THE MAKING OF U.S. FOREIGN POLICY ON TURKEY
                        BY: ALAN MAKOVSKY


      [SPEECH MADE AT THE PANEL MEETING OF THE ATATURK SOCIETY OF
AMERICA ON APRIL 6, 1997  AT THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON,
DC.]


    It is an honor to be invited by the Ataturk Society of
America (ASA) to take part in this panel along with such
distinguished colleagues.  I think it's marvelous that a group
like this exists to pay homage to the great Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk.  At the end of 20th Century, when so many mass movements
-- from communism to Arab nationalism -- have either run out of
steam or utterly collapsed, Ataturk's success in building a
Western-oriented Turkish nation on the ashes of the
religion-based Ottoman Empire looms more than ever as a
monumental achievement.  As we all know, the elevation of
Ataturk's legacy is particularly important now, when political
Islam is exerting a strong influence in much of the Islamic world
and when for the first time the political leadership of Turkey
itself is not Ataturkist.


    I was asked to say a few words on U.S. policy toward Turkey
since the new Turkish government took power last June. The
accession of Necmettin Erbakan and his Refah Party to the prime
ministry posed an unusual and ticklish problem for U.S. 
policy-makers: What should be done when the political leadership
of a friendly and allied regime falls into the hands of someone
who harbors views inimical to U.S. interests?


    This policy problem has been complicated - but also to some
extent mitigated - by uncertainty over just how much power Prime
Minister Erbakan actually holds, particularly in the realm of
foreign and security policies.  After all, the dominant force in
those areas seems to be the National Security Council, a
ten-person, half-military, half-civilian body in which Erbakan is
the only Islamist, with the other nine members all adherents of
traditional Ataturkist and pro-Western policies.  As a result,
the fundamentals of Turkish foreign policy -- Turkish membership
in NATO and close security ties with the U.S. -- have remained in
place throughout the period of the Erbakan government.


    Thus, for Washington, the policy questions have been subtle
and the answers requiring of nuance.  From the start, an obvious
question arose: As long as there is no disruption in basic
policies, need the U.S. approach toward an Erbakan government be
any different than it was toward governments under other recent
prime ministers, Ozal, Akbulut, Yilmaz, Demirel and Ciller?


    Many Turkey-watchers, both inside and outside the U.S. 
government, felt the U.S. should distance itself from a party
with such a long history of anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism. 
But others felt that there should be no change in U.S. policy or
attitude toward the Turkish government for the time being, that
Erbakan should, in effect, be judged by his deeds of the future,
not his words of the past.  Some, for various reasons, even
wanted Washington openly to welcome and support the Erbakan
government - either in the belief that Refah's inclusion in
government would at last bring some stability to a political
system eroded by personality-driven rivalries on both the right
and the left; or in the hope that, with its large constituency of
voters in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast, the new government
might be more forthcoming on human rights issues, a perennial
thorn in the side of U.S.-Turkish relations; or in the conviction
that political Islam is the wave of the future in Turkey and that
Washington should, accordingly, build sturdy bridges to the
ideological movement that eventually will dominate Turkey.


    Still others saw the issue less in Turkey-specific terms and
more as a function of U.S. policy toward fundamentalism in the
wider Islamic world.  In the past, U.S. officials have emphasized
that Washington does not oppose fundamentalism per se and have
called on Arab regimes to allow for "wider participation" in the
political process as a means to ameliorate the threat posed by
fundamentalist terrorism.  What does it say about the sincerity
and credibility of that U.S. policy, these observers asked, if
Washington reflexively turns negative at the first sight of an
Islamist government coming to power through democratic means?


    So the policy battle was joined.  Two powerful forces,
however, combined to convince the U.S. that Washington should
keep its distance -- albeit a respectful and courteous distance
-- from the Erbakan government.  The first was events
themselves.          
Erbakan's ostentatious displays of friendship to Libya and Iran
shocked U.S. policy-makers, reminding them that Erbakan's
worldview is one that is fundamentally unfriendly to U.S. 
interests.


