Sinosphere
11-12-2007, 11:36 AM
When King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz visited Turkey in August last year, it was 40 years since a Saudi monarch had last visited. When the 83-year-old monarch arrived in Ankara on Saturday with an entourage of 11 planes for his second visit in a year, it was an extraordinary overture.
But it was comprehensible. Middle East politics have assumed an unprecedented level of criticality. The Saudis feel the need to visualize Turkey as a pillar of strength in the volatile regional environment.
Riyadh is signaling Turkey's strategic role. A historical paradox must be noted: Saudi Arabia was the cradle of the "Arab revolt" that sounded the death knell of the Ottoman Empire. It now solicits Turkey's regional role.
Turkey, too, is ready to return to the Muslim world after nearly a century's absence. Finding its European Union membership claims stalled, Turkey edges away from Europe.
Addressing the King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah in February 2006 in his capacity as deputy prime minister and foreign minister in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government at that time, now-president Abdullah Gul said unequivocally, "Turkey's foundations are in Europe and we have always been part of Europe. But Turkey is more than Europe! We are part of the Muslim world and we also belong to the revered traditions of the East. This unique position is our important asset, because it allows us to serve both worlds. Let no one be in doubt that we will fulfill this historic role and advance our common aspirations."
Gul was speaking hardly five months ahead of the path-breaking visit by the Saudi monarch to Turkey. Saudi Arabia and Turkey are both transforming. En route to Ankara last week, King Abdullah was received at the Vatican by Pope Benedict XVI in the first audience ever by a pontiff with a Saudi monarch.
Of course, change comes slowly. US columnist Thomas Friedman made an interesting point that King Abdullah could visit the Vatican, but the "pope can't visit the king of Saudi Arabia in the Vatican of Islam - Mecca", as non-Muslims aren't allowed there. Compared to Saudi Arabia, though, Turkey is transforming at a faster pace.
Religious bonds
A year ago, when King Abdullah arrived in Ankara, the head of protocol, Oya Turzcugolu, met him at the steps of the plane but the king refrained from shaking her hand. President Ahmet Necdet Sezer nonetheless served wine at the state banquet. Now, just a year later, Turkey is no longer fanatically wedded to militant secularism, and Gul doesn't serve wine.
In all of Turkey's history, though the Ottoman state directed the "emir ul Haj" (meaning they were the custodians over the pilgrimage), none of the Ottoman sultans ever performed the pilgrimage, except for Cem Sultan. The presidents of the Turkish republic also scrupulously followed the tradition. Gul will most certainly break that tradition.
Indeed, an agenda item for King Abdullah's parleys in Ankara related to the Turkish request for an increased quota for the haj pilgrimage. An estimated 120,000 Turks performed haj last year, whereas almost thrice that number had applied. Turkey's official pilgrim quota is only 70,000, though the Saudis are keen to accommodate an increased number. There is a strong demand in Turkey, a country that outright banned haj pilgrimages till 1947.
A growing mutual respect for the different interpretations of Islam partly explains the new proximity (Ottoman Turks used to execute Wahhabis). Saudi Arabia is pleased that observant Muslims are becoming assertive in Turkish society. The Saudi regime feels closeness to the government led by the Islamist AKP that it never could with Turkey's staunchly secularist establishment.
But the political establishments of the two countries have a lot of distance to cover. The AKP's decision to honor the visiting Saudi king with the state medal proved controversial. The Kemalist camp bristled. The opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Onur Oymen alleged the decision was a "clear indicator" of the AKP's intention to turn Turkey into an Islamic republic.
"Why should we honor Saudi Arabia? We don't harbor hostility toward that country, but we see no reason for showing sentimentality either," Oymen acidly remarked. He alleged the AKP was striving to bring Turkey "closer to the Islamic countries". Another prominent CHP leader, Inal Batu, a former diplomat, commented that "there are question marks hanging over this government's intention toward the secularist principles".
