That Turkey should host the latest attempt at negotiation with Iran last month was no accident. Ankara has in recent months demonstrated a willingness to act as middleman between the suspected nuclear proliferator and the West. It fits the “zero problems with neighbors” strategy of the country’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu. He may well be remembered as the architect of Turkey’s return to regional preeminence.
Turkey is creating a new place for itself in the Middle East. For the better part of the twentieth century, the aggressively secular republic looked to the west, joining NATO and dreaming of one day becoming part of the EU. These hopes haven’t been shattered, but Turkey knows it won’t be admitted to the European club any time soon.
Even as the country is continuing reforms along the lines of what Brussels demands, it has noticed a power vacuum in its own backyard. With the sudden removal of Saddam Hussein from Iraq and the political clout of Egypt likely to remain bruised for months if not years in the wake of recent unrest, there is ample room for a non-Arab power to reclaim its heritage and reestablish itself firmly in the neighborhood.
Neo-Ottoman
If there is something neo-Ottoman about Turkey’s aspirations, it does not seem to bother Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, with whom it is planning to build a free-trade zone.
Turkey has already enacted free-trade agreements with Egypt, Israel, Morocco and Tunisia. It hopes to do similar deals with the Gulf states.
Most of these countries are happy to connect with Turkey’s burgeoning economy, which has grown while the West has suffered recession. Turkish exports to the Middle East and North Africa have swollen nearly sevenfold to $31 billion in 2008. The country is investing in many neighboring states, including Iraq, where it has played a crucial role in mending disputes between the country’s warring sectarian factions. Its significance as a conduit for energy to Europe is set to increase as the future Nabucco Pipeline will carry natural gas from Azerbaijan to the West.
Soft power
Turkey’s “soft power” success is expressed in less tangible exports: of culture and ideas. Millions of Middle Easterners, including one and a half million Iranians, come to gape at the Turkish miracle every year.
It seems Turkey is one of few countries the Iranians trust. Davutoğlu explained why to an American assistant secretary of state in November 2009. “Only Turkey,” he said, according to a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, “can speak bluntly and critically to the Iranians.” He was confident that Tehran was prepared to strike a deal.
Together with Brazil, Turkey negotiated a nuclear fuel exchange agreement with Iran in May. The deal was rejected by Western powers, who feared the Iranians were disingenuous and buying for time. The United States, moreover, had just persuaded China and Russia to back United Nations Security Council action against Iran. Brazil and Turkey opposed the sanctions.
It is not that Turkey doesn’t mind a nuclear Iran. In the wake of Israel’s violent interception of a flotilla of blockade runners last summer, Thomas Barnett suggested that Turkey’s condemnation of the strike was actually inspired by its nuclear anxiety.
If it is to continue to be seen as a credible powerbroker by Iran, Turkey can’t side unconditionally with Israel and the West. Now, “Ankara has its bloody shirt,” according to Barnett, “which will be used — once Tehran inevitably announces the weaponization of its nukes — to justify Turkey’s rapid reach for the same.”
Or, as Davutoğlu told the American diplomat in 2009, “Turkey’s foreign policy is giving ‘a sense of justice’ and ‘a sense of vision’ to the region.”
Taking sides
Speaking with The New York Times, the foreign minister said there was no need to “take sides” anymore, as there was during the Cold War.
“We are not turning our face to East or West,” he explained.
But it is almost impossible to have zero problems with neighbors if you live in Turkey’s neighborhood.
After it voted against UN sanctions, the United States threatened to withhold an arms sale to Turkey because. President Barack Obama is supposed to have told the Turks at the G20 summit in Toronto, Canada last year that they failed to act as an ally. As Turkey — and Brazil — saw it, though, it was voting for continued diplomacy, not for Iran or against the United States.
Davutoğlu now has to prove himself as the architect of “zero problems”. If Turkey is to become, or remain, a Middle Eastern power, it has to carefully balance its old alliances against new ones. If it overplays its hand in the region, it could lose faith in the West. Without that, countries like Iran would have no reason to accept it as an intermediary in the first place.