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MAKING AMENDS WITH TURKEY
By Jackson Diehlthe
Washington Post
Jan 18 2008
Turkish President Abdullah Gul came and went last week without
attracting much attention, which is not unusual for a friendly head of
state visiting Washington. But Gul's visit to the White House for lunch
with President Bush -- and even his failure to prompt any headlines --
marked a dramatic turnaround in one of the most important U.S. foreign
relationships, and a quiet success by an outgoing administration in
cleaning up one of its own messes.
By now, Americans are painfully aware of the country's drastic loss
of standing around the world during Bush's presidency. But a comeback
of sorts is under way as the administration winds down, and Turkey
is a big part of it. The Muslim nation of 71 million, a NATO member
that borders both the European Union and Iraq, passed in the course
of just a couple of years from ranking as one of the most stalwart
U.S. allies to one of the most resentful, with a burning popular
fever of anti-Americanism.
Now, thanks to some deft diplomacy, an unexpected show of
responsibility by Congress and one tough decision by Bush, ties are
more or less back to where they were before 2001.
"The relationship has come full circle, which feels like a good
thing, considering where we have been," says Mark Parris, a former
ambassador to Turkey who now watches relations from the Brookings
Institution. "It means the next administration, at least, will inherit
a normal relationship."
That sentiment was happily confirmed by Gul, a genial and astute
politician who served four years as foreign minister before his
election as president last summer. "These challenges are behind us," he
said during a visit to The Washington Post. "We share the same values
-- democracy, human rights, the functioning of the free market. We
are working together jointly for the same goals in the region."
Gul went so far as to predict a turnaround in public opinion in Turkey,
where the approval rating of the United States was in single digits as
recently as the summer: "This sentiment the polls are showing is not
directed at the values we share, and it is not directed at Americans."
Gul and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were the leading
architects of the Turkish-American reconstruction. Gul, the second
most powerful figure of the ruling Justice and Development Party
after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was scapegoated by senior
U.S. officials in early 2003 when the Turkish parliament failed to
grant permission for a U.S. Army division to cross its territory for
the invasion of Iraq. Rice was then the national security adviser
of an administration that arrogantly took an old ally for granted,
disregarding its legitimate concerns about Iraq and pressing Erodgan's
government to make a commitment contrary to overwhelming Turkish
opinion only weeks after it had won its first national election.
Yet when Rice became secretary of state in 2005, she made Turkey
a stop on her first foreign trip, making clear that rebuilding the
alliance would be a priority. Gul was ready; as he recalls it, he
asked Rice to make a list of her most important priorities and then
made one of his own.
"We had the same concerns," he said, "Iraq, Afghanistan, Central Asia,
the Caucasus, Kosovo and the Balkans, the Middle East." And by and
large, they wanted the same outcomes.
The biggest sticking point was not Iraq per se but the Kurdistan
Workers' Party, or PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group operating in Turkey
that took advantage of the war to establish new bases inside Iraq.
For four years, Erdogan's government asked the United States, as the
principal military power in Baghdad, to do something about the PKK.
The Pentagon repeatedly declined.
Relations reached a near-crisis last fall when a spate of PKK attacks
killed dozens of Turks. Finally, on Nov. 5, Bush met Erdogan at
the White House and made a long-overdue decision: The United States
would share tactical intelligence on the PKK positions with Turkey
and tolerate attacks on Iraqi territory. Several raids have followed,
pronounced a success by the Turks.
Meanwhile, the other major irritant in the relationship -- a House
resolution pronouncing the massacre of Armenians in Turkey at the
end of World War I a "genocide" -- was reluctantly pulled by Speaker
Nancy Pelosi under pressure from fellow Democrats.
While all this was going on, Turkey changed. Erdogan's party, which
has Islamist roots, proved it could take over a secular government
without infringing on democracy or civil rights. Last spring, the
prospect of Gul as president almost provoked a military coup; after
an election convincingly won by his party, his mandate is now accepted.
At the White House, Bush said the conversation was "what you'd expect
when two friends are in the same room together." Maybe so -- but as
this administration learned the hard way, even close friends cannot
be taken for granted.
Jackson Diehl is deputy editorial page editor for The Washington Post.
