Turkey

This weekend Turkey and the United States took steps toward getting more heavily involved in the Syrian quagmire. First, after a year of protracted negotiations, Turkey agreed to allow the United States to use Incirlik airbase to conduct operations against the so-called Islamic State. In return, the Obama administration has agreed to the establishment of a “safe zone” in northwestern Syria that “moderate Syrian opposition forces” would protect along with Turkish and American airpower. Second, Turkey undertook airstrikes against Islamic State positions in Syria and the forces of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq. The early reaction has focused almost exclusively on Ankara’s sudden interest in combatting the Islamic State and the establishment of safe zones as potential “game changers” in the fight against Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the Assad regime. In reality this effort is likely to achieve much less than expected. It is true that the Turks have gotten more serious about the threat of the Islamic State, especially since the Suruc bombing on July 20, but Ankara, which has grown increasingly uncomfortable as the Kurds have made gains against Islamic State forces in Syria, is primarily interested in suppressing Kurdish nationalism. This has placed Washington in the odd position of having essentially given the go-ahead to its most reluctant ally in the fight against the Islamic State to combat some of the most effective fighters in that conflict —the Kurds, both the Turkish Kurds of the PKK and the affiliated forces of their Syrian cousins, the People’s Protection Units, known by the acronym YPG—under the guise of combatting the same enemy. This seems like a steep price to pay for the use of Incirlik while threatening to draw the United States into a war with no end. Why now? The United States and Turkey have until now disagreed over how to deal with the Islamic State. The Turks have maintained the position that bringing down the Assad regime in Syria would go a long way toward defeating the Islamic State. It is also a position that is politically self-serving since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have made it a matter of principle that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad “must go.” The Obama administration has taken the view that Ankara was overlooking the possibility that Assad’s demise might actually benefit al-Baghdadi, whose forces would take advantage of the additional chaos and bloodletting that would surely ensue. The White House has also been more focused on Iraq than Syria, much to Turkish chagrin. As the Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung and Liz Sly reported today, a number of recent developments altered Turkish and American calculations including the Islamic State’s threat to the Azaz border crossing along the northwest of the Syrian-Turkish frontier and Kurdish control of the Tel Abyad border crossing near Kobani. There was also the apparent Islamic State suicide bombing last Monday, which killed thirty-two people in Suruc, demonstrating the Islamic State’s ability to do damage inside of Turkey. All three developments have combined to convince the Turks that it was time to act, but for Ankara it is not just about the Islamic State. What are the Turks up to? Ankara clearly has an Islamic State problem, but it also has a Kurdish nationalism problem. The former is new while the latter has been central in the politics of the Turkish Republic since its founding in 1923. Consequently the Turks have made combatting the Kurds their priority. Over the thirteen years since it came to power, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has sought to resolve this historical challenge through a variety of initiatives that would diminish the appeal of Kurdish nationalism for Turkey’s Kurds. These included a $12 billion investment—the AKP insists it was $25 billion—in the predominantly Kurdish southeast in 2005 and 2006, an ill-defined “Kurdish opening” in 2009, and, for the last three years, a peace process with the PKK. Yet the political pressure has become too much given that Syria’s Kurds have sought to establish an independent canton along the Turkish-Syrian frontier and that they have become partners of the United States in the fight against the Islamic State. In the background, of course, is the advanced state of Iraqi Kurdistan’s drive for independence, the failing peace process with the PKK, and the recent strong showing of the Kurdish-based People’s Democratic Party in Turkey’s parliamentary elections. The Turks quite obviously fear that these developments will encourage the fourteen million Kurdish citizens of Turkey to seek changes that threaten the republic. This is in part why the Turks stood by and watched when the Islamic State laid siege to the Kurdish-Syrian town of Kobani last year. For Turkey, taking part in coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State and rounding up suspected supporters is a side benefit to the actual goal of disrupting Kurdish plans in Syria and hitting the PKK. If there is any doubt about Turkish aims, Erdogan declared in late June, “We will never allow the establishment of a state in Syria’s north and our south.” The Turks deserve praise for the way in which they have managed a huge number of Syrian refugees—1.8 million by last official count—but in addition to relieving some of the pressure of hosting so many refugees in Turkey, Ankara’s idea of a “safe zone” carved out of northen Syria seems also intended to make sure that Syria’s Kurds are unable to consolidate their battlefield gains against the Islamic State into what they call Rojava, or Western Kurdistan. The fact that this zone will be under the authority of some as-of-yet-to-be-determined Syrian opposition forces with Turkish and American protection from the air makes it significantly less likely that the Kurds will achieve their aims. Upon the announcement of the safe zone, the Syrian Kurdish leader, Salih Muslim, warned that the Turkish-American plan was essentially a ruse that was cover for sending Turkish forces into northern Syria. If Muslim is correct, then no one should expect that the forces affiliated with his Democratic Union Party will just allow it to happen. So instead of making the Islamic State their battlefield focus, as they have been doing with American support, the Syrian Kurds will also fight the Turkish army. What are the risks for the United States? By signing up with the Turks to establish a safe zone and then provide support to the Syrian opposition in its efforts to liberate Idlib and Aleppo, the United States may have cemented an alliance between Assad and the Islamic State. Defending both the safe zone and liberating large portions of Syrian territory seem way beyond the capacity of “moderate Syrian opposition forces”—though perhaps not the extremist variety. It seems that while Washington has undermined an ally in the fight against the Islamic State, it has given every reason for the Islamic State and Assad’s forces to work together—not unprecedented at all—against the safe zone and approved opposition forces attacking from the north. Based on experience, Turkish and American officials clearly believe that airpower can be decisive against both Assad’s battered forces as well as Islamic State fighters, but there is no guarantee that what worked in one area will work in another. There can be no assurances of success, but after years of avoiding the Syrian conflict, the Incirlik-for-a-safe-zone trade now puts the United States at risk of getting sucked into it. What happens if the Syrian opposition forces assigned to protect the safe zone cannot manage it? The Turks would likely happily deploy forces to help, but there would be tremendous pressure on the United States to do the same if only to keep an eye on the Turks. What if, warnings to Assad aside, Syrian air defenses—a major threat according to the Pentagon—bags an American plane? How would Washington respond? Like the debate about a “no-fly zone” at an earlier stage of the conflict revealed, there are myriad ways in which the United States can be pulled into Syria. How does the agreement with Turkey help the United States achieve its goals in Iraq and Syria? Ankara is a less potent ally in the fight against the Islamic State than the Kurds, it is no longer a significant player in the future of Iraq, and it maintains a wholly unrealistic view of what will happen in Syria if the Assad regime falls. The Middle East is hard and Syria is especially complex, but it is difficult to see what the United States gets out of the deal other than the runways of Incirlik. That is not going to solve either Syria or the problematic conditions that created the Islamic State, but it will pull Washington closer to war on Turkish terms. In Turkish it is called bataklık, or quagmire.

