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Can Turkey combine EU accessionand regional leadership?

By Katinka Barysch

A decade ago, Turkey was largely isolated in itsregion and its relations with neighbours such asArmenia, Greece and Syria were fraught. Today,Turkey is one of the region’s most successful andinfluential countries. It is building stronger ties withthe countries around its borders – Iraq, Iran, Syria,Russia, even Armenia – under what the country’sforeign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, describes as a‘zero problems with the neighbours’ policy. Ankarahas also taken the diplomatic initiative to manage ormediate long-standing conflicts in the region. Tradeand business links between Turkey and itsneighbours have been flourishing. Turkey says itwants, and is able, to spread stability and prosperityacross its borders.

While Turkey’s relations with the countries of theMiddle East, Caucasus and Central Asia areimproving, its relationship with the European Unionis heading for deadlock. Although the EU and Turkeyavoided a crisis over Cyprus in December 2009, theaccession negotiations have slowed to a snail’s pace.The EU has suspended some parts of the talks, whileseveral EU governments are blocking other bits.

Although Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel are nolonger openly calling for a ‘privileged partnership’,two-thirds of French andGermans are against anyfurther enlargement of theEU.1 Most Turks still want tojoin the EU. But a big majority thinks their countrywill never be let in, even if it fulfils the accessioncriteria. The government in Ankara claims it remainscommitted to accession, but its enthusiasm forreforms has waned.

Turkey’s traditionally strong ties to the West seem tobe slackening. Ankara’s relations with the US haveimproved since Barack Obama replaced George WBush in the White House – but not as much as manypeople had expected. Turkish soldiers are servingalongside NATO allies in Afghanistan but Turkey’srole in the alliance remains awkward. Turkey’spreviously solid bond with Israel came under strain in2009. Recent statements from Recep Tayyip Erdogan,Turkey’s usually pragmatic prime minister, havepuzzled western allies: Erdogan called MahmoudAhmedinejad “a friend”, dismissed worries about

★ The looming deadlock in Turkey’s EU accession bid stands in contrast with its increasingly activerole in the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Over the last few years, Turkey has builtstronger links with its neighbours and sought to become a regional peace-maker and mediator.

★ Turkish leaders insist that their country’s growing regional clout makes it a more valuableaddition to the EU. But some observers worry that Ankara is turning away from the West and isinstead pursuing a ‘neo-Ottoman’ or ‘Islamist’ foreign policy.

★ Turkey’s EU aspirations and its re-emergence as a regional power are not necessarilyincompatible. But Turkey needs to maintain its strong westward orientation and continue itsinternal modernisation in order to become a strong and respected regional player.

★ The EU, meanwhile, needs to keep Turkey’s membership talks moving forward. It should find away of co-operating with Ankara in foreign policy that goes beyond the narrow confines of theaccession process. The EU’s new High Representative should establish a regular foreign policydialogue with the Turkish foreign minister.

1 European Commission,‘Standard eurobarometer 71’,September 2009.

Iran’s nuclear programme as “gossip”, and seemed toexonerate Sudan’s leader Omar al-Bashir by sayingthat “Muslims don’t commit genocide”. Erdogan’slast-minute attempt to foil the appointment of AndersFogh Rasmussen as NATO secretary-general mademany Europeans and Americans cross.

Some commentators concludethat Turkey is turning awayfrom the West and towards theEast.2 Ankara’s priority, theysay, is no longer EU accessionand working alongside NATOallies, but pursuing a ‘neo-Ottoman’ foreign policy

designed to restore Turkey’s regional predominance,give it ‘soft power’ among Muslim nations and turn itinto an independent player in a multipolar world.While European governments are obstructingTurkey’s EU bid and the Obama administration triesto figure out how to handle a Turkey that is no longercontent to be a junior partner, Ankara is looking forfriends elsewhere.

The perceived shift in Turkish foreign policy worriesmany Europeans and Americans, for two reasons.First, Turkey’s growing ties with regimes shunned bythe West – those of Syria, Iran, Sudan, as well asHamas – could undermine western foreign policyobjectives. Turkey may help such regimes to overcometheir sense of international isolation and shield themfrom western pressure. Turkey, in other words, mayno longer be a reliable ally of the West.

Second, some observers suspect that Turkey’s strongerties with the Middle East and the former Soviet Unionare the outward manifestation of worrisome trendswithin Turkey. The Kemalist opposition in Ankaraaccuses the ruling Justice and Development Party(AKP) of pursuing a creeping Islamisation of Turkishpolitics and society, while more liberal types detect aroll-back of democratic freedoms and civil rights.Critics say that the AKP no longer aspires tomodernise the country and therefore prefers strongerties with autocratic and Islamist regimes. They predictthat if the EU anchor is left to drag, Turkey will bemore open to non-western, perhaps radical,tendencies coming from its south and east.

Such views are simplistic. Turkey does not face aclear-cut choice between West and East. SuatKiniklioglu, an AKP foreign policy spokesman,compares Turkey to Janus, the Roman god of gates,doorways, beginnings and endings: “Turkey today is

a Janus-like geography thatoffers gates and doorways tothe East and West.”3 He isright: Turkey should be able to

combine its growing regional role with its EUaspirations and its allegiance to NATO – providedthat it continues its internal modernisation and daresto stand up for values such as democracy andtolerance when dealing with less liberal neighbours.

The EU, meanwhile, should stop seeing Turkeyexclusively as an applicant expected to follow EUpositions unilaterally. Paradoxically, the accessionframework does not offer enough scope for Turkeyand the EU to develop their foreign policy co-operation in a way that would make Turkey feel morevalued and allow the EU to take advantage ofTurkey’s growing international clout. The EU facessimilar dilemmas in energy and security policy, otherareas where more constructive co-operation betweenTurkey and the EU would have a positive impact onthe overall relationship and could thus help to revivethe accession process. For the EU, treating Turkeymore as an equal partner in some questions whilekeeping the accession talks on track will be tricky. Butan EU that wants to be a big foreign policy playermust at least try.

