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TURKEY STRADDLES WESTERN ALLEGIANCES AND MIDEAST REALITIES
National Public Radio
October 15, 2014 Wednesday
SHOW: Morning Edition 10:00 AM EST
GUESTS: Charles King
STEVE INSKEEP: So the U.S. has been weaving the fabric of a coalition
together, but let's tug on one of the threads for a moment. Turkey
is so vital - a big country right on that ISIS-controlled border with
Syria. Scott mentioned they do not see ISIS the same way the U.S.
does. The U.S. wants Turkish help against ISIS, but this week instead
of bombing ISIS, Turkey's powerful military conducted airstrikes
against a group of ethnic Kurds within Turkey itself.
To understand why, it helps to learn how Turkish leaders see the world,
especially the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. We spoke
with Charles King, author of "Midnight At The Pera Palace: The Birth
Of Modern Istanbul." So if you're the leader of Turkey and you're
looking south across your border into Syria at ISIS, what do you see?
CHARLES KING: Well, I think for the Turks, the threat of ISIS is not
seen in the same way that we might see it in the West. That is it's
one of a number of threats that Turkey might face. Keep in mind the
Turks have their own domestic concerns, not only domestic political
concerns, but also the problem of separatism.
STEVE INSKEEP: You have just reminded me of something about the map
of Turkey; that jagged line that is the southern border cuts through
the middle of a Kurdish region. There are ethnic Kurds south of that
line in Syria and Iraq, and there are ethnic Kurds north of that line
in Turkey.
CHARLES KING: That's right. And one of the great obsessions of Turkish
politics, really for the nearly 100 years that the Turkish Republic
has existed, is what to do about Kurds. It's Turkey's largest ethnic
minority, so a worry in Turkey has persistently been, how does it
keep control of its own southeast? And what do you do in the event
that Kurds across those borders in Syria, Iraq and Turkey should seek
to unite?
STEVE INSKEEP: Now, this is amazing what you're saying, though,
because you're saying that Turkey looks across the border at ISIS -
this extremist group that is beheading people, that took Turkish
diplomats hostage by the dozen for a while - and they don't even see
that as the biggest threat they face.
CHARLES KING: So Turkey is in a very difficult neighborhood. For most
of the last 30 years, almost every country on Turkey's borders has
been at war in one form or another. You have secessionist conflicts
in Georgia and Armenia; you have the Iran-Iraq war, followed by the
Gulf War, followed by the U.S. invasion of Iraq and then of course
the current conflict in Syria. Farther afield you've had conflicts in
Chechnya that produced refugees in Turkey; you had conflicts in the
Balkans that produced refugees in Turkey. So while the Syrian refugee
crisis is by far the largest of those, it's nothing new for Turkey.
STEVE INSKEEP: So we're standing in Turkey - you're standing on a
map of Turkey - we've been looking south. What happens if you turn
around and you're looking north and northwest across the Bosporus
to the scrap of Turkey that's actually part of Europe? What do Turks
see when they look in that direction right now?
CHARLES KING: This was the real heartland of the Ottoman Empire. We
think of the Ottomans as having been a Middle Eastern power, but they
thought of themselves as a European power.
STEVE INSKEEP: Istanbul is in Europe, we should note...
CHARLES KING: And Istanbul is of course half in Europe, half in Asia.
It takes a bridge or a boat ride or now a subway ride to get from one
continent to the next. So Turks look at Europe not as something they
want to join, but something that they were in fact once a part of.
STEVE INSKEEP: I suppose if you're an American policymaker, you want
to cut through this and ask a bottom-line question - is Recep Erdogan
going to help with this problem with ISIS or not?
CHARLES KING: I think if the idea is that the Turks will send troops
across the border on their own and somehow solve the problem, the
answer is probably going to be no.
STEVE INSKEEP: Permanently no, you think?
CHARLES KING: Permanently no. And so long as the NATO allies themselves
are not committed to overthrowing Assad, changing the dynamic in Syria
- why put a Band-Aid on the problem by simply attacking ISIS? Erdogan
wants to hold out until there is much bigger commitment to changing
the politics of Syria.
STEVE INSKEEP: So Erdogan is holding out for more Western help in
that regard?
CHARLES KING: That's right, some kind of buffer zone along the Turkish
border that would be a permanently enforced no-fly zone, perhaps even
some commitment to Western troops on the ground if Turkey is going
to commit troops on the ground. So there's a kind of diplomatic game
that's going on between Ankara and Washington and London and so on
as well.
STEVE INSKEEP: Now, this is very interesting because the United
States has a president who very much wants to make sure that allies
are brought along and that people in the region that the U.S. is
dealing with carry their weight. And you're saying here is a very
significant player in that region waiting for the United States to
carry its weight.
CHARLES KING: That's right. I think waiting to see what the United
States will do and again having different perceptions about the
immediate threat of ISIS. I think everyone can agree that the actions
in Syria have been barbaric from the Turkish perspective; however, this
is only one of a number of issues that they're trying to weigh out.
STEVE INSKEEP: Charles King, thanks very much.
CHARLES KING: Thank you.
STEVE INSKEEP: He's author of "Midnight At The Pera Palace: The Birth
Of Modern Istanbul."
