A Conference Report

Turkey’s Role in the Middle East

Patricia Carley

United StatesInstitute of Peace

Summary v

Preface viii

1 Introduction 1

2 Background 2

3 Historical and Geostrategic Context 5

4 Turkey, the Kurds, and Relations with Iraq 8

5 Turkey and Iran 12

6 Turkey, Syria, and the Water Crisis 16

7 Turkey and the Middle East Peace Process 20

8 Conclusion: Turkey’s Future Role in the Middle East 23

Conference Participants 27

About the Author 28

About the Institute 29

CONTENTS

The end of the Cold War seemed to portend adecline in Turkey’s strategic importance tothe West; however, the political changes in

the world since 1989 have also loosened the con-straints within which Turkey can act. As a result,Ankara’s foreign policy has been redirected fromits strictly western orientation to one in which thecountries of the Middle East have become poten-tially more significant. The changing relationshipbetween Turkey—uniquely positioned in both theWest and the East—and its neighbors in the MiddleEast was examined at a United States Institute ofPeace conference entitled “A Reluctant Neighbor:Analyzing Turkey’s Role in the Middle East,” heldon June 1–2, 1994.

The foundations of Turkey’s foreign policy are alegacy of the country’s founder, Kemal Ataturk,who from the time of its establishment in 1923,had two fundamental goals for the new republic:modernization and westernization. Ataturk di-rected the country away not only from other Tur-kic peoples, but also, despite their historical rela-tionship over centuries of Ottoman rule, from therest of the Islamic world. He instituted a series ofdomestic reforms to bolster the new direction ofthe country, including secularizing the politicaland judicial systems and changing the alphabetfrom Arabic to Latin. As a result of these radicalchanges, Turkey experienced an almost complete

break with its past in both foreign and domesticspheres that remains a part of the nation’s fabric.Although Ataturk’s influence is not unshakable,his legacy endures, and any change in Ankara’s for-eign policy orientation must be examined againstthis background.

Ironically, Turkey’s relationship with the MiddleEast is colored by the very past that Ataturk soughtto repudiate. On the one hand, many current Arabsuspicions about Turkey date back to the period af-ter 1908, when the extremist Turkification cam-paign of the Young Turks led to the suppression ofArab language and culture. On the other hand,Turks remember that Arabs sided with the Britishduring World War I, an act that, while motivatedby the Arab drive for independence, is still viewedby many Turks as unforgivable treachery. Thus, de-spite the revolutionary and enduring nature ofAtaturk’s reforms, when Arabs and Turks confronteach other today, the past is not as much a dead is-sue as many in Turkey may want to believe.

The greater attention being given by Turkey torelations with the Middle East results not onlyfrom changing world politics but also from factorssuch as the Kurdish rebellion in southeast Turkey,the water dispute with Syria, and the peace accordsbetween Israel and the Palestine Liberation Orga-nization (PLO) signed in September 1993. Despiteexpanded relations with the Middle East, however,Turkey’s most important political relationship willcontinue to be with the West, as will its principaltrade relations.

The Kurds

The Kurdish problem is one of Turkey’s most vex-ing. Some 12 million to 14 million Kurds live inTurkey today, and their relations with the govern-ment have been troubled since the founding of therepublic. The problem stems in part from Ataturk’sdictum that, despite the presence of millions ofKurds, only the “Turkish nation” lived within theborders of the republic. To uphold this tenet, theTurkish government has suppressed any display ofKurdish linguistic or cultural distinctiveness andencouraged full assimilation. In the 1970s, a radi-calized Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) wasformed to fight for the rights of Kurds. When thatgroup turned to violent terrorist tactics in the early1980s, the government responded with force,

SUMMARY

v

killing many non-PKK Kurdish villagers in theprocess. In the past ten years there have been thou-sands of deaths of Kurdish and Turkish civilian by-standers, as well as Turkish soldiers, PKK guerril-las, journalists, and human rights activists.

The Turkish government appears bent on a mili-tary solution to the problem. Yet one of the factorsexacerbating the crisis is the government’s failureto separate the broader Kurdish struggle for lin-guistic and cultural rights from the narrower—andmore legitimate—issue of combating PKK terror-ism. It appears that the most effective solutionwould be to accept a separate identity for theKurds and to abandon the policy of assimilation.Indeed, to remain a stable, democratic countrythat can act as a secular model for others, Turkeymust confront the Kurdish question in a more con-structive manner.

Iraq

Before the 1991 Gulf War, Turkey had better rela-tions with Iraq than with any other Middle Easternneighbor except Jordan, and the two frequently co-operated on the Kurdish problem. Relations wors-ened with the onset of the war, when Turkey sup-ported the embargo against Iraq. Today, theKurdish issue, ironically, unites more than dividesthem, since both countries want to contain Kur-dish separatism. Other prominent factors thatshape Turkish-Iraqi relations include the oilpipeline (which may also induce cooperation sinceboth countries suffered economically from its clos-ing) and the attitude of the West, particularly theUnited States, which would be extremely uneasyabout any Turkish attempt to improve relationswith Iraq.

Iran

Although they are historical rivals, Turkey and Iranhave enjoyed relatively good relations in this cen-tury, in part because of their mutual hostility tocommunism. The relationship was damaged bythe 1979 Iranian revolution, but it has steadily im-proved since then, as the two countries have putaside ideological differences and as Turkey hassought to restrain the polarization between Islamand the West unleashed by the 1979 events. Turk-

ish-Iranian relations took yet another turn in thelate 1980s as the two countries competed for influ-ence in the former Soviet republics of Central Asiaand the Caucasus. However, both Turkish andIranian hopes have been dashed by the economicand political realities of Central Asia, and competi-tion there is no longer as important a source of ten-sion between them.

Syria

Relations between Turkey and Syria, on the otherhand, have been clouded by general Arab suspi-cion dating back to the Young Turk era and institu-tionalized during the Cold War, when the twowere positioned on opposing sides. Syria has al-ways suspected Turkey of being a gendarme, serv-ing western interests in the region. Antagonism be-tween the two heightened in the 1970s, when theTurks began construction of the GuneydoguAnadolu Projesi (GAP), the large dam project onthe Euphrates River that, when completed in themid-1980s, restricted the flow of water into Syria.Tensions since then have been compounded byTurkish claims that Syria gives safe haven to thePKK—claims that Syria officially denies. Further-more, there remains the sleeping issue of Alexan-dretta (or Hatay, as the Turks call it), a contestedarea on the border that became part of Turkey in1939, over Syrian opposition.

Water issues are particularly contentious withSyria. Turkey claims that the Euphrates and TigrisRivers are “transboundary” water courses that be-long to one country while the river flows throughit and become the property of another after cross-ing the border. Syria, however, views these vital ar-teries as international waterways belonging to noone. Syria claims that Turkey drains off an unfairshare of the water before it crosses the border andcharges that Ankara lacks the political will to reachan equitable agreement on sharing water rights.Turkey, for its part, believes that Syria is harboringPKK terrorists as a weapon in the water dispute. Aslong as these mutual accusations persist, Turkish-Syrian relations are likely to remain tense.

vi

Israel

Turkey’s uninterrupted diplomatic relations withIsrael—even at the height of Arab-Israeli tensions—made it unusual among Muslim nations and con-tributed to Arab suspicions of Turkey’s role. YetAnkara’s relations with Tel Aviv were reduced to alow level in the mid-1960s, and Turkey openlysupported the Palestinian cause. In recent yearsthere has been a warming of relations betweenTurkey and Israel, although in contrast to the situ-ation before the early 1990s, it is now Turkey thatis pursuing better relations. The September 1993Israeli-PLO Peace Accords sped up the warmingprocess, and relations have improved to the pointthat there has been discussion not only of a freetrade agreement, but even of cooperation on secu-rity and intelligence.

The Arab World

For Arabs, relations with Turkey have never beenas important as the Palestinian issue. Althoughthere is currently a constructive “reinvention” ofTurkey in Arab political discourse, Arabs remainskeptical of each of Turkey’s potential roles. Forexample, Turkey simply would not have the neces-sary military power to act as regional caretaker inthe face of a serious threat to the region, and it hastoo many serious economic problems of its own tobe a credible model of economic development.Furthermore, Arabs tend to see Turks as living in aperpetual identity crisis, neither fully a part of theWest or the Middle East nor fully independent ofeither.

Conclusions

Analysis of Turkey’s roles in the Middle East leadsto several conclusions:

Turkey’s relations with the Middle East—as withthe rest of the world—will be determined by itssuccess in handling two critical domestic prob-lems: the Kurdish rebellion and a dire eco-nomic crisis. Failure to solve either problemsoon could threaten the country’s political sta-bility. Their effective resolution, on the otherhand, could allow Turkey to become a signifi-cant force in the Middle East.

Not only has the Kurdish insurrection rapidlyescalated in intensity in recent months, butTurkish society is becoming increasingly polar-ized between Turks and Kurds, substantiallyraising the risk of a broader civil war. The gov-ernment’s refusal to separate the Kurdish issuefrom the problem of dealing with PKK terror-ism is at the heart of the problem. To be re-solved successfully, the Kurdish issue must beaddressed on a social, economic, cultural, andpolitical basis and not simply through the appli-cation of military force.

Turkey’s future role in the Middle East is likelyto expand, but it will remain limited for a num-ber of reasons. These include Turkey’s differingpolitical culture and geographic marginality, aswell as the fact that other regions—such as theBalkans, Cyprus, and the states of the formerSoviet Union—are of greater importance toAnkara than the Middle East is.

The most important Middle Eastern countriesfrom Turkey’s perspective will remain Iran,Iraq, and Syria, where problems of water, politi-cal ambition, religion, boundaries, and the PKKare factors. Iraq will continue to presentTurkey’s trickiest foreign policy problemamong its neighbors, as the waves of Kurdishrefugees to Turkey necessitate some accommo-dation with Saddam Hussein, which may com-plicate relations with the United States.

In contrast to the regions where Turkey plays amore significant role, its relations with the MiddleEast, though more active than in the past, will re-main cautious and tentative. Many factors, fromthe Kurdish problem to the new political order,are forcing changes in Turkey’s traditional foreignpolicy orientation, but the nations of the West willcontinue to be Turkey’s most important politicaland economic partners and the focus of its foreignpolicy.

