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India wooing Turkey and Israel adds up
By K Gajendra Singh
During
his recent visit to Turkey, when questioned about the
"claims that the United States is working to create a
new axis between Turkey, India and Israel", Indian Prime
Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee replied that there was no
such proposal. He added, however, "Terrorism affects all
societies. There is an international struggle against
terrorism and India, Turkey and Israel are a part of
it." India has, though, felt the need to intensify
defense cooperation with Turkey, which has been "at a
lower level than what we would have liked".
During the Cold War era, Indian diplomats were
discouraged by the Turkish Foreign Office (TFO) to meet
with Turkish defense officers. By taking advantage of
the changed international environment in the mid-1990s,
the writer was able to meet (without any help from the
TFO) and invite General Ismail Hakki Karadayi, Turkey's
powerful Chief of General Staff (CGS) to visit India.
The CGS is one of the three pillars of power in
Turkish polity, along with the president and the prime
minister. At the time of his visit in early 1996,
Karadayi was trying to stop Najemettin Erbakan, the
leader of the largest Islamist party, from forming a
coalition government. The coalition was eventually
formed, though, but the military forced Erbakan to
resign in 1997.
Describing his Indian visit as
harike (splendid), Karadayi was much impressed by
what he saw; especially the political-military equation,
the information technology center, space research
organization and aircraft making industry, all in
Bangalore. Karadayi liked the garden city of Bangalore
and warned against it being spoilt.
The TFO
mandarins then put obstacles on follow up actions and
Karadayi's visit could not be reciprocated, although
ministers' visits were exchanged. The writer had
persuaded Karadayi's predecessor to send a Turkish
brigadier for training at New Delhi's prestigious
National Defense College, but India, instead of
accepting a return training seat, demanded cash payment.
Now, Vajpayee has offered 50 free scholarships
for such training programs in India. Certainly, the
attitude of both sides has now changed towards one of
promoting defense cooperation.
The idea of
bilateral Indian-Turkish, Indian-Israeli or even a
trilateral axis between the three under the overall
American umbrella has been encouraged and promoted by
the US since the collapse of the USSR in the late 1980s,
and after September 11, 2001, in particular.
Israel is a US watchdog in the Middle East to
guard American interests, and Turkey has been a North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally since the early
1950s. Although non-aligned, India was close to the USSR
during the Cold War. Now, with a billion-plus population
and huge market, India, with its million-strong army,
fits into the US scheme of having an ally to match
China.
This is necessary despite the US' ties
with Pakistan, as the latter is an unpredictable state
and has the potential to become even more of a hotbed of
jihadi activity, like Afghanistan. Did not the US
encourage Saddam Hussein against the rising juggernaut
of Ayatollah Khomeini's Shi'ite jihadis? Would India
play the same role against Pakistan, which was and
remains an unwilling US ally in the "war on terrorism"?
Pakistan also maintains a profitable axis with China.
Let us examine other alliances and defense or
anti-terrorism agreements in the Middle East.
Shah of Iran and the Israel
alliance
In the Middle East, the Shah of Iran was
the US' policeman until the 1979 Islamic revolution that
threw him out of power.
The US encouraged Israel
to have a secret alliance with Iran to make up for its
own sparse population, only 4 million Jews surrounded by
200 million Arabs who remained deeply resentful of
Israel's seizure and occupation of the West Bank, East
Jerusalem, Gaza, the Golan Heights and Sinai during the
1967 war.
Israel also sought cooperation with a
non-Arab, Muslim nation in the region, Turkey, but it
remained a secret one until the early 1990s. Israel's
secret alliance from 1972 with the Shah of course
disintegrated when he was forced to flee the country. By
overreaching himself, encouraged by the US, and spending
his impoverished country's new-found petroleum revenues
on arms instead of much-needed educational and other
infrastructure and social and economic reforms and
modernization, his downfall was assured.
Then
the US and the West encouraged and helped Iraq in its
devastating eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s.