The state of the accession talks

AKP politicians and Turkish foreign ministry officialsinsist that they remain fully committed to getting theircountry ready for EU membership as soon as possible.At the beginning of 2009, the government finallyappointed an EU chief negotiator (a job previouslyhandled by Turkey’s overstretched foreign minister),and parliament passed the long-overdue ‘nationalprogramme for the adoption of the acquis’, a blue-print for the reforms needed to get into the Union.

The government has continued to make progresstowards fulfilling some long-standing EU demands.For example, it has amended article 301 of the penalcode (under which scores of writers had beenprosecuted for insulting “Turkishness”); cut back thepowers of military courts; set up a parliamentarycommittee for women’s rights; made life a little easierfor non-Muslim religious communities; and adoptedplans for improving the judiciary and clamping downon the black economy. The European Commissionacknowledges such steps in itslatest update on Turkish EUaccession preparations.4 Italso welcomed various policychanges that are not directly related to the EUaccession process, such as the rapprochement withArmenia, continued macro-economic stability, thesmooth conduct of the March 2009 regionalelections, and plans to address the Kurdish issue in amore comprehensive way.

However, the unresolved status of the divided islandof Cyprus could be a time bomb under Turkey’saccession path. The 2005 ‘Ankara protocol’ requiresTurkey to extend the customs union it has had withthe EU since 1996 to all the countries that joined theEU in 2004 and 2007. The EU takes that to mean thatTurkey should open its ports and airports to ships andplanes from Cyprus. Turkey has so far refused to doso, arguing that such transport-related issues do notautomatically fall under customs union rules. Morefundamentally, Ankara insists that it will not move on

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2 See for example SonerCagaptay, ‘Turkey’s turn fromthe West’, The WashingtonPost, February 2nd 2009;Alistair Crooke, ‘Turkey’s shifting diplomacy’, New YorkTimes, November 28th 2009.

3 Suat Kiniklioglu, ‘Neo-Ottoman Turkey?’, ProjectSyndicate, December 3rd 2009.

4 European Commission,‘Turkey 2009 progress report’,October 2009.

port opening until the EU allows the northern(Turkish) part of Cyprus to trade directly with EUcountries. EU leaders promised to do so in 2004 butthe necessary regulation has since been blocked by the(Greek) Cypriot government. Turkish politicians saythat until and unless the EU implements its promise,it does not feel bound by its commitments under theAnkara protocol.

In 2006 EU leaders decided on a set of sanctions topush Ankara on the port opening issue. They saidTurkey would not be allowed to open negotiations ineight of the 35 policy areas, or chapters, that it needsto plough through before it can join (the eightchapters suspended cover areas broadly related to thecustom union). The country could open otherchapters, but it would not be able to close them. Theyadded that they would “review the situation in 2007,2008 and 2009”.

Some EU politicians took 2009 to be a deadline andcalled for the negotiations to be suspended entirelyunless Ankara opened its ports. At their December2009 Council meeting, EU leaders decided to keep theexisting sanctions in place but to let the accessionprocess continue. They knew that had they called offthe accession talks, Ankara would have withdrawn itssupport for the ongoing negotiations aimed atreaching a permanent settlement in Cyprus. So theypromised to review the situation once again in 2010,hoping that the two sides in Cyprus may have founda solution by then.

The prospects for this are decidedly mixed. DimitrisChristofias and Mehmet Ali Talat, the presidents ofthe Greek and Turkish parts of Cyprus respectively,have met 60 times since talks resumed in November

2008. As both leaders are saidto be genuinely committed tofinding a settlement, manyobservers believe that theongoing round of talks is thebest, and perhaps last, chancefor a deal.5 Progress in thetalks has been slow: long-

standing issues of political representation, securityguarantees and property restitution remainunresolved, as does the question of when the 30,000-40,000 Turkish soldiers will withdraw from thenorth. The April 2010 presidential election innorthern Cyprus could set a natural deadline for thetalks. If Talat has nothing to show for his peaceefforts by then, Turkish Cypriot voters may wellreplace him with his more nationalist challenger,Dervis Eroglu. If the Turkish Cypriot leadershipbecomes less amenable to compromise, it will be evenharder to find a deal with the Greek Cypriots, whocan more happily live with the status quo.

If the Cypriots managed to reach a deal in 2010,Turkey would open its ports, the EU would unblockthe eight chapters currently suspended while Cypruswould also lift its veto. This would allow the EU and

Turkey to enter “a whole new territory ofconstructive engagement”, as one EU official put it.

If the talks broke down altogether, the island mightremain permanently divided. Turkey would not lift itsban on Cypriot ships sailing into its ports. The GreekCypriot government would continue to use its seat atthe Brussels table to obstruct Turkish membership,albeit with new spite and vigour. Those politicians inthe EU who oppose Turkish membership may wellcall for a halt to the accession talks at the end of 2010on the grounds that Ankara was still not living up toits obligations. They could succeed since Turkey’sfriends in the EU would find it harder to defend thecountry’s accession bid.

The risk of slow death

A third scenario is that the Cypriot talks grind onafter the election but lead nowhere. Turkey’saccession talks would formally remain open.However, they would risk dying a slow death as theEU and Turkey simply run out of things to negotiate.The two sides have now been negotiating for overfour years. They have managed to start talks on 12chapters, but closed only one (science).

Of the remaining ones, the EU has suspended eightbecause of Turkey’s non-compliance with the Ankaraprotocol. In addition, France is vetoing talks in fiveareas that, it claims, matter only for countries thatare certain to become fully-fledged EU members.Since President Sarkozy repeatedly said that Turkeyshould be offered a privileged partnership rather thanfull membership, he argued that Ankara did not needto bother with these. Although Sarkozy stoppedcalling for a privileged partnership in 2009, he hasnot lifted his veto. Germany and Austria together aresaid to be blocking three chapters. Cyprus has beenholding up two because of bilateral disputes withAnkara over energy and culture. It threatened toblock another four after the December EU summitregardless of EU leaders’ decision to let thenegotiations continue (foreign and security policy,the free movement of workers, justice and homeaffairs, and judiciary and fundamental rights). Someof these national vetoes overlap but in total 18chapters are currently off limits, according toTurkey’s chief negotiator, Egemen Bagis.