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The United States Institute of Peace has givenspecial attention to a range of Middle East-ern problems in recent years. We have ex-

amined regional arms control in the post–GulfWar period, means to facilitate the Arab-Israelipeace process in the Madrid era, and, most re-cently, the phenomenon and implications of politi-cal Islam. In choosing these subjects, we have triedto examine aspects of the problems that are oftenoverlooked, as part of the search for new ap-proaches to traditional questions.

The future of Turkey in the Middle East is with-out doubt a topic that meets the Institute’s criteriafor Middle Eastern work. Turkey’s long strategicrelevance to the United States and to other coun-tries east and west has been brought home to us bysuch events as the breakup of Yugoslavia, the fall ofthe Soviet Union, and the emergence of indepen-dent Turkic states in the Transcaucasus and Cen-tral Asia. Despite their recognition of Turkey’sstrategic location among regions in flux, scholarsand policymakers have tended to disregard the factthat Turkey is part of the Middle East, long an un-stable region. Although any Middle East specialistwill acknowledge that Turkey has both a significanthistory in the region and distinctive relationshipswith Israel and the Arab states, Turkey is not oftenspoken of as a factor in the Middle East peaceprocess. Nor does one hear much about Turkey’s

relationships with its immediate neighbors—Syria,Iraq, and Iran— although those relations have everybit as much potential to shift as do Turkey’s rela-tions with Europe and the states of the former So-viet Union. As Turkey finds its way in the post–Cold War period, new developments—positive andnegative—involving Turkey and other Middle East-ern states could create new dynamics in the regionand cause a rethinking of the peace process.

To examine these issues, the Institute conveneda two-day conference entitled “A Reluctant Neigh-bor: Analyzing Turkey’s Role in the Middle East.”The purpose of this June 1994 event was not onlyto initiate discussion on Turkey’s relations with thecountries of the Middle East and its role in the re-gional peace process, but also to bring together andinto dialogue scholars and other experts fromTurkey and its neighbors. As close as they are geo-graphically, it is dismaying how rarely they have theopportunity to speak directly to one another aboutthe issues affecting their countries. The Institutewas pleased that this dialogue could occur in Wash-ington—pleased not only for the scholars in atten-dance and their countries but also for the U.S.scholars and policymakers who had the opportu-nity to be enriched by the discussion.

The response to the conference was impressive:more than 350 people attended, including a con-siderable number of experts from the broader Mid-dle East and from Europe. It was pointed out thatthe event was likely the largest academic confer-ence on Turkey ever held in the United States.Clearly, interest in Turkey and concern about thefuture of the Middle East peace process are high.

The Institute would like to thank ProfessorHenri Barkey of Lehigh University, an Institutegrantee, for organizing the conference. Patricia Car-ley, Institute program officer and author of this re-port, was co-coordinator. Both contributed enor-mously to the success of the discussion that isreported here.

This report is one of two publications the In-stitute hopes to produce from the event. In duecourse, it also plans to issue an edited volumegathering the formal papers prepared for theconference.

Kenneth M. Jensen

Director of Special Programs

PREFACE

viii

The radical political changes in the wake of the end of the Cold War directly affected theinternational role of Turkey, a country unique in its location in both the eastern andwestern worlds. Though the end of the bipolar world seemed to portend Turkey’s de-

cline in strategic importance to the West, in fact, the changing international order has loos-ened the constraints within which Turkey can act, potentially redirecting its foreign policyand, as a result, tempering its predominantly western orientation. Policies instituted by thefounder of the modern Turkish nation, Kemal Ataturk, became part of the very fabric of theTurkish Republic. Thus, even a minor change in that orientation may have significant implica-tions for the future of Turkey and its foreign relations.

In recent years, changes in world politics—specifically the dissolution of the Soviet Union—have produced considerable debate about Turkey’s rapidly developing relationship with thenewly independent Turkic republics. However, Turkey’s increasingly important links withthe countries in its immediate region have often been overlooked. To explore Turkey’s chang-ing relationship with the countries in this region, with particular emphasis on the identifica-tion of potential points of conflict, the Institute of Peace convened a conference entitled “A Re-luctant Neighbor: Analyzing Turkey’s Role in the Middle East,” which was held June 1–2,1994, in Washington, D.C. It brought together scholars and policymakers from Turkey,Egypt, Syria, Israel, Iran, the United States, and Europe to focus exclusively on this aspect ofTurkish foreign policy. This report recounts the highlights of the conference.

1INTRODUCTION

1

There is little doubt that Turkey occupies aunique position in the world, in both its geo-graphic location and its political aspirations.

Few other countries so literally define the word“crossroads” as Turkey, lying as it does in both Eu-rope and Asia and presenting itself as a Muslimcountry that aspires to be part of the westernworld.

Turkey’s Strategic Importance

Since the end of World War II, Turkey’s strategicsignificance to the United States and to the NorthAtlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as the onlymember of the western alliance to border the So-viet Union has been unquestioned. Turkey morerecently demonstrated its importance to the Westby supporting the coalition in the 1991 war againstSaddam Hussein, a move that was opposed bymany in Turkey. Turkey acts as a gateway to worldsless familiar to the West, such as the newly inde-pendent Turkic countries of Azerbaijan and Cen-tral Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan,and Uzbekistan) and is an important factor withrespect to other Muslim countries, with which ithas complex and sometimes troubled relations.Concern that the end of the Cold War might de-crease Turkey’s strategic importance to the West in

one aspect (its border with the USSR) is counteredby its increased potential in others.

Keynote speaker Paul Wolfowitz of the JohnsHopkins University School of Advanced Interna-tional Studies underscored Turkey’s strategic rele-vance. He said that there is no other country towhich the word “strategic” applies more than toTurkey. It is perhaps a cliche these days, butTurkey truly does play an important bridging rolebetween several poles: East and West; economicbackwardness and modernization; an imperialpast and a modern present; and religious obscu-rantism and civic modernity. Moreover, Turkey’scontributing role in the end of the Cold Warshould not be forgotten; its resolve as a NATOmember on the Soviet frontier was crucial to thatorganization’s ability to stand up to the Sovietthreat.

Turkey remains important today for several rea-sons, Wolfowitz continued: the war in the Balkanshas demonstrated that the end of the Cold War didnot bring with it the end of conflict in Europe; thecountry’s location on the Black Sea, including itsproximity to Ukraine and Crimea, remains crucial;Turkey serves as a critical bridge to the Caucasusand Central Asia; and, in its least analyzed role, itoccupies a strategic and possibly growing positionin the Middle East. Wolfowitz concluded by notingthat one legacy of Ataturk’s resolve to make Turkeya clearly defined nation-state and not an empire isthe country’s reluctance (though not unwilling-ness) today to become involved in the affairs of theMiddle East.

To underline the points made by Wolfowitz,Alvin Z. Rubinstein of the University of Pennsylva-nia declared that Turkey is simply the most impor-tant country in the Middle East. What Turkey doesor does not do will critically affect the course ofevents, including stability, not only in the MiddleEast but also in the Caucasus, Central Asia, theBalkans, and the West. Cautioning those who takeTurkey’s allegiance to the West for granted, Rubin-stein proclaimed that, “The growing ambivalencein the West toward Turkey is reflected in Turkey’sgrowing ambivalence toward the West.” Rubin-stein commented ruefully that “no major countryin the Middle East has been less studied by Ameri-can scholars or more ignored by the Americanmedia.”

2BACKGROUND

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Origins of Turkey’s Foreign Policy

To analyze contemporary Turkish foreign policy, itis essential to go back to the foundation of theTurkish Republic and to understand the criticalrole and legacy of Mustafa Kemal (later Ataturk). Itis no exaggeration to say that Turkey would verylikely not exist today as a modern country withoutAtaturk’s determination to establish a Turkishnation-state and his possession of the military acu-men to make it a reality. In 1919, the Ottoman Em-pire lay in ruins after the devastation of World WarI. The empire’s dismemberment was made officialwith the signing of the Treaty of Sevres in 1920,which stipulated that all its European territory ex-cept a small slice around Istanbul (occupied by theBritish) was to be cut away; all Arab lands re-moved; the region around Izmir (formerlySmyrna) given to the Greeks; the eastern Anatolianprovinces divided between an independent Arme-nia and an independent Kurdistan; and, finally,large regions of south and southwest Anatoliagranted to France and Italy to administer asspheres of influence. The last sultan, though stillnominally on the throne in Istanbul, relinquishedvirtually all his powers to the British. The Straits ofthe Bosphorus and the Dardanelles were demilita-rized and administered not by the Turks but by apermanent Allied commission in Istanbul, andAnatolia was placed under the control of the AlliedFinancial Commission. In 1920,the very idea that an indepen-dent and sovereign Turkish statecould or would emerge from thisdevastated and occupied terri-tory would not have received serious attention.

Yet by 1923, in the wake ofAtaturk’s startling victories overthe French, the Italians, theBritish, and the Greeks, and afterhe had regained control of Istan-bul, the Allies were forced to signthe Treaty of Lausanne, recogniz-ing the establishment of the Turk-ish Republic. After the militaryvictory over the occupying pow-ers, Ataturk went on to define theparameters of the Turkish nation-state in virtually all walks of pub-

lic and political life, including domestic and for-eign policy. One of the fundamental bases for thenew state laid down by Ataturk was that the Turk-ish Republic was to be a modern, westernized na-tion, and he spent the rest of his life, until his deathin 1938, not only setting up the institutionsneeded to achieve this goal, but also molding themind of the people in that direction.

Ataturk’s foreign policy was oriented away fromthe East and away from other Turkic and Islamicpeoples. From the very start of his military strugglefor Turkey, he firmly eschewed any form of pan-Turkism or pan-Islamism. Pan-Turkism was amovement in the late nineteenth century in the Ot-toman Empire promoting the ultimate unificationof the world’s Turkic peoples, most of whom, afterthe Anatolian Turks, lived under Russian (andthen Soviet) tutelage. Ataturk believed that thisand other such “foolish ideologies” were responsi-ble for the humiliating defeat of the Turkish nationin the first place at the hands of the Allies. Not onlydid pan-Turkism represent a quagmire for Turkey,but it was not, Ataturk believed, an idea that wasconsonant with the western concept of the mod-ern nation-state. Similarly, Ataturk had little inter-est in maintaining historical ties with the rest of theIslamic world. Pan-Islamism was for him as dan-gerous for the new state as pan-Turkism.

