"Turkey's route may be via the Middle East"

by Ayhan Kaya
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by Sinan Ülgen
Sir, It is common sense that Turkey could make herself more attractive to the political elites of the EU's member states by developing multilateral foreign policies in her own neighbourhood, including the Middle East. So Sinan Ülgen is absuletly right in saying that Turkey’s route to the EU runs via the Middle East. One should also add the Caucasus, Balkans and Southeast Mediterrenean countries to the list. A modern, democratic and European Turkey is regarded as a soft power, or a role model, by the publics of countries located in those regions. Turkey has been lately doing something that for decades was undermined by the traditional political establishment, namely to develop good relations with Syria, Iran, Northern Iraq, Lebanon and Armenia. Probably for the first time, Turkey has made of herself a regional power with a great capacity to transform the Middle East and the Caucasus. Prime Minister Erdoğan’s visit to Syria in April 2007 to watch a soccer game between the Fenerbahce and Ittihad teams was the kick-off for what we can now call football diplomacy. Similarly, President Gül went to Armenia to pay a visit to his counterpart there. In other words, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) appears to be changing Turkish foreign policy by challenging a number of deep-rooted taboos. Perhaps which we’re seeing is their neo-Ottomanism and a relatively more tolerant approach to religion. But Sinan Ülgen has missed two fundamentally important issues that need to be taken into account by the AKP government. The first is that Turkey’s friendly relations with the Middle Eastern countries should never jeopardise those with the EU. Turkey must always ensure that she is much politically in tune with the European Union. And she should never forget that the Middle Eastern countries as well as those of Caucasus and southwestern Mediterrenean countries are likely to opt for developing good relations with a Europeanized Turkey. But neither Prime Minister nor the AKP itself has of late displayed much of a pro-European stance, and the Prime Minister’s visit to Brussels in January of this year was marked more by his pro-Hamas and anti-Israeli stance. This leads me to the second issue. Turkey has recently given its support to the claims of Hamas vis-à-vis the international community, and has openly condemned Israel for occupying Gaza and killing innocent civilians. The problem here is not its condemnation of Israel, but its explicit defence of Hamas’ position. It has become very evident that the pro-Hamas stance of the AKP carries with it the risk of alienating the European public and harming Turkey’s EU membership bid. Turkey will do much better with her neighbours if she clearly shows her pro-European stance, and if she is more diplomatic in her dealings with Israel. For my own part, I am convinced that the main rationale for AKP’s Euroscepticism and its pro-Hamas stance is that both were seen by the party elite as electorally attractive, even though the local elections in late March of this year many now have suggested otherwise because they registered a decline in the AKP’s support. Turkey’s leaders must hand vis-a-vis the European Union by developing friendly relations with her neighbours but without neglecting the EU or alienating Israel.