“Cooler Heads Have Prevailed” in Turkish-Israel Relations

Deteriorating ties between Turkey and Israel have been the subject of much analysis and some criticism from Washington following the Gaza flotilla incident in which eight Turkish citizens and one Turkish American were killed after attempting to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza.

In the wake of the incident, two letters were sent to President Obama from Congress supporting Israel in its actions. The Senate letter called on the administration to consider placing the Turkish group that organized the flotilla the IHH, or the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. Last week State Department spokesman Mark Toner said at a press briefing that they were “looking at IHH, but it’s a long process to designate something – an organization a Foreign Terrorist Organization.”

According to one senior Turkish source in Washington, if the IHH were to be designated a terrorist organization, it could have negative effects on Turkish-U.S relations. There would be pressure on the Turkish government to label the organizations similarly, and there would be greater scrutiny of the group’s ties within Turkey.

The difference of opinion between the U.S administration and the Turkish government over the IHH stems from a difference in opinion over whether Hamas is in fact a terrorist organization or not, said one House staffer. Turkey does not consider Hamas a terrorist organization, and therefore does not see the alleged financial links between the IHH and Hamas as a reason to label the group as a terrorist organization. This potential fissure in Turkish-U.S relations came up as a result of the hostile encounter between Turkey and Israel. The staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the steps taken by Congress should be seen as a warning shot to Turkey that it should repair its relationship with Israel.

It seems that the Turkish government has indeed taken the message. Former Congressman Robert Wexler, who co-chaired the Congressional study group on Turkey in the House of Representatives and who is currently the president of the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation, in a phone interview said that he believes that Turkish-Israeli relations have taken a turn for the better recently.

“In the last two weeks, cooler heads have prevailed on both sides, and I’m grateful for that,” said Wexler. “Now they can look towards what can be done constructively.”

Turkish-Israeli relations are important for the U.S foreign policy initiatives in the region, Wexler stressed, particularly in bringing together the divided Palestinian leadership of Fatah and Hamas in the pursuit of lasting peace in the region.

“Turkey has always played a unique role because of its ability to play the role of a bridge between East and West and between Israel and certain areas of the Arab world,” said Wexler. “If Turkey’s relationship with Israel is significantly compromised, Turkey’s role as a bridge will be diminished.

By agreeing to a meeting with Israel’s Industry, Trade and Labor minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezar in Brussels at the end of last month, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu showed signs that his government was willing to make steps towards repairing ties with Israel. However, only days after this inconclusive meeting, Davutoğlu went on to state that “Israel should both apologize and pay compensation unilaterally. If those two conditions do not materialize, the diplomatic relations with Israel will be cut off.”

So far there has been virtually no daylight between the Israeli and American position on the matter, and the likelihood of any pressure from Washington on Israel to make the concessions that Turkey has demanded appears to be even less after the apparently successful meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington last week.

(Published in the Hürriyet Daily News)

U.S-Turkish Business Ties Relatively Unaffected by Diplomatic Setbacks

Foreign Direct Investment, or FDI, in Turkey coming from the U.S. will fully recover to pre-global financial crisis levels, according to the chairwoman of the American Business Forum in Turkey, or ABFT.

“Recovery started in 2009, but in 2010 it’s going to be much, much better. We will reach the 2007 figures in 2011,” Rahşan Cebe, chairwoman of the board at ABFT, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review in a Tuesday interview.

After a steady increase in both FDI and the number of American businesses operating in Turkey over the past decade, numbers fell drastically in 2008. Cebe said she believes this was almost completely due to the global financial crisis, discounting the idea that recent diplomatic problems between the two countries had affected business ties.

“Misunderstandings can occasionally occur between all countries, but business is business. These misunderstandings haven’t been catastrophic,” said Cebe.

The bilateral diplomatic relationship has suffered in recent months as U.S. officials have voiced concern over Turkey’s deteriorating relationship with Israel.

In early March 2010, the Turkish government recalled its ambassador to the U.S. for consultations after a resolution passed a U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee calling on President Barack Obama to recognize the killings of Armenians in the collapsing Ottoman Empire in 1915 as “genocide.”

Cebe said the business relationship is susceptible to diplomatic setbacks, but said these were not major issues. “They were small misunderstandings between countries that have been sorted out,” she told the Daily News.

The U.S. exports a great deal of defense equipment and technology to Turkey. Some in the U.S., however, have been warning of Turkey’s “shifting” geopolitical role as one that is moving closer to the “East,” particularly as Turkey is no longer a bulwark against the Soviet Union.

Turkey refused to let the U.S. open a second front from the north against Iraq in 2003; now, many point to its deteriorating military relationship with Israel. However, Cebe does not believe that Turkey is turning its back on the West and is confident that trade, including in the defense sector, will continue to prosper between the U.S. and Turkey.

“I don’t think that Turkey is moving away from the West. It’s just opening up to the East. We’re still as close as we’ve been to the West and now we’re opening up to the East as well,” said Cebe.

Bureaucratic, but progressing

“This government is quite good. But it can be better,” said Cebe, speaking of the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government. “I personally think the Turkish government needs to be less bureaucratic. They made one good thing, by forming Investment Support and Promotion Agency in Turkey, or ISPAT, which reports directly to the prime minister.”