Despite Turkey’s western orientation, however,Ataturk established good relations with the new

Soviet Union, with the aim ofmaking Turkey a modern, west-ern—and neutral—state. But whilethe general western orientationof Turkish foreign policy was for-tified by events immediately fol-lowing World War II, thoseevents also made it less neutral.In 1945, Stalin demanded fromTurkey not only parts of its east-ern region (the area containingKars and Ardahan, which hadbeen designated as part of Turkeyby a friendship treaty with the So-viet Union in 1921), but also par-tial control of the straits. Turkeyrejected both of these demandsand headed straight into thenewly formed NATO alliance.The West also began to dominateTurkey’s foreign economic rela-

3

What Turkey

does or does not

do will critically affect

the course of events,

including stability,

not only in the Middle

East but also in the

Caucasus, Central

Asia, the Balkans, and

the West.

tions. Turkey’s relations with other countries, how-ever, did not evaporate or become antagonistic.Ankara has usually maintained good relations withthe countries on its periphery, although these rela-tions have generally been limited because of itsoverarching prowestern stance.

Ataturk also instituted a series of domestic re-forms to reinforce the new republic’s movementaway from the Islamic world and toward westerncivilization. The most important of these was thesecularization of the government and, to a certainextent, of society—a policy that grew out ofAtaturk’s conviction that the Islamic religion as ex-pounded by the Ottoman sultan was responsiblefor Turkey’s backward economic and social state.First and foremost, political power was now pro-claimed to come from the Grand National Assem-bly and was not, for the first time in Turkish his-tory, bound to religious ideology. Sharia courtswere abolished in 1925 and replaced by courtsgrounded in a civil code, thereby denying clericspower over judicial, criminal, and even social mat-ters. By 1928, Islam was removed as the official re-ligion from the Turkish constitution, and the stateassumed many of the functions of the old Islamicinstitutions.

Another powerful reform toward moderniza-tion that moved Turkish politics and society morefirmly away from its previous orientation was thereform of the alphabet. For centuries, OttomanTurkish had been written in Arabic script, thoughthat script was not entirely suited to the Turkishlanguage. Pointing Turkey to the western world,Ataturk in 1928 decreed that Turkish wouldhenceforth be written in the Latin alphabet. Fur-thermore, many non-Turkish words—primarilyArabic and Persian—would be discarded and re-placed by “true” Turkish words (which in somecases were fabricated). This reform moved theTurkish people one step further not only fromtheir religion (since Arabic is the language of theProphet Muhammed), but also from their Ot-toman history. Today a Turk who wants to readtracts and documents from the Ottoman periodmust first take the trouble to learn the Arabicscript. (It is ironic that, as a result of these reforms,the Turkish language has changed to such an ex-tent that a Turk today needs a dictionary to read

Ataturk’s speeches.)The modern Turkish Republic was thus built on

the foundation of an almost complete break withits past in both the foreign and domestic spheres.It is not possible in this brief review to assess howsuccessful Ataturk was in his efforts. Secularism,for example, and all its ramifications remain con-troversial to some segments of Turkish society.However, Ataturk’s reforms shaped the ground-ing—the very definition—of the republic in a partic-ular direction, especially for subsequent genera-tions of ruling elites. It is not suggested here thatthis orientation was—or is—unshakable; eventssince the dissolution of the Soviet Union demon-strate a shift away from Ataturk’s reluctance to be-come involved with other Turkic peoples. This re-port focuses on whether a similar development—ashift in orientation—is now occurring in Turkey’srelations with the Middle East. What is incon-testable is that Ataturk’s relevance and legacy en-dure, demonstrated not least by the self-examina-tion that Turkey is currently experiencing—theconcern expressed by many inside Turkey overwhether the country’s foreign policy foundation isthreatened by its new relations with the former So-viet republics. It is important to examine anychanges in Ankara’s foreign policy against thebackground of this fundamental fact of Turkishlife.

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The conference opened with an examinationof the larger historical context of Turkey’srelations with the countries of the Middle

East. In this century, those relations have beenshaped largely by the western foreign policy orien-tation established by Ataturk. But they have alsobeen colored by the Ottoman past that Turks andArabs share, the very past that, in the end, moti-vated Ataturk to seek new international alliances.All of the countries of what is today called the Mid-dle East, except for Iran, were once part of the Ot-toman Empire. Within the empire, the Turks andArabs lived together for centuries, forming thebulk (together with the Kurds) of the Islamicumma, or community of believers. As members ofthe umma, Arabs enjoyed rights and privileges thatthe non-Muslim millets—minority groups such asthe Armenians, Greeks, and Jews—did not. Yet theTurks and the Arabs remained distinct groups,separated by language, history, culture, and ethnicmakeup, as well as by the inescapable fact that theOttoman Turks ruled and the Arabs were theirsubjects.

By the end of the nineteenth century, senti-ments giving rise to nationalist movements else-where in the world had permeated the OttomanEmpire, which by that time had lost Greece andEgypt, as well as other territories. A small group ofintellectuals initiated a movement to promote

“ Ottoman” identity, aiming to rally differentnational groups in the empire around the Ot-toman ruler. Part of that movement later aban-doned the effort at kindling Ottoman identity andbranched off to form instead a movement aimed atadvancing the goals of the Turkish population. In1908, these Young Turks, as they became known,succeeded in wresting political power from an in-creasingly impotent sultan and set up a newregime. In the end, it was events during the rela-tively short period of Young Turk rule that so dam-aged relations between the Turks and the Arabs,who were by this time themselves agitating for in-dependence from Ottoman rule. On the one hand,extremist Turkification policies of the YoungTurks, in the form of harsh suppression of Arablanguage and culture, resulted in an angry back-lash that resonates even today in Turkey’s rela-tions with the Arab world. On the other, Arab at-tempts to break away from Ottoman rule drovethem to side with the British during World War I—an act still viewed as treachery by the Turks.

Submitting that the Ottoman past is not quite asdead and gone as many would believe, Selim De-ringil of Bogazici University noted that currentstatements and actions of many people and partiesin and outside Turkey relate to the Ottoman pe-riod. Despite Ataturk’s break with the past, history,for Turks, is still very close. For example, the Refah(Welfare) Party in Turkey declared as its aim in theMarch 1994 Turkish municipal elections the “insti-tuting of Ottoman tradition in municipal affairs,”without precisely defining what that entailed. Inresponse, an article in Turkey’s prominent news-paper Cumhuriyet on the renowned Ottoman ar-chitect Sinan declared that a great civil planner likeSinan would never have allowed the kind of hap-hazard urban development advocated by the Re-fah Party. Furthermore, Deringil continued,Vladimir Zhirinovsky of Russia’s curiously namedLiberal Democratic Party refers to the Ottomanpast in his pronouncements on the Balkan war.And in the modern Turkish press the relative mer-its of Ottoman rulers such as Midhat Pasha andAbdul Hamid are still debated.

Deringil observed that even a spokesman forthe government has suggested that nostalgia forthe Ottoman Empire may derive from the fact thatAtaturk’s reforms happened so quickly that peoplewere not given a chance to “grieve” over thechanges. Obviously, the historical context is not as

3HISTORICAL AND

GEOSTRATEGIC

CONTEXT

completely a thing of the past as many in Turkeybelieve, and people sometimes even make refer-ence to the Ottoman past without understandingwhat those allusions mean. In fact, their under-standing of that past may be more important thanthe reality. Deringil cited President SuleymanDemirel’s observation that “history is tugging atour sleeve,” noting that this quote offers a suitableimage of the Turkish perspective: Although theTurks want to look forward, the past still has ahold on their consciousness, compelling them toconfront their history.

Still, as Heath Lowry of Princeton University ex-plained, Turks only reluctantly face their past, inpart because of the revolutionary nature ofAtaturk’s reforms. One result of those changes, es-pecially the language reform, was a quite purpose-ful break from Turkey’s own history. UnderAtaturk, Turkey shifted from an empire, which wasits past, to a more strictly defined country, withtwo goals in mind: modernization and westerniza-tion. A consequence of this development—and oneperhaps intended by Ataturk—was that Turkey lostthe ability to view its history through the eyes of itsneighbors, either the contemporary ones in theArab world and other former Ottoman districts orthose from the past, whose documents could nolonger be read. The result was an escalation of thefear and distrust between Turks and Arabs set inmotion during Young Turk rule.

As a result, both Turks and Arabs tendedto forget their shared 400-year history, concentrat-ing only on the recent past. For example, the Arabslook back only to the brief five-year period ofYoung Turk rule, with its policy of Turkificationand the attempted suppression of the Arabic lan-guage. In the same way, the Turks focus only onArab cooperation with the British during WorldWar I. In the meantime, Lowry continued, Turksand Arabs have tended to overlook their shared re-ligion. It is true that the early decades of the Turk-ish Republic were characterized by militant secu-larism, but the recent gains by the religious RefahParty demonstrate that Islam does potentially joinTurkey and the Middle East.

Current Regional Context

Addressing the wider geostrategic framework ofTurkey’s changing foreign policy and relationswith the Middle East, Henri Barkey of Lehigh Uni-versity underscored the obvious yet critical factthat, for the first time in many centuries, Turkey nolonger has a border with “Russia.” Correspond-ingly, Turkey’s once-crucial geographic positionfor NATO has been reduced. Before the end of theCold War, Turkey’s relations with the Middle Easthad always taken a back seat to its NATO member-ship. This situation is changing for several reasons:(1) the Kurdish rebellion in Turkey is affecting thatnation’s relations with its neighbors (Iraq, Iran,and Syria) and will do so increasingly; (2) theproblem of water is growing for the entire region,and it is generating disputes with Syria and Iraq;(3) radical changes such as the end of the ColdWar and the signing of the Israeli-PLO Peace Ac-cords are making possible new economic linkages,which Turkey desperately needs; and (4) a num-ber of Gulf states are coming to see the importanceof a strong and stable Turkey as a balance tothreats from the less stable regimes in the region,such as Iran and Iraq.