Turkey and the EU still have five or six chapters onwhich they could work. But the talks are barelyprogressing. Until 2009, Turkey managed to open twochapters every six months. In 2009, that pace slowedto one chapter per semester – this despite two pro-Turkish governments, the Czech Republic andSweden, running the EU presidency.

Turkey blames the slowdown squarely on EUobstruction. EU officials retort that Turkey is notreforming fast enough. They point out that there arevarious chapters that could be opened, if only Turkey

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5 For a good overview of theCyprus issue see David Hannay,‘Cyprus: The costs of failure’,CER policy brief, September2009; International CrisisGroup, ‘Cyprus: Reunificationor partition’, September 2009.

implemented the changes specified as ‘openingbenchmarks’. Some of the required steps arepolitically controversial so they will take time. Forexample, the EU expects Turkey to lift a ban onstrikes among public sector workers before theemployment chapter can be opened – something thegovernment is reluctant to do.

The Commission’s 2009 progress report contains astill formidable to-do list for Turkey, which rangesfrom appointing an ombudsman for human rights tomoving to a more transparent system of publictenders. “Political reform has basically stopped,”declares one EU official. “There is some movement oneconomic issues such as labour laws but not on thecatalogue of iconic political issues needed to show usthat Turkey lives up to European values.”

The EU and Turkey could be heading for an impasse.Turks are feeling increasingly bitter towards the EU.They point out that all 27 EU countries backed thedecision in 2004 to open negotiations with theobjective of full membership. The fact that leadingpoliticians like Sarkozy and Merkel were openlyadvocating a privileged partnership proved to manyTurks that the EU could not be trusted. Ankara is alsoconvinced that the EU could do more to lean onCyprus to unblock parts of the negotiations and worktowards a settlement in the negotiations with thenorth of the island. Some Turks consider it an insultthat Macedonians, Montenegrins and Serbs can now

travel freely to the EU whileTurks still have to apply forvisas.6 Turkish governmentofficials have become moreprone to making angrystatements about the EU. Thetwo big opposition parties,while notionally still in favourof accession, are accusing the

government of ‘selling out’ Turkey’s interests to theEU. The more charged political atmosphere hasfurther reduced the enthusiasm for EU membershipamong the Turkish people.

A neo-Ottoman alternative?

The gridlocked state of Turkey’s accession bid contrastsstarkly with the dynamism of its neighbourhood policy.Turkey’s increasingly active diplomacy in the MiddleEast, the South Caucasus, Central Asia and beyond isboth natural and inevitable. It was the country’sprevious isolation in its neighbourhood and its single-minded westward orientation of the Cold War yearsthat were the anomaly.

A country with 70 million people, a rapidly changingeconomy and an almost unrivalled strategic location –connecting the Balkans, the Black Sea, the Caucasusand the Middle East – should of course be a bigregional player. Previous governments have tried, andfailed, to widen Turkey’s role. The idea of a ‘multi-

vector’ foreign policy that seeks to rebuild ties with allneighbours while highlighting cultural and historicalbonds goes back to thegovernment of Turgut Ozal inthe late 1980s and early1990s.7 After Ozal’s death in1993, Turkish politicians weretoo preoccupied with fixingthe country’s economy,overcoming political crisesand subduing the Kurdishuprising in the south-east ofthe country to pursue such ideas further. Thegovernment of Necmettin Erbakan in the mid-1990sattempted to launch an ‘Islamist foreign policy’ witha stronger focus on building ties with the Middle Eastand other Muslim countries in Asia and Africa. It wasquickly forced out of office. Domestic turmoilstrengthened the hands of Turkey’s military and themore conservative parts of the political establishmentwhich tended to see Turkey’s neighbours as a threat tothe country’s secular order and its territorial integrity.

Nor were Turkey’s Arab neighbours overly keen onbuilding ties with a country that, in their eyes, wasrun by an unbelieving elite, was a friend of Israel anda stooge for US interests in the region. The electionvictory of the mildly Islamist AKP in 2002 and theTurkish parliament’s decision to block access to USforces destined for Iraq in 2003 dramatically changedperceptions about Turkey in the Arab world. TheAKP leadership’s strong defence of the Palestiniansand, more recently, its highlighting of religious andcultural ties with the Muslim world have furthersoftened old suspicions.

Turkey is assuming a more pro-active and forcefulregional role not only because it can, but also becauseit feels it must: the end of the Cold War, the break-upof the Soviet Union and Russia’s resurgence, theBalkan wars, the invasion and subsequent implosionof Iraq, the expanding reach of Iran’s Shia regime andthe intensification of the Israel-Palestine conflict haveall contributed to instability in Turkey’sneighbourhood. International organisations andforums, from NATO to the OSCE’s Minsk Group(which seeks a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakhconflict) and the Middle East Quartet, have hadlimited success in resolving the many disputes aroundTurkey’s borders. Turkish politicians no longer trustthe US – and much less the EU – to do so. HenceTurkey’s new ‘do it yourself’ mentality.

Ahmet Davutoglu – a former professor ofinternational relations turned prime ministerialadvisor before he took over the foreign ministry –supplied the theoretical underpinnings for Turkey’sregional ambitions. In his 2001 book ‘Strategicdepth’, he argued that Turkey needed to startbehaving in line with its geographical position andhistorical legacy, including the Ottoman empire butalso its strong western alliance dating back to theCold War years. He suggested that Turkey should

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6 Turkey and the EU resumedtalks on a readmission agreement (to take back illegalimmigrants who enter the EUvia Turkish territory) in 2009.The EU regards such an agreement as a precondition forabolishing visa requirements forany country.

7 Abdullah Akyuz, Soli Ozel,and Suhnaz Yılmaz, ‘Rebuildinga partnership: Turkish-Americanrelations for a new era – A Turkish perspective’, reportfor TUSIAD, April 2009; NoraFisher Onar, ‘Neo-Ottomanism,historical legacies and Turkishforeign policy’, EDAM discussion paper, October 2009.

balance its western ties with stronger links to theMuslim world, Central Asia, Russia and otheremerging powers. He envisaged a foreign policy that

moves away from theprevious hard-power focusand employs cultural,historical and commerciallinks to foster regionalstability and prosperity.8

Turkey knows that regional instability not only stiflesits economic prospects but also puts its own peace atrisk. The repeated cross-border attacks of PKKfighters hiding in northern Iraq are perhaps the bestexample. Ankara feared not only the destructioncaused by such attacks; but also that the growingautonomy of Iraq’s Kurdish provinces could fuelseparatism among Turkey’s Kurds who may behoping for an independent Kurdistan to span theKurdish areas of Iraq, Syria and south-eastern Turkey.

