WASHINGTON -
While the image of the United States has sunk to an
all-time low in the Arab world, the Iraq war has also
had a devastating impact on US ties to another
predominantly Muslim power and one of Washington's
closest and most strategically situated Cold War allies
- Turkey, say experts just returned from the region.
Ties between Turkey and Israel - countries that
have long considered themselves strategic allies against
hostile Arab states - have also become deeply strained
as a result of recent events, according to former US
ambassador in Ankara, Mark Parris, who also served for
several years as the number two in the US Embassy in Tel
Aviv.
"There's been lots of news, and most of it
is not good," Parris told a meeting on Tuesday at the
Nixon Center in Washington, noting that Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had repeatedly referred to
Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank as "state
terrorism", an assessment that is now shared by 82% of
the Turkish population, according to a recent poll cited
by Zeyno Baran, director of the international security
and energy program at the center.
While the
shifts in Turkish public opinion toward both the US and
Israel are wreaking havoc with political relationships,
they have not yet seriously damaged the core strategic
relationships, in part because the military in Turkey
retains considerable autonomy, but they very easily
could over time, according to the analysts. Another
survey released in the past week showed that 75% of
Turks wanted no relationship with Israel.
Aside
from the Iraq war, which has spurred distrust in Ankara
about US aims in the region, President George W Bush's
administration appears to have misjudged the impact of
the sweeping electoral victory that brought the Islamist
Justice and Development Party (AKP) to power in 2002.
"People here didn't fully appreciate how big a
difference the AKP is in worldview," according to
Parris, who stressed that Erdogan had consulted more
closely with Arab governments than previous Turkish
leaders and, in a major coup, Turkey last month saw its
candidate, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, elected secretary
general of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC),
the global caucus of predominantly Muslim nations.
The other major factor in the growing alienation
is the rising expectation that Turkey will be given a
certain date for joining the European Union (EU) at the
body's meeting in December, according to Geoffrey Kemp,
a top Middle East aide under former president Ronald
Reagan (1981-89) who directs the Nixon Center's regional
strategic programs.
"Becoming part of Europe is
the overriding strategic objective," said Parris, who
served in Ankara in the mid-1990s. On issues regarding
the Middle East, Israel and Iran, the views of both
religious and secular Turks "are now much closer to
mainstream European perceptions than to mainstream
American positions", he added.
The growing
estrangement between Turkey, on the one hand, and the US
and Israel, on the other, is particularly ironic because
Washington's biggest boosters of war in Iraq - mainly
neo-conservatives who favor Israel's governing Likud
Party, such as former Defense Policy Board member
Richard Perle and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
Douglas Feith, who played a key role in promoting
trilateral ties - had seen the ouster of Saddam Hussein
in Baghdad and the installation of a pro-US government
there as key to decisively transforming the balance of
power in the region in favor of an alliance of secular,
relatively democratic states, specifically Israel,
Turkey and a new Iraq, backed up by Washington.
"It hasn't turned out to be that way," noted
Kemp, who said that, if anything, the war had created
unprecedented instability and uncertainty throughout the
region in ways that could well bring about a major
realignment in the area, but not the kind desired by the
neo-conservatives.
Of greatest concern is what
is taking place in Iraq itself, particularly in the
northern Kurdish region, where 5,000 members of the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Turkish insurgency
that just ended a five-year unilateral ceasefire, have
been based. Despite repeated urgings by Ankara, US
occupation forces have not moved to disarm the
guerrillas, nor have they asked Iraqi Kurds to do so,
despite the fact that the PKK is listed by the State
Department as a "terrorist" organization.
"If
you make a discrimination among terrorist groups,"
according to one Turkish diplomat who attended the Nixon
Center meeting, "then the war against terrorism will
never work".
"The Turks told the US: 'Either do
something about it or let us do something about it',"
said Baran, who added that Washington had adamantly
opposed any direct Turkish presence in Iraq, in contrast
to its attitude during the 1990s when Ankara maintained
a virtual continuous presence in the northern part of
the country, close to its border.
Turkey is also
concerned that Iraqi Kurds may break away from Baghdad,
a step that would almost certainly spur direct military
intervention by both Turkey and Iran, who worry that an
independent Kurdistan would provoke Kurdish uprisings
within their borders. Those fears have resulted in
Turkey drawing closer to both Syria, which also has a
significant Kurdish population, and Iran, where Erdogan
himself is being hosted for a two-day summit this week.
"There is a real concern that, regardless of who
wins the [US] elections [in November], the United States
is not up to fixing Iraq," Baran noted, adding there is
also "fear that the US is going to get involved
militarily in Syria and Iran" in ways that could further
destabilize the region.
These concerns, as well
as the sour taste left by US pressure on the Turkish
parliament to approve the use of its territory to launch
an invasion of Iraq from the north, the occupation and
the widespread publicity about abuses by US soldiers
against Iraqi detainees, according to Baran, "has led
Turkish people to feel closer to their Arab neighbors.
Until a few years ago, Turks would feel much closer to
Israel."
But Israel's actions - particularly the
similarity of the television images of its occupation of
Palestinian territories and the US occupation in Iraq -
have also resulted in a dramatic rise in anti-Israeli
sentiment, she added.
Among other ominous
developments for the relationship, according to Parris,
in the past few months Israeli arms sales to Turkey have
been cancelled.
And two weeks ago, Israeli
Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Ohmert, who said he was
bearing a special message from Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon for Erdogan, was snubbed by the Turkish prime
minister, who had gone on vacation. Although Ohmert was
warmly received by other senior officials, Parris called
it "devastating [that] he couldn't talk to the top guy",
given the longstanding close relationship.
Israel's intentions in Iraq have become a
subject of growing suspicion, particularly since the
publication in the The New Yorker magazine in June of a
much-disputed story by investigative journalist Seymour
Hersh that asserted Israel had infiltrated scores of
"intelligence and military operatives" into Iraqi
Kurdistan to train and supply the 50,000-strong
peshmarga militias and conduct operations against
targets in Kurdish areas of Syria and Iran.
The
story, which was leaked in advance to a Turkish
opposition newspaper, fueled concerns about Kurdish
secession and the possibility of a Kurdish seizure of
Iraq's major oil-production center of Kirkuk, where
ethnic tensions between Turkmens, Kurds and Arabs have
already resulted in fatal clashes.
While the
Kurds and Israelis strongly denied Hersh's account, and
some independent experts have cast doubt on it, "there
is still huge distrust", said Baranh. "They simply don't
believe [the denials]".
Israeli and Turkish
militaries are still carrying out joint exercises, and
US forces are still using Incirlik Air Base in southern
Turkey to help supply the occupation in Iraq. But
whether the fundamental strategic interests that the
three countries share can long endure in the face of
growing Turkish anger and distrust remains uncertain.
It will be difficult to reverse current negative
trends, according to Baran, as long as Sharon and
President Bush remain in power, although even their
successors may find it difficult to improve ties given
Turkey's strategic reorientation toward Europe and the
degree of alienation that will need to be overcome.