The antipathy toward Saudi Arabia is not confined to the political corridors. Despite 400 years of common history and religious and cultural links, Turkish civil society has remained coldly, disdainfully indifferent toward Saudi Arabia. It is in the Anatolian heartland of Turkey - among peasants, laborers, small traders and artisans - rather than in the cosmopolitan environs of Istanbul or Izmir that the gradual warming toward Saudi Arabia is palpable.
The Iran question
But King Abdullah's decision to visit Turkey for a second time was largely motivated by politics. The Iran question figures at the top. Riyadh is deeply disturbed by Iran's growing influence in the region. In the Saudi reading of the region's common history, Ottoman Turkey provided the bulwark against the ambitions of Persia's Safavi dynasty. Ideally, the Saudis would want history to repeat itself. But the Turkey-Iran relationship cannot be put back into a historical straightjacket. Turkish attitudes toward Iran have changed in the recent past.
The AKP government's leanings toward the Islamic world include Iran and a robust effort is on to build bilateral cooperation. Trade touching an all-time high level of US$7 billion may soon reach double digits. Ankara envisages a big role for Iran in its ambition to become the region's "energy hub". Disregarding US pressure, Ankara has pressed ahead with an agreement for the transit of Iranian gas to Europe.
Tehran for its part is thankful for Turkey's position that Iran's nuclear issue must be resolved through diplomatic means.
Ankara even hosted a round of talks in April between the European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iran's former chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani.
But what Riyadh must be viewing with a sense of disquiet is the emerging reality that Ankara and Tehran share common interests and concerns in the region's geopolitics. Ankara not only appreciates Tehran's support and understanding for the problems posed by PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) terrorism, but has lately begun flaunting its Iran connection. At the peak of the current crisis on Turkey's border with northern Iraq, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan visited Tehran on October 28.
He acknowledged that Turkey is seeking practical cooperation with Iran in tackling Kurdish militancy. Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad told Babacan, "The fate of regional nations is inter-linked and they should safeguard one another's interests." Ahmadinejad phoned Gul to stress that "Turkey's concerns are received with understanding" and "occupiers [United States] had covert agreements [with Kurds], have prepared the ground for disunity [among regional states] and are supporting terrorists through their double-standard policies".
Turkish-Iranian security cooperation has also shifted gear. It has become overt and sustained and it is deepening. Turkey made good use of its Iran card while appealing to the US on the PKK problem. Riyadh surely feels exasperated that President George W Bush's coddling of Kurdish separatism and terrorism is bringing Salafi Turks and Shi'ite Iranians closer together in an unprecedented bonding of the traditional rivals.
What alarms Riyadh is that Iran also took the initiative to evolve a common position with Syria in extending support to Turkey on the Kurdish problem. Following up on his talks with Babacan, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki visited Damascus on October 29, where he said, "Iran condemns the use of northern Iraqi territory as a launch pad for terrorist operations against Turkey and is fully prepared to combat terrorism at any price." In response, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem said, "Our brothers in Tehran are making efforts which are complementary to ours ... PKK's terrorist activities threaten Turkey as well as Iran and Syria."
Surprise move on Kirkuk
Any Turkish invasion of Iraq will trigger a massive shift in the region's balance of forces. Turkish columnist Hasan Kanbolat of the Islamist daily Zaman recently wrote, "The Arab countries are generally afraid that Turkey's operation may expand to include even Baghdad. Some governments worry that Turkey, having become a regional power, actually plans to permanently enter Iraq and the Arab world and strengthen its claims on the oil reserves of northern Iraq. They fear, in essence, that Turkey intends to use the PKK as an excuse to return to the Middle East with the spirit of the Ottoman Empire."
The Saudis fear that a Turkish incursion into northern Iraq would willy-nilly encourage the emergence of a Shi'ite state in southern Iraq bordering Saudi Arabia's volatile Shi'ite provinces. Besides, the Saudis are nervous that Turkish-Iranian-Syrian understanding could have implications for Lebanon.
Tehran of course has been playing its cards astutely. It incessantly envelops Riyadh in a friendly idiom. On Sunday, Ahmadinejad will undertake a second visit within the year to Riyadh.
