Professional Documents
Culture Documents
78,
November 6, 2008
Lindenstrauss, Gallia
Of the diplomatic initiatives recently taken by Turkey, the most prominent is the
“football diplomacy” with Armenia, which peaked with the first visit ever by a Turkish
president to Armenia, to watch the World Cup qualifying game between Armenia and
Turkey. Armenia’s demand that Turkey recognize the genocide committed against the
Armenians in 1915, and the conflict over the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh, with Armenia
controlling around 15 percent of the territory of Azerbaijan, Turkey’s ally, have strained
relations between them. Moreover, the absence of diplomatic ties between Turkey and
Armenia and concern over another round of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh between
Armenia and Azerbaijan impact on the stability of the entire Caucasus region. For
example, Armenia –Russia’s ally – is wary of Turkey and of Azerbaijan and the oil
pipeline between Azerbaijan and Turkey that raverses Georgia in order to bypass
Armenia. Recent developments in Georgia underscore that players looking to block
Russia’s over-dominance in the Caucasus should also take Armenia into consideration.
Thus Turkey recently launched a plan for advancing cooperation and stability in the
Caucasus region among Russia, Turkey, and the southern Caucasus states, including
Armenia.
Despite these and other bridging initiatives, Turkey is hard-pressed to deal with
the Kurdish problem on its own territory. Since 2007, when the Justice and
Development party was reelected with a large majority, reforms towards the Kurds were
not extended, reforms that were spearheaded by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
in his first term of office as part of Turkey’s efforts to be accepted into the European
Union (EU). Furthermore, frequent incursions by Turkish forces into Iraq in order to
chase PKK activists taking cover in northern Iraq, and Turkey’s fierce opposition to the
establishment of an independent Kurdish state damage Turkey’s attempts to present
itself as a stabilizing influence in the international arena. Although it may be assumed
that the United States will labor to prevent Security Council discussion of issues
connected to Iraq, Turkey’s large interest in Iraq will undoubtedly cause it problems, at
least vis-à-vis its dealings with the US in the Security Council, and will challenge its
potential for cooperation.
One of the issues expected to continue on the Security Council’s agenda is the
Iranian nuclear program. Turkey objected to the imposition of sanctions on Iran and
tried to mediate between Iran and the United States. Iranian cooperation in Turkey’s
fight against the PKK and reciprocal high level visits even suggest a strengthening of
ties between Turkey and Iran. On the other hand, the United States will look to Turkish
cooperation in decisions over international sanctions on Iran. The United States may
link this issue with Turkey’s requests regarding the Kurdish areas in Iraq, and possibly
even the continuation of American non-recognition of the Armenian genocide.
While the division into groups in the UN is not based solely on geography, there
were those who pointed out the irony of Turkey being accepted as a non-permanent
member of the Security Council as part of a European group, even though full
membership in the European Union is not guaranteed. If Turkey manages to fulfill a
constructive role in the Security Council in the next two years this may help to soften
some of the resistance to its acceptance to the EU, for example from leaders such as
French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
It seems that Turkey’s current situation and recent bridging initiatives may help
it to contribute to stability in the regions around it. Nevertheless, one can imagine
scenarios in which Turkey is faced with considerable dilemmas regarding the way it
votes in the Security Council, principally with regard to its desire to be seen as part of
Europe and the democratic Western world even though it is an Islamic state with
extensive ties to the Islamic world and key countries such as Iran and Syria. The
question is will its conduct as a non-permanent member of the Security Council be
similar to that of Austria (or Belgium and Italy, which were replaced by Turkey and
Austria) or that of Indonesia. Turkey, however, will likely do its utmost to mediate and
thereby avoid having to take sides.