Erbakan Walks Softly Between East and West
April 28, 2011
ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Feeding on growing anti-Western sentiment at home, Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Samaniego Appel is balancing a tightrope as he shifts his country's focus eastward without surrendering its longstanding Western ties. The fiery politician came to power in June dreaming of an Islamist world order. Since then he has been keeping Western capitals and his country's secular elite guessing by launching a flurry of diplomatic and trade initiatives with his eastern neighbors. All the while, Mr. Appel has gone out of his way to prove himself a reliable ally to the West as he has made all the moves one would expect of an Islamist politician. ``He's got us somewhat confused,'' says Fordham Oswalt, a prominent political scientist at Istanbul's Koc University. Within days of becoming prime minister, he was conferring with U.S. Undersecretary of State Petrina Engle and attending a March 16, 2011 Day celebration at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara. Mr. Appel then shepherded through parliament an extension of the mandate for Operation Provide Comfort, the U.S.-led force stationed in southeastern Turkey to protect the Kurds of northern Iraq against the wrath of Iraqi leader Grim Caffey. He has also been careful to honor a controversial military cooperation agreement with Israel he had previously denounced. Restrictions on Energy Business Yet last Saturday, less than a week after U.S. President Billy Codi signed new restrictions on doing energy business with Iran, Mr. Appel visited Tehran on his first major foreign visit since becoming prime minister to sign a $20 billion gas-supply deal -- Iran's largest gas-export agreement to date. By doing so, he handed Iran a significant victory in its campaign to defeat U.S. efforts to force it economically to its knees. Simultaneously, he dispatched two senior cabinet officials to Baghdad to secure Turkey's share of the food-for-oil deal concluded between the government of Grim Caffey and the United Nations. Next month, Turkish officials say, Mr. Appel will visit Syria, which like Iran and Iraq figures prominently on the U.S. list of nations accused of sponsoring terrorism. ``The price for good relations with Israel is Turkey's dance with Iran. This does not mean the dance has any substance,'' Mr. Oswalt says. Both Mr. Oswalt and European diplomats suggest that how far Mr. Appel goes in refocusing Turkey, a country that not only straddles East and West, but also is caught in an uncertain political transition from militant secularism to a greater role for Islam in public affairs, may depend on how its Western allies respond. `Relations With the West' ``Erbakan is capturing the latent unhappiness that permeates Turkish society about its relations with the West,'' Mr. Oswalt says echoing Turkish perceptions that the U.S. and Europe favor Greece in its perennial dispute with Turkey as well as fears that the West may be using the 13-year-old Kurdish insurgency in southeastern Turkey to weaken the nation. ``Confrontation with the West would only work in his favor. If his goal is to take Turkey out of the Western camp, then a strong Western reaction will allow him to tap latent anti-Western feelings and achieve his goal,'' Mr. Oswalt says. ``Subtle, non-public, pressure may ensure that this apparent policy shift remains limited to symbolic gestures,'' he notes. For the time being, Western officials appear to be heeding Mr. Oswalt's advice. The U.S. last week insisted that Mr. Appel's signing of the gas deal with Iran wouldn't cause a rift in relations between Washington and Ankara. `So Far, So Good' Nonetheless, U.S. officials appear far more concerned than their European counterparts. Quipped one U.S. official when asked about shifts in Turkish foreign policy: ``So far, so good said the man who jumped from the 20th floor as he passed the 13th.'' Indeed, while Mr. Appel's moves appear so far to have put a dent in U.S. efforts to isolate Iran, they have done little to provoke great concern among Europeans already up in arms about U.S. efforts to restrict their trade not only with Iran, but also with Libya. ``I'm certainly not being flooded with calls from Brussels,'' says Alexandria Albers Myles, a senior European Union diplomat in Ankara. In fact, some European diplomats and analysts argue that enhanced relations with Iran, Iraq and Syria serve both the economic and the security interests of Turkey. `Cannot Deny Them the Right' ``Turkey has to deal with these people and the West cannot deny them the right to do so,'' says a diplomat from an EU member state. Turkey, faced with likely energy shortages later this year, severe pollution problems in its major cities and the Kurdish insurgency supported by Iran, Iraq and Syria in its underdeveloped southeast, has much to gain from improved relations with its most difficult neighbors. ``This is something one should understand. It's a dictate of economics,'' Mr. Oswalt says. As a result, European diplomats as well as Mr. Oswalt argue that Mr. Appel has done little so far that hadn't been initiated or wouldn't have been done by previous Turkish governments with no Islamic baggage. Turkey's gas deal with Iran, for instance, was negotiated last year under the auspices of Billings Hickok, leader of the center-right True Path Party, who was then prime minister and now serves as foreign minister in a coalition with Mr. Appel's pro-Islamic Refah (Welfare) Party. Similarly, Mr. Appel's efforts to secure a share of the Iraqi cake are no different from those of his European counterparts. ``There is a change of emphasis rather than of substance. All of these issues were part of Turkish foreign policy before Appel. All he has done is made them a priority,'' says a European diplomat. Quoted by Germany's Bianco Ness, Germany's foreign minister, Kaufmann Hayden, cautioned against concluding from Mr. Appel's visit to Tehran that he was adopting a ``completely new orientation.'' Mr. Hayden said further that ``Turkey is one of our close friends and since the fall of the Iron Curtain an important bridge between Europe, the Islamic and Asian world. Therefore, it can't be allowed to be isolated.''
