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TURKEY SUCCEEDS WHERE THE EU HAS CONSISTENTLY FAILED
Toby Vogel
EuropeanVoice.com
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/turkey-succeeds-where-the-eu-has-consistently-failed/68270.aspx
June 17 2010
Engagement in the western Balkans shows that Turkey is not turning
towards a more Islamic agenda.
Future historians of reconciliation in the western Balkans could do
worse than focus their narrative on 24 April 2010, a day on which
Boris Tadic, Serbia's president, and Haris Silajdžic, the Muslim
representative on Bosnia and Herzegovina's three-member presidency,
met Abdullah Gul, Turkey's president, at Istanbul's Ciragan Palace.
The summit was the result of months of intense diplomacy between
Ankara, Sarajevo and Belgrade, diplomacy that ran in parallel to
Turkish mediation between Croatia and Serbia.
In a matter of months, Turkey has helped take the three biggest
countries to emerge from Yugoslavia closer to a normalisation of
their relations than the EU had in the 15 years since the Dayton peace
accords ended Serbia's wars in Croatia and Bosnia. A profound shift
in the diplomatic landscape of the western Balkans has occurred -
but few officials and diplomats in the EU appear to have taken note.
The tentative normalisation in relations between Bosnia, Croatia and
Serbia has been made possible by Serbian moves - albeit hesitant
and belated - to come to terms with Belgrade's role in the bloody
dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1991 and in the wars that ensued. Tadic,
with Turkish encouragement, has agreed that on 11 July he will attend
a ceremony near Srebrenica to commemorate the eastern Bosnian town's
capture by Bosnian Serb forces, backed by the Serbian army, and the
subsequent systematic killing of some 8,000 Muslim men, a massacre
recognised as genocide by the International Court of Justice.
Equally significant was a declaration last month by Serbia's parliament
- again encouraged, discreetly, by Turkish diplomats - condemning
the massacre. The declaration recognised, in a roundabout way, that
a genocide had taken place. However imperfect it may have been, the
declaration could serve as a first step for Serbia as it grapples
with its past.
It is ironic that such a process has been set in motion by Turkey. The
Istanbul summit took place in a former imperial palace built in
the 1860s by an Armenian architect, on the date - 24 April - when
Armenians around the world commemorate the beginning in 1915 of the
genocide against their people by the Ottoman empire. To this day,
the Turkish Republic refuses to recognise the slaughter as genocide.
Turkey's ability to act as an honest broker in the western Balkans is
all the more remarkable given its history of imperial domination of
the region. Resistance against the Turks - and Muslims more generally -
is a powerful historical ingredient of Serbia's national identity.
Nonetheless, Serbia and Turkey today maintain cordial relations,
both politically and commercially.
Much has been made in recent months of Turkey's alleged turn towards
the Middle East and a more Islamic agenda guiding its foreign policy.
Robert Gates, the United States secretary of defence, said in London
last week (9 June) that Turkey may have been "pushed by some in Europe"
to turn "eastward".
But, as Turkey's engagement in the Balkans shows, worries about
an eastward turn by Turkey are misplaced. So too is the emphasis
on Islamism. The real story is that Turkey has found its role as a
regional power and is relaxed about pursuing its national interests
in its backyard.
This new-found confidence was evident last week (9 June), when Ankara
defied its most powerful ally, the US, in voting against additional
sanctions on Iran. It was evident too a week earlier, when, using
vicious terms, it denounced Israel - until a few years ago its main
ally in the Middle East - for its bloody operation to halt the Free
Gaza Flotilla, in which nine Turkish nationals were killed.
Turkey's confidence in the Balkans stands in stark contrast to the
EU's position. For years, the Union has been at a loss over what to
do about the two biggest problems in the region, Kosovo and Bosnia,
and has lacked a political strategy for its engagement with individual
countries and the western Balkans as a whole. Its substitute for proper
engagement has been enlargement: the prospect of one day joining the
Union would, the thinking went, entice local elites to undertake the
reforms required to get there.
But this soft power of persuasion has failed to work its magic on
Bosnia's nationalist politicians, whose overriding goal is to stay
in power and milk the system for what it is worth.
It has also failed in Kosovo, which is not recognised by five
member states of the EU and therefore does not have a proper
'European perspective'. A gathering in Sarajevo early last month,
initially billed as a summit between the EU and the countries of
the western Balkans, descended into farce when it was downgraded
to a 'high-level meeting' at which participants spoke in a personal
capacity to circumvent the problem of Kosovo being represented as an
independent country. Most EU foreign ministers skipped the event and
Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign policy chief, left early to attend
to more substantial business back in Brussels.
Little wonder that the governments of the region look to Ankara,
not Brussels, when they need proper mediation.
