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ANKARA: Daniel Fried: Allegations Of US Efforts To Overthrow The AKP

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  • ANKARA: Daniel Fried: Allegations Of US Efforts To Overthrow The AKP

    DANIEL FRIED: ALLEGATIONS OF US EFFORTS TO OVERTHROW THE AKP GOVERNMENT ARE LUDICROUS
    by Ali H. Aslan

    Zaman Online, Turkey
    July 6 2006

    Preceding Foreign Minister Gul's meeting with his counterpart,
    secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Washington sent important messages
    to Turkey.

    Daniel Fried, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian
    Affairs, in an exclusive interview with Zaman asserted that his
    Country is working in collaboration with Turkey on many matters of
    global and regional interest to both countries. Fried said, "We are
    able to work together as true partners." He also complimented the
    democratization efforts of AKP and added that allegations of the US
    desire and efforts to overthrow the AKP Government are foolish and
    ludicrous. "We are very happy to be working with all democratically
    elected governments in Turkey. As such, we are also delighted to work
    with AK. Everything we do is by mutual agreement," he added.

    Zaman: So, Turkish Foreign Minister Gul is coming to town...

    Ambassador Fried: We are looking forward to the visit of Foreign
    Minister Gul. And there is a tremendous amount of work we are
    doing with Turkey, in the world, in the region. And I think that
    a lot of the issues are tough. Cyprus is tough. All the issues are
    complicated. But we are able to work with Turkey as real partners,
    and we are certainly looking forward to this upcoming visit. And
    I must say that I've been impressed by how much Turkey has done,
    partly because of the EU accession process - but really because of
    its own internal dynamics - to realize a strategic vision of itself
    as a European country and yet stay true to its traditional Turkish
    values, which is easy to say and hard to do. But I certainly think
    that Turkey is closer to this than ever before.

    My old friend Eric Edelman recently gave a speech, the Ozal lecture,
    you may have heard this. I thought it was fascinating. Only Eric
    could have done this, because of his knowledge of Turkey. That speech
    implicitly says Turkey is now at the stage to take this next great
    step, which has a strategic significance comparable to the steps
    taken by Mustafa Kamal Pasha. Or, Ozal himself. And I think that's
    essentially correct.

    Turkey has moved forward not evenly, but through a series of advances
    in the 20th century since the end of the Ottoman period. Or, if you
    count the Young Turk revolution, including the Ottoman period. And
    if you count the reforms, including the 19th century in the Ottoman
    period, but that's a different story. That speech struck me as very
    important in terms of an analysis of where Turkey is moving, and it was
    basically extraordinarily knowledgeable about Turkish history and also
    made clear, I think - it articulated well what Turkey can do today.

    Zaman: Can you say Turkey is even more important than it was during
    Cold War era for the U.S.?

    Ambassador Fried: I would put it this way, and I understand the
    question. Its importance in the Cold War was critical, but narrow. It
    was military and security. Now, its importance is civilizational and
    political. And the areas we work with Turkey are not only strategic,
    but they are also in energy, and it is an outward-looking relationship,
    not a relationship confined to dealing with the problem of the Soviet
    Union. So, the strength Turkey brought to the relationship in the
    Cold War is no longer as relevant, because it's not a military problem.

    Then again, Turkey is a very different country than it was during the
    Cold War. And, of course, what is different is that Turkey is a much
    more democratic country than it was 25 years ago. And that democracy,
    in the short run, produces a press which is often - let us be polite -
    very skeptical of the U.S., sometimes anti-American. But in the long
    run, you have a strengthening Turkish democracy, and this is very
    good. And you have a democracy which has deep roots, rather than
    shallow roots, which is very important, because it's a democracy
    which is going to have buy-in from the society.

    Another thing that's different is that the Turkish economy has grown,
    and grown in sophistication, not just larger. When I go to Ankara, 25
    years ago Ankara was regarded in the folklore of Turks and Europeans
    and Americans as a place you had to go to, but you didn't much want
    to. Istanbul was always fabulous. It's been fabulous city for 1500
    years. But Ankara now is a wonderful, wealthy, well-functioning,
    affluent modern city. And it's changed enormously even since I was
    first there in 1985. It was a nice city then, don't get me wrong. But
    it is the kind of modernity, the kind of sophistication -

    Zaman: Infrastructure?

