Decoding the Erdoğan Visit

The atmosphere between U.S. President Barack Obama and the Turkish leader was positive. On the substance, there were no striking disagreements, although perspectives on some of the key issues, including Iran and Turkish-Armenian rapprochement, clearly differ. With little in the official discourse to spur debate, discussion about the visit has inevitably emphasized the remarks given to wider policy audiences, including the German Marshall Fund of the United States, on the margins of the White House visit. Overall, the experience has produced more open questions than answers regarding the future of U.S.-Turkish relations.

From geopolitics to geoeconomics?

One of the few obvious products from the Obama-Erdoğan meeting was a commitment from both sides to reinforce the traditionally under-developed economic side of the bilateral relationship. Turkish trade with the United States currently accounts for less than 5 percent of total Turkish trade. This is a strikingly small figure, and stands in stark contrast to the rapid growth of Turkish trade with Middle Eastern and Eurasian neighbors in recent years. The global economic crisis has deepened this trend, as Western markets have contracted and commercial relations with Syria, Iran, and Iraq have expanded. The commitment to a stronger economic relationship is not new, and giving it operational meaning, through the use of Qualified Industrial Zones and other mechanisms, will not be easy under current conditions.

Both sides recognize the limitations of a relationship based overwhelmingly on geopolitics and security cooperation—a key element of U.S.-Turkish relations for decades. This distortion acquires greater meaning in the context of Turkey’s new regional activism. Commercial engagement is one of the key features of the new approach, and economic ties are at the heart of Turkey’s enhanced relations with the Middle East and Russia. Europe as a whole retains substantial weight in Turkish economic relations. But what can the United States offer to a Turkish leadership increasingly focused on commercial interests? The Turkish relationships that have provoked the greatest concern among American observers, those with Iran and Russia, are largely driven by economic interdependence. Erdoğan was very clear on this point in his remarks to Washington audiences, underlining Turkey’s reliance on both countries for energy security. As a result, the American and Turkish narratives on Iran, Russia, and the Gulf have very different vocabularies and very different measures of success. When the United States talks about sanctions, Turkey hears economic disruption and risk. When Turkey talks about energy security, American audiences hear economic appeasement of strategic competitors. The Prime Minister’s visit to Washington underscores this significant and perhaps growing perceptions gap on key regional issues. For all the talk of globalization and economic interdependence, the American foreign policy discourse about Turkey and its neighborhood remains firmly rooted in security and geopolitics.

A model (and lower maintenance) partnership

Inevitably, American analyses of U.S.-Turkish relations focus heavily on what is new in Turkey. But American society and foreign policy are also in flux. Washington is not a fixed variable in the bilateral equation. The Obama administration has devoted considerable time and effort to the task of repairing a relationship badly tarnished since 2003. At the same time, Washington faces an extraordinary combination of domestic and international challenges, including the management of two costly and controversial wars. In this context, the notion of U.S.-Turkish relations as a “model partnership” takes on special meaning. The idea of Turkey as a model was badly received by Turks during the Bush years. Today, the model partnership vocabulary seems to have been fully embraced by the Turkish leadership, and Erdoğan made numerous references to it during his visit. What does it mean? Presumably, it is meant to suggest that the range and character of cooperation, rather than the nature of the Turkish system itself, is the real measure of why Turkey matters. It might also suggest a more flexible standard of cooperation than the harder-edged notion of “strategic” partnership. After years of big transformational projects in Turkey’s neighborhood, and many competing demands, it is not surprising that the Obama administration seeks a lower maintenance foreign policy with Ankara and other transatlantic partners.

Four issues, three open questions

The agenda for the Erdoğan-Obama meeting seems to have been driven by four issues. One, Afghanistan, is relatively straightforward. The others, Iran, the Middle East peace process, and rapprochement with Armenia, are far more complex and uncertain. On Afghanistan, the U.S. side has rightly made clear that Turkey’s knowledge and experience in the country is valued. Ankara will continue to make an important contribution to economic development and training

efforts. But Turkey will be no more willing than most of its NATO partners to commit new combat forces. At the same time, Ankara will need to adjust its own policy to a strategy increasingly focused on exits and opportunity costs. The discourse on Afghanistan suggests that on this issue, at least, Ankara is firmly in the European mainstream.

