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Financial Times, UK
Oct 14 2007
Turkey and the US on collision course
Published: October 14 2007 18:38 | Last updated: October 14 2007
18:38
Collisions between allies rarely come much bigger than the current
spat between the US and Turkey: Ankara has recalled its ambassador to
Washington, outraged at a vote in Congress declaring the massacres of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 to be genocide.
The vote, by the foreign affairs committee of the House of
Representatives, has yet to go to a full vote and does not reflect
the view of the Bush administration, which lobbied fiercely against
it. Indeed, eight former secretaries of state signed a letter to
Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, warning of repercussions for US
national security.
Ms Pelosi and the main sponsor of the bill, Adam Schiff, who both
represent Californian districts with big Armenian populations,
brushed all this aside. Now for the fall-out.
The relationship between these Nato allies had already deteriorated
as a result of the US invasion of Iraq and policy in the Middle East.
The architects of the Iraq war are still angry about the Turkish
parliament's refusal to allow the US to open a northern front from
Turkey's soil. Turkey is incensed by the occupation's consecration of
a de facto state in Iraqi Kurdistan, which it believes encourages
secession by Kurds in south-east Turkey, and is a base to relaunch
insurgency by the Kurdistan Workers' Party.
After the Armenian vote, Ankara is likely to ignore US pleas and send
in its forces to flush out the rebels, opening a new front in the
multi-sided civil war in Iraq and further destabilising the region.
Turkey may also start to sever links with the US military and deny it
the use of the Incirlik base, one of the main conduits for American
troops and supplies into Iraq.
But the worst of it is that nine out of 10 Turks are now hostile to
the US, whose policies are feeding a revival of rightwing nationalism
and radical Islam. These are not problems that will be resolved by
gesture politics in the US Congress.
The Turkish republic of Ataturk is not responsible for the atrocities
committed against the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire. But nor can it
evade this blood-soaked chapter of Turkish history.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, has called on international
scholars to establish the facts and offered them access to the
Ottoman archives. Nothing has happened because his neo-Islamist
government has been locked in a test of wills with the army - which
regards itself as the guardian of national honour. Modern Turkey
needs to settle this account with history. It will not do so if it
believes foreigners are out to do down the country resurrected from
Ottoman ruins.
Oct 14 2007
Turkey and the US on collision course
Published: October 14 2007 18:38 | Last updated: October 14 2007
18:38
Collisions between allies rarely come much bigger than the current
spat between the US and Turkey: Ankara has recalled its ambassador to
Washington, outraged at a vote in Congress declaring the massacres of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 to be genocide.
The vote, by the foreign affairs committee of the House of
Representatives, has yet to go to a full vote and does not reflect
the view of the Bush administration, which lobbied fiercely against
it. Indeed, eight former secretaries of state signed a letter to
Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, warning of repercussions for US
national security.
Ms Pelosi and the main sponsor of the bill, Adam Schiff, who both
represent Californian districts with big Armenian populations,
brushed all this aside. Now for the fall-out.
The relationship between these Nato allies had already deteriorated
as a result of the US invasion of Iraq and policy in the Middle East.
The architects of the Iraq war are still angry about the Turkish
parliament's refusal to allow the US to open a northern front from
Turkey's soil. Turkey is incensed by the occupation's consecration of
a de facto state in Iraqi Kurdistan, which it believes encourages
secession by Kurds in south-east Turkey, and is a base to relaunch
insurgency by the Kurdistan Workers' Party.
After the Armenian vote, Ankara is likely to ignore US pleas and send
in its forces to flush out the rebels, opening a new front in the
multi-sided civil war in Iraq and further destabilising the region.
Turkey may also start to sever links with the US military and deny it
the use of the Incirlik base, one of the main conduits for American
troops and supplies into Iraq.
But the worst of it is that nine out of 10 Turks are now hostile to
the US, whose policies are feeding a revival of rightwing nationalism
and radical Islam. These are not problems that will be resolved by
gesture politics in the US Congress.
The Turkish republic of Ataturk is not responsible for the atrocities
committed against the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire. But nor can it
evade this blood-soaked chapter of Turkish history.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, has called on international
scholars to establish the facts and offered them access to the
Ottoman archives. Nothing has happened because his neo-Islamist
government has been locked in a test of wills with the army - which
regards itself as the guardian of national honour. Modern Turkey
needs to settle this account with history. It will not do so if it
believes foreigners are out to do down the country resurrected from
Ottoman ruins.