    Ambassador Fried: Yeah, yeah, roads. Not just a few fancy areas
    downtown. I mean, the suburbs are filled with well-built buildings. I
    am not sure I understand why this is so, but whenever I come in with
    Secretary Rice or the President in a motorcade we seem to travel the
    entire circumference of Ankara. Well, it's not a great advantage,
    but it does give me the opportunity to actually see all of Ankara,
    and all of the outskirts. And it's very impressive to see what's
    happened. Of course, this is a mostly Muslim country, so there are
    mosques every other block.

    What's interesting is to see an absolutely modern high-functioning
    city on a European level which is a mostly Muslim population. So much
    with the theory that advanced democracies have to be Christian. It's
    complete nonsense. That's another reason for Turkey's significance.

    President Bush is very fond of saying that all people are capable
    of democratic self-government. And it is bigotry - those aren't
    his words, those are mine - to claim that democracy is simply the
    province of northwest European protestant civilizations and their
    heirs. That bigotry has a history which is not very respectable but
    certainly persistent, yet demonstrably false. There was a time when
    Catholics were not regarded as suitable for democracy. You think
    I am making that up. And I probably sound funny to you. But if you
    read the rather bigoted political literature of the late 1920s, that
    was genuinely believed. I know it sounds odd. And, of course, it's
    completely absurd. Southern and Eastern Europeans were not regarded
    as fully fit for democratic civilization.

    Again, it sounds funny, as well as offensive. The bigotry did not
    begin with anti-Muslim bigotry. Hopefully it will not continue. My
    point is that these kinds of cultural and civilizational stereotypes
    look embarrassing and ridiculous in retrospect. And one of the things
    Turkey can bring to the 21st century is a demonstration that, in fact,
    modernity, democracy, economic progress can be built on a mostly
    Muslim foundation just as easily as any place else.

    Zaman: Speaking of democracy, Mr. Ambassador, some people in Turkey
    and the U.S. are calling for toppling of the AK Party administration,
    if necessary by antidemocratic moves, because they feel the secular
    nature of the Turkish regime is in danger.

    Ambassador Fried: Turkey has a democracy. Turkey has elections. The
    AK Party won, okay? Turkey is not a one-party state. Some day the AK
    Party will not win. This is the nature of democracy. We are very happy
    to work with the government the democratic system in Turkey gives
    us. We are working with the AK Party. We do so in a very cooperative
    way. I have heard this, but I simply don't give it much credence.

    Zaman: The reason I am asking this question to you is that there are
    many conspiracy theorists who claim that even some in the U.S.
    administration might be encouraging anti-democratic efforts against
    the current government.

    Ambassador Fried: No, ridiculous and very foolish. The democratic
    course in Turkey needs to be deepened. Democracy in Turkey
    has developed. This is ultimately a very stabilizing factor. The
    conspiracy theory is wrong-headed, harmful and happily utterly without
    foundation. I think that the frontiers of democracy in Turkey have been
    moving in the right direction. Let me give you a difficult example:
    Orhan Pamuk, the writer, very well known, was charged under an old
    Turkish law for the way he discussed the Armenian issue. You know
    the case. As I recall, the charges were dismissed. And I have a sense
    that Turkish society looked at that law and thought this law no longer
    fits where we are as a country, our democracy has deepened.

    The boundaries of political discourse in Turkey have broadened. This
    is altogether a healthy and good thing.

    In any society this process will generate debate. This debate is
    good. The issue of secularism and Islam is debated in Turkey. It's
    also debated in France, okay. The huge fight in France is over
    whether schoolgirls could wear headscarves in public schools. That
    was a French debate. That debate has its counterpart in Turkey. This
    is a debate democratic societies go through.

    I should say that from an American perspective we are more tolerant
    of overt religious displays than many European countries, because we
    are a very religious country and that is a function of the fact that
    we have the separation of church and state, ironically enough. The
    separation of church and state in U.S. - the fact that the state
    is very secular - has led to a strengthening of religion in United
    States because it's seen as independent of the state.

    And, by the way, in the United States, Muslim schoolgirls wear
    headscarves all the time and nobody pays any attention. It's not
    that we are an Islamic society in the U.S., hardly. It's just that
    we don't get upset by these things. Jewish kids can wear yarmulkes
    or not wear yarmulkes; Christian kids wear crosses or not wear crosses.

    And it is totally in the realm of personal freedom. But don't believe
    any of the conspiracy theories.

    Zaman: Some U.S. critics are saying although the U.S. talks very
    often about the problems of religious minorities in Turkey, religious
    freedom problems of Turkish society, there is no high-profile effort
    or rhetoric on the problems of, say, religious Muslims, especially
    vis-a-vis the headscarf problem. What is your response to that?

    Ambassador Fried: You mean in Western Europe?

