Understanding Turkey required wisdom about the country’s utterly complex political structure, its desire for change from within, but also the inevitable good prospective membership in the union would do on many levels. Many thanks should go to him, for a pessimist would have predicted worse things.It is an equally difficult task, one due to be taken over by his successor, Mr. Stefan Füle, of the Czech Republic. We all know that he is already -- at the age of 47 -- a seasoned diplomat; but he will soon feel that his arsenal of skills may come to be threatened. Taking over an almost frozen state of negotiations, due to strategic French opposition and a skeptical stance by the German government, Füle should brace himself for five tough years. Given the increasingly nasty “internal warfare” in Turkey between those who want to maintain the bureaucratic tutelage over democracy and those who desire a full-scale democracy, with the elected Parliament as the focal point of political rule. Internal and external dynamics do not fully operate in favor of Turkey, unfortunately, although the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is still determined -- as it claims itself to be -- to continue reforms.
A misreading of Turkey’s foreign policy, at this stage, should be avoided. Recent exaggerations in the American press, on the eve of a visit to Washington, D.C., by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, will not be helpful in turning opinion against the only political movement that stands for reform. What one sees in those views is a negative selection: A neglect over the positive steps in reducing problems with Armenia, Iraq, Syria and -- hopefully -- Greece, is arbitrarily overshadowed by a desire to generalize everything in foreign policy as a major shift away from the West. Such misfortunes in judgment are doomed to happen whenever a country like Turkey criticizes Israel.
Search for political and economic “openings” that mark the recent moods in Ankara, as well as the Turks’ growing discontent with the cooling sentiments within the EU, are not to be taken lightly, nor cynically. Diplomacy is often a game of mirrors, and the reflections there must be treated as sources of self-critique. There are issues Turkey is right about; and they need a sophisticated approach by wise foreign actors.
Cyprus, as one of Füle’s most urgent tasks, is one of them. The issue, when one gets deeper into it, is not whether this or that side will have to stand for extra concessions. The issue is whether it will be possible to reach a final settlement by leaving the talks to the two leaders on the island and hoping that they will make progress. Füle should see the challenge through the optics of decisive, bold, benevolent international involvement. He should be able to push back the cynics in the EU who constantly hope that Cyprus will remain an instrument -- hopefully forever -- to keep Turkey away from membership and to entirely disengage Ankara from negotiations. Greece must be committed -- if one is to believe that George Papandreou is honest with his hope about Turkish membership in five or six years -- through an increasingly positive dialogue with Ankara. The UK is already pushing the process by its concessions, and London’s pledges must be taken further by joint steps by the other two guarantor powers.
There are concerns and possible bumps ahead. Both Dimitris Christofias and George Papandreou know they are encircled by a fiercely nationalistic media; it is such a counter-productive mood that they will have to take huge risks. The AKP is concerned that a continued deadlock until next March will work fiercely against Mehmet Ali Talat. His most likely successor will be the nationalist, secessionist Derviş Eroğlu. What possibly awaits the AKP is a push backward even in Turkey when the ill winds of ethnocentricity gain strength in northern Cyprus.
If Christofias, and the Greek Cypriot media that keeps him caged, believe that membership in the EU means a staunch stance with no concessions, it will have to be up to Füle to remind him of a broader strategic perspective. In this he will have to work closely with Baroness Catherine Ashton. Good luck to him. It is a painful task ahead.