By Jackson Diehlthe
Washington Post
Jan 18 2008
Turkish President Abdullah Gul came and went last week without
attracting much attention, which is not unusual for a friendly head of
state visiting Washington. But Gul's visit to the White House for lunch
with President Bush -- and even his failure to prompt any headlines --
marked a dramatic turnaround in one of the most important U.S. foreign
relationships, and a quiet success by an outgoing administration in
cleaning up one of its own messes.
By now, Americans are painfully aware of the country's drastic loss
of standing around the world during Bush's presidency. But a comeback
of sorts is under way as the administration winds down, and Turkey
is a big part of it. The Muslim nation of 71 million, a NATO member
that borders both the European Union and Iraq, passed in the course
of just a couple of years from ranking as one of the most stalwart
U.S. allies to one of the most resentful, with a burning popular
fever of anti-Americanism.
Now, thanks to some deft diplomacy, an unexpected show of
responsibility by Congress and one tough decision by Bush, ties are
more or less back to where they were before 2001.
"The relationship has come full circle, which feels like a good
thing, considering where we have been," says Mark Parris, a former
ambassador to Turkey who now watches relations from the Brookings
Institution. "It means the next administration, at least, will inherit
a normal relationship."
That sentiment was happily confirmed by Gul, a genial and astute
politician who served four years as foreign minister before his
election as president last summer. "These challenges are behind us," he
said during a visit to The Washington Post. "We share the same values
-- democracy, human rights, the functioning of the free market. We
are working together jointly for the same goals in the region."
Gul went so far as to predict a turnaround in public opinion in Turkey,
where the approval rating of the United States was in single digits as
recently as the summer: "This sentiment the polls are showing is not
directed at the values we share, and it is not directed at Americans."
Gul and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were the leading
architects of the Turkish-American reconstruction. Gul, the second
most powerful figure of the ruling Justice and Development Party
after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was scapegoated by senior
U.S. officials in early 2003 when the Turkish parliament failed to
grant permission for a U.S. Army division to cross its territory for
the invasion of Iraq. Rice was then the national security adviser
of an administration that arrogantly took an old ally for granted,
disregarding its legitimate concerns about Iraq and pressing Erodgan's
government to make a commitment contrary to overwhelming Turkish
opinion only weeks after it had won its first national election.
Yet when Rice became secretary of state in 2005, she made Turkey
a stop on her first foreign trip, making clear that rebuilding the
alliance would be a priority. Gul was ready; as he recalls it, he
asked Rice to make a list of her most important priorities and then
made one of his own.
"We had the same concerns," he said, "Iraq, Afghanistan, Central Asia,
the Caucasus, Kosovo and the Balkans, the Middle East." And by and
large, they wanted the same outcomes.
The biggest sticking point was not Iraq per se but the Kurdistan
Workers' Party, or PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group operating in Turkey
that took advantage of the war to establish new bases inside Iraq.
For four years, Erdogan's government asked the United States, as the
principal military power in Baghdad, to do something about the PKK.
The Pentagon repeatedly declined.
Relations reached a near-crisis last fall when a spate of PKK attacks
killed dozens of Turks. Finally, on Nov. 5, Bush met Erdogan at
the White House and made a long-overdue decision: The United States
would share tactical intelligence on the PKK positions with Turkey
and tolerate attacks on Iraqi territory. Several raids have followed,
pronounced a success by the Turks.
Meanwhile, the other major irritant in the relationship -- a House
resolution pronouncing the massacre of Armenians in Turkey at the
end of World War I a "genocide" -- was reluctantly pulled by Speaker
Nancy Pelosi under pressure from fellow Democrats.
While all this was going on, Turkey changed. Erdogan's party, which
has Islamist roots, proved it could take over a secular government
without infringing on democracy or civil rights. Last spring, the
prospect of Gul as president almost provoked a military coup; after
an election convincingly won by his party, his mandate is now accepted.
At the White House, Bush said the conversation was "what you'd expect
when two friends are in the same room together." Maybe so -- but as
this administration learned the hard way, even close friends cannot
be taken for granted.
Jackson Diehl is deputy editorial page editor for The Washington Post.