Last week, Iran threw another trump card on the table by going on record that it opposed the implementation of Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution (worked out under American supervision), which calls for holding a referendum on the status of Kirkuk province to decide on its inclusion in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Mottaki told Iranian television, "There are differences of opinion about issues such as Kirkuk or the internal borders of provinces. We have suggested a moratorium so that decisions can be made about them."
The Iranian bombshell pleases Ankara immensely. To the contrary, the pro-American KRG leadership went ballistic. KRG president Massoud Barzani's office angrily reacted, "These [Iranian] proposals contradict the Iraqi constitution, and therefore we reject them. They constitute interference and will further complicate the situation." The KRG will be suspecting Iran-Turkey collusion. (The Iranian proposal was embedded deep in a package it submitted at the conference of Iraq's neighboring countries in Istanbul on November 3.)
The dilemma is acute for Saudi Arabia insofar as Iraq has also been the theater of a historical struggle between Shi'ite Iran and Sunni Anatolia. In the Iranian move on Kirkuk, Saudis see Tehran as lending a big helping hand to Ankara, which is bound to further consolidate the two countries' understanding over the Iraq situation. In intrinsic terms, though, the Iranian proposal ought to satisfy Iraqi Arabs as well as Arab countries. But what gives it a cutting edge is that it is not based on technical grounds but on manifestly political motivation. In fact, Tehran admits as much.
The Iranian proposal undercuts the "Sunni solidarity" that Saudis are seeking. For the secular Turkish establishment, though, there is no such contradiction since cooperation with Iran is very obviously for strategic reasons. Moments such as this bring out what strange bedfellows the Turks and the Saudis are.
'Green money'
All the same, King Abdullah's overture to Turkey has logic. He will know Turkey has always been enamored of petro-dollars. The Saudis can be trendsetters at a time when the oil-exporting countries of the Persian Gulf have huge surplus resources to invest. Turkey signaled its priorities when a double taxation avoidance agreement was signed during King Abdullah's visit.
An influx of what Turks call yesil sermaye or green money - from wealthy Islamist businessmen and oil-rich Arab countries - has quietly boosted the AKP's finances over the years. Turkey's Islamic business skyline has certainly changed beyond recognition during AKP rule in the party's strongholds like Kayseri and Konya in inner Anatolia.
Turkish economists estimate that infusion of green money into Turkey could be anywhere up to $12 billion. They speculate that Turkey could be a beneficiary of the Saudi and Persian Gulf countries' liquidation of their US holdings since September 11, 2001.
Some experts believe green money may already have begun influencing Turkish policies. To be sure, Saudi investors will take note that following the AKP's massive election victory in July, Turkey's political fulcrum has shifted. The newly elected president Gul fondly recalls his assignment as a specialist in the Islamist Development Bank in Jeddah for eight years from 1983 to 1991. Riyadh can claim a genuinely warm friend in Gul.
Limits of Saudi influence
King Abdullah's visit is a celebration of growing ties. It is an acknowledgement of Turkey's regional role, and a statement that Riyadh will go the extra yard to cement common approaches on regional problems with Turkey.
But how far can a Saudi-Turkish strategic partnership develop? The crunch will come over Iraq's future. Much will depend on how Bush makes good on the pledges he made to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during their talks in Washington on November 5 regarding PKK terrorism. Even as King Abdullah was visiting Ankara, Turkey's chief of general staff, General Yasar Buyukanit, repeated that an operation inside Iraq is in the pipeline awaiting government approval.
Buyukanit played down the Washington parleys. "We are a great state and we do not need approval from anyone," he said, adding Turkey only sought "coordination" with US forces in Iraq to avoid friendly fire.
The Saudis have no real means of influencing either developments on the Turkey-Iraq border that could trigger a chain reaction, or Bush's complicated thought processes over Iran that could dramatically alter the region's chessboard.