While Turkey’s traditional response to the cross-border threat from Iraq was one of military force,Ankara is now pushing for a political solution. In thecourse of 2009, the Erdogan government dropped itsrefusal to deal with the Kurdish regional governmentin northern Iraq and instead pushed the authorities inArbil to help clamp down on PKK fighters shelteringon their territory. Turkish businesses do a thrivingtrade in northern Iraq, and Turkey hopes that gasfrom there will help fill the Nabucco pipeline.Relations with the Iraqi central government are alsodeveloping. In October 2009, Erdogan took a plane-load of ministers, officials, businessmen andjournalists to Baghdad, where he signed 48agreements on trade, security, water management,energy and much else.

The prime minister’s Iraq trip was only one in a seriesof headline grabbing bilateral meetings in the secondhalf of 2009. When Vladimir Putin visited Ankara inAugust, for example, he agreed with Erdogan thatRussia and Turkey would collaborate on two pipelineprojects, as well as on defence and nuclear energy.Erdogan’s visit to Syria in December 2009 helped toresolve a long standing territorial dispute. The twocountries – which came to the brink of armed conflictin 1998 – have started combined cabinet meetings,joint military exercises and extensive tradeliberalisation. Turkey has abolished visarequirements for Syrians (as well as for the Lebanese,Libyans and Jordanians).

When Erdogan met Iranian President MahmoudAhmedinejad in Tehran in November, the two leaderspromised to encourage bilateral trade, dust off acontroversial investment deal in Iran’s gas fields andestablish a joint industrial zone, bank and airline.Even more spectacular has been Turkey’srapprochement with Armenia. After 16 years of deep-frozen relations, Ankara and Yerevan signed twoprotocols in August 2009 that foresee the resumptionof diplomatic relations, the opening of the bilateral

border and the establishment of an internationalhistorical commission to investigate the massacre ofperhaps a million Armenians by the Ottomangovernment during the First World War.

Turkey has not only sought to strengthen bilateralties, but also actively sought the role of a broker andpeace-maker in its neighbourhood. Turkish politiciansand diplomats have mediated between Israel andSyria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Syria and Iraq.They tried (and failed) to get Israel and Hamas to talkto each other, and to bridge the gap between Hamasand Fatah. They were also involved in brokeringinternal agreements between different factions in Iraqand Lebanon. After the Russian-Georgian war inAugust 2008, Turkey launched a ‘Caucasus stabilityand co-operation platform’ in an attempt to bring thecountries of this conflict-ridden region together. In2009, Ankara offered to mediate talks betweenTehran and Washington on Iran’s nuclear programme;and Turkey suggested that it could store Iran’s nuclearfuel rods after Tehran had spurned a similar offerfrom France and Russia.

Turkey’s soft power

Economic ties have grown in line with Turkey’spolitical reach. Some analysts suspect that theobjective of selling and investing more across bordersis the true driving force behind Turkey’s regionaldiplomacy.9 In recent years, Turkey’s trade with itsneighbours has grown noticeably faster than that withthe EU. As a result, the EU’sshare in total Turkish exportshas fallen below 50 per centwhile the proportion going tothe Near and Middle East hasdoubled over the last tenyears, to around 20 per cent. A number of temporaryfactors may have accounted for the geographical shiftin Turkish exports: high oil prices until 2008 fuelledMiddle East buying power while the onset of thefinancial and economic crisisdepressed demand in theWest.10 But there is no doubtthat Turkish manufacturers,energy companies andconstruction groups are expanding eastward, not onlyto the Middle East but also into Russia, Central Asiaand around the Black Sea. Turkey sees itself as aneconomic and transport hub wedged between variousregions with huge catch-up potential.

Turkey also aspires to become a major energy hub,connecting the resource-rich countries of the Caspianand the Middle East with the energy-hungry marketsof Western and Southern Europe. A handful ofimportant pipelines already cross Turkey while asignificant share of Russian oil reaches world marketsthrough the Bosphorus straits. If major pipelineprojects such as Nabucco and South Streammaterialised, Turkey would become indispensable for

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8 Joshua Walker, ‘Learning strategic depth:Implications of Turkey’s newforeign policy doctrine’, Insight Turkey, July 2007.

9 For example Kemal Kirisci,‘The transformation of Turkishforeign policy: The rise of thetrading state’, New Perspectiveson Turkey no 40, Spring 2009.

10 Hugh Pope, ‘What Obamashould say to Erdogan’,Transatlantic Academy,December 2009.

EU aspirations to diversify energy supplies away fromRussia and for Russian attempts to send its gas towestern markets without transiting Ukraine. As anenergy hub, Turkey needs to have good relations withboth the countries that supply the oil and gas andthose that consume it.

In addition to selling cars, refrigerators, foodstuffsand construction services to its neighbours, Turkey isalso exporting culture, ideas and values. Turkish TVprogrammes have become regular viewing across theMiddle East, with the final episode of ‘Noor’, themost popular soap opera, reportedly attracting anaudience of 85 million in the Arab world. Theprofessedly moderate Islamist movement of FethullahGulen has expanded its educational activities farbeyond Turkey’s borders, with Gulen schools andseminars now operating from Central Asia to Africa.Turkey has been an increasingly active member of theOrganisation of the Islamic Conference, and a Turkhas been OIC secretary-general since 2005. A surveyconducted among 2,000 people in seven Arab

countries in July 2009 foundthat over 75 per cent had apositive view of Turkey and aneven higher share approved ofthe way Turkey dealt withArab countries.11

The generally positive response that Turkey elicits inthe Middle East, as well as in much of the Caucasusand Central Asia, contrasts with the more negativeview that West Europeans tend to have of the country.“In the Middle East, my Turkish passport makes me ahero”, says one young Turkish think-tanker who doesnot enjoy similar treatment when he travels toWestern Europe. Ministers and officials report similarexperiences: whereas they sometimes feel snubbed inEU capitals, they usually enjoy a warm welcome whenthey travel east, north or south.