Both nations might have evolved peacefully into
progressive and prosperous ones, but their turmoil
played into the hands of Israel, as the world's
attention was distracted from making it withdraw from
Arab lands in return for Arab recognition of Israel's
"right to live in peace within secure and recognized
boundaries free from threats or acts of force".
Turkey-Israel 'alliance'
Even during
Israel's 1967 war and after the 1973 war when the Arabs
exploited their oil weapon, Turkey did not disrupt its
relations with Israel. While there was no de facto
strategic alliance, there was close cooperation over
revolutionary students' movements, specially during the
1960s and 1970s. In 1971, Turkish students assassinated
the Israeli consul-general in Istanbul, a former senior
Mossad officer.
After the Cold War, Turkey,
especially its armed forces, felt a little left out, so
Ankara sold itself as a barrier between Europe and the
Middle East and the Caucasus, both cauldrons of
fundamentalism and chaos. Its informal alliance with
Israel was useful for this and the latter's influence
with Washington could be exploited for US grants of
sophisticated arms and equipment.
There may have
been some truth in the perceived threat perceptions, and
the arms to be used to counter such external threats,
but militarism was used to impose a Jacobin version of
secularism on the country to keep down leftists,
Islamists and Kurds. And much of the Turkish population
was not too happy.
However, in the November 2002
elections, the people had their say and the
Islamist-based Justice and Development Party (AKP) won a
whopping two-thirds majority in parliament. And over 90
percent of the population also opposed the US invasion
of Muslim Iraq, an escapade in which the Turkish
military was very keen to join.
In 1996, Turkey
and Israel went public and signed an agreement for
military cooperation. Much has written about this
evolving relationship, with some political analysts
calling it an "axis", an "entente", even an "alliance".
Naturally, criticism came from other Middle Eastern
countries which feared that the friendship was aimed at
hurting them.
In fact, at one Organization of
Islamic Conference (OIC) meeting in Doha, the Arabs
criticized Turkey so much that Turkish President
Suleyman Demirel left before the end of the summit.
Sensitive to such attacks, Turkish politicians and
diplomats point out that Turkey has concluded similar
military cooperation agreements with more than two dozen
states all over the world. Military cooperation with
Israel they asserted, was not directed against any other
state.
Of course there are no explicit
commitments for Israel or Turkey to assist one another
in the event of an armed conflict, and thus making it an
alliance. Rather, a careful interpretation of the
provisions of their agreement document shows that it
opened the door to a much enhanced cooperation between
the two countries - a cooperation that could reach the
levels of those reserved for real allies, as will be
shown below. And the Israelis would like to go much
further.
The open Israeli connection was made
possible by the dramatic changes in Turkey's
geo-strategic environment. During the long years of
bipolar Soviet-American rivalry, Turkey followed a
policy of "non-involvement" in the Middle East,
including Israel.
Being a member of NATO, it
relied exclusively on the US and its nuclear umbrella.
But the environment began to change in the late 1970s as
countries to its south and east began to acquire weapons
of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missiles. Still,
the historic enemy, the Soviet Union, topped its threat
perception and NATO provided a reassuring framework for
military planners.
Of course, Turkey did not
face any threats from the Middle East, but even if it
did, Ankara could not be certain whether NATO would
invoke Article 5 of the Washington Treaty of 1949. In
that article, the allies agreed "that an attack against
one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be
considered an attack against them all". Nevertheless,
Turkey's geographic position always left open the
question of whether its NATO allies were totally
committed to its Asian frontiers.
But in fact
Turkey did not fear aggression from the Middle East,
rather it feared being dragged into the Middle East's
internal conflicts, especially between Israel and the
Arab states. The Turkish concern was right, based on the
American commitment to Israel, as demonstrated in the
midst of the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, when the US went
to the brink of war with the USSR for Israel.
