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ANKARA: The Caucasus Crisis And Turkey's Constructive Role

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  • ANKARA: The Caucasus Crisis And Turkey's Constructive Role

    THE CAUCASUS CRISIS AND TURKEY'S CONSTRUCTIVE ROLE
    by Bulent KeneÅ~_

    www.worldbulletin.net
    Aug 31 2008
    Turkey

    The world has focused on the course of the crisis that erupted in
    the Caucasus. How this crisis will develop closely interests the US,
    NATO, the EU and all major countries as well as other global players.

    Obviously, Turkey is one of the parties most interested in the
    crisis, and for this reason, Turkey is trying to devise its foreign
    policy with this in mind. Given how things have developed since the
    crisis was first fueled in Georgia, one can easily assert that the
    period before us is much more critical than the last month. We can
    similarly suggest that the tension has the potential of escalating
    at any moment. This may create new dangers and threats to Turkey.

    Actually, Turkish diplomatic circles have for some time had the uneasy
    feeling that such a crisis was in the making in Caucasus. Both the
    NATO Bucharest summit and a speech then-Russian President Vladimir
    Putin delivered at the 2007 International Security Conference in
    Munich were warning signals that a crisis was brewing. However,
    despite these unmistakable signs, the traditional clumsiness of the
    Western alliance to make up its mind rendered the crisis inevitable.

    Actually, the process of how the inevitability of this crisis has
    become obvious can, in a sense, be traced back to the 9/11 attacks. As
    you will remember, in the post-9/11 era, each country had adopted a
    unique position and saw these attacks as an opportunity for destroying
    its own "terrorists." Thus, Russia perceived Chechnya as such and
    implemented its policies based on this perception. You will also
    remember that under the circumstances of the time, the West did not
    make much noise over Russian policy.

    On the other hand, in the same period, the US was so obsessed
    with dealing with its own "terrorists" - Afghanistan and Iraq --
    that it failed to implement reasonable policies that would have
    prevented Russia's comeback to its near abroad after reclaiming
    power, made convenient by rising energy prices. Even the colorful
    revolutions that changed regimes in Russia's near abroad were not
    well planned. Thus, in this process, all post-Cold War era crises
    that had been held in abeyance started to emerge. Feeling that it
    was being cornered by unilateral security and containment moves made
    hastily and aggressively by the US, Russia started to play its cards
    with a self-confidence boosted by its accumulation of power. The
    miscalculated move ventured by Georgian President Mikhail Sakaashvili,
    who underestimated Russia with the enthusiasm of Western encouragement
    and who wanted to guarantee Georgia's NATO membership, turned a local
    problem into an international crisis in the blink of an eye.

    Turkey has long supported Ukraine and Georgia's NATO membership
    provided they solve their border disputes and domestic ethnic
    problems, and with the emerging crisis Turkey had to straddle both
    sides. Indeed, Turkey has no chance of foregoing its relations with
    Russia for the sake of the US, and vice versa. Turkey has to move very
    carefully and pursue a very delicately balanced policy between its
    strategic partner the US and NATO on the one hand and its biggest
    trade partner and neighbor Russia on the other. Actually, it is
    doing this successfully. Without acting against Russia or the US,
    Turkey is striving to develop a different and sui generis policy. The
    most salient element of this policy is the Caucasus Stability and
    Cooperation Initiative. The initiative aims to eliminate the extreme
    lack of confidence among countries in the region and disperse the
    pessimistic atmosphere caused by the war and replace it with an
    optimistic one.

    We can suggest that by pushing the Caucasus Stability and Cooperation
    Initiative to the fore, Turkish foreign policy views the Caucasus
    crisis as part of a strategic whole, assessing the crisis from four
    levels and developing policies based on this perception. In the early
    days of the crisis, Turkish diplomacy attempted to contain the issue
    as one between Georgia and South Ossetia, but it was too late. What
    Turkey is today trying to do is to keep the crisis, which entered its
    second phase with the military intervention by an overconfident Russia,
    from growing beyond a Georgian-Russian crisis. Turkish diplomacy is
    exerting its best efforts to prevent this crisis from developing
    into a US-Russian conflict, or, worse yet, a Russia-NATO conflict
    that would radically affect Turkey as a NATO member.

    With the Caucasus initiative, Turkey is trying to keep this crisis from
    taking on new and more dangerous aspects and, at the same time, from
    it migrating to the Black Sea and triggering a new Nagorno-Karabakh
    problem between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Under this unwavering policy,
    Turkey is fulfilling all of its responsibilities stemming from the
    Montreux Convention on the one hand, and it is opposing efforts to
    make the Black Sea a NATO-controlled body of water, taking Russian
    concerns into account in this respect.

    With the Caucasus initiative, Turkey is attempting to contain the
    emergent crisis within the borders of the region and to build
    confidence among regional countries. Turkey is acting with the
    awareness that all countries should win under this project. Turkey
    estimates that with this initiative, Russia will be happy to contain
    the crisis to the region where it is the dominant power; Georgia will
    reassert its territorial integrity; Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh
    problem can be discussed again in diplomatic terms; and Armenia
    can save itself from isolation by developing its relations with
    Turkey. Certainly, this is no easy project, but it is not utopian,
    either.

    I will discuss this topic further in my next article...

    --Boundary_(ID_mxh4HPHrvKS52Qbdf7rpUQ) --
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