Iran expert Abdo: Turkey should serve as broker between US and Iran

“There has been reconsideration within the Obama administration that to dismiss the Tehran declaration outright was a mistake. There are now some reassessments that Turkey can play a role. The Tehran declaration could be a stepping stone to talking with the Iranians about the issues that the Americans and the Europeans want to talk about,” she told Today’s Zaman for Monday Talk in reference to the deal that Turkey and Brazil brokered in Tehran on May 17.

Two days after that deal’s announcement, the US delivered a draft of its proposed sanctions to UN Security Council members. Although the US claimed that the move had no link with the Tehran deal and that the sanctions were complementary and not an alternative to the diplomatic track, Turkey was dismayed because Ankara had exchanged statements several times with Washington over the importance of the deal.

Turkey then voted “no” for the sanctions on Iran at the UN Security Council.

Now that both Iran and the United States are indicating that they might negotiate, there are more issues to consider, including Turkey’s role as a potential mediator between the two enemies.

Abdo, while on a trip to Turkey last week, answered our questions regarding the developments.

There are statements both from the United States and Iran giving signals that they want to cooperate. What’s been happening?

It’s clear now that both sides are starting a negotiation process. One theory is that the sanctions imposed on Iran are having an effect, so that’s why the Iranians are interested in negotiating. They said that they are interested in negotiating both on the nuclear program and also continuing the negotiations on the Tehran declaration, which Turkey was involved in. These are statements from various Iranian officials. It seems like they are suddenly interested in negotiating. It’s likely that it is because of sanctions, and also because there is a lot of pressure to have a deadline, if the sanctions can’t be determined to have been effective, then there is a lot of pressure from Israel that there could be some sort of military attack. The Iranians are very wary now that they are at a critical point. That’s why we’re seeing at least some gesture of cooperation.

Do you think the United States was not very interested in negotiating or engaging with Iran before the sanctions were imposed?

What happened is that the United States hoped that the process last fall in Vienna and Geneva would produce some sort of cooperation from Iran on its nuclear program, for example, more transparency regarding the issue of uranium enrichment. That didn’t happen because the negotiations broke down. Then there was a period in which the United States felt that it had to take tougher actions and stopped talking about engagement for a number of reasons. One, they felt that would be a way to pressure Iran, and, two, domestic considerations, like conservatives’ position on Iran, including Jewish interest groups. There had been a period after the negotiations broke down that a lot of conservatives in the United States were saying that you can’t trust Iran. So in order for President Obama to fend off these conservatives, he had to take a tough position, which was to impose tough sanctions. What he hoped was that the sanctions would pressure Iran to cooperate because President Obama is not in favor of a military attack on Iran.

Could President Obama and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad meet any time soon?

President Ahmadinejad asked for a meeting with President Obama [during next month’s UN General Assembly meeting in New York]. I doubt this is going to happen, but there could be lower-level meetings first.

Before the imposition of the sanctions on Iran, there was a deal, the Tehran declaration. Why was the United States so cold to it?

The United States and the Western governments were adamantly against the Tehran declaration because they felt that it didn’t address the key points that they are concerned about, which is allowing the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors to inspect Iran’s nuclear facilities in a way that the West would feel thorough and complete. Secondly, the agreement also didn’t address the 20 percent uranium enrichment -- there is some language that this could be reconsidered, but the Iranians would still enrich uranium to 20 percent, which the Americans and Europeans are adamantly against. So they felt that this is just a ploy by Iran to continue its nuclear program and avoid sanctions. Having said that, the timing of the sanctions, at least on the part of the United States, was in part due to the fact that they had the votes in the UN. It was a practical decision. [UN] Ambassador Susan Rice and the State Department had spent many months trying to get China and Russia on board. And when they had the vote, it happened to coincide with the announcement a few days earlier of the Tehran declaration.

‘Tehran declaration could be a stepping stone to talking with Iran’

Do you think the Tehran declaration came too late?

Yes, it came too late.

It was a big issue in Turkey. Turkish officials said that they had been informing US officials about developments regarding the declaration and that they had support from the US to pursue it, and then they felt betrayed.

Turkey has a right to believe that the United States didn’t really act in good faith, because the messages Turkey was apparently receiving [indicated] that President Obama supported the declaration, and then suddenly it was discredited. More importantly, there is a bigger point, which is that Turkey can really serve as a broker and as an intermediary between the United States and Iran. It’s an important role and it shouldn’t be ignored. Turkey has had a relationship as a rival to Iran historically, but also now is in a good position in its relationship with Iran, which is normalized to a degree, to be this bridge. These two countries, Iran and the US, can’t communicate. There are profound reasons for that, cultural reasons. Most people in the US government don’t know that much about Iran, they don’t understand Iran. What they perceive is usually not true or misperception, and this is true for the other side, as well. There needs to be a regional player that can serve as a mediator, and Turkey is appropriate to do that.