A
cardinal principle of Turkish foreign policy has been to
avoid taking sides in the Arab-Israeli dispute. The
Turkish military did not want to be placed in a
situation in which it might be expected to assist in US
operations to help Israel.
But Turkey was not
opposed to Western efforts to institutionalize
cooperation among the states of the "northern tier" -
Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The so-called
Baghdad Pact of 1955, the Central Treaty Organization of
1959, and the Regional Cooperation for Development
(RCD), established in 1964, were all intended to counter
Soviet penetration. They were flawed, weak and
ineffectual - and reminded Turkey of the primacy of its
ties to Europe.
Anyway, Turkey was strong enough
to deter potential Middle Eastern threats on its own. In
fact, it wanted to decide for itself how and when to
defend its interests in the region, without having to
answer either to Europe or the US. Turkey was much
incensed when in 1965 US president Lyndon B Johnson
forbade the use of NATO arms against possible
intervention in Cyprus. But Turkey did intervene in
1974, when Cyprus declared unity with Greece, and its
troops still remain there.
The threats
multiply
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in
1989, potential threats to Turkey from the Middle East
have grown, with many Middle Eastern countries acquiring
stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and
arsenals of ballistic missiles.
Beyond potential
threats from such states, terrorist groups like the
Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) - which is fighting for a
Kurdish state in the southeast of Turkey - and others
are another menace. Then September 11 made things even
more complicated. Many people argue that Israel's
nuclear capabilities are the driving force behind the
efforts of Syria, Iraq (latterly) and Iran to develop
non-conventional capabilities. This is true. But no one
can rule out Syrian or Iranian capabilities being turned
against Turkey rather than Israel. Territorial claims,
such as water disputes, continue to bedevil Turkish
relations with its Middle Eastern neighbors, and these
could escalate into armed conflict.
With the US
and Israel building missile defenses, the latter against
Middle Eastern neighbors to provide an umbrella, Turkey
feels tempted to join it, specially to protect its
southeastern region. It could be through NATO, or
through bilateral cooperation with the US; or on a
trilateral basis with the US and Israel. Turkish
planners have been impressed by Israel's Arrow missile
system, designed to counter the same immediate
neighbors. An informal pact, linking it with the US and
Israel, is very appealing.
The quid pro
quo
For military cooperation and technology
transfer, Turkey has to cater to Israel's peculiar
security needs. Israel needs space. With its nuclear
capabilities, and a missile shield based on the Arrow,
Israel, a small country, remains vulnerable to a
large-scale ballistic missile attack because of the
density of its population, and the concentration of its
military facilities, as even a single missile tipped
with a chemical, biological or nuclear warhead could
wreak immense damage.
So Israel seeks the
capacity to destroy enemy missiles before their launch,
or soon thereafter, for which Turkey can provide its air
space, which borders Iran, Iraq and Syria. Were any of
these countries preparing to launch missiles against
Israel, Jerusalem could ask Turkey for permission to use
Turkish air space to deliver preemptive or preventive
strikes against ballistic missile launching sites. Now
fighter-based, Israel is procuring long-range bombers
that could do the job from high altitude. Israel also
needs off-shore strategic depth to sustain a credible
and secure second-strike capability. In a crisis, it
will need foreign safe havens for its submarines and
surface ships, again which Turkey could provide.
The basis for this kind of cooperation exists in
the 1996 accord. Either country can deploy or
temporarily station its land, air and naval forces in
the other country. For that purpose, they can use one
another's air space, airports and ports. So while Turkey
receives technology, Israel gets strategic depth in
return.
But the Turkish government and the
bureaucracy have preferred to downplay ties with Israel.
Set by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s, Turkey aims for full
integration into Western Europe, and it has made many
constitutional changes to conform to European norms,
including to its foreign and defense policy. But
European policy towards the Middle East is one of
delicate balancing, and with the AKP government now in
power this is going to be difficult.
Traditionally, the Turkish military has always
followed its own policies, even when Erbakan was prime
minister. So now problems could arise.
