The neo-Ottomanist foreign policy of Turkey is falling apart. Turkey now has problems with all its neighbors and former allies – Israel , Greece, Syria, Cyprus, Iraq, and even Iran. All the while Erdogan’s government wages a far more aggressive war against the Kurds then Israel ever did against the terrorist Palestinians. The United States government needs to tell Turkey to back the hell off and if Turkey does not, we will expel them from NATO and cut off all aid including military to them. Had Israel submitted to the arrogant, belligerent,and imperialsit Turkish ultimatum, she would be reaping a whirl wind of other demands upon her self.
by Ely Karmon
Israel’s decision not to abide by the Turkish ultimatum about the need to apologize for the May 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla incident brought the promised “Plan B” punishment: Turkey has decided to expel Israel’s ambassador to Ankara, downgrade its diplomatic ties to the lowest possible level, to hold on all military agreements and to halt trade between Turkey and Israel.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said his government would now provide full support to the families of those killed to pursue prosecution of any Israeli military or government members responsible for the deaths.
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Davutoglu declared that “Turkey would take measures to ensure free maritime movement in the eastern Mediterranean.”
Until several months ago Turkey’s policy of “zero problems” with all its neighbors, a “bridge between East and West,” and Middle Eastern activism, devised by Davutoglu, seemed successful.
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During the past few years, the AKP government improved enormously the political and economic relations with Syria. In April 2009 Turkey and Syria conducted an unprecedented, three-day joint military drill on their border and signed a letter of intent giving the green light for cooperation in the defense sector.In the first days of the uprising in Cairo, Erdogan coordinated with the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad “efforts regarding unrest in Egypt.”
Weeks later, the bloody repression of the Syrian people’s rebellion compelled Erdogan to slam Assad’s regime, to give shelter to the Syrian opposition and warn his old friend that “those who build happiness on despotism will drown in the blood they spill.”
According to the Turkish daily Today’s Zaman, Turkey’s National Security Council lately discussed the possibility of establishing a “buffer zone” along the Syrian border, first in the “no man’s land” between the Syrian and Turkish lines of demarcation and to be extended further into Syrian territory if needed.
Ankara’s ties with Iran have also improved under the AKP. Turkey has defended Iran’s nuclearization efforts and in May 2010 brokered (with Brazil) the controversial Iran nuclear fuel swap, which led to nothing in practice.
Turkey’s UN vote against Iran sanctions raised serious objections in the United States and Europe. Iran indirectly supported a secret military drill between the Turkish and Chinese air forces that took place in Turkey in September 2010, as Chinese SU-27 warplanes that took off from bases in China refueled in Iran.
But since the Turkish moves against the Assad regime, Teheran has been influential in disrupting Syria’s confidence in Turkey by disseminating anti-Turkish propaganda, has stopped intelligence cooperation with Turkey in the fight against the Kurdish PKK in Iraq, and has even threatened it not to intervene in Syrian affairs. Iran was also unhappy about Turkey’s support to the Bahraini regime’s repression of the Shia rebellion.
Turkey opposed the rebels in Libya at the beginning of the Benghazi uprising and the NATO intervention, but in the end it had to bandwagon the alliance and these days recognizes the NTC government.
When Cyprus decided to go ahead with gas drilling off its southern coast beginning in October 2011, after it concluded a maritime boundary agreement with Israel in 2010, Turkey unalterably opposed this course. Turkey claimed that having invaded Cyprus and established a Turkish entity there, which no one else recognizes, it is entitled to forestall all activity in the Cypriot economic exclusion zone (EEZ) until the status of Cyprus is worked out through negotiation.
At the same time, Erdogan has announced to the United Nations and leaders of Cyprus that his country is no longer prepared to accept the concessions it has agreed to in order to help with the reunification of Cyprus in line with a UN plan back in 2004.
The Turkish side will accept nothing short of recognition of a two-state solution on the island.
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The Turkish foreign minister has threatened to become more active in pushing the Palestinian Authority’s request for the recognition of a Palestinian state at the next UN General Assembly.
It seems the Erdogan government is amnesic regarding its own main internal problem, the Kurdish issue. The most immediate impact of the UN recognition of the Palestinian state could be on the Kurds, in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. The AKP government has not solved, as promised, the Kurdish problem and since it won the June 2011 elections is facing a growing terrorism and guerrilla offensive inside Turkey and from Iraq, an active political opposition by Kurdish parliamentarians and the declaration of a “democratic autonomy” by Kurdish NGOs in the in southeastern province of Diyarbakir (Turkish Kurdistan).
The Turkish air force lately bombed “60 pre-determined targets belonging to the separatist [PKK] organization” in Iraq and its artillery struck at 168 additional targets with “intense” fire from the Turkish side. The Turkish military stated that an estimated 145 to 160 PKK members were killed and scores injured.
The pro-government Turkish daily Zaman reported that Turkey was setting up “operational front garrisons” inside northern Iraq where hitherto it used to maintain a low-key intelligence presence to monitor Kurdish activities.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari denounced Turkish bombardments of Kurdish areas in northern Iraq. Human Rights Watch said in a statement that many of the targeted areas were purely civilian and most of the victims were civilians.
By threatening Israel, Turkey’s government seems to have passed from the “zero problems” policy in the Middle East to an “all azimuth hostility” strategy.