From: A. Papazian
Toby Vogel
EuropeanVoice.com
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/turkey-succeeds-where-the-eu-has-consistently-failed/68270.aspx
June 17 2010
Engagement in the western Balkans shows that Turkey is not turning
towards a more Islamic agenda.
Future historians of reconciliation in the western Balkans could do
worse than focus their narrative on 24 April 2010, a day on which
Boris Tadic, Serbia's president, and Haris Silajdžic, the Muslim
representative on Bosnia and Herzegovina's three-member presidency,
met Abdullah Gul, Turkey's president, at Istanbul's Ciragan Palace.
The summit was the result of months of intense diplomacy between
Ankara, Sarajevo and Belgrade, diplomacy that ran in parallel to
Turkish mediation between Croatia and Serbia.
In a matter of months, Turkey has helped take the three biggest
countries to emerge from Yugoslavia closer to a normalisation of
their relations than the EU had in the 15 years since the Dayton peace
accords ended Serbia's wars in Croatia and Bosnia. A profound shift
in the diplomatic landscape of the western Balkans has occurred -
but few officials and diplomats in the EU appear to have taken note.
The tentative normalisation in relations between Bosnia, Croatia and
Serbia has been made possible by Serbian moves - albeit hesitant
and belated - to come to terms with Belgrade's role in the bloody
dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1991 and in the wars that ensued. Tadic,
with Turkish encouragement, has agreed that on 11 July he will attend
a ceremony near Srebrenica to commemorate the eastern Bosnian town's
capture by Bosnian Serb forces, backed by the Serbian army, and the
subsequent systematic killing of some 8,000 Muslim men, a massacre
recognised as genocide by the International Court of Justice.
Equally significant was a declaration last month by Serbia's parliament
- again encouraged, discreetly, by Turkish diplomats - condemning
the massacre. The declaration recognised, in a roundabout way, that
a genocide had taken place. However imperfect it may have been, the
declaration could serve as a first step for Serbia as it grapples
with its past.
It is ironic that such a process has been set in motion by Turkey. The
Istanbul summit took place in a former imperial palace built in
the 1860s by an Armenian architect, on the date - 24 April - when
Armenians around the world commemorate the beginning in 1915 of the
genocide against their people by the Ottoman empire. To this day,
the Turkish Republic refuses to recognise the slaughter as genocide.
Turkey's ability to act as an honest broker in the western Balkans is
all the more remarkable given its history of imperial domination of
the region. Resistance against the Turks - and Muslims more generally -
is a powerful historical ingredient of Serbia's national identity.
Nonetheless, Serbia and Turkey today maintain cordial relations,
both politically and commercially.
Much has been made in recent months of Turkey's alleged turn towards
the Middle East and a more Islamic agenda guiding its foreign policy.
Robert Gates, the United States secretary of defence, said in London
last week (9 June) that Turkey may have been "pushed by some in Europe"
to turn "eastward".
But, as Turkey's engagement in the Balkans shows, worries about
an eastward turn by Turkey are misplaced. So too is the emphasis
on Islamism. The real story is that Turkey has found its role as a
regional power and is relaxed about pursuing its national interests
in its backyard.
This new-found confidence was evident last week (9 June), when Ankara
defied its most powerful ally, the US, in voting against additional
sanctions on Iran. It was evident too a week earlier, when, using
vicious terms, it denounced Israel - until a few years ago its main
ally in the Middle East - for its bloody operation to halt the Free
Gaza Flotilla, in which nine Turkish nationals were killed.
Turkey's confidence in the Balkans stands in stark contrast to the
EU's position. For years, the Union has been at a loss over what to
do about the two biggest problems in the region, Kosovo and Bosnia,
and has lacked a political strategy for its engagement with individual
countries and the western Balkans as a whole. Its substitute for proper
engagement has been enlargement: the prospect of one day joining the
Union would, the thinking went, entice local elites to undertake the
reforms required to get there.
But this soft power of persuasion has failed to work its magic on
Bosnia's nationalist politicians, whose overriding goal is to stay
in power and milk the system for what it is worth.
It has also failed in Kosovo, which is not recognised by five
member states of the EU and therefore does not have a proper
'European perspective'. A gathering in Sarajevo early last month,
initially billed as a summit between the EU and the countries of
the western Balkans, descended into farce when it was downgraded
to a 'high-level meeting' at which participants spoke in a personal
capacity to circumvent the problem of Kosovo being represented as an
independent country. Most EU foreign ministers skipped the event and
Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign policy chief, left early to attend
to more substantial business back in Brussels.
Little wonder that the governments of the region look to Ankara,
not Brussels, when they need proper mediation.
From: A. Papazian