Turkey flexes diplomatic muscle as economy booms

By Gareth Jones
REUTERS
6:14 a.m. December 6, 2007
ANKARA – The frenetic travel of President Abdullah Gul highlights Turkey's new self-confidence on the global stage as its economy booms and foreign investment pours into the European Union candidate nation.
Gul's election to the presidency in August has reinforced a growing commercial and diplomatic trend to reach out beyond traditional Western partners to Turkic Central Asia, Russia, Iran, the Arab world and east Asia.
Turkey's expanding ties with these regions, often driven by energy needs, should be seen as complementing, not replacing, its decades-old drive to join the EU, analysts say.
Gul, who as foreign minister helped start EU accession talks, has been in Pakistan and Turkmenistan this week, he goes to Kazakhstan next week. He was in France last week and before that in Georgia.
'This new multi-dimensional foreign policy does not come at the expense of our European vocation, but our place in the world is changing,' said Suat Kiniklioglu, a member of parliament for Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's ruling centre-right AK Party.
'We lack the clout to broker big international deals, but we are getting to a point where Turkey is recognised as a player in places like the Middle East and Central Asia,' he said.
Muslim, secular and democratic Turkey – a NATO member that for decades tended to box well below its diplomatic weight – clearly has much to offer, and the world seems increasingly interested in its perspective.
Almost uniquely in its region, Turkey has good relations with both Iran and Israel, for example, and its peacekeepers are active from Kosovo and Lebanon to Afghanistan.
In the past month alone, the foreign ministers of Iran and the United States have rubbed shoulders at a conference of Iraq's neighbours in Istanbul and the Israeli and Palestinian presidents have jointly addressed Turkey's parliament in Ankara.
Erdogan has also cleverly and confidently used threats to send troops into northern Iraq to fight Kurdish rebels hiding there to push President George W. Bush into sharing intelligence with Turkey to help combat the rebels.
Aware of Turkey's strategic importance as an ally in a difficult region, the United States – and the EU – have turned a blind eye to Turkish cross-border strikes against the rebels.
PRAGMATISM
'Turkey is not a prime mover, it is in the second division, but it is being increasingly listened to across the region,' said Hugh Pope, author of books on Turkey including 'Sons of the Conquerors' about the Turks and Central Asia.
'Turkey has shed some of the former arrogance it showed in its dealings with the Middle East and Central Asia,' he said, emphasising the pragmatism and entrepreneurial spirit displayed by Turkish businessmen, engineers and educators in the region.
Ottoman Turks ruled the Middle East, the Balkans and north Africa for centuries from Istanbul.
Turkey's more active diplomacy is not without its problems. The United States, in particular, is vexed by Turkey's growing energy links with Iran, though Ankara has made clear it shares Washington's opposition to Tehran building nuclear weapons.
The Islamist-rooted AK Party is also respected perhaps more in the Arab world than previous Turkish governments because of its Muslim piety as well as its success in overseeing annual economic growth in Turkey of around 7 percent. Gulf Arab money has been pouring into Istanbul. Analysts say Ahmet Davutoglu, Erdogan's chief foreign policy adviser, is the mastermind behind Turkey's growing diplomatic dynamism during the past five years of AK Party rule.
Like Gul, Davutoglu hails from piously conservative central Anatolia but sees no contradiction between Islam and democracy, between Turkey's EU bid and building closer Middle East ties.
EU STILL KEY
Gul's own approach stands in stark contrast to that of his predecessor, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a shy, ascetic former judge, who rarely left Ankara and had no interest in foreign affairs.
'Gul really wants to make up for lost time and re-engage, especially in Central Asia,' said Kiniklioglu.
Turkey aims to become an energy hub for Caspian and Central Asian oil and gas exports transiting to Western markets. Existing and planned pipelines across Turkish territory, the West hopes, will reduce its reliance on Russian energy exports.
Analysts said Turkey's central foreign policy goal would remain its EU accession negotiations, launched in 2005.
'Europe is still number one priority, there can be no substitutes... More than 50 percent of Turkey's trade is still with the EU,' said Pope.
'Turkey's higher profile on the world stage is directly linked to its EU candidacy... If Turkey repudiated the EU connection, it would frankly lose much of its prestige with other countries. And Gul understands this very well.'