By M K Bhadrakumar<\/p>\n
The Israelis are expected to know something extra about their tough neighborhood that we do not know. In all probability, the two Israeli officials – Shalom Turjeman and Yoram Turbowitz – knew when they set out for Ankara on Tuesday that Turkey’s government was far from dysfunctional or was going to be in any danger of extinction within the next 24 hours.<\/strong><\/p>\n The two advisors to (outgoing ) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were on a sensitive mission to hold the fourth round of peace talks with Syria under Turkish \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tmediation. The format of the talks is such that Turkish officials shuttle \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tbetween the Israeli and Syrian diplomats, who do not come face to face. The \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTurks seem to have done a masterly job.<\/strong> On Monday, Syria’s ambassador to the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUnited States, Imad Mustafa, speaking on a public platform in \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWashington, said,<\/strong> “We [Syria and Israel] desire to recognize each other and end the state of war.”<\/span><\/p>\n “Here, then, is a grand thing on offer. Let us sit together, let us make peace, let us end once and for all the state of war,” Imad added, referring to the peace talks brokered by Turkey. Clearly, Turkey’s political stability is no longer just a national issue of 80 million Turks. It is a vital issue today for the international community. And Turkey’s role in the Israel-Syria peace talks is only the tip of the iceberg. In the highly volatile Middle East situation, Turkey also facilitated contacts between US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. (The two adversaries visited Ankara recently.) Furthermore, Turkey has waded into the Iraq project.<\/span><\/p>\n Besides, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is poised to spread to the northern shores of the Black Sea. The new cold war has arrived in Turkey. Moscow is determined not to repeat its historic mistake of driving Turkey into the NATO camp, as it did in the 1950s.<\/span><\/p>\n Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is scheduling a visit to Turkey. A Moscow analyst noted, “Atomstroyexport [Russia’s nuclear power equipment and service equipment monopoly] is ready to provide Turkey with a project for the construction of a nuclear power plant [NPP] that will be less expensive and more reliable than its American counterparts. Such NPPs will help Turkey to consolidate its position in the regional energy market, especially considering Iran’s nuclear energy problems. Moscow has long been hinting to Ankara that it is best to give priority to economic expediency, especially in the energy industry.”<\/span? In other words, Turkey is once again moving into the vortex of big power politics after a respite of a decade and a half.\n\nThus, all factors taken into consideration, we may never quite know the extent to which any role Washington would have played in ensuring that the government led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was not unseated by Turkey's constitutional court in the trial regarding the alleged Islamist agenda of the ruling Justice Development Party (AKP). The US is far too experienced in the logarithm of power play in Ankara.\n\nWhat we know for sure is that Turkey's judicial system is not impervious to political currents. Indeed, if the court, in its verdict announced on Wednesday, had decided to close down the AKP and to clamp down on Erdogan's political activity, Turkey would have plunged into a first rate political crisis. Equally, what is clear is that Washington is visibly relieved that the AKP government continues to rule in Ankara and Erdogan remains in harness.\n\nUS State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, \"Turkey is living a tense situation, and we very much hope that the decision by the court will contribute to restore political stability ... The court has rendered an opinion, and we're going to continue to work with this government. We work quite well with them.\"\n\nThe geopolitical reality, as Cengis Candar, one of Turkey's senior political commentators summed up recently, is that \"Turkey and Erdogan becoming a functional and effective actor in the issues topping the international agenda [currently] is of special importance in Turkish internal politics\".\n\nNonetheless, the Turkish court verdict on Wednesday came as a surprise. It found the AKP guilty but avoided closing it down or banishing Erdogan from active politics, as most observers had expected. Instead, it merely penalized the party by levying a fine on it by depriving it of an amount of some US$20 million by way of state funding.\n\nThe AKP can take this loss, thanks to its easy access to other sources. The \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcrucial issue was whether Erdogan needed to step down. In the idiom of soccer, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\twe might say the charismatic Turkish leader was shown a yellow card, whereas \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tmany wanted and most expected that he was certain to get a red card, which \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tindeed was within the referee's capacity (and reputation) to show.\n\nThe yellow card implies that Erdogan has to be extra careful now until the next \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tparliamentary election due in July 2011, as he simply cannot afford another \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tbrush with the constitutional court. At least seven of the sitting judges will \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tnot retire for the next five years, which means that the court's political or \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tideological makeup will largely remain the same all through Erdogan's remaining \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tterm.\n\nThe head of the constitutional court, Hasim Kilic, was explicit that Erdogan is \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\texpected to draw some stern conclusions. \"This verdict is a serious warning. I \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\thope the party [AKP] draws the necessary lessons from this,\" he told the media. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe hard fact is that 10 out of 11 judges in the constitutional court found the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAKP to be a \"center of anti-secular activity\", though only six of them voted to \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tclose down the party, whereas seven needed to for a verdict banning the party \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tto come into effect. No doubt, Erdogan escaped by a whisker.\n\nThe looming question now is what lesson he would have learned out of the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tnerve-wracking suspense. In an uncharacteristic remark, Erdogan admitted \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\trecently in a media interview that he made \"mistakes\". Indeed, he made \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tmistakes. It is obvious that the AKP's heady electoral victory in last year's \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJuly parliamentary elections, securing 47% of the votes, did strange things to \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tErdogan.\n\nInstead of being the prime minister of all Turks, as he promised in the full \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tflush of victory, more and more he allowed himself to be surrounded by a small \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcoterie of advisors; his native Black Sea swagger assumed sharper tilts as he \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tbecame authoritarian and often turned confrontational toward criticism from the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tmedia and the civil society; and, least of all, fatally for a Turkish \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tpolitician, he seemed to have convinced himself at some point in the past year \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthat his mandate to rule came from his party's two-thirds majority in \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tparliament, which, of course, would be a myopic interpretation of the ABCs of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTurkey's democratic system.\n\nFinally, with hopeless timing and an almost incomprehensible rush, he \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tneedlessly chose the issue of the right of religiously observant Turkish women \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tto wear headscarves as an epic case of political will - and that too, in a \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tdubious temporary political alliance with the ultra-nationalists who had little \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tpolitical capital to lose. What ensued was an incredible performance, as barely \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tsix months into his term after the elections, he began rapidly squandering away \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe goodwill of some of the vocal and influential \"non-Islamist\" sections of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tsociety who were otherwise gradually getting used to him and, more important, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\twere quite willing to give him a break.