    Zaman: In the U.S. Your government, your administration, is accused
    of not speaking powerfully enough about the problems of females who
    are trying to express themselves with their religious beliefs.

    Ambassador Fried: Oh, I see, females in Turkey for example. I see
    what you mean.

    Zaman: Do you consider a headscarf ban a human rights violation?

    Ambassador Fried: Oh, good Lord, that question is difficult for
    me to answer. I can answer it for the United States, okay, that
    in United States we would never consider a headscarf ban for Muslim
    women. It would not occur to us. But I cannot express and I should not
    express an opinion about the Turkish debate because this is a debate
    going on in Turkish society, which has a different tradition. Look,
    Turkey is a country debating itself. Turkish democratic society and
    the democratic political system is debating what it means to be a
    secular state with a mostly Muslim population and what that means in
    practice. I've given you an answer as to what it means in America. I
    can't give you an answer as to what it means in Turkey.

    But with respect to religious minorities, yes, we do raise these.

    Turkey, dating back to the Ottoman period, has a tradition of
    tolerance. It's famous for it. The Jews were welcomed, or far more
    welcome in the Ottoman lands than they were in Spain after 1492,
    for God's sake. The Jews remembered al-Andalusia with great love and
    affection. And they have found a home in the Ottoman Empire. So it is
    hardly radical of us to say that we wish Turkey would be welcoming and
    help ease conditions for the functioning of the Greek Orthodox Church
    and Ecumenical Patriarch, which is, after all, an institution with
    venerable roots in the Ottoman period. But I certainly don't want to
    express an opinion about this debate in Turkey, except to say that
    this is - like in Turkey as in France - part of a normal debate of
    a normal democratic society.

    Zaman: Turkey has serious concerns about rising Islamophobia and
    prejudice against Muslims in the West, especially in Europe, where
    there are millions of Turks. Do you share those concerns? And are there
    any plans to increase the profile of U.S. efforts against Islamophobia
    to the level of, for example, of efforts on fighting anti-semitism?

    Ambassador Fried: I think that's a very fair question. I think there
    is in Europe a strain of nativism which includes Islamophobia. It
    is not universal. I don't want to exaggerate it. But, unfortunately,
    it does exist. We support outreach to the Muslim communities in Europe.

    We are trying to do more with the Muslim communities in Europe. And
    I say communities, because there is not one. After all, the Moroccan
    and Algerian communities are different from the Turkish community,
    different from the Pakistani communities.

    Let me put it this way. Western Europe is grappling with issues
    of national identity in a world in which the nation state has
    to accommodate the fact that most nations are multi-ethnic and
    multi-religious. And yet, at the same time, there are national
    cultures which should be respected and recognized. And how do you
    combine that? How do you take the Italianness of Italy and combine
    that with the fact that Italy is also a multi-religious multi-ethnic
    country, for example. How is that done in the Netherlands?

    We Americans have to be very modest in offering solutions, because
    we have had our own history of learning to define America as more
    than just a country of white Protestants. Think of what our civil
    rights movement was like. It was very bloody; it was very hard;
    it was very painful. We emerged as a country much more comfortable
    with a multi-ethnic, multi-religious identity. And now in America,
    I should add, we are learning to embrace American Muslims as another
    American religion, as natural and native to America as Judaism and
    Catholicism and the various Protestant strains of Christianity.

    That is why President Bush's initiative to begin Iftar dinners every
    year at the White House is such a good idea. And why this example of
    reaching out to Muslim communities is so important. It's an example
    of American, as we say, mainstreaming; what used to be for most
    Americans an exotic minority religion, is now making another American
    religion. Hopefully, in a generation Americans will simply regard
    Iftar and Eids and some of the fundamentals of Islam as natural as
    they know the holidays of religions of which they are not a member.

    The way Jews know about Christmas and Christians know about Passover,
    it becomes part of the general culture of our general American cultural
    baggage. It's a good thing. Europe needs to do this, too.

    Easy to say; hard to do. But it is a challenge.

    Zaman: One of the most important projects to reach out to Muslims is
    Turkey's EU accession. And it looks like Turkey and the European Union
    are on a collision course mainly because of Cyprus. On both sides there
    is increased talk of suspending the full membership negotiations. What
    is your reaction to that? Any plans or suggestions to prevent this
    from happening?

    Ambassador Fried: We have supported Turkey's European vocation
    and its EU membership from the beginning. We continue to do so. We
    support a fair, just solution to the Cyprus problem acceptable to both
    communities, and, in the course of that solution, ending the isolation
    of the Turkish Cypriots. Your Foreign Minister has put forth a plan.

