Turkey’s new foreign policy goal

Disagreements between the US and European countries, who before now have usually acted together in international crises, are greater than ever now. Their disagreement over Afghanistan used to be bigger but has since been solved. However, when it came to Iraq, things have become complicated. Many European countries, in particular France and Germany, opposed Washington’s decision to invade Iraq. In the beginning, Spain’s leadership stood with the US, and this caused a great split in Europe. However, Spain’s change of power changed its stance to that of other Europeans. The US-European disagreement on the Middle East seems to have deepened. Europe views the Palestinians sympathetically, whereas Washington has never swayed from its support for Ariel Sharon’s administration due to the US’ powerful Jewish lobby and its upcoming presidential elections. There differences recently began to show up in NATO.

Obviously Turkey is one country which was felt these US-Europe disputes. Turkey is on the frontlines of all these areas of crisis. The three big crises – Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East – are felt more in Turkey as instability or terrorism before Europe or the US. Ankara thinks joint efforts would solve these crises. Thus, the ever-present split between the US and Europe makes things harder for Turkish leaders. But Turkey has determined the basic element of its post-Sept. 11 foreign policy as ‘encouraging rapprochement between the US and Europe and fighting crises together.’ This policy had been considered, calculated and discussed, and agreement on it was reached by the military and civilian leaderships. This policy had previously been signalled by our prime minister and foreign minister but was also mentioned openly last week at a symposium held by the General Staff in Istanbul. Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug stated that the US and Europe have to act together in order to solve crises which make the world unstable. Turkey not only mentioned this strategy, but also took certain concrete steps coming from its hosting next month’s NATO summit. For example, Ankara suggested holding a NATO-European Union summit in Istanbul. This suggestion went nowhere, but Ankara didn’t give up. Now the Foreign Ministry is working on a ‘common strategy document’ whose aim is to identify crises and make a declaration of intent so Europe and the US will work in common. We will see the results of our efforts.”