Take a closer look at fragments of one of the earliest extant Qurans today, found recently at the University of Birmingham. Nervana Mahmoud laments the fate of Middle Eastern liberalism in the wake of the Iran nuclear deal. Semih Idiz calls the recent bombings in Suruc, Turkey, a “dreadful wakeup call” for his country.

Nadeen Shaker investigates how Turkey’s Kurds are reclaiming their language in the classroom. Farah Halime of Rebel Economy has published a translation of former Vice President of Egypt Omar Suleiman’s September 2011 court testimony in the case against former President Hosni Mubarak. Sam Houston discusses methods of understanding authority and authenticity in Islam vis-à-vis jihadism.

This article was originally published here on The American Interest on Wednesday, June 10, 2015. Turks can be forgiven for the party they threw themselves late Sunday, stretching into Monday morning. They voted in droves in what was widely regarded as the most important general election in more than a decade and dealt the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) a significant blow. After garnering nearly 50 percent of the vote in the 2011 parliamentary elections, the AKP ceded about 9 percentage points to a combination of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), a new Kurdish-based group that will enter the Grand National Assembly for the first time. The AKP’s result translates into a loss of either 68 or 69 seats (officials results have yet to be released), meaning that the party will need to find a coalition partner if it wants to continue governing—something it has never had to do. It is true that the AKP still commands the largest number of votes by a significant percentage, but it no longer seems so invincible. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the central figure in Turkish politics, who made the elections about himself and his ambition to transform Turkey from a hybrid parliamentary-presidential system to a purely presidential system is no doubt diminished by the result. Erdogan, who once rode to power on a broad coalition of liberals, the pious, Kurds, big business, and average Turks, is now a deeply polarizing figure for many. Continue reading here...

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Serkan Demirtas writes about the AKP and the quest for peace with the Kurds Mohammad Raba’a discusses Wadi Barada, an Islamic State foothold in Syria. Jonathan Guyer explores free speech, satire, and Charlie Hebdo with Arab cartoonists.

Ahmad al-Akla writes about people’s return to rebel-controlled Idlib, Syria. A new party in Egypt calls for a secular constitution. Juan Cole discusses how recent shifts in Syria are driven by Turkish and Saudi policies that may be beneficial for al-Qaeda.