    Second, many voices from Turkey's secularist establishment
openly fretted that a friendly U.S. attitude toward the Erbakan
government -- or, at least, the perception of such an attitude in
Turkey -- would boost the Refah Party's fortunes with Turkish
voters.  Although appropriately loath to try to play domestic
politics in Turkey -- who, after all, can accurately predict the
domestic fall-out in a foreign country of any given U.S. policy
step? -- the U.S. nevertheless could not totally ignore the pleas
of its traditional friends among Turkey's secularists.  Like
Erbakan's trips to Iran and Libya, the views of Turkey's
traditional secularists had a restraining effect, I believe, on
any inclination Washington might have had to warm to the Refah
leadership.


    One additional note regarding the U.S. view: The Refah-led
government achieved power through coalition with Tansu Ciller's
secularist, right-of-center True Path Party.  As prime minister,
Ciller was regarded as a strong secularist and an exceptionally
good friend to the U.S.  Nevertheless, her junior-partner
presence in the Erbakan-led government gave Washington but little
comfort and did nothing to soften the U.S. attitude toward that
government's Islamist leadership.  In Turkey, Ciller's
participation in the government was widely seen as an
opportunistic effort to shield herself from parliamentary
initiatives to bring her to trial on corruption charges, nothing
more or less than that.  Washington analysts largely shared that
assessment.  Given her presumedly self-serving motive in joining
the government, her willingness to cooperate with Refah did not
validate or increase that party's legitimacy in the eyes of
skeptics.  Moreover, her seeming need to cling to the coalition
in order to avoid the law left her with little leverage in the
coalition, or at least far less than what would normally be
expected from a junior partner holding several important
ministries.  Her presence was seen as a useful secularist link to
the world but by no means as an absolute check on Erbakan's
foreign-policy inclinations.


    Overall, the policy Washington has settled into toward the
Refah leadership has been neither a warm embrace nor a cold
shoulder but, again, what I would call "respectful distance" --
business conducted as necessary, but no invitation to Prime
Minister Erbakan to visit, minimal direct contact between the
U.S. ambassador and Erbakan, and only two relatively low-key
visits here by Refah cabinet members.


    Let me elaborate a bit on the theme of the "respectful
distance" U.S. policy has taken toward Erbakan.  There have been
already four variations on this theme  -- or, four phases through
which U.S. policy toward Erbakan has evolved.  The first and
third phases were warmer, the second and fourth more distant.


    Initially, the U.S. appeared overly solicitous of the new
government, hailing it as a "stable government" before it had
even received a parliamentary vote of confidence.  During the
first weeks of the government, visits by then-U.N. Ambassador
Madeleine Albright and Undersecretary of State Peter Tarnoff --
though actually scheduled before Erbakan emerged as prime
minister -- and an unprecedented July 4 visit to the U.S. Embassy
by Prime Minister Erbakan strengthened the appearance of growing
closeness between the U.S. and Turkey's Islamist-led government.


    In the early days of the Erbakan administration, the State
Department spokesman displeased Turkish secularists by asserting
-- in a statement of unclear intent, apparently made off-the-cuff
-- that secularism is "not a condition" for strong U.S.-Turkish
ties. Faced with negative reaction from secularists (and positive
reaction from Islamists!), Department officials, led by Albright,
tried to back away from that statement by once again trumpeting,
as the U.S. traditionally had, the importance Washington attaches
to a secular Turkey.  Nevertheless, some lasting damage resulted
from the spokesman's remarks.  There is much anecdotal evidence
that, to this day, many Turkish secularists and even Islamists
believe the U.S. is partial to Refah.


    This first phase of engagement with Refah, Washington's
cautious embrace of the new government, came to a screeching halt
in mid-August when Erbakan chose Tehran as the site of his first
foreign foray and, while there, stunningly signed a $23-billion
gas-pipeline deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran -- just days
after President Clinton had signed into law legislation intended
to discourage foreign investment in Iran's energy industry.


