Turkey

 An annual global freedom checkup by the Washington, DC-based democracy watchdog Freedom House suggests that, whatever impact the Arab Spring has made worldwide over the past year, it has not hit front and center in the South Caucasus' neck of the woods.

Azerbaijan, the region's richest and largest country, was again rated as a “not free” country, and trending downhill. Both Armenia and Georgia have been classified as “partly free."

The report also suggests the existence of some stagnation; measurements for two key categories, Political Freedom and Civil Liberties, remained unchanged from last year for all three countries.

Azerbaijan continues to take the flak for roughshod treatment of the media and political critics. But sitting on an embarrassment of hydrocarbon wealth, the country is in no hurry to change its ways. Behind the maquillage of spruced-up buildings and streets in Baku, rights groups see a ruling political dynasty plagued by rampant nepotism and corruption.  

The Armenian government, meanwhile, is too busy with domestic political battles and constant exchange with Azerbaijan to let its press go fully free, the report found. Save for a few exceptions, the national airwaves are essentially controlled by the establishment, the New-York City-based Committee to Protest Journalists attested in 2011.  

Georgia has released its new "National Security Concept" document, updating it from the 2005 version which said there was “little possibility of open military aggression against Georgia." Now, unsurprisingly, Russia dominates the document (pdf): of the twelve "Threats, Risks and Challenges to the National Security of Georgia" it identifies, ten are tied to Russia and its role in the breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Equally unsurprisingly, the U.S. tops the list in the document's section on "Strengthening foreign relationships." But the rest of the list is interesting to peruse. Ukraine is the second country mentioned, ranking as a "strategic partner." Turkey is next, as "Georgia’s leading partner in the region," with cooperation in trade, energy and military spheres. It then cites the importance of relations with "Central and Southeast European and Scandinavian states," as well as Moldova and Belarus, but for whatever reason doesn't mention Western Europe at all (though of course the EU and NATO as organizations are prominently featured). There is a whole paragraph on Latin America and the Caribbean, but no mention of France, Germany, the UK? No doubt the Western European reluctance to admit Georgia into NATO is the major factor there.

The Taliban have announced that they intend to open an office in Qatar as part of a process that could lead to peace negotiations to end the war in Afghanistan. Turkey had been the Afghanistan government's original preferred location for an office, and the Turkish government was on board, too. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai also proposed Saudi Arabia to host the office, but the Taliban refused.

The U.S. was pushing Karzai to accept Qatar as the only possible option, according to the New York Times, and somewhere along the way Turkey must have decided it wasn't amenable to hosting the Taliban:

[T]he United States and Germany together have made some progress in reaching out to the Taliban in recent months. The talks had centered on opening an office, preferably in Qatar, which is seen as relatively neutral and, most important, was willing to host it, according to American and Afghan officials....

Afghan officials ... insisted that the office be in Saudi Arabia or Turkey, although it was never clear that either of those countries was willing to host a Taliban peace mission. Afghan officials also never fully explained why they preferred those two countries over Qatar, all three of which fit their demand that the office be in a Muslim country.

It was not apparent on Tuesday what had changed Mr. Karzai’s mind. But an American official said that it was made clear to the Afghans that Qatar was the only option at the moment, and that waiting for another country to step forward would be only a waste of valuable time.

An Iranian political official threatened to attack Turkey's NATO missile defense system if the U.S. or Israel attack Iran, repeating a similar threat from a general a month ago. From the Fars News Agency:

Vice-Chairman of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Hossein Ebrahimi informed that Iran is making plans towards finding ways to neutralize the NATO missile defense system to be installed in Turkey, and warned that in the case of any attack on Iran, it will definitely hit that system....

Last month, Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh underlined Iran's crushing response to any enemy aggression, and warned that Tehran will target the NATO missile shield in Turkey in case it comes under attack.

"We have prepared ourselves, if any threat is staged against Iran, we will target NATO's missile shield in Turkey and will then attack other targets," General Hajizadeh said addressing a congregation of 10,000 Basij (volunteer forces) members in the Western town of Khorramabad in late November.