Many
joint military, naval and air exercises have been
carried out since 1996. For example, the so-called
"Anatolian Eagle" took place in central Anatolia in
early July 2001. It included air force units of Turkey,
Israel and the US, and the air defense systems of all
three countries. The exercise simulated defense as well
as combat operations against a comprehensive air attack.
"Anatolian Eagle" involved 46 Turkish aircraft of
various categories; 10 Israeli F-16 fighter aircraft, as
well as two tanker aircraft and helicopters; and six US
F-16 fighter aircraft.
Such trilateral military
exercises have put in place a mechanism for advanced
coordination against an earlier policy of
non-involvement in US plans designed to back up Israel
because of the threat of WMD and ballistic missiles.
Europe is too distant and remains ill organized on its
plans for a so-called defense force, of which the US
disapproves.
The main problem is the
exacerbation of Israeli-Palestinian tensions, and
particularly their media coverage. Most Turks may not
have much sympathy for Arabs in general; they are
regarded as back-stabbers for their betrayal of the
Ottoman Empire in World War I, but the Palestinian cause
has always had supporters on the religious right and the
"progressive" left, and even in the Turkish mainstream.
The Palestinians remained faithful to the
Ottoman Empire through World War I, and many had held
high Ottoman posts and intermarried with Turks. Media
coverage of the Palestinian intifada has deeply affected
much of the Turkish public, and the Turkish military
will thus have resistance to upgrade military relations
with Israel.
There are problems with neighbors.
Syria will not abandon its territorial claims in
Antakia. Nor will Syria and Iraq abandon their claims on
the Turkish waters of the Tigris and Euphrates. Iran
will not give up its historic hostility, more so to the
democratic and secular Turkish state. All of these
problems existed long before the strengthening of
Turkish-Israeli relations. Whatever else Turks may say
about Israel, it makes no claims and poses no threat to
Turkey. Not perfect, but a good ally in the region.
Turkey's historic relations with Jews and
Arabs
Throughout history, Turks had good
relations with Jews. When they were expelled from Spain,
the Ottoman empire gave them shelter. Even after the
gut-wrenching events of World War I, when the Ottoman
empire collapsed, Armenians were massacred, Christians
exchanged with the Greeks, the Jews continued to live in
Turkey, mostly in Istanbul. They provided the financial
acumen that earlier Armenians and Christians had in
trade and industry. It took Turks 60 years to take to
trade and industry, in the 1980s under Turgut Ozal.
Before that, a Turk hoped to become a soldier, a
policemen or a mudurbay (office boss) in some
ministry or government department.
And
throughout history there has been no love lost between
Arabs and the Turkic people. With squabbles among them,
many Turks joke that Arabs, their subjects for half
millennium, were never ruled better than from Istanbul's
Sublime Porte. Turks have never forgiven them for the
revolt led by Lawrence of Arabia. The Sultan Caliph was
the guardian of sacred Muslim shrines in Mecca, Medina
and Jerusalem. In fact, for Ottomans, Turk was a
derogatory term for country yokels until Ataturk gave it
dignity.
Many in the current ruling Turkish
elite are descendents of Slav and other non-Turkish
converts, and slaves called Janissaries, as the Ottomans
ruled over Balkans too, leaving Bosnia and Kosovo as
residuary problems. Ethnic Turkomens from Central Asia
perhaps form around 15 percent of Turkey's population.
India-Israeli cooperation
Some Western
analysts commenting on the just-concluded first-ever
visit to India by Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
observed that it was terrorism that had brought the two
countries closer. They say that Israeli help and tactics
will help India succeed against terror.
This
might be partly true, but the drawing together of the
two countries could also bring terrorism even closer to
home, as it has in Israel. Israelis have become
accustomed to living under siege because of the
country's history and policies.