\n\nThe point is, this is not a simple Kemalist-Muslim conflict, to quote \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\twell-known Turkish observer Mehmet Ali Birand, and there is no denying that one \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tpart of the Turkish public has important and understandable concerns about the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tsituation. Surely, there is an economic overlap as well, as the established, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\taged captains of Turkish business and industry in Istanbul feel threatened by \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe march of the virile Anatolian tigers from inner cities such as Kayseri or \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMalatya, which are the hunting grounds of the AKP.\n\nWhen Erdogan antagonized powerful trade and industry bodies such as the Turkish \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUnion of Commodities and Exchanges (TOBB) and the Turkish Businessmen's and \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIndustrialists Association by detaining the president of the Ankara Chamber of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCommerce, Sinan Aygun, on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe nadir was reached and it was obvious he was taking on far too many powerful \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tpeople.\n\nTOBB head Rifat Hisarciklioglu acidly remarked, \"When we go to bed, we don't \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\twant to worry what kind of Turkey we will face in the morning. A highly \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\testeemed member of our community was subjected to treatment reminiscent of the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcoup era, which deeply offends us. We don't approve of this.\"\n\nParadoxically, Erdogan's main disadvantage is that he doesn't feel threatened \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tby a credible political opposition. The established political parties of the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tleft and right in Turkey are mired in disrepute and are languishing due to \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ttheir miserable past record in government. People hardly repose confidence in \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthem. In the circumstances, Erdogan's political moderation and sobriety will \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tneed to come from within, out of self-restraint rather than borne out of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tpolitical culture.\n\nThat is to say, there is always the potential danger that as a quintessential \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTurk, he may feel tempted to perceive the constitutional court verdict of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWednesday as a triumph over his political adversaries and critics - Kemalists, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tbureaucracy, military, judiciary, academia, middle class, corporate media, etc. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe fact remains there is a political stalemate in Turkey in so far as both \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tErdogan and his adversaries would know that even if the country goes through \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tanother mid-term election, it may only throw up yet another victory for his \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Islamist\" political platform.\n\nHowever, on balance, Erdogan is a shrewd politician. He cannot but be chastened \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tby the existential challenge the AKP faced in recent weeks. It is no small \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tmatter if he is pushed back into ground zero and has to start all over again, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tlike in 2001 when he formed the AKP after being in the political wilderness for \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tyears. Nor can he be under any illusion that the July 30 verdict in any way \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tsignifies surrender by the Turkish establishment. He would realize that as \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tprime minister he needs to redefine his working relationships.\n\nHis great asset is that he still remains an immensely popular national figure \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamong average Turks, by far outstripping anyone from the political opposition. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlso, the Turkish economy has done well under his stewardship and the country \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tis becoming fatter by the day, according to the latest evaluation by the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInternational Monetary Fund. Turkish foreign policy is cruising at an optimal \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tlevel with its prestige as a regional power running high as it mediates peace \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tin its neighborhood and commands influence. Turkey has returned to the Middle \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEast region after an absence of almost nine decades.\n\nAll the same, the most prudent course for Erdogan will be to revert to his \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tagenda during his first term as prime minister and press the pedal on reforms \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\twithin the broad framework of Turkey's European Union membership drive. He \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tshould repose confidence that all said, the AKP's popularity within the country \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tand abroad will work as a break mechanism on the Kemalist establishment from \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\toverthrowing his government. It is clear that Turkey is through with the era of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tmilitary coups. In one sense, an important milestone in the country's \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tdemocratic transformation has been reached this week.\n\nErdogan's strategy, therefore, ought to be to revert to his engagement with the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEuropean project and the phase of modernity and political liberalism that it \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\toffers, which was the broad orientation of his first term as prime minister. It \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tmay seem a tantalizing proposition, but even for Islamism in Turkey and for the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAKP, arguably, Turkey's European project has been and still remains the best \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tbet.\n\nTurkey's integration into the EU, apart from bringing about increased economic \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tprosperity and modernization, also would open up Turkey to European \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tsocio-economic processes. EU standards can give comfort levels to the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tsecularists apropos the specter of creeping \"Islamization\". At the same time, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\taccess to trans-European politics will bring the AKP to rub against Europe's \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tChristian democratic culture, which has been remarkably successful historically \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tin internalizing the tenets of secularism and reconciling them with \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\treligiosity.\n\nAmbassador M K Bhadrakumar<\/strong> was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tService. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGermany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.<\/em><\/p>\n (Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcontact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)<\/p>\n Source: Asia Times, Aug 2, 2008<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By M K Bhadrakumar The Israelis are expected to know something extra about their tough neighborhood that we do not know. In all probability, the two Israeli officials – Shalom Turjeman and Yoram Turbowitz – knew when they set out for Ankara on Tuesday that Turkey’s government was far from dysfunctional or was going to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":32532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,148,89],"tags":[200],"class_list":["post-1743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india","category-israel","category-turkey","tag-democracy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}