It is not certain whether the talks the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) delegation held in Washington and the meeting in Canada between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and US President Barack Obama will lower the tension, or to what extent. I do not know if the current crisis of confidence is as profound as when the Turkish Parliament denied permission to US troops to use Turkish territory as a staging point for their 2003 Iraq invasion or the hooding incident. Still, based on the analyses of groups that closely monitor the state of bilateral relations as well as on the impressions of the AK Party delegation, I think we are obliged to acknowledge the seriousness of the crisis.It turns out that the straw that broke the camel’s back was Turkey’s “no” vote at the UN on the day Obama persuaded the Israeli government, with which he was already at loggerheads, to make sure that the passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara were released. Stressing that if those passengers had not been released, the Turkish government would have suffered a great loss of prestige, analysts noted the importance of Obama’s contribution.
This crisis is different from the March 2003 and hooding crises in two respects. First, this is the first crisis to occur between the two countries during the presidential term of Obama, who has similar views to the AK Party and who conducted part of his first visit abroad to Turkey to stress the importance he attaches to the bilateral relations. Second, the possible impact of this crisis on the domestic balance in Turkey, which is already experiencing delicate times, is not known. To recap, Washington’s first target in the crisis that erupted after the parliamentary motion of March 1 to allow the US to use Turkey as a staging ground for the Iraq invasion was declined was the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). Paul Wolfowitz had lambasted the military directly. Indeed, some commanders had expressed concerns about the parliamentary motion in some headline stories. In the current crisis, however, it is the AK Party that is at the center of the criticism, whatever their reasons are. This is great news for the groups who have long been lobbying in Washington to destroy the AK Party and who have noted their disappointment in their diaries when their coup plans did not get the go-ahead from Washington.
Although its foreign policy has been hailed and appreciated not only by the Muslim world but also by the West until two months ago, the AK Party should do some introspection and determine an exit strategy from the crisis. However, it would be unfair to make the AK Party pay the price on its own. The same introspection should also be done by the West, instead of lamenting, “We are losing Turkey.” How this self-questioning should be done can be found in the book, “Winning Turkey,” written by Philip H. Gordon -- who had questioned Turkey’s loyalty to the West just before the Erdoğan-Obama meeting -- with Ömer Taşpınar. Gordon, who can be regarded as Obama’s Davutoğlu for US foreign policy, observed in this book that Turkey’s relations with the West have been on the decline and asked “how America, Europe and Turkey can revive a fading partnership.”
Gordon, who was at that time working at the Brookings Institute, known for its democratic stance and criticisms of Bush policies, made several observations about Turkish-US relations before listing his solutions. For instance, he said that problems would persist in the relations in the future and the good old days would not return. Due to the endless obstacles posed by the EU, Turkey’s frustration is growing and will eventually lead to the questioning of pro-Western policies, he maintained. For Taşpınar and Gordon, the anti-American trend and decline in the enthusiasm for EU membership, visible in public opinion polls, were indicative of Turkish society’s ever-increasing alienation from the West. The authors also argued that with the self-confidence attributable to stability and economic success, Ankara’s tendency to act more autonomously has increased and alternatives to the West have been discussed.
They then moved on to list what should be done to win back Turkey, stressing that this list should be in the roadmap of the new US administration: serious measures should be taken by the US and the EU against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK); the Kurdish policy should be changed; the EU membership process should be revitalized; the Armenian process should be settled; and the isolation of northern Cyprus should be ended. Mr. Gordon is now the most important foreign policy figure of the new US administration to which he had advised these measures in his book. Now, let us look at the list once more and ask: Have the US and the EU taken any of these measures before demanding full loyalty from Turkey?