The Israelis did
not trust the Indian security establishment during
Sharon's visit, and it took the extraordinary step of
checking the weapons and firing pins of the Indian
ceremonial guard of honor at the Rashtrapati Bhavan
(president's palace) - not satisfied with the assurances
provided by the hosts. And despite the total asymmetry
between Palestinians and Israelis in the matter of arms,
even during Sharon's stay in Delhi, Hamas struck twice
in Tel Aviv, killing 15 people, forcing Sharon to cut
short his visit.
While the Palestinian struggle
is for a homeland, with little participation by others,
the cross-border terrorism supported by Pakistan is a
different matter.
While India is buying military
hardware and other security requirements from Israel,
and coordinating on security matters, its economic,
manpower, communications and other relations with the
Arab and Islamic world are too deeply rooted in history,
culture and ethos to be ignored.
The Sharon
visit was marked by demonstrations all over India, many
calling him a "murderer with no place in the land of
Mahatma Gandhi". Protestors called on the government to
adhere to its policy of support for the Palestinian
struggle for self-rule. There were many write ups
against the visit and Sharon's policies in the Indian
media. Opposition parties from the left of center
organized street protests. The opposition Congress party
said that it would not join in the protests, but made it
very clear that the party's position of supporting the
Palestine cause and an independent state of Palestine
remained undiluted. "It is a well-established convention
that the leader of the opposition calls on a visiting
head of a state/government. This convention will be
observed when Sharon visits the country," explained
party spokesperson Anand Sharma.
Bilateral
cooperation
Vajpayee said that Sharon's visit
would boost military and trade ties, but added that
India's support of the Palestinian cause would not be
diluted. Israel has now entered into a free trade
agreement (FTA) with India. It already has similar
agreements with the European Union and the US.
The Confederation of Indian Industry and the
Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute
and the Manufacturers' Association of Israel have set up
an Indo-Israel CEOs forum, comprising senior business
heads from both countries to promote trade and economic
relations. It will initially meet annually. While India
and Israel signed six agreements to strengthen
educational, environmental, medical and cultural
exchanges, and agreed to work jointly to combat drug
trafficking, counterterrorism and military hardware
sales were the major focus of cooperation.
Israel Aircraft Industries and the Indian
Defense Ministry signed a US$1 billion contract, with
Israel now becoming, along with Russia, the country's
major supplier of arms. It was announced that Israel
would provide India with three Phalcon systems. The
Phalcon is an Israeli-developed long-range radar warning
and control system that will be installed on a Russian
Ilyushin-76 cargo plane. Identical to the US Airborne
Warning and Control Systems (AWACS), it incorporates
American technology and is therefore subject to US veto
on its transfer to a third party. This will strengthen
India's military capability and bring large parts of
neighboring Pakistan under Indian surveillance. The US
permitted the transfer despite Pakistan's objections.
Permission to sell the equipment to China was denied
last year. India will also get the Arrow antiballistic
missile system, also developed jointly by Israel and the
US, and other systems. Many deals were struck in the
area of counterinsurgency measures. India will also
deploy sensors to track the movement of infiltrators
across its border with Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Both the US and Israel can supply these.
US-Israel-India axis According to
conventional wisdom, on September 11, 2001, in New
Delhi, Israeli defense and intelligence officials, led
by National Security Advisor Uzi Dayan, were meeting
with their Indian counterparts to discuss common threats
facing the countries. It was then that the foundations
were laid for the "axis". The Indian Ministry of
External Affairs described the talks as routine, part of
a larger, ongoing "strategic dialogue" with Israel on
topics ranging from Afghan terrorism to Iranian missile
development.
In May, at the Washington Foreign Press
Center, US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice
underlined that "our relationship with India is a broad
and deepening relationship. It goes beyond security
matters. It goes beyond proliferation issues. It goes
beyond regional issues. And this president [George W
Bush] is dedicated to strengthening and broadening the
Indian relationship to make it in accordance with the
fact that India is the world's largest democracy."