According to Barkey, Middle Eastern countriesare likely to become more concerned withTurkey’s future role in the region. One reason isthat the demise of the Soviet Union has eliminatedthe possibility of playing off the superpowersagainst each other in order to garner economic aid.Turkey and the other countries in the region willnow have to learn to stand on their own economi-cally and compete with Eastern Europe, the formerSoviet Union, Latin America, and others for badlyneeded capital and investments. The United Stateswill no longer readily support regimes that have ir-responsible economic practices. In this competi-tion, Turkey is somewhat ahead of its neighbors,and its Middle Eastern neighbors are aware of this.Additionally, the collapse of the USSR has virtuallyeliminated the ideological legitimacy of one-partydictatorships and authoritarian rule. With manyMiddle Eastern regimes increasingly under pres-sure to democratize, and thus headed for a periodof potential instability, Turkey’s continued stabilitymay prove critical to the region’s political future.Furthermore, the Kurdish rebellion in southernTurkey compels Turkey and its neighbors to dealwith each other more seriously.

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That said, Barkey was quick to note that even inthe face of expanded relations with the MiddleEast, Turkey’s most important political relation-ships will continue to be with the West. The bulkof Turkey’s commercial exports go to westerncountries, and this will likely remain the case. Arabsuspicion of Turkey persists, and thus Turkey gen-erally “runs from the region when it can.” Yet, inlight of the factors cited earlier, the time may fastbe approaching when Turkey cannot be so exclu-sively focused on the West.

General Ahmed M. Abdel-Halim of the NationalCenter for Middle East Studies in Cairo also de-scribed the way recent changes in the world haveaffected the region’s relationships. One effect hasbeen to create an enhanced role for the UnitedStates in the Middle East, leaving the United Statesas sole arbiter of the region’s balance of power.This has resulted in several consequences for thegeostrategic situation in the region. For example,there is now a potentially increased role for Israeland Turkey in the Middle East of the sort not possi-ble before, and in Turkey’s case at least, this in-creasing role is widely welcomed in the region. Astable and strong Turkey, Abdel-Halim said, is a vi-tal component in regional peace and stability. Fur-thermore, Turkey should be a part of a new re-gional economic grouping that would include inits first stage Egypt, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan,the Palestinians, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states,and at a later stage Iraq. This would, he said, bepart of the development of a “natural alliance” ofcertain Middle Eastern countries.

Pan-Turkism

In response to a question on the possible emer-gence of a pan-Turkist movement, Deringil notedthat pan-Turkism has always been a marginalmovement in Turkey. It was only during the YoungTurk period that the ethnic Turkic element cameforth strongly in the Ottoman Empire, and at thattime the Turkic peoples in the Russian Empire hadlittle Turkic consciousness—they identified them-selves primarily as Muslims. The movement neverresonated more widely then or now. Barkeyagreed, adding that pan-Turkism exists more in theminds of those outside Turkey than among theTurks themselves and usually because of some ul-terior motive (as in the case of Serbian presidentSlobodan Milosevic, who has proclaimed that amenacing pan-Turkist movement is a threat to theSerbs).

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Of the 20 million to 25 million Kurds inthe Middle East, some 12 million to 14million reside in Turkey. (Other large

Kurdish populations are in Iraq and Iran, withsome also in Syria.) Turkey’s relations with its Kur-dish population have been troubled and at timesviolent since virtually the beginning of the TurkishRepublic. To understand why this issue began as a“problem” for Turkey, and why it has intensified, itis important to refer again to the origins of theTurkish nation-state.

In addition to military victories and radical so-cial reforms, another important legacy of Ataturkwas the consolidation of Turkish ethnicity as thecore identity of the Turkish Republic. During thecenturies of Ottoman rule, nobody in the empirewould comfortably be labeled a “Turk”; in fact, theterm was most often used as a derogatory epithetto refer to an uncultured peasant. The ruling elitesidentified themselves as Ottomans or simply asMuslims; the rest of the Turkish population re-ferred to themselves as Muslims or perhaps as resi-dents of a particular village. This remained the caseeven in the latter part of the nineteenth century asthe nationalist movement among the Turks in theOttoman Empire was developing.

It was Ataturk who made the radical break withthe past. He built the Republic of Turkey firmlyaround the idea of Turkish national identity and

language within a fixed territory and rejected thenotion of a multi-national empire. (As noted ear-lier, Ataturk also tried to separate Turkish identityfrom the Islamic religion, but he was less success-ful in that endeavor.) As part of this process, theterm “Turk” was elevated from derogatory epithetto an identity that every Turk would proudlyadopt. In the course of those early years, it becamea central tenet of the Turkish Republic that withinits borders lived the Turkish nation. Ataturk eveninstituted population exchanges with Greece in or-der to “simplify” the population component ofTurkey. The notion that the republic might holdpeople who belonged to some nation other thanthe Turkish one was seen as a threat to the veryessence of the new Turkish state, and this aspect ofAtaturkist thought has changed little through thegenerations.

The problem was—and is—that peoples otherthan Turks found themselves inside the Republicof Turkey, and the largest of these groups was theKurds. Their very existence became an issue, mostnotably in 1925 and again in 1937, when theKurds in the southeastern part of the country re-belled and were brutally suppressed. Since thattime, the Turkish government has advanced strin-gent policies designed to promote the integrity ofthe nation, suppressing any element of Kurdishcultural or linguistic distinctiveness and encourag-ing the assimilation of the Kurds into the widerTurkish population by declaring them to be Turks.The use of the Kurdish language in any official orpublic capacity was banned until very recently; in-deed, until only a few years ago, the very existenceof the Kurdish people in Turkey continued to beofficially denied. The formation in the late 1970s ofa radicalized Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) witha stated aim of increased autonomy for the Kur-dish region took the struggle to a new level. By1984, the PKK was resorting to violent terrorist ac-tivities. For the Turkish government, these activi-ties signaled the ultimate intention of dismember-ing Turkey, and, indeed, some PKK elements havedemanded independence.

The Turkish government has responded militar-ily to PKK violence, often resulting in the killing ofnon-PKK Kurdish villagers. In the past ten years,the regional carnage has led to the deaths of thou-sands of Kurdish and Turkish civilians, as well asTurkish soldiers and Kurdish guerrillas; journal-ists and others who have taken up the Kurds’

4TURKEY, THE KURDS,AND RELATIONS

WITH IRAQ

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plight have also been killed. Since the early 1990s,tourists in Turkey and Turkish diplomats abroadhave become the targets of the PKK’s violent oper-ations. The situation deteriorated further, reachingits most tense and unstable level for decades inMarch 1994, when six members of Parliamentfrom the then-legal and pro-Kurdish DemocracyParty (DEP) were arrested. The party was legallybanned the following June. The parliamentariansare charged under the law against terrorism andthus not only may not post bail, but face the deathpenalty if convicted.

It is Turkey’s relations with the West that havebeen most affected by its actions against the Kurds.The Turkish government has come under steadilyincreasing criticism from international humanrights groups, from many Western European gov-ernments, and recently from the United States gov-ernment also. Its human rights record against theKurds also has not helped Turkey in its attempt togain membership in the European Community,now the European Union.

Taking on this difficult subject, Ismet Imset, edi-tor of the Turkish Daily News, observed that free-dom of speech in Turkey for anyone speaking onthis issue has been significantly curtailed; the sixKurdish deputies arrested in March were impris-oned because of speeches they made demandinggreater freedom for the Kurds, not because of anyactions they had taken. Fifty-two journalists arecurrently under arrest because of their writingabout the Kurds in Turkey. This is not to say, Imsetcontinued, that there has not been progress on theKurdish issue. Five years ago it would have beenimpossible even to mention the word “Kurd” or tosee it in writing in Turkey. Now, in the face of ahundred thousand Kurds fleeing Iraq after theGulf War, for the first time the Turkish governmenthas admitted the existence of the Kurds as a dis-tinct people. Still, other events have overshadowedthat progress, and conflict with the PKK has com-plicated the problem immensely.

Imset noted that when the PKK emerged in the1970s, it was seen at first as an outlaw organiza-tion, made up primarily of Marxist students. Inlarge part because it was the only Kurdish alterna-tive in Turkey, it steadily gained strength so that bythe middle to late 1980s it had become a massmovement. The Turkish government’s failure toseparate the broader Kurdish problem from thenarrow issue of PKK terrorism prevents the gov-

ernment from dealing effectively with the Kurds(or even admitting there is a genuine Kurdishproblem) and provides an excuse not to take fur-ther steps toward democratization. The govern-ment’s policy is to crush the Kurdish rebellion mil-itarily and only then to implement reforms. Intrying to contain the PKK in the southeastern re-gion, the government has engaged in actions thatinvolve serious human rights violations. The bot-tom line—and the real tragedy, according to Imset—is that Turkey can never become a fully modern,secular state, nor a model for any other country,until the Kurdish issue is dealt with in a realistic,humane, and nonviolent manner.

Amatzia Baram, senior lecturer at the Universityof Haifa and a 1993–94 fellow at the WoodrowWilson Center in Washington, D.C., made a sharprebuttal to Imset’s assertion that it is not possibleto solve a problem through violence. After all, hesaid, both Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Hafez al-Assad of Syria have shown that if a leader is pre-pared to go far enough, goals can be achievedthrough violence. Still, he continued, the democra-tic government of Turkey cannot “go the wholedistance” with the course of violence in its dealingswith the Kurds and remain even remotely demo-cratic. Baram asked, If Turkey does give the Kurdssome measure of cultural autonomy, what then be-comes of Turkish identity and sovereignty? Issome wider form of identity possible in Turkey,some sort of modern-day “Ottoman” identity? Itmight be possible, Baram stated, for Turkey to inte-grate the Kurds into Turkish life, but the dilemmaof defining Turkish identity remains.

Imset responded that one solution would be theestablishment of a “constitutional citizenship” oncesuggested by Turkish president SuleymanDemirel. This would provide an alternative to themistaken assumption that “people can be assimi-lated through repression and force.” Under cur-rent circumstances, there is a complete polariza-tion of Turkish society between Turks and Kurds:Turks believe that all Kurds have the same idealsand use the same methods as those of the PKK,and Kurds believe that all Turks share the attitudesof soldiers in the security forces who willfully de-stroy Kurdish villages. These erroneous beliefsserve only to encourage PKK membership and thegovernment’s harsh approach.