On Iran, the potential for U.S.-Turkish friction is substantial and unaltered by the dialogue in Washington. Apart from possible differences in assessment regarding the pace and direction of Iran’s nuclear program, the Turkish leadership seems increasingly at odds with its partners in the West and the Gulf (and perhaps even Russia and China) on Iran policy. To be sure, Turkey has no interest in seeing a nuclear-armed Iran on its borders, with all the regional risks this would entail. Ankara and Washington are also on the same page regarding the desirability of dialogue with Tehran—if it can be managed. Beyond these basic points of agreement, perceptions of the strategic context and next steps seem to differ sharply. With the very real prospect of a vote in the UN Security Council on Iran sanctions sometime over the next month or so, Ankara is likely to face tough choices, and the prospect of new pressures from diverse quarters. More broadly, the tendency of the ruling Justic and Development Party (AK P) leadership to discuss Iran’s nuclear ambitions in the context of Israel’s nuclear arsenal is distinctive in transatlantic circles, but common in Turkey’s neighborhood. This outlook is not entirely incompatible with the U.S. approach—a nuclear free Middle East has been a key goal for the multilateral track of the Middle East peace process for years. In practical terms, it will be hard to reconcile with renewed containment and even nuclear roll-back of Iran. The use of force to set back the clock on Iran’s nuclear program could easily push these U.S.-Turkish differences into crisis mode—unless Turkey itself was directly threatened by Iran, in which case Ankara could be expected to line up behind a more forward leaning strategy.

Previous On Turkey analyses have explored the roots of deterioration in Turkish-Israeli relations. These relations may not have been an explicit focus of the Prime Minister’s Washington visit, but the question of Turkey’s posture toward Israel is never far from the surface in the current debate over Turkish foreign policy. Certainly, the Prime Minister addresses the Palestinian issue with a degree of emotion absent from his approach to other topics. Turkish public opinion and the AK party leadership are strongly sympathetic to the Palestinian view, and this is now a structural feature of the Turkish scene.

Taken together with the change in relations with Israel, the potential for a new crisis on the order of the Gaza conflict, holds the potential for another sharp demonstration of Turkish divergence from prevailing attitudes across the Atlantic. American foreign policy elites and opinion shapers are highly attentive to the tone as well as the substance of Turkey’s behavior on Middle Eastern issues. That said, the Washington visit highlighted the Obama administration’s continued openness to Turkish facilitation, even mediation in Arab-Israeli affairs, where the parties are willing to accept this role.

Finally, the Washington visit underscored the centrality of Turkish-Armenian rapprochement in bilateral relations. Not surprisingly, the Administration pressed Turkey to complete the process of normalization envisioned in recent Turkish-Armenian accords. But the ratification of these accords by the Turkish parliament is hardly assured, and Ankara is inclined to link their implementation to movement on the long-running Nagorno-Karabagh dispute. Washington, strongly convinced of the wider regional value of an open border between Turkey and Armenia, prefers to decouple these issues. Failure to implement the accords could easily spell new friction in Turkish-American relations, and the Erdoğan visit appears to have produced no new commitments on this score.

The atmospherics of the Washington visit were positive, and both sides are likely to have come away convinced that some potentially difficult issues have been managed. Yet, the visit did little to bridge substantial differences in perception and approach on key issues, above all, Iran, the Palestinian issue, and the complex of disputes in the Caucasus. The commitment to bolster the underdeveloped economic side of the relationship is useful, but the challenges in this area are formidable. Policymakers and observers on both sides are left with a list of unresolved open questions that could shape the course of the new model partnership in the near to medium term.

* Dr. Ian O. Lesser is a senior transatlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of GMF.