This article was originally published here on ForeignAffairs.com on Thursday, April 23, 2015. On April 25, 1915, when British, French, and Australian and New Zealand troops landed on the strategic Gallipoli Peninsula, their objective was to knock out Ottoman defenses and make way for Allied navies to steam up the Dardanelles strait toward Istanbul. It was a risky and costly endeavor that culminated in their total retreat eight months later. For Gallipoli’s defenders, who lost 86,692 men, the battle was an important victory in defense of the Ottoman Empire. Paradoxically, it also became a touchstone of the nationalism that was so important to the establishment of the Republic of Turkey less than a decade later. Likewise, celebrations planned for the battle’s centenary reflect the tension between the valorization of the Ottoman era and the hallowed memory of Mustafa Kemal—Ataturk—modern Turkey’s founder. In many ways, the memory of Gallipoli is still shaping, and is being shaped by, the country’s political trajectory. When the Allied force landed, Kemal, then a lieutenant colonel, was being held in a reserve unit five miles from the front. He was quickly deployed on horseback with the 57th Regiment to the steep hills overlooking Ariburnu Point and the famous Anzac Cove. There he encountered retreating Turkish forces—whom, in his own telling, he implored to carry on with their fight to the death, ordering those soldiers who had run out of ammunition to fix their bayonets. Kemal managed to hold on for the next 24 hours under heavy Allied pressure, enduring significant losses until reinforcements arrived to shore up Ottoman defenses. Continue reading here...

This article was originally published here on ForeignPolicy.com on Wednesday, April 22, 2015. As the world commemorates the centennial of the Armenian genocide this week, Turkey’s government once again finds itself fighting an old, losing battle. According to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the recent spate of calls to recognize the genocide is the work of an “evil gang” bent on slandering the country’s honor. The old members of this gang are well known to Turkey-watchers. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its supporters routinely refer to them as Islamophobes, the “interest rate lobby,” and “provocateurs” — in other words, anyone who might raise a critical question about Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Now, Turkish leaders have added a new name to the list: Welcome to the haters’ party, Pope Francis. Last week, the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics described the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 as “the first genocide of the 20th century.” The Turkish leadership went into a collective frenzy of denunciations: Ankara recalled its representative to the Holy See and demanded an explanation from the Vatican’s ambassador in Turkey. Erdogan led the charge, lashing out at the pontiff as if he was a cheap pol. “We will not allow historical incidents to be taken out of their genuine context and be used as a tool to campaign against our country,” Erdogan said. “When politicians and clerics take on the work of historians, it is not the truth that comes out but rather, like today, nonsense. I condemn the pope and would like to warn him not to make similar mistakes again.” Continue reading here...

This article was originally published here on the American Interest’s website on Tuesday, April 7, 2015.  It is eight weeks before Turkey’s general elections, the end of a stretch that has lasted a little more than a year during which Turks will have gone to the polls three times to elect their Mayors, President, and now legislators. The extended electoral season, made difficult by Turkey’s polarization, has not dampened the Istanbul-Ankara elite’s appetite for rank speculation, however. In years past, much of this chatter centered on parties and politicians who were going to save Turkey from whatever crisis of governance had befallen the country. There was the businessman Cem Uzan and his Youth Party in 2002; the dream team of Ismail Cem and Kemal Dervis, who were going to lead the New Turkey Party to victory also in 2002; Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the man to reverse the slide of the Republican People’s Party into the party of Izmir and certain Istanbul neighborhoods; and, of course, Abdullah Gul, the man to wrest control of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) from Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Uzan, however, was convicted of fraud in the United States and now lives in France, the New Turkey Party received a paltry 1.2 percent of the vote, Kilicdaroglu has presided over one defeat after the next, and Gul moved quietly from Ankara’s Cankaya Palace to Istanbul, where he seems to be enjoying retirement. So much for saving Turkey. As this year’s vote approaches, speculation has focused not on a would-be charismatic leader riding to the rescue, but rather on the relationship between Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and what it means for the future of Turkish politics. Continue reading here...