    I should add that we support a united Cyprus. We don't support any
    separate states on Cyprus, and happily the leader of the Turkish
    Cypriot community, Mr. Talat, supports this also. And he has shown
    great courage and vision in supporting the notion of a united Cyprus
    as a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation. So this is a good thing,
    we support it.

    It would be terrible if Turkey's accession process were derailed
    because of this problem. I think Turkey in European Union would be
    good for Turkey; it would be good for Europe. It would show, it would
    demonstrate that the fallacy of the so-called war of civilizations,
    clash of civilizations. It would show that bin Laden is not a Muslim
    leader, he is simply a fascist fanatic, like other fascist fanatics.

    We certainly support all efforts to make progress on Cyprus. And
    we will continue to. And I suspect that Foreign Minister Gul and
    Secretary Rice will discuss this issue.

    Zaman: Can you say Turkey and the U.S. are on the same page on Iran?

    And what do you think about the Turkish efforts on Iran?

    Ambassador Fried: Well, the whole world is increasingly on the same
    page. That is the so called P-5+1, that is the EU-3 - Germany, France
    Britain - and China, Russia and the U.S. have offered Iran a very
    attractive, very credible package. We did so on or about June 1. And
    then Solana went to Tehran and he presented it to Larijani in detail.

    It is now time for Iran to respond positively. On July 5, Solana and
    Larijani are supposed to meet. And it is time for Iran to agree to
    begin negotiations on the basis of this package. Turkey certainly can
    send strong messages to Iran that the time has come for them to say
    "yes" to a good offer and help us all move forward. And I certainly
    think Turkey understands this.

    Zaman: Turkey has also started putting a high-profile effort on trying
    to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I understand President
    Bush and Prime Minister Erdogan had a telephone conversation as well.

    Ambassador Fried: They did, they did. It is a very difficult
    situation. I don't think many Europeans or Turks understands this,
    but do you know the number of Palestinians who have been killed in
    the current Israeli operation as of this morning? [Pause] Zero. None.

    When I was watching CNN or BBC, I had the impression the casualties
    must have been enormous. Maybe you had that impression, too. Happily,
    none have been killed.

    Hamas must decide whether it is a government of a people on its way to
    becoming a recognized state, or whether it is a terrorist movement. It
    can't be both. And Hamas' actions of simultaneously pretending to be a
    government and allowing rockets to be shot at Israel and then Hamas'
    military wing engaging in this operation, the kidnap of an Israeli
    soldier, demonstrates the problem we have. And Turkey, I hope, will
    be sending very strong signals to Hamas - both in Palestine, but also
    to Hamas leaders in Damascus - that the world won't let them get away
    with this.

    The tragedy is that Israel is prepared to accept a Palestinian state,
    we support a Palestinian state, the world is ready for a Palestinian
    state, but the Palestinians won't build their state. They seem to
    be unable to get out of the cycle of blood and terror, which is a
    great tragedy because now the principal obstacle standing between
    the Palestinians and their state is the quality of the Palestinian
    leadership. And I don't mean President Abbas, who is in a difficult
    position and he is doing the best he can.

    Zaman: On Iraq, how optimistic are you that Iraq is going to stay a
    unified country? And how does it relate to Turkish-American relations?

    Ambassador Fried: From the very beginning, Turkey and the U.S. have
    agreed that Iraq must remain one country. Federal, to be sure. But
    one country. Democratic, federal, multi-ethnic, multi-religious. I
    believe the Iraqi Kurds are prepared to be Iraqis, Iraqi citizens
    of Iraq. They have the region. In their region there are important
    issues to work out, like Kirkuk's status, understandably of concern
    to Turkey. But we and Turkey agree that Iraq must remain one country.

    And, as Prime Minister Maliki strengthens his government, Turkey
    will have a stronger, reliable partner with whom it can work with
    our support on issues such as ending the threat of PKK to Turkey,
    strengthening the Iraqi state, resolving the Kirkuk issue in a way
    that will satisfy the needs of Iraqis, Kurds, Arabs, Shia, Sunni and
    leave Turkey more confident. That's something we work on with Turkey
    very closely.

    Zaman: Thank you for your time.

    Ambassador Fried: It was a pleasure.

    # # # #

    July 3, 2006 Department of State Washington, DC

    This interview is exclusively conducted for Zaman by Ali H. Aslan,
    a columnist, with Daniel Fried, Assistant Secretary of State for
    European and Eurasian Affairs.
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