The European Council on Foreign Relations

Turkey: an actor not an issue?

Date: 19th November 2010  |  Author: Ben Judah, Dimitar Bechev,

Categories: Wider Europe,
Tags: bbc, ecfr, turkey

This morning as the night’s fog cleared around our offices in Westminster, ECFR hosted a gathering of senior journalists, diplomats and academics to argue if Ankara’s foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu is right when he states - “Turkey is an actor not an issue.” 

We call these regular sessions our “Black Coffee Meetings,” and both the caffeine and our panel, Dimitar Bechev our Sofia’s office chief, Firdevs Robinson from BBC World Service and Vessela Tcherneva, the spokesperson of the Bulgarian MFA,  had the effect of waking us up to just how much Turkey’s geopolitical rank has changed.

Vessela opened the debate with the view from the Balkans and Turkish activism there. She roll-called some of Turkey’s most potent acts in the region. It was Turkish mediation that brought Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia’s foreign ministers together in Istanbul. Turkey is active in trying to influence both Kosovar Albanians and Bosnian Muslims in their dealings with Belgrade. Ankara had managed to build up a good reputation as a mediator in both Serbia’s corridors of power and Prishtina’s fledgling ministries.

“In the Balkans Turkey is an actor – not an issue. The EU is not the only game in town. These rumors of an alternative to Europe from the Western Balkans have finally taken on some element of reality” she summed up. As ECFR’s recent report The Spectre of a Multipolar Europe argues, there is a pressing need to forge a firmer link between Turkish overtures in its neighbourhoods and the EU’s foreign policy, in addition to the ongoing accession negotiations.

Yet Ankara is not-playing this game risk-free. Fresh from a week’s research trip to the country Dimitar remarked that Turkey’s new diplomacy is understandably self-confident but is also making a habit of precarious gambles. In October’s Bosnian elections Ankara put all its eggs in one basket, Haris Silajd?ić. In Iraq the Turks bet against Nuri al-Maliki securing high office and lost. This has to give way to something far more challenging for Davutoğlu’s team in Baghdad and to a lesser extent in Sarajevo. Damage limitation is now the only dish on the menu.

Turkey’s slide from equidistant mediator to passionate advocate on standoffs it has sought leverage from tends to reduce the strategic values of such ties. In the Levant Tel Aviv’s fall out with Turkey might have increased Erdoğan’s popularity amongst the Arabs but his country has lost an asset as a genuine intermediary.

On the Tehran-Ankara track, things have evolved but only up to a point. “Turkey and Iran cannot afford to be enemies, but they can never be friends,” argued Dimitar. Firdevs Robinson stressed that Turkish elites are interested in checking Iran’s influence in the region. Turkey has its misgivings about NATO’s missile defense concept but the panel noted Ankara still needs the security guarantee extended by the Alliance. There is muted concern amongst elites about a nuclear Tehran and the point was raised that NATO demurs the most valuable instrument as the Middle East enters nuclear multi-polarity.

Firdevs eloquently stressed the domestic sources of Turkish activism abroad. Much of Davtoğlu’s activism has been about deepening trade ties with her neighbors, such as with Syria, Iraq and Iran. She underscored how the interests of rising domestic business interests hungry for new markets were linked to this policy of openness.

Nevertheless she took a grim view of the continued democratic deficit in public life, especially within political parties. Together with the lack of progress on key dossiers such as the Kurdish issue - Turkey remains vulnerable. Looking ahead to the June 2011 elections Firdevs was skeptical about further political liberalization within or for the ratification of the bold overture to Armenia.

From the floor ECFR’s Ben Judah asked “To what extent is Turkey’s increasingly strident take on Israel motivated by how well this issue plays domestically – and just how far Turkey will go?” There were no direct answers. Once flourishing security ties are near dead and on the person-to-person level Israeli tourism to Turkey has collapsed. On the other hand, the prospects for a political solution of the Kurdish issue has diminished the importance of military cooperation with Israel and increased the value of neighbours such as Iran, Syria and Iraq.

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