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Today's Zaman, Turkey
Sept 28 2012
Convention speech and ErdoÄ?an's dream
ABDULLAH BOZKURT
Turkey's powerful prime minister, Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an, will be
delivering a keynote speech at his ruling Justice and Development
Party (AK Party) convention on Sunday, 11 years after he first formed
Turkey's 39th party, in August 2001.
His young party swept the parliamentary elections a year later in
November 2002, becoming a very successful political movement and
leading to wins in the next two elections in 2007 and 2011 as well.
He has been instrumental in pushing the once-powerful military to its
barracks, restoring the relative balance on civilian-military
relations while maintaining impressive economic growth. Today, he is
at a critical juncture however his party's rule has been facing huge
challenges from the recent surge of terror attacks to the emergence of
economic difficulties at home, and strained ties with neighbors in the
Middle East region. He has not been able to consolidate the
democratization process in Turkey yet, leaving the most important
pillar of a functioning democracy incomplete: a lack of a civilian
constitution.
His aides have been paying a lot of attention to every detail in his
upcoming speech, which will simultaneously be translated into seven
languages to convey his messages to foreign audiences. That means he
will devote a substantial portion of this impact speech to foreign
policy issues, while laying out a grand vision for Turkey in 2023 when
the republic will celebrate its centennial. In a television interview
this week, ErdoÄ?an stressed that his long speech on Sunday will be the
last one he will give as the chairman of the party at the party
congress, signaling that he is intent on delivering a memorable
speech.
Yet challenges the nation faces will make it harder for him to deliver
a speech that has considerable impact. Circumstances in Turkey's
immediate neighborhood as well as the general outlook of global
affairs are not very promising for Turkey. I remember his speech in
the last party congress held in 2009 during which ErdoÄ?an was touting
foreign policy achievements to rally his supporters. He was making a
point that during his party's rule, the nation has minimized
long-standing problems with its neighbors based on a newly adopted
`zero problems with neighbors policy.'
Unfortunately that policy seems to have collapsed with regard to many
countries in Turkey's neighborhood. Of course not all the blame goes
to the AK Party government for the frayed relations with some of our
eastern and southern neighbors. The unnecessary deep engagement policy
with Iran did not benefit Turkey in any meaningful way and there has
been sort of undeclared war waged by Iran against Turkey because of
Ankara's growing influence in the Middle East and North African
region. Relations with Iraq under the Shiite leader Nouri al-Maliki
have also worsened to the point that Maliki rebuffed ErdoÄ?an's
personal invitation to show up at his party congress, which signaled a
further strain on relations with Baghdad.
Turkey could have eventually ended in the same spot whether it tried a
different trajectory with regard to Syria and Iraq. But that is not a
point the voters and AK Party supporters will pay any attention to as
public perception is shaped by the general outlook of relations, not
by diplomatic details. He kept Foreign Minister Ahmet DavutoÄ?lu, the
architect of this new foreign policy, in party management in 2009, but
whether he will do the same again during the party congress on Sunday
will provide a hint about the orientation of Turkish foreign policy as
well as DavutoÄ?lu's future career.
I'm sure he will again use Israel as a punching bag as he loves to
lash out at the Jewish state often for the occupation of the Palestine
territories and harsh military policies disturbing the daily lives of
the Palestinian people. In a 2009 speech, he devoted much time to
discussing the Gaza offensive, in which the Israeli Defense Forces
(IDF) allegedly committed war crimes such as using prohibited weapons
including phosphorus bombs and indiscriminately killing civilians in
combat zones in the December 2008-January 2009 period. This time he is
expected to dwell on the flotilla incident during which eight Turkish
citizens and one Turkish-American were killed by an Israeli raid on a
humanitarian ship in international waters en route to Gaza. He will
reiterate Turkey's demands for an apology and compensation over the
killings and ask that the Gaza embargo be lifted. Given the fact that
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal will be present among the audience,
ErdoÄ?an will try to raise Turkish concerns over domestic woes in
Palestine, specifically the reconciliation issues between Hamas and
Fatah.
