing its position as a regional leader. But creating the next version of its regional foreign policy -- call it "a few smartly managed problems with neighbors" -- will require amping up the humility and dialing back the grandiosity. Getting to zero problems was never realistic, but Ankara should make sure that, as it moves forward in rebuilding its regional ties, whatever problems it does have with neighbors are not the result of its own overinflated expectations and self image.
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