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Asia Times, HongKong
May 8 2012
US urged to forge new Turkey partnership
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Major changes that have swept both Turkey and its
neighborhood since the Cold War require Washington to forge a "new
partnership" with Ankara, according to a new report released on
Tuesday by the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
Among other steps, United States President Barack Obama and Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan should use their close
relationship to create a government-wide forum for regular,
cabinet-level bilateral consultations like Washington's Strategic and
Economic Dialogue (SED) with China or its strategic-level exchanges
with Israel, according to the report by a blue-ribbon task force of 23
members.
Co-chaired by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former
national security adviser Stephen Hadley, who served
under presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush, respectively, the
task force also called for building much stronger economic ties
between the two countries by possibly negotiating a bilateral free
trade agreement and taking other measures.
While conceding that Washington will disagree with Ankara on a number
of important issues, including the pace and direction of political
reform inside Turkey and Ankara's relations with Israel, the report
concludes that "it is incumbent upon policymakers to make every effort
to develop US-Turkey ties in order to make a strategic relationship a
reality".
"To do otherwise would be to miss a historic opportunity to set ties
between Washington on a cooperative trajectory in Europe, the Eastern
Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa, for a generation," according to
the 90-page report, "US-Turkey Relations: A New Partnership".
The report comes amid a growing - albeit slow - appreciation here for
Turkey's emergence over the past decade as a global economic
powerhouse, evidenced by its membership in the Group of 20 (G-20), and
as a regional superpower with significant influence on not just the
evolution of the past year's "Arab Spring" but also the ongoing crisis
between Iran and the West, and the future supply of oil and gas from
the Caspian and Central Asia to Europe.
Shifting trajectory
During the Cold War, Turkey was largely taken for granted as a loyal -
if poor, inward-looking and sometimes repressive - member of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) whose territory occupied a
particularly strategic position vis-a-vis "containing" the Soviet
Union.
In the past 20 years, but especially since the accession to power of
Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002, however,
Turkey's position has changed dramatically.
Economically, its growth rate has been sustained at close to Chinese
levels over the past decade; politically, the AKP has significantly
weakened the once-dominant military and instituted other democratic
reforms; and internationally, Ankara has emerged as a confident and
independent actor, even as its loyalty to NATO, as shown by its
continuing troop commitment in Afghanistan and its agreement to
station an anti-missile radar system on its soil, appears
undiminished.
Just last week, one of the most influential US geostrategic thinkers,
former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, compared
Turkey's importance to those of Washington's most powerful NATO
allies.
"I would view Turkey personally today as one of the four most
important members of the NATO, certainly right there with Britain,
France, and Germany," he said in a lecture at the Brookings
Institution. He also argued that Turkey's political and economic
evolution could serve as a model not only for newly democratic Arab
states, but also for Iran and Russia.
As both he and the CFR report noted, however, the United States has
been slow to recognize its significance.
Standing up to Washington
"The new Turkey is not well understood by US administration officials,
members of congress or the public," the report notes, adding that one
of the aims of the task force, which included prominent figures
representing a broad range of expertise and political views from
center right to center left, is precisely to build a better
understanding of Turkey's importance.
Indeed, much of the news coverage of Turkey here over the past decade
has been negative.
Parliament's rejection of Washington's use of Turkish bases as a
launching pad for the 2003 Iraq invasion came as a shock to many in
the US.
More recently, Erdogan's outspoken denunciation of Israel's 2008-2009
military campaign in Gaza, followed by the Mavi Marmara incident in
which nine Turks were killed by Israeli commandos in international
waters, sparked a wave of anti-Turkish acrimony promoted, in
particular, by neo-conservatives, who had long been hostile to the AKP
due to its anti-military positions and Islamist roots.
The major institutions of the powerful Israel lobby have also since
quietly retaliated by supporting the Greek and Armenian lobbies
against Turkish interests in congress.
At the same time, human-rights and press-freedom groups here have
grown increasingly critical of internal developments in Turkey,
particularly the detention and prosecution of dozens of journalists
and others in connection with the "Ergenekon" and Sledgehammer"
conspiracy investigations of the military-dominated "deep state", and
of scores of activists, politicians, reporters and academics accused
of supporting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The new report echoes many of these rights- and democracy-related
complaints, noting, for example, that the AKP's constitutional reform
program has slowed unnecessarily and that the government has sometimes
resorted to the "same non-democratic tools" as its predecessors.
