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  • A Special Relationship With Turkey

    A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH TURKEY
    by David Ignatius

    Washington Post
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-obamas-friend-in-turkey/2012/06/07/gJQAAhqCMV_story.html
    June 8, 2012 Friday 8:12 PM EST

    As President Obama was feeling his way in foreign policy during
    his first months in office, he decided to cultivate a friendship
    with Turkey's headstrong prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Over
    the past year, this investment in Turkey has begun to pay some big
    dividends - anchoring U.S. policy in a region that sometimes seems
    adrift. Erdogan's clout was on display this week as he hosted a meeting
    here of the World Economic Forum (WEF) that celebrated the stability
    of the "Turkish model" of Muslim democracy amid the turmoil of the
    Arab Spring. One panel had the enraptured title "Turkey as a Source
    of Inspiration."

    In a speech Tuesday, Erdogan named Turkey's achievements over
    the decade he has been in power: Its economy has grown an annual
    average of 5.3 percent since 2002, the fastest rate of any country
    in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; gross
    domestic product has more than tripled, as have its foreign reserves;
    investment from abroad has increased more than 16 times. For Erdogan,
    receiving a visit from the WEF was a kind of vindication. The Turkish
    leader walked angrily offstage at the group's 2009 meeting in Davos,
    Switzerland, after a panel moderator (yours truly) didn't allow him
    time to respond to Israeli President Shimon Peres's remarks about
    the Gaza war. This week, that moment seemed well in the past.

    Turkey's ascendancy in the region may seem obvious now, but it
    was less so in 2009, when Obama began working to build a special
    relationship. To an otherwise predictable European itinerary for his
    first overseas trip in April 2009, he added a stop in Ankara. What
    impressed the Turks wasn't just that he spoke to their parliament
    but that earlier, in Strasbourg, he pushed for a greater role for
    Turkey in NATO, and in Prague he argued for Turkish membership in
    the European Union.

    Obama and Erdogan continued their courtship despite a sharp
    deterioration in Turkey's relations with Israel after the Gaza war
    and despite U.S. worries in early 2010 that Ankara was becoming too
    friendly with Iran. Obama expressed his concerns in a blunt two-hour
    conversation at the June 2010 Group of 20 summit in Toronto. Since
    then, according to both sides, there has been growing mutual trust.

    "My prime minister sees a friend in President Obama," says Egemen
    Bagis, the minister for European affairs and one of Erdogan's closest
    political advisers. "The two can very candidly express their opinions.

    They might not always agree, but they feel confident enough to share
    positions."

    An example of the Obama-Erdogan channel was their meeting in March
    at the Asian summit in Seoul. The top item was Obama's request that
    Erdogan convey a message to Iran's supreme leader about U.S. interest
    in a nuclear agreement. In Seoul, Erdogan also promised to reopen a
    Greek Orthodox seminary on the island of Halki, granting a request
    that Obama had made in 2009; Erdogan had earlier agreed to Obama's
    request that Turkey permit services at an ancient Armenian church on
    Akdamar Island in Lake Van. Turks cite several other concessions made
    by the Turkish leader: Obama persuaded him to install a missile-defense
    radar system that became operational this year, upsetting Tehran. And
    at U.S. urging, Erdogan reversed his initial opposition to NATO
    intervention last year in Libya.

    In playing the Turkey card, Obama has upset some powerful political
    constituencies at home. Jewish groups protest that Obama's warming to
    Ankara has come even as Israel's relationship with Turkey has chilled
    almost to the freezing point. Armenian groups are upset that Obama
    has soft-pedaled his once-emphatic call for Turkey to recognize the
    genocide of 1915. And human-rights groups complain that the United
    States is tolerating Erdogan's squeeze on Turkish journalists, judges
    and political foes.

    But as the Arab Spring has darkened, the administration has been
    glad for its alliance with this prosperous Muslim democracy - which
    it can celebrate as a beacon for the neighborhood. Ahmet Davutoglu,
    Turkey's ambitious foreign minister, argues that his country is a
    role model for Arabs because it shows that democracy brings dignity,
    not chaos or extremism.

    Bagis puts it this way: "There are many Muslim leaders who can go to
    Egypt and pray in a mosque. And there are many Western leaders who
    can go talk about democracy. Erdogan did both." For Turkey these days,
    that's something of a trump card. But there's a mutual dependence. It
    seems fair to say that no world leader has a greater stake in Obama's
    reelection than the Turkish prime minister.


    From: Baghdasarian
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