From Tehran to Jerusalem

In recent months, the two most glaring trouble spots for Turkish foreign policy have been relations with Israel and Iran. In the case of Israel, it's been the deterioration in relations that has caused trouble for Turkey, while in the case of Iran it's been the improvement in relations that has proved problematic (at least in terms of relations with western allies). The International Crisis Group has a new report out that takes a clear-eyed look at Ankara's relations with Israel and Iran and how the changes in those relations are fueling questions about in which direction Ankara is heading. Like other ICG reports, it also offers some very practical suggestions for everyone concerned about how to take things forward. From the report:

Damage to Turkey’s relations with Israel and suspicions in Western capitals about its relationship with Iran have dealt setbacks to Ankara’s “zero-problem” foreign policy. At the same time, there have been many misconceptions about Turkey’s new engagement in the Middle East, which aims to build regional peace and prosperity. From a Turkish perspective, Israel and Iran issues have separate dynamics and involve more collaboration and shared goals with Western partners than is usually acknowledged. Ankara’s share of the blame for the falling out with Western friends and Israel has been exaggerated, but there are problems in the government’s formulation and presentation of its foreign policy. These include short-sightedness, heated rhetoric, over-reach and distraction from Turkey’s core conflict-resolution challenges in its immediate neigh bourhood, including a Cyprus settlement, normalisation with Armenia, resolution of new Kurdish tensions and commitment to EU convergence....

....Turkey has changed greatly over the past two decades, becoming richer and more self-confident, no longer dependent on Washington or Brussels alone. While Ankara should not exaggerate its own importance or capacities, its Western partners should recognise its genuine significance in its region and beyond and spend more time talking to it quietly, constructively and at high-levels. To this end, Washington and Ankara in particular might usefully consider establishing new mechanisms for regular dialogue and better coordination on the full range of their shared foreign policy interests, including in the Middle East. Moreover, while Turkey remains committed to its EU path, France and Germany must keep its membership perspectives credible, if all are to take maximum advantage of their shared Middle East goals. These commonalities remain a strong basis for cooperating to increase stability and diminish conflicts in the region.

You can find a link to the full report here.

The Kurdish Kurdish Opening

I've been on the road lately, so I'm just now catching up on current developments. One article that jumped out at me is Henri Barkey's Aug. 31 piece on the Foreign Policy website, "Turkey's Silent Crisis." In the article, Barkey -- who just returned from a trip to Southeast Turkey -- takes a look at the resurgent Kurdish problem in Turkey and at some of the trouble brewing under the surface. One of the interesting developments he looks at is how Kurdish politicians in Turkey are increasingly organizing an effort to move towards some form of local self government (trying to nip this movement in the bud, the Turkish state is currently prosecuting dozens of Kurdish mayors in the southeast). From his article:

The end of the Kurdish opening has also served to consolidate Kurdish attitudes toward the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), the primary legal Kurdish political organization. The BDP has close ties to the PKK and increasingly sees itself as the Turkish equivalent of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army.

In the absence of political progress with the government, the BDP and Kurds in general are also beginning to put together the rudimentary institutional structures of self-governance in the southeastern provinces. The prosecution's 7,500-page indictment against members of the BDP, largely resting on conjecture and unsubstantiated allegations, nevertheless manages to sketch the contours of a parallel self-governance structure the Kurds have been attempting to put into place -- independent of Ankara.

For most activist Kurds, the PKK's armed insurrection is of secondary importance. The PKK, and especially its imprisoned leader Ocalan, is a symbolic force that they admire for raising the Kurdish issue to the forefront of Turkish politics. "Without the PKK, no one would be talking of Kurdish rights today," goes the refrain. At least in the southeastern provinces, Kurds now have an important advantage: control of the municipalities. This provides them with organizational capabilities to deepen their political struggle for recognition. Psychologically, the Turkish state may have already lost these provinces.

You can read the full article here. To get a better sense of what the BDP's leadership is thinking, take a look at this interesting interview with its co-chair, Gultan Kisanak, where she talks about the party's demands for decentralizing the Turkish state.

A (not so) Simple Yes or No Will Do

Constitutional reform is tricky business. Fortunately for the average Turk, who is being asked to vote on a constitutional reform package in a national referendum on Sept. 12, Turkey's political parties are making things simple. Rather than talking about what's in the package, they have turned the referendum into a vote of confidence on the ruling AKP government and boiled down the whole thing into a simple matter of "yes" versus "no." Like the government? vote "evet." Don't like the government? Vote "hayir."

Or maybe things are not so simple. Writes Andrew Finkel in Today's Zaman:

In a nation already susceptible to polarization, who, one might ask, was the bright spark who came up with the idea of a political mechanism where the issues could only be decided with a nod or a shake of the head. It has already got to the point, the press reports, where brides and groom are falling out even before they leave the registry office over whether to take their vows with a government-leaning “yes” or the more contrary “I do.”

