He could have easily chosen to start from Iraq, and while that wouldn't make Iraq the leader of the Muslim world, neither would it say anything about the future of Iraqi-US relations. The visit is exciting, indeed, but it becomes even more exciting when examined within its contextual setting. Once the US secretary of state made known the plans of the US president to visit Turkey in April, Turkish diplomats tried to use this new opportunity in order to show that "there is nothing extraordinary in this since Turkey and the US have been strategic allies for over half a century"; the politicians usurped it in order to show that "our prime minister's manners in Davos are actually being implicitly supported by the US president." President Abdullah Gül has moved up from the corridors of the Foreign Ministry, and we have heard him adopting a more diplomatic line; Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's line is understandably political.
Neither line is objective.
Let it be known that the writer of this column is happy that the US president is coming to Turkey. I would have loved to see him come to Turkey even before he went to Canada as his first trip abroad. But I have a feeling that what makes this visit exciting is not the contrast between what Turkey did previously and the fact that the US president is still willing to come; it is more about the contrast between what the Americans are planning, or are feeling obliged to do after the visit and the fact that they wanted to pay this visit as a pre-emptive gesture in order to prevent the destruction of a probable Armenian genocide resolution may have on mutual relations.
Obama's visit will overlap with the Second Forum of the Alliance of Civilizations that will be held on April 6-7 in Istanbul. Spanish diplomats claim that Obama is actually coming to the forum. However, the United States is still not a member of the Group of Friends of the Alliance and it probably won't ever be as the Euro-centrism of the alliance is well-known and its reports about world peace have been loaded with implicit criticism of Israeli policies.
A better explanation for Obama's visit is the Armenian genocide resolution that will come to the US Congress. The US president is a prisoner of what he promised during his election campaign: legislative acknowledgment of the genocide claims. Capitol Hill knows very well how Turkey will retaliate. Let me just speculate: If the government does not close down İncirlik Airbase, the people will do so. That is not what I would like to see, but that is what a careless US administration will see. Turks won't let the Americans label our forefathers as "genocide perpetrators" without any historical insight and then continue to fly over this land.
Neither the Turkish government nor the Americans want that to happen. So the American president is coming to Ankara to make a pre-emptive gesture to Turkey in order to prevent the destructive effect of an Armenian genocide resolution that will most probably pass both the Congress and the Senate. The content of this gesture is open to speculation, and I am sure the Americans are still working on a better package rather than just guaranteeing the resolution won't be reflected in the administration's foreign policy decisions in any way whatsoever.
The Turkish government, on the other hand, is working on a "repelling pre-emptive" gesture: a further rapprochement package with Armenia that will include not only opening the borders between Turkey and Armenia, but also a future "road map" for the solution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani territorial disputes. Foreign policy observers have been speculating that Turkey and Armenia would disclose the details of a deal during the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) meeting on April 16. Originally set for April 29, the meeting was moved to April 16, the observers claim, just to pre-empt the April 24 events and the resolution in the US Congress. Obama's visit may further push the agenda, and we may have a warm Turkish-Armenian spring before the Golden Age of Turkish-American relations.
If the US president is coming to Ankara in order to apologize for a yet to be made mistake, he will most probably be received by a surprise rapprochement bouquet that no genocide resolution can ever bring about.