The threat got a lot of attention in the Turkish press, but most of it dismissive. Today's Zaman reported that the Iranian Foreign Ministry says that those threats aren't official policy:

However, Turkish officials contacted by Today's Zaman Monday clarified that the Iranian foreign ministry has assured Turkey they do not back such threats and the threats do not reflect ministerial policy. The officials also repeated Ankara's position that Turkey should only acknowledge statements from Iranian officials actually in charge, including the Iranian president and the foreign ministry.

The tremors that rippled through the South Caucasus from neighboring Turkey's powerful October 23 earthquake brought with them a diplomatic opportunity. But not all offers of help have managed to cross the region's political fault lines.

“Thanks, but we should be fine,” Ankara told Armenia, the world’s least Turkish-friendly country -- and one well acquainted with earthquakes -- after Yerevan offered to help.

By no stretch of the imagination would aid cooperation fix the outstanding issues in Turkish-Armenian relations, but it might have had symbolic value. After all, more than 100 years ago, it was the city of Van -- now hit hard by the earthquake -- that was the epicenter of the 1894-1896 massacre of ethnic Armenians, a disaster bitterly begrudged by Armenians to this day.  (For the official Turkish view about what happened, see: http://www.mfa.gov.tr/massacres-by-the-armenians-against-the-turks.en.mfa.) 
         

Turkey's collapsing relations with Israel over the past week or so have occasioned a new round of hand-wringing about whether the West is losing Turkey. But that drama has overshadowed another, countervailing, development: Turkey's agreement to host a NATO air defense radar. This has recently been one of the most sensitive Turkey-NATO issues; NATO wanted Turkey to host the system, but Turkey didn't want it to explicitly target Iran, even though it is obvious to everyone that that's the threat the system is intended to protect against.

But for whatever reason, the Turkish government has changed its mind, agreeing to host the radar and even (in a somewhat between-the-lines fashion) acknowledging that it has to do with Iran:

“We are of the opinion that the step taken [in deploying the radar system] is important for our region. That’s why we, as the government, have decided [to station the system in Turkey] after broad consultations,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said late Tuesday.

That has bolstered Turkey's relationship with NATO, argues Lale Kemal in Today's Zaman:

Turkey's decision to host on its soil the radar component of a US-sponsored missile shield project should be seen as a political decision reaffirming Ankara's ties with NATO. This decision comes at a time when the alliance has begun to perceive Turkish foreign policy goals as a deviating from those of the Western club. One Western official commented on the Turkish decision to host the missile defense radar saying, “Turkey is back in the club.”

NATO is warning Turkey against buying Russian or Chinese air defense systems, saying that if Ankara does so NATO will no longer share its information about incoming missiles, according to a report in the newspaper Hürriyet Daily News. Turkey, you may recall, has been shopping for a new air defense system, and is considering options from Russia, China, the U.S. and a European consortium. That list of potential partners has made the purchase a sort of bellwether for those concerned about Ankara's geopolitical orientation. But NATO, apparently, is making it known that it doesn't approve of the non-Western sellers:

One Western expert countered that “if, say, the Chinese win the competition, their systems will be in interaction, directly or indirectly, with NATO’s intelligence systems, and this may lead to the leak of critical NATO information to the Chinese, albeit inadvertently. So this is dangerous.”

“NATO won’t let that happen,” another Western official told the Hürriyet Daily News on Monday. “If the Chinese or the Russians win the Turkish contest, their systems will have to work separately. They won’t be linked to NATO information systems.”

This was the first time NATO has strongly urged Turkey against choosing the non-Western systems.

It has never seemed likely that Turkey would buy the Russian or Chinese systems, and it's been suggested that Turkey is just keeping them in the competition so as to draw concessions from either the Western companies or Western allies. So is NATO's warning a way of saying, "There's no way you're buying the Russian or Chinese system, so don't try to use that as bargaining leverage"?