The BBC covered the story extensively, noting that Turkey is seeking to play an effective role in the Middle East and see Syria as a key country in its policy toward the region. It further argued that Turkey intends to extend its joint projects with Syria to include other countries in the Middle East.The fact is that cooperation between the two countries, which have until only recently been archenemies, has increased in all areas. Visa requirements have been lifted and mutual visits between the leaders and peoples of both countries have intensified. This attracts the attention of countries in the region as well as of the West.
The BBC and other Western media organizations closely monitor developments in this respect. This new Turkish foreign policy was the subject matter of Egyptian journalist Fahmi Huwaydi’s interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Huwaydi asked the Iranian president: “Why don’t you follow a policy that would bring relief to your neighbors and prioritize their interests as Turkey is doing? Indeed, Turkey has obtained great results from this policy.”
Turkey’s strategy to prioritize its soft power, as political scientist Joseph Nye put it, really gives rise to wonderful results. There is no doubt that this approach has forced people in the East and the West to dispense with their old habits concerning Turkey and turned Ankara into an indispensable player in many critical issues.
This positive picture and, in particular, the matter of Turkey’s relations with Syria have also illuminating implications concerning what the place of the military should be within the system in Turkey.
As you know, while the current state of good and favorable relations with Syria, which in the past had afforded protection to the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) organization for 14 years and which had received its leader Abdullah Öcalan in its capital, have been reinforced thanks to Turkey’s soft power, but its start was made possible by its hard power. The process in which Syria banished Öcalan from the country and reviewed its Turkey policy started after the following open threat voiced by then-Land Forces Commander Gen. Atilla Ateş in Reyhanlı, a district near Turkey’s common border with Syria: “The Turkish state tries to establish good relations with its neighbors. Despite our good intentions, some of our neighbors -- here I would like to name them openly for emphasis, our neighbors such as Syria -- wrongly interpret our good will. They have supported the bandit called Apo [Abdullah Öcalan] and led to terrorism to take a hold of Turkey. Turkey has exerted much effort to maintain good relations. If Turkey does not get the response it deserves, it will be entitled to take all necessary measures. We no longer have any patience.”
This policy of threats and tension, voiced in the military unit in Reyhanlı on September 16, 1998, was supported by the president, prime minister and chief of general staff at the time. The papers wrote that the Turkish army was concentrating units near the border, and the General Staff worked on detailed military plans and analyzed Syria’s military capabilities.
In a panic caused by the possibility of an imminent war, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped in and Öcalan had to leave Syria on Oct. 9, 1998. How the later parts of this process that ended up in Öcalan’s imprisonment on İmralı were managed is another matter, but it is obvious that the military played an extraordinary part in this process. Everyone appreciated this success. Indeed, the army did what it should do at the right time and place.
The same army whose part in Reyhanlı was praised has for some time been criticized for its role in Şemdinli, where two noncommissioned officers and a PKK informant were caught red-handed planting a bomb at the Umut Bookstore; the Cage Plan, a plan seeking to intimidate and assassinate Turkey’s prominent non-Muslim figures to put domestic and international pressure on the government; Poyrazköy, a neighborhood in İstanbul where ammunition and weapons were found as part of an investigation into Ergenekon; and Çukurambar, where two officers from the Tactical Mobilization Group of the Special Forces Command were captured as they stood watch near Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç’s house. The message here is clear, isn’t it? The nation does not want to see the army and the General Staff in opposition to the democratically elected governments, journalists, devout people, leftists or Alevis, but in confrontation with the enemy. All these harsh criticisms voiced by all diverse groups in the country imply that the place of the army is not in Çukurambar, but in Reyhanlı. If only those who are concerned with criticism could look and see where they stand.
It seems that we will continue to discuss this and similar matters in the new year. I wish you all a happy, healthy and peaceful year in 2010.
