Kashmir Watch :: In-depth coverage on Kashmir conflict

:. Turkey’s New Diplomacy in Mideast-I

Part-1

Kashmir Watch, Oct 27

By Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal
[Specialist on State Terrorism]

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[Turkey has recently sought to secure a special role as Middle East mediator. And rightly so; Turkey is qualified to play that role since it is a Muslim state that maintains ties with Islamic world and western nations. Since the Israeli war on Gaza last January, Turkey's role in Middle Eastern politics has become significantly more prominent. Turkish premier Erdogan is in Pakistan on 26 -27 October and Iran on 28th. Officials said he would discuss a wide range of issues, including energy deals and Iran's nuclear program. The Fascist Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu wondered after Turkey's decision was made public about the direction Turkish policy is taking]

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I

The only Muslim nation in European continent (Spain, another Muslim nation that was forcefully converted into Christianity), Turkey is facing tremendous problems in becoming a legitimate member of EU, comprising European nation, on account of opposition from some rude European countries whose democratic terror forces kill Muslims in Islamic world, especially in Afghanistan. Since all other members are Chrestian states, they have ganged up against Turkey, blocking its EU ambitions.

Whether or not due to the continued EU arrogance, a deep change to play a proactive role in Mideast is underway in Turkey's foreign policy under the ruling Justice and Development Party. After his visit to Pakistan, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, due in Tehran for talks with both President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the country's Supreme Leader, has accused the West of treating Iran unfairly over its nuclear program. His comments come as world powers await Iran's response to a new proposed deal over its uranium enrichment program and a team from the UN nuclear watchdog continues its inspection of a previously secret uranium plant near the city of Qom. Under the new arrangement, Iran would send some enriched uranium to Russia to be turned into fuel. The proposed deal is seen as a way for Tehran to get the fuel it needs for an existing reactor, while giving guarantees to the West that its enriched uranium will not be used for nuclear weapons. But opposition inside Iran to the agreement is said to be growing. The government has promised a response soon. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's visit to Iran adds to concerns that Ankara may be slowly turning its back on its Western allies and seeking to regain its status as a regional power in the Middle East.

A new Turkish Mideast and Muslim policy, aimed at placing Ankara at the centre of the Middle East's geopolitics and regaining Turkey's former power and influence over the region, makes conscious reference to the country's imperial past. The trend is even known as Neo-Ottoman, a term coined by Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister and architect of the policy. Premier Erdogan has steadily expanded Turkey's influence in the Middle East since his Islamist-rooted AK Party took power in 2002. He went to Iran at a time of worsening ties between Turkey and its regional ally Israel and as Ankara hails recent bilateral deals with Syria and Iraq as signalling a "new era". But some analysts warn an erosion of Ankara's Western oriented foreign policy could have long-term consequences for NATO and for U.S. efforts from Afghanistan to Iraq.

Recent policy decisions have signaled a positive and a Muslim-friendly approach of Turkey. As preliminary exercise in its new diplomacy, Turkey condemned fascist Israel for its holocaust in Palestine. In efforts to reach out to its neighbours and other Muslim nations, Ankara has obtained preliminary peace with Iraq. The war of words came after a Kurdish "peace group" of militants and supporters crossed the Habur border gate from Iraq carrying a list of proposals to end the violence and Turkish authorities questioned them. The "peace group" included eight PKK rebels and 26 Turkish Kurds from the UN-run Makhmour refugee camp in northern Iraq which houses some 12,000 people who fled Turkey in the 1990s at the peak of the conflict. More than 45,000 people have been killed since 1984 when the PKK picked up arms for self-rule in Turkey's southeast.

Turkey also played a pivotal role in brokering a strategic deal between al-Sadr, the Iraqi government, the UK and the US. Al-Mahdi Army militias laid down their arms and released US and British hostages they had been holding since 2007. In June 2008, and after years of diplomatic effort, Turkey succeeded in kick-starting indirect Syrian�Israeli talks. In Iraq, Turkey maintained balanced relationships with almost all Iraqi factions. In return, the Iraqi government stopped the arrest campaign against the al-Mahdi Army and released some of its jailed leaders such as Abd al-Hadi al-Darraji, in 2009. The culmination of that successful policy was the visit of Muqtada al-Sadr, the Iraqi Shia leader of the al-Mahdi Army, in May 2009. Turkey hailed the "surrender" of Kurdish rebels in support of plans to end the 25-year conflict, although rebel commanders insisted they would fight on. Erdogan talked to his counterparts Vladimir Putin of Russia and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy during a video link in Ankara, October 22, 2009 about his new policy orientations.

Following Turkish efforts to bring Afghanistan and Pakistan together in their fight against Taliban insurgencies, Erdogan also tries to mediate between Pakistan and Iran whose ties were strained over bombing in Iran that killed 42 people. Iran says the USA and UK are behind the blasts and also blames their ally Pakistan saying the bombers are based in Pakistan. The current visits to Pakistan and Iran is expected to cement the historic ties between Pak and Iran.

Turkey and Armenia signed a landmark peace accord earlier this month, pledging to restore ties and open their shared border after a century of hostility stemming from what Armenians said was the mass killing of their people by Ottoman forces during the First World War.

The Turkish leader Erdogan cautioned that there was a dual standard in the West's approach towards Iran. He said any military strike against Iran would be "crazy". Erdogan also said many of the states which objected to any move by Iran to build a nuclear arsenal - including all the permanent members of the UN Security Council - possessed one themselves. Iran says its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes, but agreed to open the site to monitoring at talks with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany in Geneva on 1 October. Turkey, which earlier dreaded the thought of a possible nuclear Iran, has said it is willing to mediate between Iran and the West over Tehran's controversial nuclear enrichment program. Bilateral trade reached $7 billion in 2008. Turkey's Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said this week he hoped the two countries could finalise a $3.5 billion deal to develop part of the world's largest gas field in Iran.

The immediate reaction to Turkey’s assertive diplomacy from the western powers is yet to come, but meanwhile the EU stalwarts like UK have made an assertion about a possible bold foreign policy. UK foreign minister David Miliband has called for a “strong” foreign policy to avert a Britain failure internationally. It is very strongly in the British national interest for the European Union to develop a strong foreign policy. He cautioned if it tried to oppose the European policy on the grounds of "hubris, nostalgia or xenophobia" and warned that without an effective European foreign policy Britain and the EU would increasingly become an irrelevance in a world dominated by Washington and Beijing. "The choice for Europe is simple - get our act together and make the EU a leader on the world stage or become spectators in a G2 world shaped by the United States and China," he said. Probably, England is upset that EU could no longer bully Turkey about human rights and other reforms in Turkey by denying EU membership. Turkey's move towards Iran and bulldozing of the Zionist fascist reigme for its cirmes against humnity are not good music to western anti-Islamic ears.

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The author is Delhi based Research Scholar in International Studies and can be reached at abdulruff_jnu@yahoo.com