Washington, it says, should encourage Turkish leaders to "follow
through with their commitment to writing a new constitution that
better protects minority rights and basic freedoms". The Kurdish
issue, according to the report, "is among the biggest obstacles to
Turkey's democratic ambitions and the root of many of its illiberal
practices", and Obama should encourage Erdogan to pursue "a new
Kurdish opening".
At the same time, the report insists that some of the fears about the
AKP's direction are exaggerated or unfounded. "In particular, the
decline in the role of the military in Turkish political life does not
mean that Turkey is inexorably headed toward theocracy or movement
away from NATO," it insists, adding that "the United States must not
view the sum of US-Turkey relations through the narrow prism of
particular issues, whether they be Armenia, Israel, or ties to NATO".
"The US-Turkey relationship is much broader than the Armenian tragedy,
the parlous state of Turkey-Israel relations, or the false debates
about Turkey's place in the West," it declares.
Washington "needs to see Turkey as a potential strategic partner with
which it has a relationship not only with newer partners, such as
India and Brazil, but ultimately with its closest allies, such as
Japan and South Korea", the report adds.
On more specific recommendations, the report suggests that domestic
politics in both Israel and Turkey are unlikely to favor any
rapprochement in the near future, so Washington should encourage the
two countries to maintain what it calls the "one bright spot" in
bilateral relations - trade.
It also calls, among other things, for greater US efforts to advance
the normalization of ties between Turkey and Armenia and to contain
Ankara's long-standing territorial disputes with Greece and potential
disputes with Israel over gas deposits in the eastern Mediterranean.
While the two countries have differed on a number of fronts and
popular distrust of the United States is especially high in Turkey,
those differences "should not preclude the development of a
partnership, in particular as Ankara has moved closer to Washington's
position on Syria and Iran", according to the report, which also
stressed Turkey's "constructive" role in Iraq despite its opposition
to the invasion.
(Inter Press Service)
From: Baghdasarian
May 8 2012
US urged to forge new Turkey partnership
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Major changes that have swept both Turkey and its
neighborhood since the Cold War require Washington to forge a "new
partnership" with Ankara, according to a new report released on
Tuesday by the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
Among other steps, United States President Barack Obama and Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan should use their close
relationship to create a government-wide forum for regular,
cabinet-level bilateral consultations like Washington's Strategic and
Economic Dialogue (SED) with China or its strategic-level exchanges
with Israel, according to the report by a blue-ribbon task force of 23
members.
Co-chaired by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former
national security adviser Stephen Hadley, who served
under presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush, respectively, the
task force also called for building much stronger economic ties
between the two countries by possibly negotiating a bilateral free
trade agreement and taking other measures.
While conceding that Washington will disagree with Ankara on a number
of important issues, including the pace and direction of political
reform inside Turkey and Ankara's relations with Israel, the report
concludes that "it is incumbent upon policymakers to make every effort
to develop US-Turkey ties in order to make a strategic relationship a
reality".
"To do otherwise would be to miss a historic opportunity to set ties
between Washington on a cooperative trajectory in Europe, the Eastern
Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa, for a generation," according to
the 90-page report, "US-Turkey Relations: A New Partnership".
The report comes amid a growing - albeit slow - appreciation here for
Turkey's emergence over the past decade as a global economic
powerhouse, evidenced by its membership in the Group of 20 (G-20), and
as a regional superpower with significant influence on not just the
evolution of the past year's "Arab Spring" but also the ongoing crisis
between Iran and the West, and the future supply of oil and gas from
the Caspian and Central Asia to Europe.
Shifting trajectory
During the Cold War, Turkey was largely taken for granted as a loyal -
if poor, inward-looking and sometimes repressive - member of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) whose territory occupied a
particularly strategic position vis-a-vis "containing" the Soviet
Union.
In the past 20 years, but especially since the accession to power of
Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002, however,
Turkey's position has changed dramatically.