For the first time in decades, even though oil is selling for almost $100 a barrel, the Saudis will realize the limits of their capacity to influence the course of events in their region. They find non-Arab parties - the US, Israel, Iran, Turkey and even the Kurds - entirely managing the birth pangs of the new Middle East, while not a single Arab regime is directly involved. The Turks will know the Saudis are dealing from a weak hand.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IK13Ak03.html
But it was comprehensible. Middle East politics have assumed an unprecedented level of criticality. The Saudis feel the need to visualize Turkey as a pillar of strength in the volatile regional environment.
Riyadh is signaling Turkey's strategic role. A historical paradox must be noted: Saudi Arabia was the cradle of the "Arab revolt" that sounded the death knell of the Ottoman Empire. It now solicits Turkey's regional role.
Turkey, too, is ready to return to the Muslim world after nearly a century's absence. Finding its European Union membership claims stalled, Turkey edges away from Europe.
Addressing the King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah in February 2006 in his capacity as deputy prime minister and foreign minister in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government at that time, now-president Abdullah Gul said unequivocally, "Turkey's foundations are in Europe and we have always been part of Europe. But Turkey is more than Europe! We are part of the Muslim world and we also belong to the revered traditions of the East. This unique position is our important asset, because it allows us to serve both worlds. Let no one be in doubt that we will fulfill this historic role and advance our common aspirations."
Gul was speaking hardly five months ahead of the path-breaking visit by the Saudi monarch to Turkey. Saudi Arabia and Turkey are both transforming. En route to Ankara last week, King Abdullah was received at the Vatican by Pope Benedict XVI in the first audience ever by a pontiff with a Saudi monarch.
Of course, change comes slowly. US columnist Thomas Friedman made an interesting point that King Abdullah could visit the Vatican, but the "pope can't visit the king of Saudi Arabia in the Vatican of Islam - Mecca", as non-Muslims aren't allowed there. Compared to Saudi Arabia, though, Turkey is transforming at a faster pace.
Religious bonds
A year ago, when King Abdullah arrived in Ankara, the head of protocol, Oya Turzcugolu, met him at the steps of the plane but the king refrained from shaking her hand. President Ahmet Necdet Sezer nonetheless served wine at the state banquet. Now, just a year later, Turkey is no longer fanatically wedded to militant secularism, and Gul doesn't serve wine.
In all of Turkey's history, though the Ottoman state directed the "emir ul Haj" (meaning they were the custodians over the pilgrimage), none of the Ottoman sultans ever performed the pilgrimage, except for Cem Sultan. The presidents of the Turkish republic also scrupulously followed the tradition. Gul will most certainly break that tradition.
Indeed, an agenda item for King Abdullah's parleys in Ankara related to the Turkish request for an increased quota for the haj pilgrimage. An estimated 120,000 Turks performed haj last year, whereas almost thrice that number had applied. Turkey's official pilgrim quota is only 70,000, though the Saudis are keen to accommodate an increased number. There is a strong demand in Turkey, a country that outright banned haj pilgrimages till 1947.
A growing mutual respect for the different interpretations of Islam partly explains the new proximity (Ottoman Turks used to execute Wahhabis). Saudi Arabia is pleased that observant Muslims are becoming assertive in Turkish society. The Saudi regime feels closeness to the government led by the Islamist AKP that it never could with Turkey's staunchly secularist establishment.
But the political establishments of the two countries have a lot of distance to cover. The AKP's decision to honor the visiting Saudi king with the state medal proved controversial. The Kemalist camp bristled. The opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Onur Oymen alleged the decision was a "clear indicator" of the AKP's intention to turn Turkey into an Islamic republic.
"Why should we honor Saudi Arabia? We don't harbor hostility toward that country, but we see no reason for showing sentimentality either," Oymen acidly remarked. He alleged the AKP was striving to bring Turkey "closer to the Islamic countries". Another prominent CHP leader, Inal Batu, a former diplomat, commented that "there are question marks hanging over this government's intention toward the secularist principles".
The antipathy toward Saudi Arabia is not confined to the political corridors. Despite 400 years of common history and religious and cultural links, Turkish civil society has remained coldly, disdainfully indifferent toward Saudi Arabia. It is in the Anatolian heartland of Turkey - among peasants, laborers, small traders and artisans - rather than in the cosmopolitan environs of Istanbul or Izmir that the gradual warming toward Saudi Arabia is palpable.