ISPAT works with foreign businesses and investors who need help entering the Turkish market. Led by Alparslan Korkmaz, it offers investment advice, as well as legal and bureaucratic assistance.

“They’re doing a fantastic job,” said Cebe. “Now if they could have something like that for companies that have already invested in Turkey and have less bureaucracy, that would be fantastic.”

One thing that such FDI-friendly policy can help with is attracting small and medium-sized businesses to Turkey from the U.S.

“One of the negative things I see is that American businesses don’t know Turkey very well. I mean medium-sized businesses. I think there is a huge potential for medium-sized businesses to do trade with Turkey. It would be fantastic if we could promote that,” said Cebe. “We’ve got the American conglomerates in Turkey but not the smaller, medium-sized businesses.”

Overall, Cebe said she is pleased with the progress being made by the current government to encourage investment and value business relationships with countries like the U.S. as priorities.

“They’ve now started to be more active. After Obama’s visit, they formed working groups to increase trade between Turkey and America, so all that is very good,” said Cebe.

(This article was first published in the Hürriyet Daily News)

U.S - Iranian policy and the Turkish factor

News Analysis

On Friday, the Obama administration notified Congress of a possible sale of missiles to Turkey, worth $7.8 billion. Two major reasons have been identified as motivating this deal. First, predictably, is to gain business from Turkey, which is also looking at potential missile purchases from Russian and Chinese arms manufacturers. However, the second reason is more interesting.


On July 26, speaking in Bangkok, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said:

We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment, that if the United States extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to support the military capacity of those in the Gulf, it’s unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer, because they won’t be able to intimidate and dominate as they apparently believe they can once they have a nuclear weapon.

In line with this notion of a "defense umbrella", other large American arms deals in the region have been announced, including a "$220 million artillery rocket sale to Jordan and a possible $187 million sale of F-16 fighter-carried weapons to Morocco".

Of course, it is not clear that this approach is set policy. In fact, very little of the U.S policy is clearly defined. Questioned on Meet the Press, by David Gregory on her use of the term "defense umbrella" and overall U.S policy towards Iran, Mrs. Clinton went back and forth:

SEC'Y CLINTON: ...First, we’re going to do everything we can to prevent you from ever getting a nuclear weapon. But your pursuit is futile, because we will never let Iran–nuclear-armed, not nuclear-armed, it is something that we view with great concern, and that’s why we’re doing everything we can to prevent that from ever happening.

MR. GREGORY: All right, but let’s be specific. Are you talking about a nuclear umbrella?

SEC’Y CLINTON: We, we are, we are not talking in specifics, David, because, you know, that would come later, if at all. You know, my view is you hope for the best, you plan for the worst. Our hope is–that’s why we’re engaged in the president’s policy of engagement toward Iran–is that Iran will understand why it is in their interest to go along with the consensus of the international community

In the same program the Secretary (simultaneously) suggested pursuing diplomatic engagement, preventing nuclear weaponization at all costs ("we're going to do everything we can"), and a nuclear umbrella strategy. All three approaches are complicated by the Iranian government's lack of legitimacy after the disputed election as well as increasing pressure on the U.S from Israel's right-leaning government to take strong action on Iran.

However, with regards to the idea of a nuclear umbrella and its possible connection to the recent announcements of arms deals in the region, there is an additional problem. The missile sales were announced last Friday. On Sunday, Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu was in Iran. In addition to the impressive growth in bilateral trade, (estimated at $11 billion in 2008), relations between the two countries seems to be at a high point in other areas. According to the Tehran Times, Iranian Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mouttaki called the relations between his country and Turkey "strategic and comprehensive". At their meeting, the two ministers committed themselves to cooperating against Kurdish terrorists in Northern Iraq, implying a degree of military cooperation. Such cooperation between Turkey and Iran would surely hinder any U.S attempt to use Turkey in a "nuclear umbrella" strategy against Iran. This is especially true as Turkey believes that, according to Davutoglu quoted by the Tehran Times: "Access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes is the right of all nations, including Iran" .

If Turkey is unlikely to take part in a U.S attempt at a "nuclear umbrella", designed to mitigate the problem of a nuclear-armed Iran, would it participate in a U.S-led international attempt to squeeze Iran with additional sanctions should talks (if they ever occur) fail? According to the Fars News Agency, Mr. Davutoglu told his counterpart "All our attempts are aimed at campaigning against potential sanctions and removing the existing barriers so that Iran will not remain outside the regional and global economy". This is particularly important as Turkey currently holds a seat on the UN Security Council.

There is one avenue of potential cooperation amongst all parties according to the Turks. During his visit to Iran, Davutoglu offered to host G5 +1 (China, U.S, Russia, Britain, France + Germany) discussions with Iran on its nuclear program, praising Iran's recent package of proposals. However, Iran's new proposals have not been received with much enthusiasm either by the EU or the U.S. It is clear that Ankara and Washington are not on the same wavelength in the current, pre-talks phase of the elaborate diplomatic minuet. It remains to be seen whether they draw closer or drift further apart if engagement should fail.