Is Turkey drifting?

Gündüz Aktan - Turkish Daily News
Saturday, September 16, 2006

The fact that the deterioration of Turkey's relations with the United States and the European Union has come about as a result of an accumulation over time may affect our foreign policy permanently. This trend may strengthen if the United States and the EU gradually distance themselves from Turkey. However, it cannot be said that the present level of public anger, doubt and hostility has reached the point of no return.
The deterioration is a consequence of the buildup of negative developments. The U.S. attack on Iraq without securing a transatlantic agreement and the subsequent deterioration in French-U.S. relations may provide an example in that respect. The harsh criticism made by the political and academic elites of both sides, coupled with the media's efforts to involve the public in the argument, resulted in the coolness being transformed into a serious crisis.
New opportunities of cooperation, like the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon or efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, are needed for a rapprochement. Early on it became obvious that reminders made of the French help in the United States' War of Independence and the U.S. saving France in World War II did not really help matters.
That's why we should not exaggerate the nostalgic importance of the United States protecting Turkey against the Soviet Union during the Cold War or Turkish troops fighting side-by-side with their American counterparts in Korea.
The trust felt towards the United States was hurt by the massacre of civilians in Tal Afar and Fallujah, putting bags over the heads of Turkish soldiers and the Abu Ghraib incident. The attitude of certain segments of society with religious sensitivities, including the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, were hurt by Israel's indiscriminate targeting of civilians and civilian targets during its attacks on Hezbollah and Hamas.
However, the biggest problem Turkey currently faces is the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the possibility of division. This huge existential problem is directly linked to Kurdish independence in northern Iraq and Kirkuk because of the PKK. The matter of sending troops to Afghanistan and Lebanon became a huge issue because of the failure to prevent the continued presence of the PKK in northern Iraq. In this respect, we see that Turkey's domestic and foreign policy problems are interlinked.
The new map of the Middle East by Ralph Peters may be unimportant. However, serious academic groups in the United States have been discussing the Wilsonian principle of self-determination for the past decade as a solution to the world's current problems. Iraq is seen as a test case. In this state of affairs the doubts created by the U.S. failure to act against the PKK in northern Iraq become the main factor that harms the relations. This may also be the point where the mending can begin. In this respect Turkey can respond to any gesture made by the United States with one of its own. Public diplomacy can be effective only after that.
The reason the relations with the EU are deteriorating is the failure of some EU countries to create the political will in favor of our membership and even the strange determination some display against our membership. The EU's insistence on the implementation of certain reforms before the first stage of the negotiations, before 2009, has resulted in some suspecting that they aim to strengthen the separatist Kurdish movement before rejecting Turkey's membership. On that point, the problems associated with the United States and the EU merge.
On the other hand, Turkey is threatened with the partial or total suspension of the negotiations if the demands of the Greek Cypriots, who were made members despite their opposition to a solution on the island, are not met. If the EU allows its relations with Turkey to weaken just because of the matter of opening ports and airports, which is nothing compared to the earth-shattering events taking place all around the world, it will be committing a huge strategic mistake.
The improvement of our relations with the EU necessitates it overcoming the doubts about our membership due to religious differences, and this in turn entails an enormous revolution of mentality on their part. In other words, remedying the EU dimension of the said deterioration seems harder.
Still, having only one foot strongly anchored in the West may decrease the possibility of the drift