So what's in the reform package (which was passed in parliament a few months ago, but not with enough votes to avoid going to referendum)? Like many other AKP initiatives, it's a strange confection, layers of sweet-tasting and sensible-sounding enticements wrapped around a core of harder to swallow and clumsily disguised political self-interest.

What's causing the most debate in the package are the amendments that would change the way judges are appointed to Turkey's top court and to the powerful Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK). Joost Lagendijk, a former member of the European parliament, takes a look at some of the criticism that's being leveled at that part of the reform package in a recent Hurriyet Daily News column.

Turkey, of course, is in dire need of constitutional reform, currently burdened with a constitution that was drafted by the military after the 1980 coup. The current document is designed to protect the state, rather than individual citizens -- a mindset that still permeates much of Turkish law. The AKP had actually campaigned in 2007 with the promise of a new civil constitution, but backed off on that promise once it got into office, using the political capital of its 47 percent victory and large parliamentary majority to pass a single constitutional amendment, one which would allow for headscarves to be worn at universities (and which was promptly annulled by Turkey's Constitutional Court).

The current package, which has some 20 articles, is again being delivered with a promise that this is only a prelude to further amendments, if not the long-awaited complete overhaul of the problematic current constitution. But there is good reason to worry about if more constitutional reforms will be coming any time soon, if at all, especially after all the effort that will be spent on passing (or killing) the current reform package. Hard to imagine anyone in the government having the appetite to go through the process again. One group of liberal intellectuals, who are supporting the package, are running a campaign called "Not enough, but 'yes'" -- not quite a ringing endorsement and one that struck as carrying a whiff of resignation to it.

For those interested in the actual details of the package, SETA, a government-leaning think tank based in Ankara has a rundown of the reform package, which can be found here (pdf).

Turkey and Israel, By the Numbers

The New York Times' Dan Bilefsky has a piece out looking at how on the commercial front its been business as usual between Israel and Turkey, despite the post-Mavi Marmara incident tensions. The article paints a fairly rosy picture of trade-driven pragmatism trumping nationalist sentiment.

I recently had a chance to speak with a major Turkish businessman who has been active in trade with Israel and got a less positive sense of things. Private sector dealings are perhaps not as affected right now, but he said that many Israeli companies he spoke with were deeply worried about being shut out of government tenders in Turkey and losing access to local financing for projects. Tourism figures, meanwhile, tell a very troubling story: this past June, only 2,605 Israelis visited Turkey, compared to 27,289 the year before (a figure which was already lower than previous years, since Israeli tourism to Turkey started dropping after the early 2009 Gaza war and the subsequent harsh Turkish response). There was a 44 percent drop in Israeli tourism to Turkey between 2008 and 2009 and one can only imagine how low 2010's figures will be.

On the other hand, Turkey and Israel appear to be making furtive moves towards restoring some semblance of normalcy in their relationship. The three Turkish ships involved in the flotilla incident, including the Mavi Marmara, have been released by the Israeli government and are currently being towed back to a port on Turkey's Mediterranean coast. Israel has also agreed to participate in a United Nations inquiry into the flotilla incident, although the committee seems designed less to get to the bottom of the affair and more as a way of offering both Turkey and Israel a chance to step back from the maximalist positions they have taken on the issue.

In general, I get the sense that Ankara is still searching for a workable game in the wake of the Mavi Marmara incident. Threats and harsh rhetoric against Israel have not worked, and the whole affair (combined with Turkey's "no" vote in the Security Council on Iran sanctions) has worked to strain relations with Washington. In many ways, Turkey makes me think of a stylishly-playing soccer/football team whose game falls apart upon encountering a rival with a hard-nosed and rough-playing defense.

Analyst Semih Idiz takes a look at this in today's Hurriyet Daily News, in a column entitled "Govt's Mavi Marmara Frustration Deepens." The column can be found here.

Turkey Flying High

The Wall Street Journal's Turkey correspondent, Marc Champion, has another great article out, this time taking a look at the spectacular recent growth of Turkish Airlines (THY) and how that is both mirroring and working hand-in-hand with Turkey's rising political and economic ambitions.

Though no longer fully state-owned, THY is very much being used as a tool of state policy, with flights to strategic new destinations (mostly in economic terms) all over the world being added almost at the same time as the government makes diplomatic and trade overtures in those same places.

I was especially struck by how some of the industry concerns and criticisms of the airline's rapid growth mirrored some of the concerns being aired about Turkey's rapidly evolving foreign policy. From Champion's piece:

Meanwhile, there's some discreet grumbling among THY's Star Alliance partners about the airline's expansion and pricing strategy.

"Turkish seems to be the new Emirates—no-one wants to be in an alliance with Emirates because there is no room for a partner, the aim is to connect everything via Dubai," said an aviation official, who declined to be named. That could mean trouble for the future, the official said….