In conclusion, Baram outlined the widerdilemma caused by the Kurdish problem inTurkey. For a stable Middle East, a stable Turkey isneeded. For Turkey to be stable, it must be demo-cratic. Yet in the Kurds, democratic Turkey con-fronts a major problem, unresolved since 1919,when it began its fight to eject the foreign forcesfrom Anatolia and establish a Turkish nation-state.And it is a problem, Baram said, that will not fadeor simply go away.

Turkey and Iraq

The presence of Kurds in neighboring countrieshas only recently become a significant foreign pol-icy issue for Turkey, and even now it is not always acontentious one. During the Iran-Iraq conflict inthe 1980s, Turkey and Iraq cooperated on the Kur-dish issue, even to the extent that Baghdad al-lowed the Turks to carry out cross-border actionsagainst PKK supporters who had fled to Iraq. Con-frontation with Iraq over the issue began only withthe 1991 Gulf War, when Turkey sided with theUnited States and its allies and supported the em-bargo against Iraq. Suddenly Turkey found itself inan unaccustomed hostile position in relation to itseastern neighbor. Immediately after the war, Sad-dam attacked the Kurds in northern Iraq and hun-dreds of thousands fled to Iran and especially toTurkey. The countries allied against Iraq moved inand created a safe haven for the Kurds in northernIraq, leaving them with de facto autonomy.

Addressing the issue of Turkish-Iraqi relations,Phebe Marr of the National Defense University ex-plained that before the Gulf War, Iraq had betterrelations with Turkey than with any other neigh-bor except Jordan. After the war, however, the situ-ation changed radically; for example, trade was re-duced to a trickle, and the oil pipeline closeddown. According to Marr, there are a number of is-sues today, not all of them negative, that shapeTurkey’s relations with Iraq:

Water and oil. Marr asserted that Iraq andTurkey will eventually be pushed into uneasy,even prickly, cooperation on these two issues.The Southeast Anatolian Project—referred to bythe Turkish acronym GAP (GuneydoguAnadolu Projesi)—is a large dam being built byTurkey on the Euphrates River. It will affect

Iraq’s water supply, but Iraq does have other ac-cess to water, and the issue is not as contentiousfor them as it is for Turkey and Syria. When itwas operating, the oil pipeline was advanta-geous to both Iraq and Turkey. Since its closing,Turkey is losing a considerable amount ofmoney annually because of lost revenue fromtransit rights. Both countries, according to Marr,would like to see it reopened, although Turkeyis searching for alternative sources of income,such as a pipeline through Baku and on to Ka-zakhstan that will go through Turkey. Iraq hassignificant oil reserves, and a pipeline from Iraqthrough Turkey makes money for both coun-tries, so it is increasingly likely that there will becooperation on this matter eventually.

Demographics—the Kurds. The main questionhere, according to Marr, is whether the Kurdishissue divides or unites Turkey and Iraq, sinceboth want to contain Kurdish separatism. Thesolutions to this issue range from minimum tomaximum autonomy for the Kurdish popula-tion in each country. For example, an au-tonomous region could emerge in northern Iraqeven if the apparent collapse of power there isrectified. That said, no one except the radicalKurdish nationalists proposes a change in stateboundaries. Indeed, Marr suggested, oneshould not underestimate the extent to whichthe state system has taken root in the world; it isnot going to be easy to break up any state. And al-though on balance it is more likely that this issuewill bring the two countries together rather thandivide them, the longer Turkey fails to solve itsKurdish problem the greater the risk of negativedevelopments in Turkey’s relations with Iraq.

Boundaries. There is no lingering irredentism ineither Turkey or Iraq, according to Marr. The is-sue of border control, and of maintaining thecurrent borders, is of great importance to bothcountries.

The West. Turkey’s relations with the West, andparticularly with the United States, are a criticalfactor in its relations with Iraq. Turkey’s at-tempts to build more conciliatory relations withIraq must be made with an eye toward Washing-ton, where they are bound to cause concern.

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Domestic politics. The removal of Saddam Hus-sein is the best hope for a negotiated settlementwith the Kurds in Iraq, Marr concluded. In fact,it is no exaggeration to say that Saddam is thesingle most important negative factor inTurkey’s relations with that country.

In response to Marr’s remarks, Kamran Karadaghiof Al-Hayat newspaper in London underscoredthat the key element in Turkish-Iraqi relations isthe United States. He said that if it is important tothe United States that the Kurds remain a part ofIraq, the Americans should make a stronger effortto get rid of Saddam, since they cannot expect theKurds to return to living under his rule. Further-more, Karadaghi said, Turkey suffers very muchfrom U.S. insistence on economic sanctionsagainst Iraq. The issue of sanctions is further com-plicated by the fact that Turkish prime ministerTansu Ciller claims on the one hand, that Saddamis too strong and that sanctions will not work and,on the other, that Saddam is weak, implying that

Iraqi Kurds should take advantage of the currentsituation to get a good deal from him. Karadaghialso raised a pointed question for the Arabregimes: Why are people tolerant of Arab politicalaspirations, particularly those of the Palestinians,but not of Kurdish aspirations? Arabs have no in-herent right to rule over Kurds, especially if theyare brutal rulers. Looking at the broader dimen-sions of the Kurdish problem, Karadaghi notedthat the politics of the situation have developed tothe point where the Kurds of Syria considerAnkara, not Damascus, to be their main enemy,and many of them actively support the PKK strug-gle against the Turkish government.

In response to questions about the future of theKurds in Iraq, Marr stated that although Kurdishautonomy in a more loosely structured Iraq is themost likely ultimate solution, she was not opti-mistic that this would happen soon. One of therequisites for such a scenario is a democratic Iraq,which is unlikely in the near future, certainly aslong as Saddam is in power.

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Turkey and Iran have been rivals since thedays when each was the center of an em-pire—Ottoman and Persian. The competition

took many forms, including the quest for territoryand power and the battle between the two largestsects of Islam—Sunnism and Shiism. The rivalryalso involved a contest over which would be thedominant culture in the region: the OttomanTurks have long sought acknowledgment of theircultural superiority over the sophisticated Per-sians.

Events in this century have changed the courseof Turkish-Iranian relations. As each shed its em-pire and established itself as a nation-state, the ri-valry abated almost entirely. Ataturk’s inward-looking policies were based on the premise thatthe modern Turkish nation had few quarrels withits neighbors, including Iran. Relations warmedfurther when Iran adopted a western-oriented pol-icy under the shah, and both countries becamemembers of U.S.-backed security organizationssuch as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO).However, the 1979 Iranian revolution quicklysoured relations between the two. Although eco-nomic relations have gradually improved sincethen, and neither country has made a point of an-tagonizing the other, Ankara remains cautiousabout close ties to Tehran and skeptical of Iran’strue intentions. Persistent suggestions of Iranian

support for Islamic-oriented extremist organiza-tions in Turkey are particularly worrisome forTurkey’s secularist leaders.

On the subject of Turkish-Iranian relations, AtilaEralp of the Middle East Technical University inAnkara noted the special problem that Iran posesfor Turkey. Iran’s domestic and foreign policy ori-entation since the 1979 revolution presents a di-rect challenge to Turkey’s interests. Since the revo-lutionary Iranian regime appeared as a factor ininternational politics, Turkey has sought to re-strain the increasing polarization between theWest and Islam, which has potential consequencesfor Turkey’s westernization process. During themid-1980s, efforts were made by both countries toimprove relations. Then–prime minister TurgutOzal began the effort in the belief that trade linkswere the backbone of Turkey’s relations with Iranand the Middle East, and a number of economicagreements were signed between Iran and Turkeyduring his tenure. Relations between the two are ofsuch a pragmatic nature that Iran showed a level ofrestraint in exporting its Islamic revolution toTurkey that it did not show toward other countriesin the Middle East.

According to Eralp, the Turkish foreign policyestablishment went through a period of self-exami-nation beginning in 1989, triggered primarily bythe dramatic changes in the international politicalsystem. There were considerable anxieties inTurkey over the decline in the country’s geopoliti-cal significance, and as a result, Turkey began togive more consideration to a regionally orientedforeign policy, stressing such projects as the BlackSea Cooperation Initiative, which involves the de-velopment of economic cooperation among thecountries bordering the Black Sea. The dissolutionof the Soviet Union and the independence of thestates in the Caucasus and Central Asia acceleratedthis re-orientation.

After 1991, an increasing competition betweenTurkey and Iran for influence in those regions ofthe former Soviet Union defined a new period inTurkish-Iranian relations. The climax of this phase,as described by Eralp, was the June 1992 presiden-tial victory in Azerbaijan of Abulfez Elchibey, a de-cidedly pro-Turkish leader who curtailed his coun-try’s relations with Iran. The fall of Elchibey oneyear later signaled yet another point in Turkey’s re-lations with Iran, as some observers claimed thatElchibey’s overtly pro-Turkish stance (which agi-

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tated the Russians as much as the Iranians), wasone of the reasons for his ouster. Although the fu-ture may bring more confrontation between thetwo countries, Eralp suggested that that would notbe desirable for either country, and Turkey’s poli-cymakers are generally careful not to escalate bilat-eral tensions with Iran. At the same time, they con-tinue to operate on the principle that Islam shouldnot be pitted against the West and that Iran shouldnot be isolated. Instead, more western—includingTurkish—attempts are needed to foster coopera-tion with the moderate elements in Iran.

The Iranian point of view was offered in a paperby Changiz Pahlavan of the University of Tehran,delivered by Farhad Kazemi of New York Univer-sity in Pahlavan’s absence. Pahlavan described thecordial relations between Turkey and Iranthroughout most of this century, beginning withthe meeting between Reza Shah Pahlavi andAtaturk not long after their nations were estab-lished in the 1920s. The two leaders had manycommon concerns, including a shared oppositionto communism and a strong commitment to mod-ernization. Good relations were made more con-crete through adherence by both to several agree-ments such as the Sadaabad Pact in 1937 and theBaghdad Pact in 1955 (which became CENTO in1959), both of which were signed under the reignof Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. According to Pahla-van, the important areas of commonality and mu-tual understanding continued even after 1979 un-der the Islamic regime.