The ‘Davutoglu bluff’

Nevertheless, it is far from clear that Turkey’s tieswith its eastern and southern neighbours representa real alternative to its traditional westwardorientation. Turkish politicians and diplomats aretravelling incessantly. But the outcome has so farconsisted mainly of non-binding memoranda ontrade, energy, political co-operation, as well as aplethora of new councils, working groups andother semi-institutionalised get-togethers.“Accumulating air miles is not a policy,” sniffs oneGerman policy-maker who has observed Turkey’sregional activism closely.

The risk of overstretch in Turkey’s hyper-activeforeign policy is palpable. Turkey is not onlyexpanding its role in the neighbourhood, it has alsobeen harbouring more global aspirations. During2009, Turkey held a non-permanent seat in the UNSecurity Council, opened ten new embassies and

consulates in Africa (with five more planned for2010), sought to improve relations with China, andthe list goes on. The foreignministry is starved of cashand Turkey’s diplomaticcorps is only 1,000 strong,which means that manyinitiatives remain by necessitysuperficial.12

Neither have Turkey’s efforts as a mediator so farachieved a lot of concrete results. That is perhaps notsurprising: any country would find it exceedinglyhard to pursue a ‘zero-problem policy’ in a region thatis so full of problems. When it comes to the MiddleEast peace process, USinvolvement and the politicalwill of Israel, the Palestiniansand Syria – rather thanTurkish diplomatic skills –will determine whether thereis progress.13

But even in a more propitious political environment,Turkey would struggle as a mediator: since many ofits neighbours have deep differences betweenthemselves, it is hard to see how Turkey can be friendswith all of them.

Already, Turkey’s improved relations with Iran andSyria, and its willingness to talk to Hamas, have comeat the expense of its traditionally strong ties withIsrael. In January 2009, after the Israeli bombardmentof Gaza, Erdogan stormed out of a Davos debate withIsrael’s president, Shimon Peres, accusing him ofknowing “well how to kill”. In the autumn of 2009,Ankara withdrew an invitation to Israel to join an airmanoeuvre, while Israelis got upset about a TurkishTV drama that depicted Israeli soldiers as ruthlesskillers. Ankara and Tel Aviv have been at pains tomaintain diplomatic relations and started patchingthings up towards the end of 2009. However, the sourstate of the relationship means that Turkey would findit harder to mediate between Israel and its adversarieseven if a new round of talks got under way.

Turkey’s idea of a Caucasus stability platform hasnot resulted in any region-wide talks or initiatives –although it has facilitated Turkey’s rapprochementwith Armenia and made it easier for Ankara to playa role in seeking a resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Turkey’s promise to open theborder with Armenia, however, has severelydamaged its traditionally close relationship withAzerbaijan. Until recently, the two countries likedto describe themselves as ‘one nation, twocountries’. But in 2009 Azerbaijan turned awayfrom Turkey in anger and threatened to limit futuregas sales, which would undermine Turkey’sambition to become an energy hub.

Baku feels betrayed because the Ankara governmentappears willing to normalise relations with Yerevan

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11 Survey by TESEV, cited byAyla Jean Yackley, ‘Mediatingrole wins kudos for Turkeyamong Arabs’, Reuters,November 20th 2009.

12 Germany, for example,employs 6,000 diplomats.Bettina Luise Rürup,‘Länderanalyse Türkei: Derlange Weg in die EuropäischeUnion’, Friedrich EbertStiftung, September 2009.

13 Nathalie Tocci and JoshuaWalker, ‘The sea change inTurkey Middle East policies:What does it mean?’,unpublished draft, TransatlanticAcademy, January 2010.

without waiting for a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. Turkish politicians are ambiguousabout this: while the foreign minister has talkedabout parallel processes, the prime minister hasreassured Azerbaijan that the border with Armeniawould not be opened unless Armenia startedwithdrawing troops from some of the areassurrounding Nagorno-Karabakh. If this was indeedErdogan’s stance, the protocols on the normalisationof relations would not be ratified any time soon, andTurkey’s most courageous diplomatic initiativewould remain stuck. Since Turkey’s regionalinitiatives have so far produced few concrete results,one high-level European official dismisses them asthe “Davutoglu bluff”.

Regional rivalry

Turkey’s new ascendancy may itself furthercomplicate its aspirations as a mediator and peace-maker. A regional power has – or is presumed to have– strong national interests so it will struggle to assumethe role of a disinterested interlocutor. There willinevitably be more rivalry with other countries thataspire to regional predominance, most notably withRussia and Iran.

Turkish companies are doing well in the Russianmarket, but the main reason why Russia is nowTurkey’s largest trading partner is because higherRussian gas prices have inflated Turkey’s import bill.Turkey, which already buys over 60 per cent of its gasfrom Russia, is keen to diversify its energy supplies.Ankara and Moscow may agree that they do not wantto see American or NATO ships on the Black Sea. ButTurks watch growing Russia-NATO tensions withconcern. They are wary of Russia’s attempts todominate the former Soviet countries around itsborders. And they are acutely aware that Russia’sattempt to keep a monopoly over gas transport on theEurasian landmass stands in the way of their ownplans to become a regional energy hub.

Similarly, Ankara’s professed ‘friendship’ with Tehranhides some deeper suspicions. Some observers claimthat much of Turkey’s regional diplomacy – fromhelping to end Syria’s isolation to contributing tostability in Iraq – is designed to prevent Iran fromgaining the upper hand in its neighbourhood.Although Turkish politicians insist that Iran has aright to acquire civilian nuclear power, they aregenuinely concerned that an Iranian nuclear bombcould trigger an arms race in this volatile region.Turkey itself is talking to the US about buying a

missile defence system thatcould be used to shoot downIranian missiles.14

In its regional diplomacy, Ankara will encountersetbacks and it will not be able to avoid hard choices.That does not mean that Turkey should not continuewith its regional efforts. Unlike the other big powers

in that region, Turkey has a foreign policy conceptthat has some allure for its neighbours. Russia, Iran,Saudi Arabia or Egypt do not have a similarlyappealing vision. Turkey does not stoke instability inneighbouring countries to further its own interests. Itis not opposed in principle to ‘outside’ powers (inparticular the US) playing a role in the Middle Eastand the Caucasus.