….There are concerns, too, about the speed of Turkish Airlines' growth. The crash of a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737 as it approached Amsterdam airport last year, killing nine, revived memories of the airline's historically spotty safety record before it bought one of the world's newest fleets. Meanwhile, when fog blocked Ataturk Airport in November, the airport's systems crumbled. Just a few transit-desk computer terminals were available to change the flights of thousands of stranded passengers after passenger-information screens froze. At one point, passengers stormed over the transit desk and began pounding on the door of the office where frightened ground staff had retreated.

Indeed, much of the criticism being aimed at Turkish foreign policy these days -- particularly by Ankara's traditional Western allies -- is that it is less consultative and increasingly self-centered. Inside Turkey, meanwhile, there are concerns that Ankara has too many balls up in the air on the foreign policy front without sufficient resources to keep those balls from crashing to the ground. Launching initiatives and opening up embassies and consulates all over the world (just like adding flight destinations) is a great idea, but not if you don't have sufficiently trained personnel to follow through on those initiatives or meaningfully staff those postings (or properly fly the airplanes).

Those interested in charting the course of Turkish foreign policy in the coming years, then, might also want to start keeping their eye on how Turkish Airlines does and where it goes. It could tell a lot.

The Kurdish Problem, Again

The signals coming out of Turkey's predominantly-Kurdish southeast region and from along the border with Iraq are not comforting. In recent weeks, Turkish soldiers are being on an almost daily basis in attacks by the resurgent Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Turkey's state-run news agency happily reports that 46 PKK members have been killed in the past month, failing to mention that most of them are also young Turkish citizens whose bodies will be returned home to be buried and mourned. Turkish jets have been bombing targets in Northern Iraq with increasing regularity, while Today's Zaman reports that military checkpoints have now been reintroduced in the southeast and that a previously-abandoned ban on herders taking their flocks up to the region's high plateaus has also been reinstated.

It seems like the hope and good will created by the Turkish government's "democratic opening," a reform initiative announced last summer that's mostly designed to deal with the decades-old Kurdish problem, has very quickly evaporated. Cengiz Candar, an astute analyst whose warnings are worth listening to, writes in a column in today's Hurriyet Daily News:

The democratic initiative is not going anywhere. It has come to a halt, deviated even. We have an endless number of signs showing that we are back to the square one....

....The pre-1990 conditions settle in the Southeast again. We are going back to a state in which people are fed up with check points and barricades.

The full column (worth reading, though poorly translated) is here.

Fixing One Leak, Springing Another

While reporting for my recent Eurasianet story about the current strained state of Turkey-U.S. relations, one Washington analyst told me he believes that the tension between Turkey and Israel has now seeped into the relationship between Ankara and Washington.

Well, now it appears that the Turkish-Israeli tensions has also seeped into Israel's internal politics. The first attempt at holding a high-level gathering between Turkish and Israeli officials since last month's Gaza flotilla raid -- a (no longer) secret meeting in Brussels yesterday between the Turkish Foreign Minister and Israel's Minister of Trade -- has led to controversy in Israel, with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman loudly complaining that he was cut out of the loop. More on the details here and here, plus some good analysis by Judah Grunstein here.

A few thoughts about this latest development on the Turkey-Israel front. One is that, among the many other things that it has brought into sharp relief, the Mavi Marmara incident has also made clear what a rickety contraption the Netanyahu government is. At a time of deep crisis with what used to be one of its most important allies, Israel not only can't utilize its Foreign Minister for problem solving, but actually has to keep him and his ministry in the dark about what it's doing to fix the problem. Officials in Ankara have previously said that they don't believe they can work with this current Israeli administration, and it's hard to see how this latest development will give them more confidence in Bibi and company.

Two, although the meeting in Brussels was a positive step, the fact remains that there is no serious high-level contact between Turkey and Israel. This was already true before the flotilla incident (and was likely one of the main factors that contributed to the tragedy that ensued) and has only gotten worse since. Before the incident, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who serves as a stand-in foreign minister in situations where Lieberman is persona non grata, had a good rapport with the Turks. Post incident, the Turkey portfolio is now in the hands of Minister of Trade Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who also has a good rapport with Ankara but is not the diplomatic heavyweight that the current crisis requires.

Finally, the "secret" meeting in Brussels is an indication of really just how fragile the Turkish-Israeli relationship is right now. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan the other day again offered up Turkey as a mediator between Syria and Israel, but the truth is that it's looking more and more like it's Turkey and Israel that could use some mediation help. We've gone from Turkey holding secret talks between Israel and Syria to Turkey and Israel being reduced to holding secret talks between themselves. Not good.

The road forward, meanwhile, looks problematic. Turkey had previously pegged any improvement in its relations with Israel to an improvement in the Gaza situation. Post flotilla, Turkey is now conditioning any normalization in the relations on Israel also making an official apology, compensating the families of the victims and allowing for an international inquiry. As one friend put it here, it's gone from Gaza to Gaza "plus on your knees." Hard to see Israel meeting all of those conditions.

A Turkish official told me that Ankara has made clear to Israel that there's a defined "road map" for normalizing relations. Considering the success that other recent "road maps" have had in the region, improving Turkish-Israeli relations could be a lengthy process.