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>From Libya to Syria and Armenia, Turkish-French rivalry is back
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Last week on Oct. 7, the French Interior Minister signed a conceptual
agreement with his Turkish host Idris Naim Sahin on the joint struggle
against terrorism. Opening the door for operational cooperation as
well, the agreement is the first of its kind for Turkey; France has
similar, even more detailed ones with a limited number of countries,
including the U.S.
But as Turkish and French ministers were preparing for the agreement
ceremony in the morning, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was on his
way to Armenia to make bitter statements that Turkey should admit the
allegation that massacres against Armenians in the last years of the
Ottoman Empire amounted to genocide.
It was like an ultimatum since Sarkozy was giving a deadline to Ankara
by the end of this year, or else. A reporter for Hurriyet asked him in
Yerevan whether he had a schedule in mind for official recognition of
the alleged genocide by France, since it was Sarkozy himself who
blocked a resolution by the French Parliament over the past four
years.
No, he did not have any schedule in mind, but he implied the
approaching of the 100th year of the infamous campaign of 1915 that
led to the cleansing of the native Armenian population of Turkey
before the end of WWI that triggered the War of Liberation in which
the Ottoman Empire ended as well.
Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu's reply to that the next day was
interesting: France should first face with its colonialist past in
Africa before attacking Turkey's past.
This was a mind-opening correlation to make. Like a Freudian slip, in
return to what Sarkozy had said in his tour of Georgia, Armenia and
Azerbaijan to mark their 20th year of independence from the former
Soviet Union, Davutoglu recalled the refreshed rivalry in the Arabian
North Africa, or Maghreb, almost a century ago.
This year marked the 100th year of Turkish withdrawal from Libya and
Algeria to leave the rule of the lands to Italy and France
respectively. Perhaps that was the reason why Sarkozy, having British
Prime Minister David Cameron as a companion, rushed to Benghazi a day
before Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the Libyan
city.
It can be speculated that Sarkozy sees Erdogan as an obstacle in front
of his country's Maghreb comeback. Perhaps it was a subconscious
reflex that pushed Sarkozy to the Turkish and Russian backyard of
Caucasus to disturb Turkey's balances there.
There is of course another theater that could cause another
Turkish-French face off in the region: Syria. The Turkish southernmost
province of Hatay, where camps are set up for those who escaped from
the Beshar al-Assad regime, joined Turkey from a French mandate in
1938 through a plebiscite. France would not like to see Turkey
increase its influence again in the Mediterranean basin almost after a
century of keeping a low profile after the WWI defeat in 1918.
It seems that the two NATO members are likely to get into more
political confrontation, which has a tendency to escalate, unless the
two countries find new cooperation areas, not necessarily security but
especially economics, which would bind their interests together.
>From Libya to Syria and Armenia, Turkish-French rivalry is back
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Last week on Oct. 7, the French Interior Minister signed a conceptual
agreement with his Turkish host Idris Naim Sahin on the joint struggle
against terrorism. Opening the door for operational cooperation as
well, the agreement is the first of its kind for Turkey; France has
similar, even more detailed ones with a limited number of countries,
including the U.S.
But as Turkish and French ministers were preparing for the agreement
ceremony in the morning, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was on his
way to Armenia to make bitter statements that Turkey should admit the
allegation that massacres against Armenians in the last years of the
Ottoman Empire amounted to genocide.
It was like an ultimatum since Sarkozy was giving a deadline to Ankara
by the end of this year, or else. A reporter for Hurriyet asked him in
Yerevan whether he had a schedule in mind for official recognition of
the alleged genocide by France, since it was Sarkozy himself who
blocked a resolution by the French Parliament over the past four
years.
No, he did not have any schedule in mind, but he implied the
approaching of the 100th year of the infamous campaign of 1915 that
led to the cleansing of the native Armenian population of Turkey
before the end of WWI that triggered the War of Liberation in which
the Ottoman Empire ended as well.
Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu's reply to that the next day was
interesting: France should first face with its colonialist past in
Africa before attacking Turkey's past.
This was a mind-opening correlation to make. Like a Freudian slip, in
return to what Sarkozy had said in his tour of Georgia, Armenia and
Azerbaijan to mark their 20th year of independence from the former
Soviet Union, Davutoglu recalled the refreshed rivalry in the Arabian
North Africa, or Maghreb, almost a century ago.
This year marked the 100th year of Turkish withdrawal from Libya and
Algeria to leave the rule of the lands to Italy and France
respectively. Perhaps that was the reason why Sarkozy, having British
Prime Minister David Cameron as a companion, rushed to Benghazi a day
before Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the Libyan
city.
It can be speculated that Sarkozy sees Erdogan as an obstacle in front
of his country's Maghreb comeback. Perhaps it was a subconscious
reflex that pushed Sarkozy to the Turkish and Russian backyard of
Caucasus to disturb Turkey's balances there.
There is of course another theater that could cause another
Turkish-French face off in the region: Syria. The Turkish southernmost
province of Hatay, where camps are set up for those who escaped from
the Beshar al-Assad regime, joined Turkey from a French mandate in
1938 through a plebiscite. France would not like to see Turkey
increase its influence again in the Mediterranean basin almost after a
century of keeping a low profile after the WWI defeat in 1918.
It seems that the two NATO members are likely to get into more
political confrontation, which has a tendency to escalate, unless the
two countries find new cooperation areas, not necessarily security but
especially economics, which would bind their interests together.