As the fury over the anti-Islam movie produced by an extreme
anti-Muslim Egyptian Christian campaigner in the US continues to stir
protests across the Muslim world, ErdoÄ?an will seize the opportunity
to talk about rising Islamophobia in the West. He will talk about the
necessity of introducing an international mechanism that would protect
sacred values from insult, while condemning the violence associated
with the protests that claimed the lives of more than 50 people
including the US ambassador to Libya. He will say freedom of speech
should not be abused for the purposes of legitimizing hate speech and
using it to insult the sacred values of others.
In the 2009 speech, the AK Party chairman dwelled on the government's
intensified efforts to resolve problems facing Turkish expatriates in
foreign countries' especially in Europe, while addressing issues such
as problems faced by Turkish citizens in visa applications. The
problems Turks face in EU member states especially in Germany where
some 3 million Turks live continue to be exacerbated however. The
Cologne court order banning ritual circumcisions, practiced by Jews
and Muslims, has practically turned into a nationwide ban as doctors
across the country have refused to carry out operations due to fear of
legal action. As if that is not enough, a poster campaign by the
German Interior Ministry against young Muslims who the ministry
claimed might be Islamist radicals or terrorists due to behavioral
disorders created a backlash among Muslims in Germany.
The xenophobic and Islamophobic tendencies across Europe are on the
rise and the Turkish government feels helpless in making a positive
impact on the lives of Turks and Muslims in this old continent.
ErdoÄ?an will raise these issues in his speech on Sunday, but how
effective he will be in getting foreign governments to tackle these
issues remains a source of concern for Turkish people. The AK Party
government's promise of making international travel easy for Turkish
citizens is not going according to plan because the visa facilitation
talks with the EU for an eventual waiver agreement are not expected to
bear fruit for at least three years.
How he resumes the EU membership process, which has virtually been
halted with no new negotiations chapter having been opened in the last
two years, will tell us what the extent of involvement by the new
party administration will be in respect to EU relations. In a 2009
speech, he made it clear that Turkey would stick to the EU path
despite difficulties, and would continue to adopt reforms to raise
Turkey's standards. His criticism for the EU was limited to the extent
that Turkey faced some injustices at the hands of some European
countries acting on populist politics. I expect he will come out
strongly against the EU this time, bashing Brussels for the lack of
progress on membership talks.
Unlike his previous speech in which he touted the normalization of
Turkey's relations with Armenia as a successful step for the
government, I do not think ErdoÄ?an will amplify this issue in his
speech. When he made his speech on Oct.3, 2009, he knew the government
would be signing the Zurich protocols a week later on Oct.10, which
would have opened the common border that was closed by Turkey in 1993
in solidarity with Azerbaijan after Armenian armed forces occupied 20
percent of Azerbaijan in 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Since the protocols did not make any reference to the resolution of
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijan reacted strongly against
Turkey which led to the country's shelving of the protocols. It is now
a dead issue in Turkey.
I think he will talk at length on the significance of Turkish-Egyptian
cooperation in the Middle East while hailing the presence of Egypt's
President Mohammed Morsi in the AK Party congress. The visit
reinforces the impression that Turkey's AK Party government will
cultivate much better ties with an Egypt ruled by the former leader of
the Muslim Brotherhood. The photo-op with ErdoÄ?an standing next to
Morsi is also a significant warning to Iran that two major powers in
the region are very much worried about Iranian encroachment against
the Sunni sphere of influence in the Middle East. Both ErdoÄ?an and
Morsi have adopted a similar position on Syria and want Assad to
depart from power as soon as possible.
I'm sure he will briefly mention the Afghanistan issue with a
reference to Turkey's mediation efforts between Pakistan and
Afghanistan as well as Cyprus, Caucasus, the Balkans, nuclear
disarmament, poverty, global climate change, food shortages and other
global matters. But Syria will take up a considerable part of the
speech.
In his last address, he borrowed from Martin Luther King Jr.'s major
speech `I Have a Dream,' saying, `We have a dream and a story to
tell,' to the world. But judging from what's happening in the region,
the AK Party's story is getting worse and the dream of a zero problems
with neighbors policy is in tatters.