Read the rest – Turkey’s foreign policy is in shambles
Caroline Glick points out what I have mentioned – that there is nothing that Israel can do to appease Ankara. That even if Israel groveled, Turkey would come up with another grievance as confrontation with Israel is not based on any Israeli policy but on a neo-Ottomanist regional strategy. Islamists can only be either submitted to or opposed, but never appeased. Israel needs to cultivate good relations with those nations who have been historically affected by Turkish aggression – Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, Armenia and the Kurds.
by Caroline Glick
Monday morning, Turkey took its anti-Israel campaign to a new level. Beyond downgrading diplomatic relations with Israel; beyond suspending military agreements; beyond threatening naval war; beyond threatening to foment an irredentist insurrection of Israeli Arabs; the Turks decided to terrorize Israeli tourists landing in Istanbul airport.
Forty Israeli passengers, mainly businessmen who had landed in Istanbul on a Turkish Airlines flight from Tel Aviv, were separated from the rest of the flight passengers. Their passports were confiscated.
They were placed in interrogation rooms and stripped down to their underwear. Their carry-on bags were checked. And then they were lined up against a wall, forbidden to sit down or use the washroom.
Passengers who contacted the Foreign Ministry said they felt frightened and intimidated.
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And that’s the thing of it. The Turks didn’t harass the Israeli tourists in order to send a message to Israel. They have nothing more to say to us. We are non-entities to them. We’re only good for attacking.
No, Israel wasn’t the target audience the Turks were playing to on Monday. Their target audience was the Islamic world generally and the Arab world specifically. Turkey’s influence in these arenas skyrocketed in January 2009 after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused President Shimon Peres and Israel of mass murder as the leaders shared a stage at the Davos Conference.
Similarly Erdogan’s domestic and pan-Islamic support levels increased steeply in the aftermath of the Turkish-supported pro-Hamas flotilla to Gaza in 2010. After nine Turkish government-supported IHH terrorists were killed aboard the Mavi Marmara when they tried to murder IDF naval commandos who had lawfully boarded the ship, the Arabs hailed Erdogan as a hero for bravely attacking Israel.
Given how well scapegoating Israel has served him, Erdogan clearly believes it is a no-risk strategy for raising his star from Cairo to Algiers.
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Others have argued that Israel may be able to rebuild its strategic relations with Turkey by selling Ankara more drones with which to kill Iraqi and Turkish Kurds. The Turkish military claimed it killed 100 Kurdish fighters in its attacks last month in Iraq and along the Turkish-Iraqi border. Israeli UAVs reportedly played a key role in the bombing. But Turkey needs more. If we sell them more, the argument goes, maybe they will see how useful we are and stop attacking us.
Aside from being morally reprehensible, these arguments fail to recognize the basic reality that Turkey has no interest whatsoever in rebuilding its ties with Israel. The once-important strategic alliance is over and gone, and Israel cannot do anything about it. All Turkey sees us as today is a scapegoat.
It has been argued by commentators on the Right that Turkey’s abandonment of Israel is part and parcel of its abandonment of the US. But this is a mischaracterization of Turkey’s policy toward the US.
Since 2003, Turkey has undertaken a series of actions that have harmed US strategic interests. The first, of course, was Erdogan’s decision on the eve of the Iraq War to deny the US military the right to invade northern Iraq from Turkey.
The latest action was arguably Turkey’s joint air exercises with the Chinese Air Force last September.
Chinese jets en route to Turkey refueled in Iran. The exercise was a clear signal that NATO member Turkey intends to exploit its alliance with the US to build ties with the US’s chief geostrategic competitor.
Yet at the same time that Turkey has harmed the US, it has also taken steps to assist it. Most recently, last week, Erdogan belatedly agreed to station the high-powered US X-Band radar on its territory as part of a missile defense system to protect NATO allies against the threat of Iranian long-range missiles.
Turkey’s mixed policies toward the US reveal that unlike its position on Israel, Turkey believes that it has an interest in maintaining its alliance with the US. Its hostile behavior is more a function of perceived US weakness than anything else. That is, Turkey is willing to risk angering the US by undercutting it because it does not fear US retribution.
Turkey’s aggressive behavior might end if the US made Turkey pay a price for it.
To its credit, the Netanyahu government has not accepted the advice of the Left and has refused to apologize to Turkey or pay compensation to the families of those killed aboard the Marmara. Moreover, the government has wisely used Turkey’s behavior as a means of building strong bilateral ties with other victims of Turkish aggression. Over the past two years, Israel has strongly upgraded is strategic ties with Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania. Israel should add to these accomplishments by strengthening its ties to Armenia and to the Kurds of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
With newspapers running groundless stories about prospects for reconstituting relations with Turkey, we need to recognize that what we are experiencing now is the beginning, not the end, of Turkey’s slide into the enemy camp. Erdogan is openly taking steps to transform Turkey into an Islamic state along the lines of Iran. And the further he goes down his chosen path, the more harshly and aggressively he will lash out at Israel.
Given that scapegoating Israel is not a momentary lapse of reason on Turkey’s part but a central aspect of a long-term regional strategy, it is clear that Israel needs to meet Turkish aggression with more than momentary courage in the face of intimidation and threats. Israel needs to build on its already successful policy of forming a ring of alliances around Turkey and develop a long-term military and diplomatic strategy for containing and weakening it.
Read the rest – Ankara’s chosen scapegoat
Tags: Caroline Glick, Ely Karmon