Economically, its growth rate has been sustained at close to Chinese
levels over the past decade; politically, the AKP has significantly
weakened the once-dominant military and instituted other democratic
reforms; and internationally, Ankara has emerged as a confident and
independent actor, even as its loyalty to NATO, as shown by its
continuing troop commitment in Afghanistan and its agreement to
station an anti-missile radar system on its soil, appears
undiminished.
Just last week, one of the most influential US geostrategic thinkers,
former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, compared
Turkey's importance to those of Washington's most powerful NATO
allies.
"I would view Turkey personally today as one of the four most
important members of the NATO, certainly right there with Britain,
France, and Germany," he said in a lecture at the Brookings
Institution. He also argued that Turkey's political and economic
evolution could serve as a model not only for newly democratic Arab
states, but also for Iran and Russia.
As both he and the CFR report noted, however, the United States has
been slow to recognize its significance.
Standing up to Washington
"The new Turkey is not well understood by US administration officials,
members of congress or the public," the report notes, adding that one
of the aims of the task force, which included prominent figures
representing a broad range of expertise and political views from
center right to center left, is precisely to build a better
understanding of Turkey's importance.
Indeed, much of the news coverage of Turkey here over the past decade
has been negative.
Parliament's rejection of Washington's use of Turkish bases as a
launching pad for the 2003 Iraq invasion came as a shock to many in
the US.
More recently, Erdogan's outspoken denunciation of Israel's 2008-2009
military campaign in Gaza, followed by the Mavi Marmara incident in
which nine Turks were killed by Israeli commandos in international
waters, sparked a wave of anti-Turkish acrimony promoted, in
particular, by neo-conservatives, who had long been hostile to the AKP
due to its anti-military positions and Islamist roots.
The major institutions of the powerful Israel lobby have also since
quietly retaliated by supporting the Greek and Armenian lobbies
against Turkish interests in congress.
At the same time, human-rights and press-freedom groups here have
grown increasingly critical of internal developments in Turkey,
particularly the detention and prosecution of dozens of journalists
and others in connection with the "Ergenekon" and Sledgehammer"
conspiracy investigations of the military-dominated "deep state", and
of scores of activists, politicians, reporters and academics accused
of supporting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The new report echoes many of these rights- and democracy-related
complaints, noting, for example, that the AKP's constitutional reform
program has slowed unnecessarily and that the government has sometimes
resorted to the "same non-democratic tools" as its predecessors.
Washington, it says, should encourage Turkish leaders to "follow
through with their commitment to writing a new constitution that
better protects minority rights and basic freedoms". The Kurdish
issue, according to the report, "is among the biggest obstacles to
Turkey's democratic ambitions and the root of many of its illiberal
practices", and Obama should encourage Erdogan to pursue "a new
Kurdish opening".
At the same time, the report insists that some of the fears about the
AKP's direction are exaggerated or unfounded. "In particular, the
decline in the role of the military in Turkish political life does not
mean that Turkey is inexorably headed toward theocracy or movement
away from NATO," it insists, adding that "the United States must not
view the sum of US-Turkey relations through the narrow prism of
particular issues, whether they be Armenia, Israel, or ties to NATO".
"The US-Turkey relationship is much broader than the Armenian tragedy,
the parlous state of Turkey-Israel relations, or the false debates
about Turkey's place in the West," it declares.
Washington "needs to see Turkey as a potential strategic partner with
which it has a relationship not only with newer partners, such as
India and Brazil, but ultimately with its closest allies, such as
Japan and South Korea", the report adds.
On more specific recommendations, the report suggests that domestic
politics in both Israel and Turkey are unlikely to favor any
rapprochement in the near future, so Washington should encourage the
two countries to maintain what it calls the "one bright spot" in
bilateral relations - trade.
It also calls, among other things, for greater US efforts to advance
the normalization of ties between Turkey and Armenia and to contain
Ankara's long-standing territorial disputes with Greece and potential
disputes with Israel over gas deposits in the eastern Mediterranean.
While the two countries have differed on a number of fronts and
popular distrust of the United States is especially high in Turkey,
those differences "should not preclude the development of a
partnership, in particular as Ankara has moved closer to Washington's
position on Syria and Iran", according to the report, which also
stressed Turkey's "constructive" role in Iraq despite its opposition
to the invasion.
(Inter Press Service)
From: Baghdasarian