National Public Radio
October 15, 2014 Wednesday
SHOW: Morning Edition 10:00 AM EST
GUESTS: Charles King
STEVE INSKEEP: So the U.S. has been weaving the fabric of a coalition
together, but let's tug on one of the threads for a moment. Turkey
is so vital - a big country right on that ISIS-controlled border with
Syria. Scott mentioned they do not see ISIS the same way the U.S.
does. The U.S. wants Turkish help against ISIS, but this week instead
of bombing ISIS, Turkey's powerful military conducted airstrikes
against a group of ethnic Kurds within Turkey itself.
To understand why, it helps to learn how Turkish leaders see the world,
especially the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. We spoke
with Charles King, author of "Midnight At The Pera Palace: The Birth
Of Modern Istanbul." So if you're the leader of Turkey and you're
looking south across your border into Syria at ISIS, what do you see?
CHARLES KING: Well, I think for the Turks, the threat of ISIS is not
seen in the same way that we might see it in the West. That is it's
one of a number of threats that Turkey might face. Keep in mind the
Turks have their own domestic concerns, not only domestic political
concerns, but also the problem of separatism.
STEVE INSKEEP: You have just reminded me of something about the map
of Turkey; that jagged line that is the southern border cuts through
the middle of a Kurdish region. There are ethnic Kurds south of that
line in Syria and Iraq, and there are ethnic Kurds north of that line
in Turkey.
CHARLES KING: That's right. And one of the great obsessions of Turkish
politics, really for the nearly 100 years that the Turkish Republic
has existed, is what to do about Kurds. It's Turkey's largest ethnic
minority, so a worry in Turkey has persistently been, how does it
keep control of its own southeast? And what do you do in the event
that Kurds across those borders in Syria, Iraq and Turkey should seek
to unite?
STEVE INSKEEP: Now, this is amazing what you're saying, though,
because you're saying that Turkey looks across the border at ISIS -
this extremist group that is beheading people, that took Turkish
diplomats hostage by the dozen for a while - and they don't even see
that as the biggest threat they face.
CHARLES KING: So Turkey is in a very difficult neighborhood. For most
of the last 30 years, almost every country on Turkey's borders has
been at war in one form or another. You have secessionist conflicts
in Georgia and Armenia; you have the Iran-Iraq war, followed by the
Gulf War, followed by the U.S. invasion of Iraq and then of course
the current conflict in Syria. Farther afield you've had conflicts in
Chechnya that produced refugees in Turkey; you had conflicts in the
Balkans that produced refugees in Turkey. So while the Syrian refugee
crisis is by far the largest of those, it's nothing new for Turkey.
STEVE INSKEEP: So we're standing in Turkey - you're standing on a
map of Turkey - we've been looking south. What happens if you turn
around and you're looking north and northwest across the Bosporus
to the scrap of Turkey that's actually part of Europe? What do Turks
see when they look in that direction right now?
CHARLES KING: This was the real heartland of the Ottoman Empire. We
think of the Ottomans as having been a Middle Eastern power, but they
thought of themselves as a European power.
STEVE INSKEEP: Istanbul is in Europe, we should note...
CHARLES KING: And Istanbul is of course half in Europe, half in Asia.
It takes a bridge or a boat ride or now a subway ride to get from one
continent to the next. So Turks look at Europe not as something they
want to join, but something that they were in fact once a part of.
STEVE INSKEEP: I suppose if you're an American policymaker, you want
to cut through this and ask a bottom-line question - is Recep Erdogan
going to help with this problem with ISIS or not?
CHARLES KING: I think if the idea is that the Turks will send troops
across the border on their own and somehow solve the problem, the
answer is probably going to be no.
STEVE INSKEEP: Permanently no, you think?
CHARLES KING: Permanently no. And so long as the NATO allies themselves
are not committed to overthrowing Assad, changing the dynamic in Syria
- why put a Band-Aid on the problem by simply attacking ISIS? Erdogan
wants to hold out until there is much bigger commitment to changing
the politics of Syria.
STEVE INSKEEP: So Erdogan is holding out for more Western help in
that regard?
CHARLES KING: That's right, some kind of buffer zone along the Turkish
border that would be a permanently enforced no-fly zone, perhaps even
some commitment to Western troops on the ground if Turkey is going
to commit troops on the ground. So there's a kind of diplomatic game
that's going on between Ankara and Washington and London and so on
as well.
STEVE INSKEEP: Now, this is very interesting because the United
States has a president who very much wants to make sure that allies
are brought along and that people in the region that the U.S. is
dealing with carry their weight. And you're saying here is a very
significant player in that region waiting for the United States to
carry its weight.
CHARLES KING: That's right. I think waiting to see what the United
States will do and again having different perceptions about the
immediate threat of ISIS. I think everyone can agree that the actions
in Syria have been barbaric from the Turkish perspective; however, this
is only one of a number of issues that they're trying to weigh out.
STEVE INSKEEP: Charles King, thanks very much.
CHARLES KING: Thank you.
STEVE INSKEEP: He's author of "Midnight At The Pera Palace: The Birth
Of Modern Istanbul."