There are four broad areas of tension, however.The first is ideology, Pahlavan said, referring to thebasic conflict between the Islamic worldview andAtaturkist secularism. To this day, Iranian foreigndignitaries have refused to visit Ataturk’s tomb.Second is the issue of Turkey’s relationship withthe West and whether, in Iran’s view, Turkey isonly an ally of the West or its agent. The Iraniansbelieve that Turkey’s prowestern policies havecome at the expense of its Islamic heritage. A thirdarea of tension is Kurdistan. Although Turkey andIran generally have common interests vis-à-vis theKurds, Pahlavan asserted, they are not likely tohave a common policy toward them for a long timeto come. A fourth issue between the two countriesinvolves the Caucasus and Central Asia. Initially,Turkey had great expectations for increased influ-ence in those regions—until the real situation be-came apparent. The Iranian effort has also come

up against the reality of Central Asian nationalismand the people’s unwillingness to embrace Islamicuniversalism. The result is that Turkey and Iran, infact, have something in common in their experi-ences in the newly independent regions of the for-mer Soviet Union; despite suspicions about eachother’s intentions, these relations are not necessar-ily a source of tension.

Finally, Pahlavan described the way an Iraniandiplomat of today would view Turkey. Therewould be four key beliefs:

The separation of church and state in Turkey iscontradictory to Islamic ideology and thusdoomed to failure.Turkey’s role in Central Asia is too closely tiedto the West and thus has unnecessary anti-Iran-ian overtones.Despite its secularist policies, Turkey, like Iran,uses religious propaganda in Central Asia,which may result, inadvertently, in the strength-ening of Islamic tendencies there.Turkey’s anti-Armenian policies will ultimatelylead to a confrontation between Turkey and theWest, so even that relationship is fraught withproblems.

In Pahlavan’s view, there are areas of both coopera-tion and tension between Turkey and Iran; how-ever, several of the areas now seen as antagonistic,such as the Kurdish problem and the policies inCentral Asia, need not, perforce, cause friction.

Commenting on the two papers, ShaulBakhash, a professor at George Mason Universityand a 1993–94 fellow at the Institute of Peace,agreed with Eralp that the primary sources of po-tential hostility between Turkey and Iran are theIranian revolution and the competition in CentralAsia. Bakhash also agreed that these issues havegenerally been overcome. In fact, he said, the con-flict between Turkey and Iran over these matterswas the “disaster that did not happen.” Bakhashcontended that the Iranians eventually camearound to the traditional Iranian foreign policyview prevalent in the days of the monarchy, thatgood relations with neighboring countries wereparamount. As a result, the Iranians now make apoint of maintaining cordial ties with Turkey, Pak-istan, and the Gulf states. Even in Central Asia,where Iran initially exhibited a great deal of enthu-siasm, it has recognized the primary importance of

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stability. Tehran has not, Bakhash maintained, en-couraged Islamic radicalism there and has in facteven welcomed the return of the Russian role inthe region as a source of stability. On the issue ofIraq, here too the Iranians and Turks have come tounderstand that they have more in common thannot. Neither favors Kurdish independence. As a re-sult, the Iranians are restrained in their dealingswith the PKK, according to Bakhash, and they arereluctant to promote Islamic revolution in Turkey.

Similar views were expressed by FarhadKazemi, who noted that three important factorsdefine the relations between these two states. Oneis that the relationship is dynamic, not static, andcontains a kind of “self-correcting” mechanism. Nomatter how tense the situation becomes, the twocountries eventually find ways to cooperate. TheIranians, for example, are now somewhat less ag-gressive in their antagonism toward Ataturk thanin the years immediately after the revolution, andthe Turks are currently more willing to acknowl-edge their Middle Eastern roots. In the face of com-peting ideologies, Kazemi stated, “trade and eco-nomic issues speak loud and clear” and serve tomoderate the political differences. A second factoris the issue of exactly what constitutes the MiddleEast. Both Turkey and Iran believe that the MiddleEast should not be defined on strictly Arab terms,and they share a desire to have a much wider inter-pretation of what constitutes the region, includingnot just themselves but also Central Asia and Azer-baijan. Finally, Kazemi noted that the Kurdish is-sue is also important for the Iranians. While Irani-ans sometimes try to hide behind the belief thatthe Kurds are of Iranian origin and their languageis related to Persian, these beliefs do not translateinto a Kurdish willingness to submit to Iranian po-litical authority. The Kurds are a problem for Iranas well as Turkey.

Steve Grummon of the Department of State con-cluded by noting that the common theme of thepanel was that Iran and Turkey seem to have morethat unites than separates them at the moment—which is not, he pointed out, what one would ex-pect from reading the popular press.

The Azeri Turks

One issue that has recently begun to appear on theagenda of the two countries is the presence of 15

million to 20 million Azeri Turks in Iran. Beforethe fall of the Soviet Union and the opening ofCentral Asia and the Caucasus to the outsideworld—particularly to their ethnic kin in Turkey—the Turkish government did not make an issue ofthe Azeri Turk population in Iran. This approachwas a legacy of Ataturk’s determination not to linkthe fate of the Anatolian Turks with other Turkicpeoples east of Turkey. Now, however, Turkey hasdeveloped close relations with the newly indepen-dent Azerbaijan, strongly buttressed by Turkishpublic opinion, which is sometimes even morefierce in its support for Azerbaijan than is the gov-ernment. This support extends, for example, to theAzeri-Armenian dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh.In light of these developments, it seems clear thatwere a more overt dispute to arise between theIranian government and its Azeri population, theTurkish government might be inclined—and be un-der public pressure—to side openly with the latter.

Even what the Azeris in Iran are called is a re-flection of the problem and a potential source oftension between Iran and Turkey. They are invari-ably identified as “Turks” by the Turks of Turkeyand frequently called “Turkish-speaking Iranians”by ethnic Iranians. Kazemi said that the Azeris arehighly integrated into Iranian society. There arevery high rates of intermarriage, for example, andin Kazemi’s opinion the vast majority of Azeris inIran think of themselves as Iranians who happento speak Turkish. (Turkmens, another Turkicgroup with kin across the border in Turkmenistan,number about a million and are not nearly so inte-grated, not least because most are Sunni, notShiia.) Kazemi asserted that this issue of Turkicpeoples in Iran is very important for Iran andwarned that attention from Turkey toward eitherAzeris or Turkmens would be met with anger fromany regime in Tehran, regardless of its politicalstripe. According to Kazemi, Turkey recognizesthis and so has done little to upset Tehran on thematter.

Graham Fuller of the RAND Corporation, in acomment from the floor, posited that the situationbetween Turkey and Iran on this issue was farmore contentious than the panel described. Hesuggested that on the matter of the Azeris in Iranthe debate is still open as to whether they are infact “Iranians who speak Turkish” or “Turks livingin Iran.” Although it may be true that the Turks donot want to upset Iran over the Azeri issue, the

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Azeris in Azerbaijan may do just that, and in factdid so already under the short-lived Elchibey gov-ernment, to the great consternation of Iran. The is-sue is far from closed, Fuller said; in fact, it mayjust be opening up, and it remains a potentially se-rious source of friction.

Bakhash responded that the Azeris are well inte-grated into Iranian society and will thus not be-

come an issue between Turkey and Iran. Kazemiseconded this, saying that he did not see an “Azeriproblem” in Iran. Every Iranian family, he main-tained, has some Azeri blood—it is impossible toseparate the two groups. In the end, obvious dis-agreement remained on how this issue will de-velop, even on whether the Azeris in Iran are in factan issue at all.

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Relations between Turkey and Syria havenot been warm for most of this century,clouded from the start by general Arab

suspicions dating back to the Young Turk era. Dur-ing the Cold War, the two countries were posi-tioned on opposing sides—Turkey as a member ofNATO and Syria as an ally of the Soviet Union. Be-fore that, they both claimed title to Alexandretta(or, as the Turks call it, the Hatay region), whichwas under French mandate when the Turkish Re-public was founded. In 1938 a plebiscite deter-mined that the majority of the population wasTurkish—a result strongly disputed then and nowby the Arabs. After a year of independence, Hataybecame part of Turkey in 1939.

Antagonism between the two countries height-ened in the 1970s when the Turks began construc-tion of the GAP, the large dam project on the Eu-phrates River (and eventually the Tigris) that,when completed in the mid-1980s, restricted theflow of water into Syria. That friction was com-pounded by Turkish claims that the Syrian govern-ment gives safe haven to PKK members—some-thing Syria has never acknowledged, though PKKleader Abdullah Ocalan is now based in Syria. Theend of the Cold War has tempered the relationshipsomewhat, as each no longer automatically seesthe other as the lackey of an opposing superpower.With the end of the bipolar divide, however, Turk-

ish-Syrian relations have become more focused onregional issues, particularly water.

Reviewing the Turkish-Syrian relationship,Muhammad Muslih of C. W. Post College con-tended that the principal overarching issue is Syria’sconception of how Turkey perceives its own role inthe region. Turkey portrays itself to the Arab worldas an island of stability in an unstable region. Ac-cording to Muslih, this only confirms the Syrianbelief that Turkey is merely a “gendarme” servingwestern interests. The water problem is a symp-tom of this larger problem of Syrian suspicionsover Turkey’s aims in the region. Muslih noted thatuntil the dissolution of the Soviet Union the twohad always been on opposing sides of the ColdWar divide.

Although Alexandretta/Hatay is not a burningissue for Syria, Muslih argued, it is a “sleepingquestion,” and “like all things that sleep, it may oneday wake up.” Three factors keep the issue alive forSyria: Syrian patriotism; demographics—the factthat in 1938 a significant portion of the populationof Alexandretta were Alawites and the majority aretoday; and Syrian intellectuals, for whom the cityhas retained its significance as a symbol of injus-tice against the Arabs. Muslih also pointed out an-other matter on which Syria and Turkey havetaken opposing positions: Syria has never recog-nized Israel, whereas Turkey not only recognizedbut entered into cooperative agreements with Is-rael, deepening Syria’s conviction that Turkeyserves western interests.