With all the hubbub over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s visit to New York City this week was almost entirely overlooked in the United States. Turkey’s opposition press—or what is left of it—is pretty much convinced that Davutoglu is not visiting Washington because he is not welcome here. That seems unlikely. No matter the discord between Washington and Ankara over the fight against the Islamic State, how to deal with Egypt, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and Turkey’s rollback of civil and political rights, the Turkish prime minister (regardless of who holds the position) is important enough to rate a meeting. Then again, it is possible that senior American officials are too busy with ongoing Iran negotiations, the war against ISIS, and the crisis in Ukraine to spare the time for Turkey’s head of government. Everyone in Washington knows that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wields all the power, making a meeting with Davutoglu more of a diplomatic obligation than an opportunity to get things done. Add to this the fact that Davutoglu is not well liked in Washington and the Turkish pundits just may be onto something. Davutoglu will be busy in New York, however, meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, attending a United Nations forum on gender equality, and speaking to corporate members of the Council on Foreign Relations. Importantly, Davutoglu also has Mehmet Simsek, the minister of finance, and Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan, who is responsible for the economy, in tow for meetings with international investors. According to Joe Parkinson and Emre Peker of the Wall Street Journal, the trio met with officials from Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to assure them that they need not worry about Turkey’s financial management. Speaking of Citigroup, on Thursday, the firm announced it was exiting its 2007 investment in Akbank—one of the largest financial institutions in Turkey—and in the process taking an $800 million loss. Citi, which has operated in Turkey since 1975, will continue to operate Citibank AS that services corporate and commercial clients in the country. The sale of its stake in Akbank is, according to Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat, part of an overall strategy to focus on its “core business.” Fair enough, but the divestment also comes at a time when Standard & Poor’s issued a negative rating on Turkish banks. According to Today’s Zaman, S&P cited the “potential for political risks, or the perception of it, to directly or indirectly spillover into the financial system.” Here S&P was referring directly to the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund’s—Turkey’s equivalent of the Federal Deposit Insurance Company—seizure of a majority of Bank Asya’s preferred stock. Turkey’s bank regulators charge that Bank Asya’s operations made it difficult to conduct an audit of its operations. A bank operating without full transparency? That does seem like a good reason to takeover a bank thereby protecting investors and depositors. Turkey’s Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) deserves credit for its vigilance. Yet what is the “political risk” that worries S&P so much that it has gone sour on Turkish banks, once an attractive investment? Well, it turns out that Bank Asya’s management and its major investors are close to the Gulen movement, which has been on the losing end of a struggle with President Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) that broke into the open in December 2013. The Gulenists are believed to be behind leaks to the press that implicated senior members of the AKP as well as President Erdogan and his family in various corruption schemes. Erdogan subsequently vowed to make the Gulenists pay a price for these allegations, leading to the jailing of pro-Gulenist journalists, pressure on Gulenist business leaders, and purges of the bureaucracy. Clearly, S&P believes that the action against Bank Asya was politically motivated in order to further damage the Gulenists. This seems entirely plausible. In 2009, Erdogan and the AKP used the tax authority to hand the Dogan Media Group a $2 billion fine when its news outlets reported on potential corruption within an AKP-affiliated charity in Europe. More recently, Koc Holdings has faced what seem to be politically motivated lawsuits. (Full disclosure: Mustafa Koc, chairman of Koc Holdings, is on CFR’s Global Board of Advisors). The government’s alleged effort to “bankrupt Bank Asya,” as some in the Turkish press have charged, is not the only political risk that is damaging the Turkish economy. Both Turkish and Western journalists have noted President Erdogan’s efforts over the past year or so to compromise the independence of Turkey’s Central Bank. Part of Erdogan’s success has been economic growth—or the perception of it—within Turkey’s middle class, which has felt richer during the AKP era. With the feeling of newfound wealth, middle class Turks have come to use (and abuse) credit for the first time in their lives. Low interest rates help to keep the economy growing, which makes Turks feel wealthier, resulting in more consumer spending and AKP electoral victories. Even as the lira depreciated and Economics 101 calls for a hike in the interest rate to avoid inflation and other deleterious effects of a falling currency, Erdogan has insisted on low interest rates. He had to accept a sharp increase in the interbank lending rate in January 2014. This helped avoid a currency crisis in Turkey and across emerging markets. Once the threat of that crisis passed in April 2014, however, Erdogan sought lower interests rates once again, cajoling the Central Bank to reverse course. Since last December the bank has cut interest rates twice, despite a currency in free fall, while Erdem Basci, the governor of the Central Bank, tries to beat back attacks on him and the bank from the AKP, which wants lower interest rates before the June 7 parliamentary elections. It seems that after all of Erdogan’s criticisms, he is in fact the “interest rate lobby.” If Davutoglu’s meetings with bankers in New York do not go well, Turkey’s political leaders will have only themselves to blame, though they will likely still blame the aforementioned interest rate lobby or Zionists or Zionist bankers or international Zionist bankers in cahoots with “Pennsylvania”—a reference to Fetullah Gulen who lives there. As with everything else in Turkey these days, Ankara is willing to put the long-term health of the economy at risk so long as it serves the political interests of the AKP and President Erdogan.