The architects of Turkey’s foreign policy hope thatgrowing commercial ties and pragmatic co-operation can prepare the ground for findingsolutions to the region’s long-standing and deeplyengrained conflicts; that international organisationscan help to manage ties between countries that findit difficult to get on; and that a rapprochementbetween countries that used to fight each other willalso make it easier to deal with internal minorityissues. Turkey’s regional activism may not haveproduced many tangible political benefits. ButTurkish foreign policy-makers have a point whenthey argue that they first needs to build functioningties with neighbours before they can hope to achievediplomatic results.

Not incompatible but intrinsically linked

The EU should therefore be careful not to dismissTurkey’s regional initiatives as evidence that thecountry has abandoned its westward orientation.Turkey’s EU aspirations and its growing regionalreach are in fact linked in various, complex ways.

The reforms that Turkey implemented to get closerto EU membership have had a bit of influence on itsforeign policy-making. For example, the army’straditionally strong role in politics had previouslyskewed foreign policy heavily towards hard powerand security. Turkey’s stance towards its Muslimneighbours was defensive and suspicious. In thename of EU accession, the Erdogan governmentpushed the generals out of politics, which opened upentirely new foreign policy options. Anotherexample is the economic liberalisation that Turkeyhas implemented partly as a result of its customsunion with the EU. The rise of strong Turkishbusinesses looking for markets and investmentopportunities has added an economic dimension toTurkey’s regional policy, which (as pointed outabove) is now one of the driving forces of itsneighbourhood diplomacy.

Turkey’s EU accession process has also greatlycontributed to the soft power that is so important forthe success of its neighbourhood policy. Almost two-thirds of Arabs think that Turkey’s bid to join the EUwould have a positive influence on the Arab world.15But it is Turkey’s internaltransformation and itseconomic success – both fuelledby the EU accession process –that have brought Turkey the

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14 Katinka Barysch, ‘Is TurkeyIran’s friend?’, CER Insight,November 2009.

15 Survey by TESEV, cited byAyla Jean Yackley, ‘Mediatingrole wins kudos for Turkeyamong Arabs’, Reuters,November 20th 2009.

attention and respect of itsneighbours. As one Turkishscholar puts it: “What Turkeyhas become in fact constitutesits main asset.”16

Turkey’s significance for the region is not only, oreven primarily, as a manager or mediator of cross-border conflicts. The problems of this region are notdisputes between otherwise well-functioning states.Most countries grapple with a myriad of unresolvedissues: national identity, minorities, the role ofwomen, and the relationship between political powerand religious authority. Most have dysfunctionalpolitical regimes, and economic models that offer fewopportunities for their young populations. Turkeymay not yet be fit for EU accession but it stands outas an economic and political success in itsneighbourhood: a predominantly Muslim countrywith a secular order, functioning democracy, fast-growing, open and diversified economy, increasinglywell-educated people (and that includes most girls)and rising living standards.

Turkey’s Kemalist elite does not like that their countryis being taken as a model by the more religious andautocratic societies to their east and south. And someAKP leaders sniff at the notion that Turkey could bea bridge between the West and the Muslim world (“abridge is something you walk over without noticingit”). But Turks are acutely aware that millions in theMiddle East and beyond are watching Turkey’sdevelopment with great interest. Turkey is aninspiration, especially to those who are hoping forreform in the Middle East and the former SovietUnion. However, for Turkey to keep and exercise itssoft power, it needs to address its internal problems. Itneeds to show that a predominantly Muslim countrycan have a stable and pluralistic democracy, thatreligious and ethnic minorities can be well integrated,that long-standing neighbourly disputes can beunfrozen, and that economic reforms benefit all partsof society. To do all these things, Turkey needs tomaintain its strong bonds with the West.

Does Turkey need an anchor?

Many Turks no longer believe that their country needsan external anchor to implement reforms andmaintain internal stability. In 2008-09, Turkeymanaged to get through its worst economic crisis in adecade without the help of the InternationalMonetary Fund. For a country that had to rely on nofewer than 19 different loans from the IMF in recentdecades, this is a major boost to its self-confidence.

Similarly, successive governments used to refer to theneed to converge with EU norms when they pushedthrough difficult reforms. No longer. The leadershipnow insists that it seeks change because it is good forTurkey, not because it is required for EU accession. Inthe summer of 2009, for example, Erdogan

announced a courageous initiative to give thecountry’s 14 million Kurds more cultural rights andseek a new political dialogue with them to end the 25-year old insurgency of the PKK – without mentioningthe EU.

Despite such laudable initiatives, there is little doubtthat the political and economic reform process inTurkey has slowed down considerably in the last fiveyears. Critics find plenty of evidence that the AKPgovernment is less committed to modernising thecountry and upholding western values. Press freedomis being eroded in a country that has always loved aheated political debate. Erdogan has sued severaljournalists and even cartoonists for critical or non-deferential coverage. A restrictive Internet law hasallowed the courts to ban access to various websites.Although fewer writers are being imprisoned underthe notorious 301 article of the penal code,prosecutors have been launching more cases on thebasis of other laws. In 2008, the country’s second-biggest daily, Sabah, ended up under the control of acompany headed by Erdogan’s son-in-law. Itscoverage has since become kinder to the government.Following a dispute with the AKP leadership in 2009,the Dogan group, which controls many of Turkey’sbiggest newspaper, magazines and TV stations, waspresented with a massive $3.2 billion fine for taxevasion. In other media outlets, there are signs of self-censorship as journalists fear personal prosecutionand media owners (most of which have multiplebusiness interests) seek to stay in the government’sgood books.

Worries about press freedom are mounting at a timewhen the general atmosphere in the country isveering towards distrust and suspicion. Westernobservers first welcomed the ‘Ergenekon’ case againstalleged coup-plotters among the military and ultra-nationalist groups. They saw it as a sign that Turkeywas finally rooting out the ‘deep state’ (a circle ofarch-Kemalist officials, generals, judges andpoliticians who had for decades escaped punishmentfor illegal activities designed to entrench theirpower). But a large number of arrests without dueprocess, on unclear charges and followed by longpre-trial detentions have since shed a bad light on thequality of Turkey’s judiciary. Media reports allegethat up to 100,000 Turks may have had their phonestapped by the government in recent years, largely asa result of the Ergenekon investigation.