Do you think there have been second thoughts in the US administration that it could have been a mistake to dismiss the Tehran declaration?

There has been reconsideration within the Obama administration that to dismiss the Tehran declaration outright was a mistake. There are now some reassessments that Turkey can play a role. The Tehran declaration could be a stepping stone to talking with the Iranians about the issues that the Americans and the Europeans want to talk about.

How was Turkey’s “no” in the vote on sanctions against Iran at the UN Security Council perceived in the United States, both in Congress and by the administration?

Congress was furious. When a delegation of Turkish officials came to the United States about six weeks ago, this is what they said in a private meeting some of us had with them: that some members of the Congress were furious. Generally, the feeling in Washington was that Turkey misbehaved as one of America’s allies. Unfortunately, that’s how it was viewed. That’s part of the disconnect between Washington and Ankara, that the United States still sees the region as it was in the 1990s. A lot of people in the US government do not understand the changing dynamics in this region, the rise of new powers, the new alliances in the region, even though the United States is involved in two wars in the region. They have difficulty in understanding how those wars changed the internal dynamics. Another problem is that there is such an overriding consensus in Washington that Iran is the enemy, and any state associated with the enemy is not good. For example, when we came together with the Turkish delegation, most of the questions were like, “How can you support this Ahmadinejad figure and condemn Netanyahu?” and “How can Turkey embrace this demon in Iran?” There is a lot of confusion about Turkey’s position. They don’t understand why Turkey would want to have a relationship with Iran.

Do they also think that Turkey is turning East and moving away from the West?

Yes, they do. If you read a lot of the main columns, Thomas Friedman wrote saying that Turkey is turning East. That’s a very simplistic and incorrect view of what’s happened.

Some observers, both in Turkey and abroad, express concern that Turkey might become like Iran in the future if the current Turkish government stays in power. What is your opinion about this idea?

There is so much economic development in this country. Turkey is completely interconnected with Europe and with different parts of the world. Iran is a very isolated country, which is how they can sustain this kind of system. Turkey is a modern country. I wouldn’t use that term to describe Iran. On the theological level, I don’t see any comparisons, either, because Iran is a pretty religious country and society. Turks are religious, too, but the difference is that there is much more of a separation here between religion and state. That’s not true in Iran.

Whether it’s Turkish policymakers or Turkish intellectuals or journalists, there needs to be more Turkish presence in Washington to explain Turkey’s role in the region. The region has changed; there are different alliances, different strategic relationships that the United States doesn’t often understand.

‘Extraordinary developments occur in Iran’

What would you say about domestic developments in Iran as a close observer of the country?

We’re running a task force between the Iranians who have close ties with the opposition and US officials and European officials. We have meetings with the opposition figures and the policymakers so the opposition can get their word out directly to policymakers. The main points are that even though the Green movement cannot take people out on the streets, there is a real opposition movement in Iran although we don’t know the percentage of it.

Is the opposition what is known as the “Green movement”?

People refer to the opposition as the “Green movement,” but it’s a misleading label because the opposition includes a lot of different sectors of society, not just people who follow [Mir-Hossein] Mousavi and [Mehdi] Karroubi. It involves some unions, women’s groups, teachers, university professors, and they may not be the followers of the Green movement. There are now different parts of the population that have grievances with the government. What happened in Iran is that there is now more political space for opposition groups even though this is not structured opposition. The opposition realizes that this is its weakness. The second important development is that the regime and the supreme leader in particular now have a problem of legitimacy. There is no empirical data on this, but a significant part of the population questions the credibility of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to lead an Islamic state. That was not true two years ago.

What is Ahmadinejad’s position in the eyes of the public?

As far as Ahmadinejad goes, he has been very clever at marginalizing his opponents. There is now a much smaller circle around him, but they are pretty unified. There is a lot of criticism against Ahmadinejad among conservatives, forget about the reformists or the Green movement. Another important development is that conservative clerics are now questioning Khamenei’s legitimacy as a religious leader, and are very much against how he has become too involved in the political system. Those developments are really extraordinary. Is this going to bring about a different system in the near future? Probably not, but this is going to lead to change over a long period of time.

‘US is tough but also extends olive branch to Tehran’

Abdo says the US administration is pursuing two policies toward Iran at once:

 “This is smart and should have happened at the beginning. One is the tough policy, sanctions and sometimes a tough rhetoric, but also extending an olive branch. There are two strategies at once and they hope they complement one another. But although we see a different tone coming from Iran, President Ahmadinejad inviting President Obama, and we see a different tone coming from the United States, we have to realize that for 30 years important people within the system have believed that it’s in their interest to have a hostile relationship with the United States.”