Transcript--Graham Fuller / Ian Lesser--Turkey and the West: NATO & US

Turkey's Foreign Policy Issues: Turkey and the West: NATO and US

Featuring

Graham Fuller and Ian Lesser

Graham Fuller: Now I would like to turn to Ian Lesser to speak about Turkey and the West.

Ian Lesser: Thank you very much. First, I completely agree with your depiction of the extensive change of Turkish foreign policy, at least when we look at those many new places where Turkish policy is active such as in the East. But when we talk about Turkey and the West, this is perhaps the least changed arena, the least dramatic or trendy part of the story. It is where Turkish interests and policies have changed least.  The question is where is it going, what will its trajectory be. I won’t speak too much about the  European aspect of Turkish policy because I know Joost will have much to say on that. I’ll look more at Turkish relations with the US.  

When we look at these changes with the US, it is hard to accept the argument we sometimes hear that Turkey has abandoned its Western vocation. I don’t buy that. I don’t like very much all this talk of “losing Turkey,” “is Turkey lost,” etc.  It’s rather misleading and not very useful. But still, I think there is some net change that is taking place in terms of Turkish policy even as affects the US. You cannot have all of this Turkish activism in all of these different areas-- not just in the Middle East and Eurasia but even looking towards Africa and Asia-- without seeing some diminution of effort behind some of big projects that were started that are important for Turkey. I have had conversations where I have asked Turkish leaders directly, “OK, you are doing all of these different things and pursuing the zero problem policy. A lot of this is very positive from the point of view of American interests. But what are your priorities as you see them in Turkish foreign policy? What is number one, what is number two, number three?” Well, the answer comes back, “No, no we don’t look at it in terms of prioritization.” But I still insist on knowing the priorities, it reveals part of the strategy. You can’t just state that  “I’m engaged with the world” with no key priorities.

Then, on reflection, I realize this may be a kind of strangely ethno-centric way of putting the problem. Not everybody does think about strategy that way. I just leave that as an open question.  I don’t think this shift is all negative by any means. For example, when I dealt with these things when I was in government probably eighty percent of our time in US-Turkish relations were taken up with crisis management between Greece and Turkey. That is all gone now. That very difficult, conflict-ridden relationship even with NATO is now largely off the agenda. That is quite a positive development.

There are a few other things too, that affect this issue of Turkey in the West. One of them is the elusive concept of affinities—the party in power now has a different set of affinities than before. This matters a lot, personalities matter. This is a leadership that is just as comfortable visiting the Gulf, going to Tehran, going to Damascus, as it is going to Brussels or Washington. Maybe more comfortable. That makes a difference. And there is a commercial dimension here as well.  A lot of Turkey’s new activism outside the Western sphere is actually commercially driven. Of course it has politically strategic impact in the Middle East and in Eurasia, but ultimately it is commercially driven. This creates a big new constituency in Turkey for these kinds of policies.

 Something else. We have a tendency in Washington to debate all of  this in terms of Turkey-West or secular versus religious identities in foreign policy. But that’s not what I hear when I listen to Turkish leadership talk in public forums about foreign policy. The vocabulary now to me sounds rather like the vocabulary of the old “global south,” the old non-aligned vocabulary to an extent.  That represents a totally new cut on this problem that has quite interesting implications for how the West deals with Turkey in the future.

And finally, Turkey is a place today where public opinion counts in foreign policy making. We have a tendency to forget this when we go back to some of the critical determinative issues in more recent years in US-Turkish relations. For example, look at  2003 when the Turkish Parliament ultimately turned down participation in the Iraq war and denied the use of Turkish soil for the invasion. Had we kept our eye on Turkish public opinion at that time perhaps we might not have been quite so surprised at that result.

And just a few brief comments on Turkey and Europe: When Prime Minister Erdogan was here it was clear that this was one issue on which he gets quite emotional. It is also a great way to gain public opinion on the issue.

And finally we come to Iran and the nuclear issue. I think Washington has tried to be accommodating,  a feeling that “All right, Turkey has its own reasons to have an independent, improved relationship with Tehran. Please use that relationship to take a tough messages to Tehran on the nuclear issue.” My own sense is that in many different circles in Washington people are losing confidence about whether that blunt message is being delivered. This is a particularly difficult issue for Turkey, because it forces it to choose among many competing pulls. Turkey, of course, doesn’t want to see a nuclearized Iran. It is not in Turkey’s interest. Yet Turkey also has a structural interest in neighborly relations with Iran in many areas: economics, energy, Kurds, potential conflicts with Iraq, etc.

Now that Turkey has become a temporary member of the UN Security Council it is now faced with a likely vote there on sanctions against Iran. It will simply have to choose. Will it vote yes, or no, or abstain? These pressures are not simple. On the one hand, the West is pressing Turkey to say yes on sanctions. But  the Iranians, Russians, and Chinese are likely pressing for Turkey to abstain. The problem is complicated because presumably Turkey’s some of the partners in the Gulf are equally, if not more concerned about a nuclear Iran and are also going to be pressuring Turkey to vote “Yes.”

So, it is a complicated scene. The Western piece of it is the one element that is changing least rapidly, but everything else around it is, and it is bound to have some impact even on Turkish relations with the West. Thank you.