Turkey peculiarly absent from
Tehran By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Ankara has decided to boycott this week's
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran, which
has been much maligned in the Western media
despite the summit's potential to contribute to
mediation efforts on the conflict in Syria. By all
indications, this decision reflects a low point in
Turkish foreign policy.
Despite a personal
invitation by Iran's President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, Turkish President Abdullah Gul has
cited personal health and scheduling conflict.
Even the resourceful Foreign
minister Ahmet Davutoglu has
baulked at the idea of attending the summit, which
brings dozens of leaders from the South to discuss
their issues, including regional conflicts such as
Syria. [1]
Tehran has called for a serious
discussion of the Syrian conflict on the summit's
sideline, in light of the participation of Egypt's
President Mohammed Morsi, who has proposed a Syria
contact group consisting of Turkey, Egypt, Saudi
Arabia and Iran. Instead of welcoming this
opportunity, the Turkish leadership has chosen to
ignore it and, instead, focus on its "regime
change" strategy vis-a-vis Damascus that is
inching closer to the "no-fly" option by the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Ankara's decision will be viewed
negatively by both Tehran and even Cairo, which
unlike Turkey's desire to toe NATO's policy in the
Middle East, is eager to play an independent role
that mandates conflict mediation in a fellow Arab
country. The latest report from Egypt indicates
that Cairo was hoping to hold a meeting on Syria
with the quartet (ie Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia
and Egypt), but that is a long shot given Turkey's
non-cooperative behavior.
The trouble with
Turkey's Syria policy is that it is short-sighted
and incapable of factoring in the likely
ramifications of a no-fly zone in exacerbating its
problems with the regime in Damascus and Syria's
regional allies such as Iran and Russia - for
example, it risks becoming the recipient of much
greater heat on its Kurdish problem, in light of
Damascus' decision to play the "Kurdish card"
against Ankara.
A prudent Turkish approach
would have been to endorse Morsi's above-mentioned
plan, which was unveiled at the recent Mecca
meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation
(OIC), and thus agree to work with Iran to support
the United Nations' renewed effort at creating a
dialogue between the government and the opposition
in Syria.
By participating at a high level
at the Tehran summit, Turkey could have taken a
timely proactive step toward a regional approach
on the conflict. Its decision to opt instead for
NATO's militaristic solution-in-making, among
other consequences, widens the political rift at
home between the government and the political
opposition, which favors a more independent
Turkish foreign policy.
If the present
pattern of Turkish foreign policy continues, then
we are likely to witness a qualitative deepening
of Turkey's problems with its neighbors (and near
neighbors) in the near future, including Iraq,
Russia and Iran. This is particularly unfortunate
for Davutoglu, who told this author at a
conference in Istanbul last year that he was "very
optimistic" about the future of Turkey's relations
with Iran.
It is impossible to ignore a
thickening air of cynicism, even doom and gloom,
now surrounding Iran-Turkey relations,
particularly since Ankara stubbornly refused to
admit a role for Iran in the diplomatic efforts
regarding Syria (see Missteps
in Turkey's neighborly ties", Asia Times
Online, October 12, 2011).
According to a
Tehran University political science professor who
spoke with the author on the condition of
anonymity, the mere chance that Syria's President
Bashar al-Assad may participate at the NAM summit
must have contributed to the Turkish leaders'
collective decision to stay away "simply because
they have completely written him [Assad] off and
therefore they cannot reconcile themselves with
the fact that Assad has survived and will be
around no matter how much they dislike him."
As of writing, the Iranian authorities
were tight-lipped about Assad's participation at
the Tehran summit, saying only that a Syrian
"higher than the foreign minister" will be coming
to Tehran along with Foreign Minister Walid
Muallem.
In the event that Assad does show
up, it is a small gamble by Tehran, hoping that he
will be able to present his case to the NAM
nations and thus shore up international support.
At any rate, Damascus is not about to fall, and
all the vital signs indicate the likelihood of an
ongoing political stalemate in Syria that requires
mediation effort by regional players.
Ankara's refusal to accept this simple
fact is costly to Turkey itself, since it reflects
the country's substitution of political realism
with the wish list on Syria, indicating a deep
identity gap in the Turkish political system and
its contradictory existence as a nodal point
between East and West.
Yet, in many ways
Turkey is just another Middle Eastern developing
nation, not an advanced European nation, and this
in turn gives plenty of stimulus for Turkey to
join or become an observer at the NAM. Maybe then
the Turkish leaders would begin cherishing NAM's
core principles in terms of independent foreign
policy.
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