The Iran question
But King Abdullah's decision to visit Turkey for a second time was largely motivated by politics. The Iran question figures at the top. Riyadh is deeply disturbed by Iran's growing influence in the region. In the Saudi reading of the region's common history, Ottoman Turkey provided the bulwark against the ambitions of Persia's Safavi dynasty. Ideally, the Saudis would want history to repeat itself. But the Turkey-Iran relationship cannot be put back into a historical straightjacket. Turkish attitudes toward Iran have changed in the recent past.
The AKP government's leanings toward the Islamic world include Iran and a robust effort is on to build bilateral cooperation. Trade touching an all-time high level of US$7 billion may soon reach double digits. Ankara envisages a big role for Iran in its ambition to become the region's "energy hub". Disregarding US pressure, Ankara has pressed ahead with an agreement for the transit of Iranian gas to Europe.
Tehran for its part is thankful for Turkey's position that Iran's nuclear issue must be resolved through diplomatic means.
Ankara even hosted a round of talks in April between the European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iran's former chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani.
But what Riyadh must be viewing with a sense of disquiet is the emerging reality that Ankara and Tehran share common interests and concerns in the region's geopolitics. Ankara not only appreciates Tehran's support and understanding for the problems posed by PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) terrorism, but has lately begun flaunting its Iran connection. At the peak of the current crisis on Turkey's border with northern Iraq, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan visited Tehran on October 28.
He acknowledged that Turkey is seeking practical cooperation with Iran in tackling Kurdish militancy. Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad told Babacan, "The fate of regional nations is inter-linked and they should safeguard one another's interests." Ahmadinejad phoned Gul to stress that "Turkey's concerns are received with understanding" and "occupiers [United States] had covert agreements [with Kurds], have prepared the ground for disunity [among regional states] and are supporting terrorists through their double-standard policies".
Turkish-Iranian security cooperation has also shifted gear. It has become overt and sustained and it is deepening. Turkey made good use of its Iran card while appealing to the US on the PKK problem. Riyadh surely feels exasperated that President George W Bush's coddling of Kurdish separatism and terrorism is bringing Salafi Turks and Shi'ite Iranians closer together in an unprecedented bonding of the traditional rivals.
What alarms Riyadh is that Iran also took the initiative to evolve a common position with Syria in extending support to Turkey on the Kurdish problem. Following up on his talks with Babacan, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki visited Damascus on October 29, where he said, "Iran condemns the use of northern Iraqi territory as a launch pad for terrorist operations against Turkey and is fully prepared to combat terrorism at any price." In response, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem said, "Our brothers in Tehran are making efforts which are complementary to ours ... PKK's terrorist activities threaten Turkey as well as Iran and Syria."
Surprise move on Kirkuk
Any Turkish invasion of Iraq will trigger a massive shift in the region's balance of forces. Turkish columnist Hasan Kanbolat of the Islamist daily Zaman recently wrote, "The Arab countries are generally afraid that Turkey's operation may expand to include even Baghdad. Some governments worry that Turkey, having become a regional power, actually plans to permanently enter Iraq and the Arab world and strengthen its claims on the oil reserves of northern Iraq. They fear, in essence, that Turkey intends to use the PKK as an excuse to return to the Middle East with the spirit of the Ottoman Empire."
The Saudis fear that a Turkish incursion into northern Iraq would willy-nilly encourage the emergence of a Shi'ite state in southern Iraq bordering Saudi Arabia's volatile Shi'ite provinces. Besides, the Saudis are nervous that Turkish-Iranian-Syrian understanding could have implications for Lebanon.
Tehran of course has been playing its cards astutely. It incessantly envelops Riyadh in a friendly idiom. On Sunday, Ahmadinejad will undertake a second visit within the year to Riyadh.
