I have asked Middle East policy of Turkey to Prof. Dr. Engin Berber, Head of the Department of Diplomatic History of Ege University Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences..
Where is Turkey in the Middle East? How the region should be looked at?
E. Berber. Turkey is a part of Middle East Geography. In this geography where it had been a hegemon for centuries, it has historical and cultural connections with communities live in Caucasia and The Balkans. Therefore, it’s normal for it to be interested in opportunities and problems of the Middle East. The thing must be avoided is acting like hegemon of the region again. It’s unfavorable in many ways. 1. Age of empires is ended long ago. 2. the most crowded community of the region is not Turks but Arabs. 3. There are other countries who attempted to become master of the region like Egypt and İran who had a desire to be the master recently. 4. As the relations of Turkey and Israel become normalized, for Middle East on the street, it is an inevitable condition for shining Turk and Turkey image to extinguish. 5. Turkey tried this in 1950s, and was unable to keep up.
Due to hydrocarbon deposits, Middle East is a region is focus of interest for major powers. External interferences like redirecting governments of region’s countries and altering them with various mechanisms make solutions to existing problems impossible. These problems are: Acceptance of Israel by Arabs and removal of uncertainty about future of Kurdish people which is a particular concert to Palestine and Turkey. The critical thing for me is, calculating to which degree Turkey should be included in these problems well.
In “Arab Spring”, but not a spring for me, the process where the East changed authoritarian and aged powers of certain Middle East countries which continue to exist thanks to West (therefore bound connected to it) changed with new ones, Turkey stayed distant to the region and didn’t bring itself to foreground. When we look our relations with Syria, we see that Turkey changed its approach. Against Syria, where West avoided intervening due to Russia, China and Iran, I believe that Turkey is brought forward as a pawn.
It opens its borders to immigrants it dispatches weapons to opposing forces. It seems that Beşar ruling will be more resistant than that fallen on Egypt, Tunis, Libya. Turkey should have seen that the governing power in Damascus wouldn’t fall before the countries supporting Syria were convinced. Briefly, Turkey hastened a little while coming to foreground. It shouldn’t be forgotten that in chess pawns rarely win the game.
Could the pressure Beşar Esad made on his own people drive Turkey to do like this?
E. Berber. AKP government was getting on pretty well with Damascus once. They even conducted a meeting of council of ministers; Beşar visited Turkey with his wife. I remember partisan press overpraised them. Was Beşar acting better to his people then when compared to today? Why did practices of Syria Government that formerly didn’t disturb the government in Turkey became disturbing suddenly? I want to tell that, the position Turkey got against Syria does not originate from itself.
Does it mean that Turkey should not support Syria opposition but support Esad?
E. Berber. I didn’t tell that. The thing I want to tell is Turkey hastened while determining a position against Syria. Even I don’t believe in its existence, the international community is not in consensus that government in Damascus should go.
Is there anything you want to add about Middle East policy of Turkey?
E. Berber. When looking at the region, Turkey shouldn’t wear ideological eyeglasses. The government governing Turkey approaches to Middle East countries in parallel to its view of Islam religion. It stays closer to countries that practice Islam more radically like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but stays distant to countries closer to the West. Look at the visits of Erdoğan in this geography.
As far as I remember, prime minister visited Qatar eight times. His visits to Islam countries on the north of Africa are much less. There are certain actors in Middle East that, it’s impossible to gain a place without opposing them, and Iran is most important of them. On the region, Islam religion is only Muslims from Shia communion and the kiblah governors turn to is Tehran and Iran ulama.
As far as I see, Turkey cannot act with ease. It’s continuously being directed by USA. What can be done to overcome this situation?
E. Berber. I really accept the idea of Marxists that “Everything starts with economics, others are dependent variables”. Foreign politics of a country is directly proportional with its economic power primarily. Turkey, being one of the large economies of the world in view of the goods and services it produces, does not distribute its income to its people in well. Traditional and religious mechanism that prevent a social explosion (families’ being able to adopt a child at any age, soup kitchens, poverty funds, real or monetary municipal aids) may not work in the medium term.
It is theoretically impossible to accept Turkey as a country undergoing an internal war that is not declared but everyone accepted it has an economic dimension, but with this burden of debt, it is impossible to adopt an independent foreign policy. During 1960’s and 1970’s there were times Turkey had shown honorable stances against USA. But it shouldn’t be forgotten that in these dates cold war was eased off and Turk-Soviet relations were better.
Its off-topic but is the reason we can’t join EU is that we can’t solve our own problems?
E. Berber. No, if the countries member of the union were completely successful at solving their internal problems, what you said would be true. Among the countries that are member of EU, there are ones who do not want membership of Turkey. At the top of their reasons comes the expectation that they will experience problems while assimilating crowded population of Turkey with different religions. On the other hand, we shouldn’t forget that racism and fascism fearlessly show up in streets and politics of Europe in last years.
Don’t you remember Solingen scandal aiming Turks? Doubtlessly, Turkey with its internal problems solved can pass through gates of EU more quickly; can become a more powerful regional actor. On the other hand, EU is experiencing difficulties of writing members despite it does not fit the criteria due to politic reasons. I must confess that, for a period of time, I think that this condition is a plan aiming robbing Germany under the name of consolidating its internal hegemony and rescuing fallen members. What I see is, EU’s door may no more be knocked for Turkey and for members it may no more be a country worth living in.
What do you tell about Israel’s making apology to Turkey?
E. Berber. I tell that it’s work of USA. Therefore USA enjoyed the best of both worlds. It gave the message of ‘Israel no longer looks from the security window, it can even make apology to a Muslim country’ to its new dependents governing Arab countries whose political governing bodies are changed by it in some way.
On the other hand, for next general elections, it granted AKP a visa for another five years. Therefore, Israel, which became lonely in Middle East, will be included in the game again. Erdoğan became ‘the prime minister brought Israel to heel’. Think that PKK did not fire any gun until elections. He will also become ‘the prime minister brought peace’. It’s as I told on an interview I had with a newspaper, I would never wish to be in place of the opposition in Turkey in these days. In case peace process gets deeper, it may be expected from government to grant a general amnesty and make some arrangements that will make martyr families and veterans happy.
Thank you so much for the information you gave teacher. In conclusion, do you think your students are equipped in the point of solving kind of problems we have talked about?
E. Berber. Undergraduate education in the university gives the student what is basic, not everything. The rest is up to student. But if you ask if it can teach the basics, I’m not sure. On a class of eighty students, it’s impossible to break the traditional education approach and make practices where the student is a participative part of the process (homework, presentations with follow-up, etc.). It’s also very difficult to overcome colleagues who think that including tools that are product of technology in education is education itself!
The fact that physical possibilities are limited, the inadequacies originating from educational staff, etc… But for me, what more important than them is about management of Universities in Turkey: Their still not being aware of the fact that there won’t be a higher education institution that produces science and that is free on a country where there’s no freedom of thought. I greet my students with love who see learning as a vital requirement…