    Thus began a second phase, one of detached re-assessment of
the U.S. approach to Refah.  During this phase, of approximately
two months' duration, the U.S. conducted its necessary business
with the Turkish government, including the Refah-controlled part
of it; however, by its body language, as well as its stern
criticism of the Iran and Libya trips, Washington seemed to be
suggesting that it wished the narrow-majority government would
simply go away.


    But the government was not about to go away, and for that
reason there began a new phase in the U.S. approach, a third
phase, in which Washington decided that it should strengthen its
contacts with Refah, albeit in a carefully managed fashion.  This
decision appears to have been made after the late October vote of
confidence in the Turkish parliament following Erbakan's famous
--rather, infamous-- trip to Libya. Despite his having sat
silently by while Qadhafi stomped on Turkey's national honor
regarding the Kurdish issue, despite being the object of
countless scornful headlines in the Turkish press because of that
trip, Erbakan returned to Turkey unfazed.  He declared he was
coming home "as a conquering Roman general."  As if to prove his
point, he convincingly defeated a no-confidence motion tabled by
the opposition.  The vote showed that Ciller could hold her party
together on the government's behalf even in the face of Erbakan's
foreign policy blunders.  It also reaffirmed other sources of
coalition reserve strength, including Muhsin Yazicioglu's Grand
Unity Party and some soft pro-Refah sentiment within the main
opposition Motherland Party.


    Suddenly, the Refah government looked quite durable, and the
U.S. government, reacting accordingly, began a policy of cautious
engagement with the Erbakan regime.  In early January, the first
visit to Washington by a Refah cabinet minister took place.  
Fehim Adak, a minister of state with responsibility for economic
affairs and a longtime Erbakan lieutenant, was invited to
Washington in a low-key fashion by the Treasury Department.  
While here, however, he was treated as much more than a financial
technocrat, being hosted at high-level meetings at the State
Department and with the President's Deputy National Security
Advisor.  Around the same time, U.S. Ambassador Marc Grossman
held his first meeting in months with Prime Minister Erbakan.  In
February, another Refah cabinet minister, State Minister Abdullah
Gul -- Erbakan's so-called "shadow foreign minister" --was
invited to Washington by the American Turkish Council and was
received by senior U.S. officials, including National Security
Advisor Sandy Berger.


    At the end of that month, however, Turkey's National Security
Council issued a set of demands for a government crackdown on
fundamentalism, leaving no doubt that a tremendous struggle for
control of Turkey's fate was underway, pitting the military-led
secular establishment against Erbakan and his coalition
government.  With that, U.S. policy entered its fourth and
current phase, one in which Washington dropped its approach of
cautious engagement with Refah and appropriately retreated to the
sidelines to await the conclusion of the military vs. Erbakan
contest.  And that is where the U.S. is likely to remain, until
this political crisis is resolved.


    The U.S. clearly wants a democratic solution to the current
tension between the military and Refah.  For four main reasons,
direct military intervention would find far less sympathy in U.S. 
policy circles than have past interventions.  First of all, the
international environment has changed dramatically since the 1980
takeover.  The Cold War has ended; support for "democratization"
has become far more deeply rooted as an element of U.S. policy;
and Washington is touting "civilian control of the military" as a
key criterion for membership in an expanded NATO.  Authoritarian
and military-based regimes in Greece, Portugal and Spain now seem
a distant memory.  Even NATO's former Warsaw Pact enemies,
including Russia, have taken great strides toward democracy. 
Thus, military intervention to effect political change,
particularly in a NATO-member state, would find far less
acceptance these days.


    Second, the internal situation in Turkey today is also quite
different than it was in 1980, and it, too, is much less likely
to evoke outsiders' sympathy for a coup. In 1980, political
violence was the order of the day, with some 20 people dying
everyday in the weeks leading up to the coup. Things were so bad
that the Turkish public was virtually demanding a military
takeover in order to stop the killing, and U.S. policy-makers at
that time, whatever their discomfort over the idea of a military
coup, could not but show some understanding for the military's
action.  But that is not the case now.  A coup would be seen
simply as directed against a government that took power through
democratic procedures, not as a necessary means of restoring
public order.