Sept 28 2012
Convention speech and ErdoÄ?an's dream
ABDULLAH BOZKURT
Turkey's powerful prime minister, Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an, will be
delivering a keynote speech at his ruling Justice and Development
Party (AK Party) convention on Sunday, 11 years after he first formed
Turkey's 39th party, in August 2001.
His young party swept the parliamentary elections a year later in
November 2002, becoming a very successful political movement and
leading to wins in the next two elections in 2007 and 2011 as well.
He has been instrumental in pushing the once-powerful military to its
barracks, restoring the relative balance on civilian-military
relations while maintaining impressive economic growth. Today, he is
at a critical juncture however his party's rule has been facing huge
challenges from the recent surge of terror attacks to the emergence of
economic difficulties at home, and strained ties with neighbors in the
Middle East region. He has not been able to consolidate the
democratization process in Turkey yet, leaving the most important
pillar of a functioning democracy incomplete: a lack of a civilian
constitution.
His aides have been paying a lot of attention to every detail in his
upcoming speech, which will simultaneously be translated into seven
languages to convey his messages to foreign audiences. That means he
will devote a substantial portion of this impact speech to foreign
policy issues, while laying out a grand vision for Turkey in 2023 when
the republic will celebrate its centennial. In a television interview
this week, ErdoÄ?an stressed that his long speech on Sunday will be the
last one he will give as the chairman of the party at the party
congress, signaling that he is intent on delivering a memorable
speech.
Yet challenges the nation faces will make it harder for him to deliver
a speech that has considerable impact. Circumstances in Turkey's
immediate neighborhood as well as the general outlook of global
affairs are not very promising for Turkey. I remember his speech in
the last party congress held in 2009 during which ErdoÄ?an was touting
foreign policy achievements to rally his supporters. He was making a
point that during his party's rule, the nation has minimized
long-standing problems with its neighbors based on a newly adopted
`zero problems with neighbors policy.'
Unfortunately that policy seems to have collapsed with regard to many
countries in Turkey's neighborhood. Of course not all the blame goes
to the AK Party government for the frayed relations with some of our
eastern and southern neighbors. The unnecessary deep engagement policy
with Iran did not benefit Turkey in any meaningful way and there has
been sort of undeclared war waged by Iran against Turkey because of
Ankara's growing influence in the Middle East and North African
region. Relations with Iraq under the Shiite leader Nouri al-Maliki
have also worsened to the point that Maliki rebuffed ErdoÄ?an's
personal invitation to show up at his party congress, which signaled a
further strain on relations with Baghdad.
Turkey could have eventually ended in the same spot whether it tried a
different trajectory with regard to Syria and Iraq. But that is not a
point the voters and AK Party supporters will pay any attention to as
public perception is shaped by the general outlook of relations, not
by diplomatic details. He kept Foreign Minister Ahmet DavutoÄ?lu, the
architect of this new foreign policy, in party management in 2009, but
whether he will do the same again during the party congress on Sunday
will provide a hint about the orientation of Turkish foreign policy as
well as DavutoÄ?lu's future career.
I'm sure he will again use Israel as a punching bag as he loves to
lash out at the Jewish state often for the occupation of the Palestine
territories and harsh military policies disturbing the daily lives of
the Palestinian people. In a 2009 speech, he devoted much time to
discussing the Gaza offensive, in which the Israeli Defense Forces
(IDF) allegedly committed war crimes such as using prohibited weapons
including phosphorus bombs and indiscriminately killing civilians in
combat zones in the December 2008-January 2009 period. This time he is
expected to dwell on the flotilla incident during which eight Turkish
citizens and one Turkish-American were killed by an Israeli raid on a
humanitarian ship in international waters en route to Gaza. He will
reiterate Turkey's demands for an apology and compensation over the
killings and ask that the Gaza embargo be lifted. Given the fact that
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal will be present among the audience,
ErdoÄ?an will try to raise Turkish concerns over domestic woes in
Palestine, specifically the reconciliation issues between Hamas and
Fatah.