Without a doubt, Muslih continued, the watercrisis is the most important single political prob-lem between Turkey and Syria. Syrian concerns,however, are not just about water per se but alsoabout its effects on other crucial strategic factors.First, Syria is trying to recover economically, and itwill be difficult to attract foreign investment ifthere are water or electricity shortages. Second,many in Syria, Muslih explained, believe thatTurkey escalated the water crisis during Syria’s ne-gotiations with Israel in order to force Damascusto make concessions. The third, more generalstrategic factor goes back to the issue of Turkey’snew role in the region. Turkey’s ascendance afterthe Gulf War, Muslih said, has been grudgingly ac-cepted by Arab countries. Still, there is concern notonly that Turkey is playing the role of containingIran on behalf of the western powers, but also thatAnkara’s ascendance could result in the marginal-

6TURKEY, SYRIA, AND

THE WATER CRISIS

16

ization of Arab influence, including that of Syria. On the other hand, Turkey and Syria share sev-

eral interests. Both want to maintain the territorialintegrity of Iraq—in Turkey’s case because it doesnot want to see an independent Kurdistan on itsborder, and in Syria’s because it does not want tosee an Arab country broken up. And both statesunderstand the need to curtail Saddam Husseinand to curb Iraq’s ambitions in a post-Saddam era.

Yet, Muslih continued, neither contentious norcooperative issues between Turkey and Syria willget much attention as long as the Syrian-Israeliproblem is not resolved. Only when a peace withIsrael is reached will Syria turn serious attention tosuch issues as the water dispute. At that time Syriawill also give more attention to the border issue ofHatay—that sleeping question—which may ulti-mately put Damascus and Ankara on a collisioncourse. On the other hand, if peace is agreed be-tween Syria and Israel, Syria will no longer have areason to suspect Turkey of being a “Trojan horse”for insinuating western aims into the Middle East.

Addressing the water issue more directly, GunKut of Bogazici University pointed out that thereare no clear principles yet in international law tosecure the rights of all users sharing river basins,and resolving the dispute between Turkey andSyria is hindered by the mutual suspicion that ex-ists between upstream and downstream users. Fur-thermore, the water problem between these twocountries is tied to other issues, such as the PKKand the intra-Baath conflict between Syria andIraq, which are major factors in the search for sta-bility in the region.

According to Kut, Turkey’s policy of nonin-volvement in the Middle East historically kept it ata fair distance from the intra-Arab and Arab-Israelidisputes, as Turkey pursued a policy of active neu-trality, seeking good relations with all sides. Dur-ing the Cold War there were more pressing issuesfor Turkey as a member of NATO. Beginning in themid-1980s, however, the situation began tochange. The Iran-Iraq War, PKK violence, the de-cline of the Soviet threat, the Gulf War—all of thesecombined to turn Turkey’s attention towards itssoutheastern borders. The most important issuecompelling Turkey to reassess its relations with itsArab neighbors, according to Kut, was the GAPdam project in southeastern Turkey that precipi-tated the water conflict between Turkey and, pri-marily, Syria.

Kut explained that Turkey has proposed plansto share the region’s water; however, the Turkishgovernment has constructed a new concept that isnot accepted by the others. Calling the Tigris andEuphrates Rivers “transboundary” water courses,Turkey explains that they belong to one countrywhile they flow through that country and aftercrossing a border become the property of theneighboring country. Syria and Iraq consider theTigris and Euphrates to be international watersthat do not belong—at any point in their flow—toany one country. The issue here is not water butscarcity, Kut noted. When a commodity is scarce,dividing that commodity up, or negotiating agree-ments to share it, is not a solution to the ultimateproblem of diminishing supply. Moreover, in thecase of these particular waterways, the demandwill only increase, creating a widening gap be-tween supply and the amount needed to sustain ir-rigated agriculture.

Kut claimed that the Turkish government haslong had evidence that PKK terrorists are grantedsafe haven in the Bekaa Valley, controlled by theSyrian government. Whenever the issue is raisedby the Turkish government, Syria routinely deniescomplicity and then immediately raises the waterissue, making it clear that Syria is linking the twoissues and, in fact, “playing the PKK card.” Yet, ac-cording to Kut, it is in the interests of both coun-tries to avoid such linkages. Turkey believes that itshould not have to give anything in return for ask-ing Syria not to harbor terrorists; to accept such anexchange would, in Turkey’s eyes, be yielding toblackmail, a technique that could be used again onother issues, such as the issue of Alexandretta.Syria should not want to appear to be engaged inblackmail, since if the water flow were released inreturn for certain favors, it could just as easily beinterrupted again in the future for other reasons.

According to Kut, a solution to the water prob-lem could include conservation measures and a re-duction in demand, for example, by importingfood rather than growing it in the area. To solve theissue of water, Kut concluded, it is necessary to gobeyond claims of who owns the water and defini-tions of “international” and “transboundary” wa-terways. “Intra-basin cooperation will not perhapsbring about an automatic end to all the conflicts inthe Middle East,” he said, “but it is a necessary pre-condition. Unless more effort is spent on lesseningthe mutual suspicions, the deep historical animosi-

17

ties, and the general perception of insecurity pre-vailing in the region, the whole water issue will al-ways be prone to degenerate into other conflicts.”

Murhaf Jouejati of the University of Utah pre-sented the Syrian view of the issue. According toJouejati, water rights were not a problem until thebreakup of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.Before then, the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers weretechnically located in the same country. Riparianrights became a source of friction in 1970, whenTurkey launched the GAP, which itself was drivenby criticism from Turkish leftists about the pooreconomic conditions for Kurds in the southeast-ern part of the country. As a result of this project,however, Turkish consumption of water from bothrivers increased substantially.

The Euphrates River alone represents 86 per-cent of Syria’s water supply, Jouejati said. An in-crease in pollution upstream means an increase inpollution and salinity downstream, which meansthat more money is needed for agricultural invest-ment in the downstream country, Syria, whereagriculture is the mainstay of the economy. Theconsequences for Syria have been dire, he contin-ued. Internal measures to deal with the falling wa-ter supply have included the cutoff of electricity forup to 19 hours a day (leading to such graffiti wit-nessed outside Damascus as: “Assad, we havegiven you our loyalty, now give us some elec-tricity”).

Jouejati argued that Turkey’s lack of concern fordownstream riparians is not least the result of thegenerally bitter relations between Turks and Arabs.Syrian views of Turkey as an instrument of U.S.power affect Syria’s policies toward Turkey. Fortheir part, the Turks considered the Arabs’ nation-alist and separatist drive in the late Ottoman daysand their alliance with the British during WorldWar I a stab in the back. Moreover, all Syrianregimes, regardless of political sympathies, con-sider Alexandretta/Hatay to be Syrian and are bit-ter at its loss to Turkey. Over the years, these issueshave led to few contacts between Turks and Syri-ans until the Assad regime. “Cooperation on issuesof ‘low politics,’ such as water sharing,” Jouejatimaintained, “can be attained only if there are ‘highpolitics’ issues on which the states already collabo-rate.” Political conflict, for example, is a high poli-tics issue.

To buttress his argument that political conflict isa major obstacle to basin-wide cooperation, Joue-

jati cited the case of the Johnston Plan of the1950s, which failed because of the Arab-Israeli con-flict. The idea behind the U.S.-engineered plan wasthat cooperation among conflicting parties oversharing the water of the Jordan River would have apositive “spillover effect” on the wider conflict be-tween the Arabs and the Israelis.

Generally, Jouejati reflected, upstream ripariansare not interested in binding agreements on shar-ing water; downstream riparians, for whom wateris an issue of national security, are. A country maybe an upstream riparian on one river and a down-stream riparian on another and may therefore takeconflicting stances on river agreements. For exam-ple, Turkey is calling for an agreement with Bul-garia on the Maritsa River, which, Jouejati noted,Turkey calls international waters. Similarly, Syriancalls for an agreement with Turkey contrast withits self-interested behavior toward Iraq over theEuphrates. In the case of the Tigris and Euphrates,Turkey has by and large neglected the concerns ofthe downstream riparians; it is not interested insacrificing some water for the sake of its neighbors,nor does it seem to care about the effects of theGAP dam on downstream countries. If a bindingagreement between Turkey (the upstream ripar-ian) and Syria and Iraq (the downstream ripari-ans) is ever reached, Turkey will have less water forits own use; without an agreement, Turkey willhave more water. Accordingly, there is now nobinding agreement on the use of these two rivers.

Commenting on these presentations, Sabahjournalist and TV commentator Mehmet Ali Bi-rand declared: “There is no water problem be-tween Syria and Turkey.” Syria receives the amountof water that it needs—there is no shortage. WhatDamascus wants is a guarantee for the future. Thisis because, in Birand’s words, “They don’t trust theTurks and the Turks don’t trust the Syrians.” It istrue that the Turks have not been very attentive toSyrian concerns. And when the Syrians begantraining leftist groups in the 1970s, and then thePKK in the 1980s, suspicion increased markedly.Birand agreed that Turkey will resist signing abinding agreement. It may sign an allocating agree-ment—that is, one that allocates a certain amountof water to Syria—but an equal sharing agreementis unlikely, certainly not until the PKK problem issolved and perhaps not then.

In response, Jouejati noted that the Syrian gov-ernment denies supporting the PKK. Damascus

18

maintains that because its army is stationed alongthe Golan front with Israel and in Lebanon, it doesnot have the resources to maintain complete con-trol over its 900-kilometer border with Turkey. Iflinks exist between Syria and the PKK, it wouldonly be part of the larger reality that downstreamriparians, if treated unfairly, sometimes feel theymust resort to forceful measures. However, Joue-jati maintained, he has not seen any clear evidencethat Syria supports the PKK explicitly because ofthe water issue. If the Syrian government is sup-porting the PKK, Jouejati continued, it is morelikely a response, a kind of “tit for tat,” to Turkey’sharboring of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1970s.

Birand replied that there are checkpoints everytwo to three kilometers along the Turkish-Syrianborder; it is thus disingenuous to suggest thatSyria does not fully control those borders. Further-more, according to Birand, there is convincing evi-dence that the PKK and its leader Ocalan are regu-larly received in Damascus. Whether or not Syria isusing the PKK issue to force a water agreement,that is certainly the way that Turkey reads the situ-ation, Birand concluded, since, as Kut had noted,every time the Turks bring up the subject of thePKK, the Syrians respond by mentioning the waterproblem. Future water supply is clearly a source oftension between the two countries.