Last week, Iran threw another trump card on the table by going on record that it opposed the implementation of Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution (worked out under American supervision), which calls for holding a referendum on the status of Kirkuk province to decide on its inclusion in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Mottaki told Iranian television, "There are differences of opinion about issues such as Kirkuk or the internal borders of provinces. We have suggested a moratorium so that decisions can be made about them."
The Iranian bombshell pleases Ankara immensely. To the contrary, the pro-American KRG leadership went ballistic. KRG president Massoud Barzani's office angrily reacted, "These [Iranian] proposals contradict the Iraqi constitution, and therefore we reject them. They constitute interference and will further complicate the situation." The KRG will be suspecting Iran-Turkey collusion. (The Iranian proposal was embedded deep in a package it submitted at the conference of Iraq's neighboring countries in Istanbul on November 3.)
The dilemma is acute for Saudi Arabia insofar as Iraq has also been the theater of a historical struggle between Shi'ite Iran and Sunni Anatolia. In the Iranian move on Kirkuk, Saudis see Tehran as lending a big helping hand to Ankara, which is bound to further consolidate the two countries' understanding over the Iraq situation. In intrinsic terms, though, the Iranian proposal ought to satisfy Iraqi Arabs as well as Arab countries. But what gives it a cutting edge is that it is not based on technical grounds but on manifestly political motivation. In fact, Tehran admits as much.
The Iranian proposal undercuts the "Sunni solidarity" that Saudis are seeking. For the secular Turkish establishment, though, there is no such contradiction since cooperation with Iran is very obviously for strategic reasons. Moments such as this bring out what strange bedfellows the Turks and the Saudis are.
'Green money'
All the same, King Abdullah's overture to Turkey has logic. He will know Turkey has always been enamored of petro-dollars. The Saudis can be trendsetters at a time when the oil-exporting countries of the Persian Gulf have huge surplus resources to invest. Turkey signaled its priorities when a double taxation avoidance agreement was signed during King Abdullah's visit.
An influx of what Turks call yesil sermaye or green money - from wealthy Islamist businessmen and oil-rich Arab countries - has quietly boosted the AKP's finances over the years. Turkey's Islamic business skyline has certainly changed beyond recognition during AKP rule in the party's strongholds like Kayseri and Konya in inner Anatolia.
Turkish economists estimate that infusion of green money into Turkey could be anywhere up to $12 billion. They speculate that Turkey could be a beneficiary of the Saudi and Persian Gulf countries' liquidation of their US holdings since September 11, 2001.
Some experts believe green money may already have begun influencing Turkish policies. To be sure, Saudi investors will take note that following the AKP's massive election victory in July, Turkey's political fulcrum has shifted. The newly elected president Gul fondly recalls his assignment as a specialist in the Islamist Development Bank in Jeddah for eight years from 1983 to 1991. Riyadh can claim a genuinely warm friend in Gul.
Limits of Saudi influence
King Abdullah's visit is a celebration of growing ties. It is an acknowledgement of Turkey's regional role, and a statement that Riyadh will go the extra yard to cement common approaches on regional problems with Turkey.
But how far can a Saudi-Turkish strategic partnership develop? The crunch will come over Iraq's future. Much will depend on how Bush makes good on the pledges he made to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during their talks in Washington on November 5 regarding PKK terrorism. Even as King Abdullah was visiting Ankara, Turkey's chief of general staff, General Yasar Buyukanit, repeated that an operation inside Iraq is in the pipeline awaiting government approval.
Buyukanit played down the Washington parleys. "We are a great state and we do not need approval from anyone," he said, adding Turkey only sought "coordination" with US forces in Iraq to avoid friendly fire.
The Saudis have no real means of influencing either developments on the Turkey-Iraq border that could trigger a chain reaction, or Bush's complicated thought processes over Iran that could dramatically alter the region's chessboard.
For the first time in decades, even though oil is selling for almost $100 a barrel, the Saudis will realize the limits of their capacity to influence the course of events in their region. They find non-Arab parties - the US, Israel, Iran, Turkey and even the Kurds - entirely managing the birth pangs of the new Middle East, while not a single Arab regime is directly involved. The Turks will know the Saudis are dealing from a weak hand.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IK13Ak03.html