In the current, antagonistic political environment, theErdogan government will find it harder to resume thepolitical and economic reforms that allowed thecountry to start accession talks in 2005. Erdogan’sKurdish initiative (Turks refer to it as the ‘democraticopening’) has so far amounted to little more thanvague promises. The result has been a furtherdeepening of the polarisation between the AKP andthe Kemalist and nationalist opposition while theKurds have yet to acquire new rights. Theconstitutional court’s decision in December 2009 to

16 Meliha Benli Altunisik, ‘The possibilities and limits ofTurkey’s soft power in theMiddle East’, Insight Turkey,April 2008.

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ban the Democratic Society Party (DTP), the onlypro-Kurdish force in the Turkish parliament, hasfurther reduced the chances of a lasting politicalsettlement. Meanwhile, plans for a new constitution –the current one from 1982 was effectively written bythe military, after the last coup – have been put on ice.

In the past, the objective of EU accession allowedTurkish leaders to overcome deep-seated politicaldivisions. Although traditional Kemalists and urbanprofessionals have always distrusted the AKP becauseof its roots in political Islam, the fact that Erdoganappeared committed to EU accession and liberalreforms allowed them to back his policies. Now hiscritics find it easier to accuse him of driving forwarda creeping Islamisation of Turkish society andundermining its democracy while at the same timeloosening Turkey’s traditional bonds with the West.

Partner and applicant

Turkey, it seems, still needs the EU anchor for itsinternal transformation. The accession process,however, can only regain momentum if EU leadersand officials acknowledge that Turkey’s membershipapplication poses different challenges from that ofsay, Iceland or Hungary; and that they are dealingwith a very different Turkey today than they did whenthey gave it EU candidate status ten years ago.

Turkish foreign policy-makers like to stress that bybecoming a regional power, Turkey will be moreuseful for an EU that aspires to become not only aregional but a global player. The EU’s declaredobjectives are to contribute to peace in the MiddleEast, strengthen ties with Central Asia and bringstability and prosperity to Eastern Europe and theSouth Caucasus with the help of the ‘Europeanneighbourhood policy’ and the ‘Eastern partnership’.Turkey claims that its new regional policy will add toall these objectives. It wants the EU to acknowledgethat it has a valuable contribution to make. “Turkey’sregional role,” said Prime Minister Erdogan at anIstanbul conference in October “is an opportunity theEU and Turkey should not miss.” Chief NegotiatorBagis, in a BBC interview on December 7th, put itmore starkly: “Turkish membership is as importantfor the EU as it is for Turkey.”

Although Turkey still has to prove that its regionalactivism can produce concrete results, the EU shouldstand ready to take advantage of the opportunitiesthat Turkey’s regional rise may create. It struggles todo that.

The EU’s own foreign policies are rather weak in theareas where Turkey’s role is most ambitious: theMiddle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Unless theEU strengthens its presence in these regions, Turkeymay have little incentive to co-ordinate its initiativeswith the EU – other than to improve its accessionprospects, which may itself be a powerful reason.

There is another obstacle to EU-Turkish foreignpolicy co-operation. The Union expects countries thathave handed in a membership application to adjustunilaterally to EU laws and policies. That also appliesto foreign policy. It is true that Turkey has formallysigned up to the vast majority of positions that EUcountries have agreed under the ‘common foreign andsecurity policy’. Most of these statements concerninternational issues – from the situation in Zimbabweto elections in Albania – that are not core to Turkishforeign policy. On key issues such as Iran Turkey hasdecided not to join CFSP statements.

Such formalistic alignment is, in any case, not thesame as constructive co-operation. The Turkishforeign minister meets a ‘troika’ of EU politicians andofficials twice a year to discuss foreign policy issues.These meetings are too short, too infrequent and toostilted to allow for real dialogue. Like all other formalmeetings between the EU and Turkey, they tend to bedominated by discussions about the Turkish EUaccession process.

The Turks would like to have a bigger say, notsimply sign up to positions that have already beenagreed among the 27 EU governments. Despite theaversion that most Turkish politicians displayagainst the notion of ‘partnership’ with the EU, inforeign policy Turkey wants the EU to treat it morelike an equal partner.

In the autumn of 2009, Foreign Minister Davutoglusuggested to the European Commission to establisha close yet informal dialogue on issues of commoninterest. Turkey would keep the Europeans up todate on its initiatives in the Middle East, theCaucasus and elsewhere and the EU might allowTurkey an early glimpse of its own emergingpositions. The Commission, however, had no way ofresponding to this request. Since Turkey is a countrynegotiating for membership, the official in charge ofthe relationship is the enlargement commissioner(then Olli Rehn) and not the external relationscommissioner (then Benita Ferrero-Waldner).Ferrero-Waldner had no competence to deal withTurkey. Rehn had no authority to discuss foreignpolicy and security issues. After a few well-intentioned attempts by the Commission to push theboundaries of departmental competences, the Turksput their proposal on ice.

The coming into force of the Lisbon treaty allowsthe EU to revive the idea. Cathy Ashton, the EU’snew High Representative for foreign policy, nowcombines the roles of the Council’s HighRepresentative (which means she can speak onbehalf of the EU governments) and thecommissioner for external affairs (which gives her asizeable budget and diplomatic staff). As vicepresident of the Commission, she also formallystands above the enlargement commissioner so sheshould, in theory, be allowed to talk to applicantcountries. The EU should take the initiative by

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establishing a more regular and less formal foreignpolicy dialogue between the High Representativeand the Turkish foreign minister. Policy plannersfrom the EU institutions and the Turkish foreignminister should meet frequently to prepare for thesemeetings. This dialogue should be separate frommeetings on the accession process, which wouldcontinue to be led by the enlargement commissionerand Turkey’s chief negotiator.

