It describes an ambition to re-establish a sphere of influence within a region loosely defined by an empire from whose broken pieces the modern Turkish Republic was reassembled. It suggests an illusion of grandeur. On the other hand, it also describes a certain feel-good factor and the purposefulness of a nation which has tried to redefine its role in the world after the end of the Cold War. It was Turgut Özal who spoke of an emerging Eurasian zone that extended from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China and of which Turkey would form the logical heart.A more self-assertive Turkey was at odds with the traditional “don’t mess with me, and I won’t mess with you” foreign policy (to paraphrase Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s much-quoted dictum, “peace at home, peace abroad”), and the feeling that Turkey was a fortress under constant siege from a hostile world. Ömer Taşpınar writing in this paper some time ago said that neo-Ottomanism was not a retreat from Europe but a way of balancing Turkey’s long-standing Western orientation. Trips to Brussels were as much a part of the strategy as were trips to Tehran or Damascus. I am reminded of an interview I once did with a woman from an important Ottoman family whose grandparents spoke Arabic and Persian as well as French and German and who were equally at home in Cairo and Damascus as they were in London or Vienna. It is this cultural sophistication which Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has tried to convert into what he calls “strategic depth.”
The notion of a more expansive, internationalist and problem-solving Turkey is an attractive one, as is that of a Turkey unfettered by nationalist-inspired tendency to isolationism. However, it is forced to confront a certain amount of skepticism. If Turkey is to adopt a neo-Ottoman posture, it has to contend with issues still unresolved from that imperial past. If it is to be a player in the great issues of the day, it cannot remain fettered by the great issues of a century ago. This is why the overture to Armenia that began with Abdullah Gül’s football diplomacy in 2008 had an importance even beyond the immediate issue of reducing tension on a troubled border.
The seeming collapse of that initiative has equally important consequences. The vote of a committee of the US House of Representatives to endorse a resolution recognizing genocide has sent Ankara into a tailspin or at least into a position which it struggles to sustain. Turkey withdrew its ambassador to demonstrate its displeasure, and the government has put pressure on civil institutions, such as the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (TÜSIAD), to cancel a US-bound delegation. Now the Turkish ambassador will go scurrying back to Massachusetts Avenue because, rightly enough, the prime minister realizes that not to take his seat at the Global Nuclear Security Summit in Washington in a week’s time would be a display of diplomatic pique that would do Turkey harm.
That summit will be attended by some 40 leaders, including Chinese President Hu Jintao. Barack Obama is far more aggressive in trying to curtail nuclear proliferation and in reducing America’s own stockpile. During the summit, the subject of Iran’s race to develop a nuclear capability is bound to come up. Turkey, counter-intuitively, maintains that Tehran’s nuclear program is not intended to produce an offensive payload and is in no mood to impose sanctions come what may. Instead, it advertises its ability to play the role of an honest broker as the best means of coaxing Iran into abandoning its efforts to develop a bomb. Yet it does so, having painted itself into something of an absurd corner. Ankara now fumbles to impose some sort of sanction not against Iran but against the United States. And it does so because of the wording of a proposed text commemorating a tragedy that occurred 95 years ago.