It is believed that India's National Security
Adviser, Brajesh Chandra Mishra, is the force behind the
axis between the US, Israel and India as he presented
this idea to senior Israeli officials in 2000. It was
also discussed during the visits of Israeli Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres in August 2000 and January 2001.
While the Clinton administration was not averse to the
idea in principle, it was not enthusiastic because it
feared that the proposed alliance could antagonize
China.
The axis idea cropped up again after
September 11 and the Bush administration gave it the
go-ahead signal. The axis was publicly broached this
year by Brajesh Mishra in Washington at the annual
meeting of the American Jewish Committee, where many
American congressmen were also present. After
emphasizing the similarities between the three
countries, he said, "India, the US and Israel have some
fundamental similarities. We are all democracies,
sharing a common vision of pluralism, tolerance and
equal opportunity. Stronger India-US relations and
India-Israel relations have [therefore] a natural
logic." He then called for the establishment of a
US-Israel-India axis to fight "the menace of global
terrorism" by military means, ie "fight terror with
terror". This "can take on international terrorism in a
holistic and focused manner ... to ensure that the
global campaign against terrorism is pursued to its
logical conclusion, and does not run out of steam
because of other preoccupations. We owe this commitment
to our future generations".
Mishra's proposal
was warmly welcomed by US officials and the pro-Israeli
lobby and could lead to a major orientation in the
balance of power not only in the Indian sub-continent
but in the region, including the Middle East. Jews and
ethnic-Indian Americans are coming together in the US,
starting with the Jewish and Indian American lobbyists
teaming up when the US House passed a $3 billion aid
package for Pakistan, tagging on an amendment linking
the aid to Pakistan stopping Islamic militants from
crossing into India. There is now a burgeoning political
alliance between Indians and Jews in the United States.
Despite their obvious differences, the alliance
has the potential to increase the clout of the two
communities that are relatively small - about 5.2
million Jews and 1.8 million Indians - but highly
educated, affluent and attached to democratic homelands
facing what they increasingly view as a common enemy.
The pro-Israel and pro-India lobbyists successfully
worked together to gain the Bush administration's
approval for Israel to sell the Phalcon early warning
radar planes to India and now US approval for India to
purchase Israel's Arrow ballistic missile defense
system. The coalition of groups include the US-India
Political Action Committee, the America Israel Political
Action Committee and the American Jewish Committee
(AJC). The AJC, for example, has sent seven delegations
to India since 1995, and two years ago it took a group
of Indian American leaders to visit Israel. So far, the
Jewish-Indian alliance in the US has focused on foreign
policy. But the two communities also have combined
forces on electoral politics to defeat those whom they
perceive as antagonistic both to Israel and to India.
This idea of the axis is not without its
critics. The Qatar-based al-Jazeera television station,
in a report titled "Anti-Islam axis goes nuclear", said
on September 23, "Heightened technology sharing between
Israel and India may soon see both countries transfer
their nuclear capability to state-of-the-art attack
submarines patrolling far offshore. A clandestine
program to develop a new generation of potentially
nuclear-capable hardware could see the first finished
submarine models rolling off the production line within
years, according to intelligence sources. The program to
fast-track production of a new wave of submarines comes
as the latest move to forge a new Indo-Israeli military
and intelligence 'axis'."
While al-Jazeera
provides refreshingly positive coverage of the events in
the Arab world, compared for example to Fox and even
CNN, such comments are Arab-Muslim centered and somewhat
ill advised. The Palestinian struggle is national and
not religious. Most Turkic-speaking countries from the
borders of China to the Mediterranean, which are Muslim,
have excellent relations with Israel, with Turkey having
almost an alliance with Israel since 1996, as described
above.
The world is ever-changing, and these new
alliances reflect these changes - and they certainly do
not indicate any "anti-Islam" move as al-Jazeera would
suggest.
K Gajendra Singh, Indian
ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey
from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served
terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He
is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic
Studies. Email Gajendrak@hotmail.com
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.
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