TURKEY LECTURE

Speaker: Kevin Kallmeyer

• History
o Created in early 1920s – ottoman empire prior
o Costitutional Parliament
 Separation of church and state
 Khamalist groups
 Attaturk – most significant leader, changed turk identity
• Women given rights
• New Turkish language
• Wipe away Islamic political identity
 Geography
• South of Europe, north of ME, central/east asia
• Secular nation in ME
• Very important geopolitically – hub of different regions
 Government
• AKP party power – 07, 08 elections
• Bremmer ev – necessity of turkey (global instability)
• Turkey’s intl relations moving away from Europe and to iran
• Fight over coming elections
o Pass through AKP party means they would have control and ability to appoint
judicial branch
 Loss of checks and balances
• CHP party – secular group
o New leader needed to revive party after sex tape scandal
o Good pltx ground
 Relations
• Obama natl security threat : terrorist acquisition of nukes
• Clinton – Iranian sanctions to prevent nuke use
• March 10 - Turkey PM called Iran nuke program “just gossip”
o Not helping us with sanctions
o Large divergence in relations
• Turkey and Brazil voting against Iran sanctions
• NATO - joined 1952
o US security commitment to protect Turkey
• 1914-1918: Armenian Genocide (killed 75% of Armenian population)
o Occurred while Turkey was still the
o Not officially labeled as a genocide – yet
o US House of Foreign Affairs
 Created legislation to label as a genocide
• Hasn’t passed congress
 If passed, Turkey will restrict access to military bases
o Flotilla incident –
 Israel embargo to stop incoming ships to Gaza Strip
 Turks ignored embargo and provided aid
• Shot down by Israeli military
• Turks pissed
• European Union
o Trying to become a member of EU
o Conflicting European/ Iranian Turkish image
 o EU says they must recognize the Armenian genocide before gaining membership
• Rise of Turkish Nationalism
• Rise of a secular state
o Heavy population of mosques, low population of hospitals
o AKP stem from religious roots
o Turkish military supports secular side
 Use religion as a proxy to expand power
o clash between military and government
 military autocracy v. political democracy
 Sledgehammer Plan: military coup on the gov
• Destabilize turkey (blame on Greece) to provide an excuse for
military takeover
• Many arrested – most military leaders
o Greece v. Turkey
 Fight over the island Cyprus
 Adversarial relationship
o Kurdish relations
 Turkish dislikes the turks
 Illegal to speak Kurdish
 Kurds have own nation-state in northern turkey
• Threat to Turkish sovereignty
 PKK, Kurdish group – seen as terrorists
 Kurdish opening
• Program to recognize and resolve kurd
• Affirmative Ground
o Unq. Debate – the alliance weak now
o 2 bases – Inserwik
 Good topography for air base
 70% of all imports pass through
o Ankara – capital
o Iraq war
 US asks to use Inserwik
 Turkey refuses last minute
 US using it now – lots of supplies
o NATO Nuclear Sharing
 US has nukes, place them in host countries
 B61 gravity bombs, TNWs (tactical nuclear weapons)
 90% TNWs in turkey
o Potential affs
 Pull out of Inserwik base
• Operation ground
• Turkish pltx
• Removal of troops empower secular groups
o AKP party destroying secular democracy
o Undermine secular political party – Islamic nationalism
• Armenian Genocide
o Turks using US troops as leverage to ignore the genocide
o Human rights, recognition responsibility
• Greek Relations
o Turkey pullout = increased greek relations, bases
• Iran containment
o Stop encircling Iran will make them more cooperative
 • Kurds
o Stop helping Turk aggression towards Kurds
o Human rights, etc.
• TNWs
o Terrorism – loose nukes
o nonproliferation credibility
 art. 1 – no transfer of nuke weapons
• Miscalculation/ Russia
o Bought of instability
o TNW accidental use during heated conflict
 AT: TNWs elsewhere = still a risk
o logic of maintaining TNWs
• Turkish relations bad/ Turkish prolif good
o Pull out, turks develop own weapons
• (Watson Hayes –emory lecture) IMET – train Turkish police force
• Negative ground
o Morgan brown ev – US-Turk relations
 Retaliation to turkey not the way for mutual support
o CP ground
 Consult turkey/ NATO
 Adv. CP – ie. Don’t attack Iran, stop TNW use, pass Armenian genocide resolution etc.
o DA ground
 Turkish relations
• Plan severs military tie
 TNWs
• Eliminating Inserwik eliminates all TNWs in turkey
• Destroys relations, threatens stability (Barton institute)
 Tradeoff - Turkish Afghan support, Iran support, etc.
 Turkish prolif
• Develop nuclear arsenal
• Good turkey won’t prolif lit available
 TNW auto-lose
• Relocation of nukes
• Take nukes outside turkey but keep NATO sharing policy
• Makes aggression more likely, requiring military involvement in x country
 Turkish politics
• Empowering AKP good/bad
 NATO
• Plan screws over NATO sharing act/ art. 5 protection agreement
o Ilaw – US deviation from art. 5 protection of turkey
• Research Tips
o Turkish Policy Quarterly
o Washington Institute for Near East Policy – Turkish Research Program
o Middle East Policy
o Middle East Quarterly