As the fury over the anti-Islam movie produced by an extreme
anti-Muslim Egyptian Christian campaigner in the US continues to stir
protests across the Muslim world, ErdoÄ?an will seize the opportunity
to talk about rising Islamophobia in the West. He will talk about the
necessity of introducing an international mechanism that would protect
sacred values from insult, while condemning the violence associated
with the protests that claimed the lives of more than 50 people
including the US ambassador to Libya. He will say freedom of speech
should not be abused for the purposes of legitimizing hate speech and
using it to insult the sacred values of others.
In the 2009 speech, the AK Party chairman dwelled on the government's
intensified efforts to resolve problems facing Turkish expatriates in
foreign countries' especially in Europe, while addressing issues such
as problems faced by Turkish citizens in visa applications. The
problems Turks face in EU member states especially in Germany where
some 3 million Turks live continue to be exacerbated however. The
Cologne court order banning ritual circumcisions, practiced by Jews
and Muslims, has practically turned into a nationwide ban as doctors
across the country have refused to carry out operations due to fear of
legal action. As if that is not enough, a poster campaign by the
German Interior Ministry against young Muslims who the ministry
claimed might be Islamist radicals or terrorists due to behavioral
disorders created a backlash among Muslims in Germany.
The xenophobic and Islamophobic tendencies across Europe are on the
rise and the Turkish government feels helpless in making a positive
impact on the lives of Turks and Muslims in this old continent.
ErdoÄ?an will raise these issues in his speech on Sunday, but how
effective he will be in getting foreign governments to tackle these
issues remains a source of concern for Turkish people. The AK Party
government's promise of making international travel easy for Turkish
citizens is not going according to plan because the visa facilitation
talks with the EU for an eventual waiver agreement are not expected to
bear fruit for at least three years.
How he resumes the EU membership process, which has virtually been
halted with no new negotiations chapter having been opened in the last
two years, will tell us what the extent of involvement by the new
party administration will be in respect to EU relations. In a 2009
speech, he made it clear that Turkey would stick to the EU path
despite difficulties, and would continue to adopt reforms to raise
Turkey's standards. His criticism for the EU was limited to the extent
that Turkey faced some injustices at the hands of some European
countries acting on populist politics. I expect he will come out
strongly against the EU this time, bashing Brussels for the lack of
progress on membership talks.
Unlike his previous speech in which he touted the normalization of
Turkey's relations with Armenia as a successful step for the
government, I do not think ErdoÄ?an will amplify this issue in his
speech. When he made his speech on Oct.3, 2009, he knew the government
would be signing the Zurich protocols a week later on Oct.10, which
would have opened the common border that was closed by Turkey in 1993
in solidarity with Azerbaijan after Armenian armed forces occupied 20
percent of Azerbaijan in 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Since the protocols did not make any reference to the resolution of
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijan reacted strongly against
Turkey which led to the country's shelving of the protocols. It is now
a dead issue in Turkey.
I think he will talk at length on the significance of Turkish-Egyptian
cooperation in the Middle East while hailing the presence of Egypt's
President Mohammed Morsi in the AK Party congress. The visit
reinforces the impression that Turkey's AK Party government will
cultivate much better ties with an Egypt ruled by the former leader of
the Muslim Brotherhood. The photo-op with ErdoÄ?an standing next to
Morsi is also a significant warning to Iran that two major powers in
the region are very much worried about Iranian encroachment against
the Sunni sphere of influence in the Middle East. Both ErdoÄ?an and
Morsi have adopted a similar position on Syria and want Assad to
depart from power as soon as possible.
I'm sure he will briefly mention the Afghanistan issue with a
reference to Turkey's mediation efforts between Pakistan and
Afghanistan as well as Cyprus, Caucasus, the Balkans, nuclear
disarmament, poverty, global climate change, food shortages and other
global matters. But Syria will take up a considerable part of the
speech.
In his last address, he borrowed from Martin Luther King Jr.'s major
speech `I Have a Dream,' saying, `We have a dream and a story to
tell,' to the world. But judging from what's happening in the region,
the AK Party's story is getting worse and the dream of a zero problems
with neighbors policy is in tatters.