    Third, there is an analytic gap between the Turkish military
and U.S. observers concerning the current nature of the Refah
threat.  The Turkish military sees the Refah government as
currently engaged in a quiet coup to capture permanently the
bureaucratic machinery of the Turkish government.  That is the
reason the military apparently feels such urgency about ending
this government.  My sense is that U.S. analysts don't share that
assessment -- not that they necessarily reject it, but that it is
not part of their consciousness or current appreciation of
Refah's performance in office.


    Fourth, it is particularly difficult to explain an
anti-fundamentalist coup to outsiders when some 70 percent of the
Turkish parliament is controlled by secularist parties and when
the Islamist party itself is kept in office through partnership
with a secularist party.  If the Islamists pose such a serious
threat, outsiders may reasonably ask, why don't the secularists
in parliament get rid of them through parliamentary action?
Asking outsiders to support a coup in these circumstances would
be asking them, in effect, to be more secularist on Turkey's
behalf than Turkish secularists themselves are.


    For all of these reasons, I believe a coup would not be met
with sympathy from U.S. policy-makers.  Were a coup nevertheless
to take place, U.S. policy-makers would have to evaluate the
situation at that point and determine the best course of action. 
Given the considerable strategic stake Washington has in a
pro-Western Turkey and its close ties with the Turkish military,
it almost certainly would not ostracize or quarantine a regime
put in place by the military, though some European allies would
be inclined to do so.  Instead the U.S. would probably work with
the Turkish military as much as possible to encourage a rapid
return to democratic normalcy.  But there would doubtless be a
cost in bilateral relations, both in terms of U.S. diplomatic
support for Turkey, particularly in Europe, and in terms of
anti-Turkish initiatives in the U.S. Congress.


    As it decides its course of action, how much will the Turkish
military be influenced by the likely impact any such action might
have on U.S.-Turkish relations?  Only somewhat.  The Turkish
military's foremost consideration will be its assessment of the
nature and urgency of the threat to the secular state.  The
likely U.S. reaction surely would be taken into account, since
the Turkish military recognizes that the U.S. is Turkey's primary
diplomatic supporter in the world and, in particular, the leading
champion of Turkish ties with Europe; without U.S. backing, for
example, Turkey would not have achieved customs union with the
European Union.  But U.S. influence with Turkey is greatly
diminished by U.S. rejection of major arms sales to Turkey -- the
so-called "undeclared embargo" -- by rapidly declining foreign
aid totals, by anti-Turkish initiatives in Congress, and by the
ongoing hold that Congress has put on the transfer to Turkey of
three frigates publicly pledged by President Clinton to President
Demirel over a year ago.


    In concluding, I should underscore that my discussion of the
likely U.S. response to a coup is merely speculative.  I do not
think that a coup is the inevitable result of the current crisis,
though I do not rule it out if the current government remains in
power much longer and fails to implement the NSC's 18 demands.


    What is clear, however, is that the sentiments that have
given rise to an Islamist-oriented party such as Refah are likely
to remain part of the Turkish political environment for some time
to come.  Support for Refah is not merely a result of
secularists' corruption, lack of vision, or failure to organize
at the grass roots.  Nor is it merely a result of the
near-abdication by the Turkish left of its traditional role as
the mouth-piece of the have-nots.  All of those factors are
important, of course, but the rise of Refah is also, probably in
significant part, the result of growing religious consciousness
in Turkish society.  To cite a poll sponsored by the USIA in
Turkey last fall, some 75% of Turks believe Islamic values should
play a larger role in their society; 72% think there should be
more religious education in schools; and a remarkably high 25%
say Turkey should be governed according to Sharia (up from 17%
one year earlier).


    For the sake of its future as a stable democratic state,
Turkey must find a way to accommodate sentiments of this type
without undermining its secular structure.  Its success in doing
so will probably determine the future viability in Turkey of
Westernism, secularism, and progressive Ataturkism.  And, that,
in turn will have profound implications for U.S.-Turkish
relations and for global U.S. interests.  Thank you very much.