Both sides need to show some flexibility. The EU willnot abandon its maxim that non-members do not get‘a seat at the table’ where EU decisions are made. Butthe EU should elicit Turkish views and suggestions onareas of joint interest, such as how to bring stabilityto the Caucasus, enhance European energy security,deal with Iran’s nuclear programme, encourageregional integration in the Mediterranean or move theMiddle East peace process forward.

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Lessons from energy and security co-operation

Foreign policy is not the only area where there is huge scope for co-operation between the EU and Turkey:energy and crisis management are others. In both areas, however, the EU and Turkey have struggled to finda way of working together constructively. The fact that Turkey is a country negotiating for accession shouldfacilitate co-operation in areas of obvious common interest. Paradoxically, the opposite seems to be the case.Co-operation is blocked as long as the accession negotiations are not going as well as they should.

★ European security and defence policy (ESDP)

Turkish soldiers and policemen have taken part in seven ESDP missions since 2003. The EU, however, hasresisted Ankara’s demands that it should be involved in planning and deciding on ESDP operations. Most EUgovernments have become progressively more open to the idea of giving Turkey a bigger say (albeit not aveto). But Cyprus – fearing that Turkey-ESDP co-operation may compromise its security – has continued to

block Turkish participation in planning ESDP missions, as well as its affiliation withthe European Defence Agency. In turn, Turkey has vetoed ESDP-NATO co-operation.This veto has led to huge obstacles to EU and NATO personnel working together inplaces such as Afghanistan and Kosovo. Turkey appears to have taken a noticeablysofter stance on ESDP whenever its accession progressed well. When EU-Turkeyrelations were tense, security co-operation between Turkey and the EU stalled.17

★ Energy

To facilitate EU-Turkey energy co-operation, the EU has for some time been pushing Turkey to join the‘energy community treaty’ (under the ECT most Balkans countries are now aligningtheir energy policies with that of the EU and are planning better infrastructurelinks). Turkish politicians insisted that if the EU wanted Turkey to align its energylaws and policies with those of the EU, it would do so only once the energy chapterhas been unblocked.18

When Erdogan travelled to Brussels in January 2009, he tried to use Turkey’s importance as a potentialtransit state for gas shipment to Europe as a lever to push the accession negotiations forward. Hesuggested that unless the EU managed to unblock the energy chapter (vetoed by Cyprus), Ankara wouldhold up progress on the Nabucco pipeline, one of the EU’s flagship projects. The result was outrageamong the Europeans, with some saying that such behaviour suggested that Turkey would be atroublesome member-state. A governmental agreement on the Nabucco pipeline was signed in July 2009and Turkey started negotiations on joining the ECT in the autumn of that year. But the overall impressionis that energy co-operation has become hostage to the problems that besiege the accession process.

17 Miguel Medina-Abellan,‘Turkey, the European securityand defence policy, and accession negotiations’, Sinan working paper no 1, April 2009.

18 Katinka Barysch, ‘Turkey’s role in European energy security’, CER policybrief, December 2007.

The EU and Turkey should find a way of co-operating on important international issues outsidethe established accession paradigm which leavesTurkey invariably in the position of a demandeur.Turkey will only accept such a separation if the EUprovides stronger assurances that reinforced foreignpolicy co-operation is a way towards – not asubstitute for – eventual membership. In the past,Turkey has been reluctant to work with the EUoutside the accession process. Ankara fears that if it

accepts forms of co-operation that are open to non-EU members, it risks slipping towards some sort ofprivileged partnership. EU leaders therefore have tostop questioning the validity of Turkey’s EU bid,remove the national vetoes holding up various partsof the accession talks and reassure Ankara that theUnion is negotiating in good faith.

The EU, however, will only want to work morewith Turkey if it senses that the leadership there is

broadly aligned with the objectives of EU foreignpolicy. Erdogan and his colleagues would have to bemore careful about making statements that appearto set Turkish foreign policy apart from westernobjectives. Today’s Turkey enjoys credibility in theMuslim world. Professions of friendship withAhmedinejad or a seeming defence of al-Bashirappear unnecessary and counterproductive.Moreover, Turkey would have to supply someevidence that it uses its growing ties withneighbouring countries to pass on tough messagesfrom time to time and stand up for western values.For example, instead of rushing to congratulateAhmedinejad on his victory in the rigged election ofJune 2009, Turkey should have insisted thatdemocratic rules be upheld.

Regaining momentum

Ankara and Brussels need to put some substanceinto the often-repeated mantra that the country isan ‘asset’ for the EU. If Turkey and the EU miss thisopportunity, the consequences for both sides, andfor the entire region, might be dire. Without the EUanchor, Turks may feel they have nowhere else to

turn but towards their more autocratic neighbours.The reform process in Turkey may founder. Turkey’sneighbours would be less interested in working withTurkey if it was ‘just another Muslim autocracy’.Reformers in the region would lose hope.Hardliners would feel vindicated in their belief thatthe EU is a Christian club that turned down Turkeybecause of a clash of civilisations.

If the EU and Turkey succeeded in reinforcing theirforeign policy co-operation, Turkey would feelmore valued and the risk that Turkish foreign policyruns counter to western objectives would bereduced. The experience of Turkish-EU alignmenton important international issues – if communicatedwell – could be used as an argument to win oversome sceptics in Western Europe. And it wouldmake some Turks feel less bitter about the EU. Itcould therefore help to propel the accessionnegotiations forward.

Katinka Barysch is deputy director of the Centre for European Refrom.

January 2010

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Recent CER publications

How to restore financial stabilityReport by Philip Whyte, January 2010

Cameron’s Europe: Can the Conservatives achieve their EU objectives?Essay by Charles Grant, December 2009

NATO, Russia and European securityWorking paper by Tomas Valasek, November 2009

Making choices over China: EU-China co-operation on energy and climatePolicy brief by Nick Mabey, November 2009

Rebalancing the Chinese economyPolicy brief by Simon Tilford, November 2009

What to do about the Lisbon treaty? Four options for the ConservativesPolicy brief by Charles Grant, November 2009

How strong is Russia’s economic foundation?Essay by Pekka Sutela, October 2009

How to meet the EU’s 2020 renewables targetPolicy brief by Stephen Tindale, September 2009

Last chance for Lisbon: Ireland’s EU referendumBriefing note by Hugo Brady, September 2009

For further information, visit our website

www.cer.org.uk