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An area of Turkish foreign policy that issometimes overlooked is Turkey’s relation-ship to the crisis at the heart of the Middle

East: the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the past, Turkeydemonstrated its distinction from its neighbors bybeing the first Muslim country to recognize Israelin 1949, and by maintaining diplomatic relationseven at the height of Arab-Israeli tensions. In 1956,however, after the invasion of Egypt by France,Britain, and Israel, Turkey withdrew its ambas-sador from Israel; representation was reduced fur-ther in the 1960s as relations between Israel andthe Arab world deteriorated. Although diplomaticrelations were not broken, Turkey continued tosupport the Palestinian cause and routinely con-demned Israeli actions against its Arab neighbors.But the fact that Turkey—a Muslim country—didnot fully break off diplomatic relations is signifi-cant—and was important for Israel. Since the mid-dle to late 1980s, relations between Turkey and Is-rael have warmed, and more substantiveagreements have been signed. Yet the role forTurkey in the larger peace process has not yet beendefined. As Samuel Lewis, former U.S. ambassadorto Israel, noted, Turkey represents a kind of “grayeminence, a potential player of great importance ina new, peaceful Middle East.” The problem is that“neither Arabs nor Israelis have quite figured outhow to make that happen.”

Turkey and Israel

Anat Lapidot of Tel Aviv University addressed theissue of the peace process and the extent to whichit has a direct bearing on Turkish-Israeli relations.Lapidot stated that although the peace process hasoccurred in parallel with the recent warming in re-lations between Turkey and Israel, this warmingwas not a result of the process per se but of thereadjustment of both countries to the new worldorder. The changes in Middle Eastern politicshave, however, allowed the improvement in Turk-ish-Israeli relations to move ahead relatively unim-peded. To understand the dynamics of these rela-tions today, Lapidot said, it is necessary toexamine the relationship from the standpoint ofTurkey’s foreign policy rather than Israel’s, be-cause it is Turkey that sets the tempo and deter-mines the nature of the relationship.

Although there is now much good will betweenTurkey and Israel, Lapidot suggested that this willnot necessarily be the case in the long run. Thereare problems even now that need resolution andothers that may develop over time—for example,the increasing pressure on Israel to get off thefence on such issues as the Kurdish problem,Cyprus, and the 1915 Armenian genocide. Anotherpotential problem is politicized Islam, which, ac-cording to Lapidot, has not been adequately ad-dressed by many Turkish academics even after tenyears of steady growth in influence in Turkey.

Without a doubt, the end of the Cold War hasopened up many foreign policy opportunities forTurkey, Lapidot continued. From the late 1980s tothe end of 1991, Turkey tried to present itself as apolitical and economic model to the Central Asianrepublics of the former Soviet Union, a policy fromwhich Turkey hoped to gain points in the West aswell. However, the policy failed, Lapidot claimed,because the Central Asians were reluctant to giveup their unique characteristics. Starting in 1992,Turkey began pursuing Israel, rather than theother way around, and doing so with some ur-gency. According to Lapidot, the peace processdemonstrated that new foreign policy opportuni-ties would be opening up for Israel, including withsome of Turkey’s adversaries, such as Greece andBulgaria, so Turkey had to rush to upgrade its rep-resentation in Tel Aviv ahead of them. Israel, for itspart, has not defined its policy vis-à-vis Turkey

7TURKEY AND THE

MIDDLE EAST

PEACE PROCESS

20

since the end of the Cold War, although the needto do so has become increasingly apparent.Turkey’s stepped-up interest in improving rela-tions caught Israel unaware.

Alan Makovsky of the Washington Institute forNear East Policy suggested that, contrary to Lapi-dot’s assertion, it was precisely the progress in thepeace process—specifically the September 13,1993, Declaration of Principles—that set in motionthe dramatic improvement in relations betweenthe two countries. According to Makovsky, the dec-laration freed Turkey to pursue the kind of rela-tions with Israel that most of the Turkish securityand foreign policy establishment have long de-sired. Before the agreement, Turkey shied awayfrom overtly close relations with Israel for fear ofoffending Arab sensibilities. Relations betweenthem have grown since then, as one of the mostnoteworthy examples in a wider trend of improvedrelations between Israel and Muslim countries.Makovsky pointed out that when Turkish foreignminister Hikmet Cetin went to Israel in November1993 for the first-ever visit at that level, he toutedthe onset of a new chapter in Turkish-Israeli rela-tions. Turkish officials stated that topics discussedat the meeting included a prospective free tradeagreement and security and intelligence coopera-tion—marking, according to Makovsky, a “radicaldeparture in traditional Turkish policy,” particu-larly public policy, toward Israel. Cetin claimedthat the two sides even discussed possible cooper-ation against “Syrian-sponsored terrorism,” a re-markable term for a Turkish foreign minister touse on Israeli soil.

Since that time, Makovsky continued, the Israelipresident and prime minister have both visitedTurkey. Interestingly, there has been almost a re-versal of roles between the two countries. Previ-ously, Israel pursued Turkey as a bridge to the Is-lamic countries—part of its strategy of building tieswith states bordering the Arab world. Now, asLapidot had noted, Turkey is pursuing Israel fortrade links and agricultural technology, and Israel(concerned that Syria will think it is opening up a“second front”) appears reluctant to get too pub-licly involved with Turkey, at least in the realm ofsecurity cooperation. Makovsky also describedwhat has become almost a ritual in Turkey’s rela-tions with the peace process players for manyyears: Arab or Israeli officials would invite Ankarato become more engaged in the process; Turkey

would answer yes, of course; and nothing wouldhappen. Yet, Makovsky suggested, greater involve-ment as a mediator in the peace process has neverbeen Turkey’s goal, nor was it genuinely desired byany of the other players. Turkey seeks to partici-pate in the process only insofar as it can derive eco-nomic benefits or global prestige, or contribute toregional stability without risk to itself.

Turkey and the Arab World

Ibrahim Karawan of the University of Utah ad-dressed the topic of Turkey’s relations with theArab countries. Arabs who grew up in the 1960shad several missions placed before them: first andforemost, the liberation of Palestine, but also othertasks such as regaining “Arabistan” (a region inIran inhabited by Arabs). These matters were partof their socialization, Karawan said, part of theireducation. Compared with the issue of Palestine,Turkey has simply not been very important toArabs. Even the issue of Hatay/Alexandretta be-tween Turkey and Syria has not evoked the kind ofpassion that Palestine has.

Arabs, Karawan noted, talk about Turkey’s de-pendence on the West, and particularly the UnitedStates, as if many of their countries were notequally dependent on the United States, someeven more so. Part of their criticism of Turkey maycome from the fact that they do not get the samekind of hearing in Washington that Turkey enjoys.Still, Karawan declared, there is now a “reinventionof Turkey in Arab political discourse” and, withinthat, there have been many characterizations ofTurkey’s potential role in the region. There is, forexample, the paradigm of Turkey as “regional care-taker,” though it is doubtful that Turkey could orwould use the necessary power to play such a rolein the face of any serious threat to the region, or amajor regional war. Turkey is also seen as a modelof economic and political development, thoughhere again there is reason for skepticism. Turkeyhas serious economic problems of its own, and foreconomic models the Arabs look to Asia, notTurkey. Furthermore, many in the Arab world, andespecially the politicized Islamic movements, seeTurkey not as a model but as a secular country incrisis whose problems could be solved by closeradherence to Islamic teachings. Arabs tend to seethe Turks as having a confused identity: They are

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accepted neither by Europe nor by the MiddleEast. And so far as the peace process is concerned,Karawan continued, Turkey is not perceived byArabs as having much leverage one way or theother.

Commenting on Turkey’s relations with theArab world, Hisham Melhem of As-Safir wrylynoted that, although the Turks and the Arabs livein the same neighborhood, “both have oftenwished that their neighborhood had different zon-ing laws.” Both Turks and Arabs have allowedthemselves to remain prisoners of the past, withArabs, especially Syrians and Iraqis, “chafing underthe cruelty of geography.” According to Melhem,although there are many different attitudes amongArabs about Turkey, there is a general rule: Thecloser a country is geographically to Turkey themore problematic the relationship is. Turkey’sclosing of the Iraqi pipeline was an act not lost onother Arabs, Melhem asserted. No one wants tohave the spigot for its resources located in Turkey.

To the question of geography is added the “bit-ter memory of the past.” For Arabs in the Levant,the last, nasty days of the Ottoman Empire—theYoung Turk period—are still a vivid memory. Theearlier, and better days of the empire have gener-ally been forgotten. The Ataturk period added an-other layer of suspicion, as Arabs generally viewmodern Turkey’s founder as anti-Muslim and anti-Arab. Events during the Cold War only intensifiedthese suspicions. Melhem mentioned, however,that the Arabs’ negative attitudes toward the Ot-toman period may now be changing. Among someArab intellectuals, there is even a noticeable andgrowing nostalgia for the Ottoman period, per-haps in reaction to the appalling conditions in somany Arab countries, including the prevalence of

both low- and high-intensity conflicts. Melhem said that Turkey’s foreign policy has al-

ways contained a duality: It is involved in the west-ern system of states and at the same time reflectsthe reality that “whether Turkey likes it or not,” ithas a Muslim heritage and is part of the MiddleEast. Ankara recognized Israel and participated inthe Baghdad Pact largely to please the West. How-ever, the West’s arms embargo in the mid-1970swas a great shock to Turkey; in fact, according toMelhem, the rise of Islamic groups in Turkey datesback to this period. In essence, the West’s actionwas a way of saying to Turkey, “You don’t belong inthe West.” At the same time, while Turkey will en-gage in greater economic cooperation with theMiddle East, its largest trading partners will con-tinue to be western countries. And overall, despitea tendency in the West to exaggerate Turkey’s rolein the Middle East—just as its role in the CentralAsian republics was exaggerated three years agowhen they gained independence—that involve-ment will remain limited for the foreseeable future.

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Clearly, Turkey’s relations with the coun-tries on its periphery have not beensmooth. With the Arab world, the relation-

ship has been tense; with countries such as Iranand Israel, relations have been less so. Until thecollapse of the Soviet Union, Turkey’s foreign pol-icy was fairly unequivocal in its western orienta-tion, an orientation that was built into the very fab-ric of the country by its founder. However, recentdevelopments in the world political system madechanges in that orientation inevitable, and it wasthe consensus of the conference participants thatthe result was a shift eastward. The question is:How great a shift?

Ellen Laipson of the National Security Councilstaff pointed to three factors that make the issue ofTurkey and the Middle East—and the Institute ofPeace conference—more relevant in 1994 thaneven two years earlier. The first is a redefinition ofexactly what constitutes “the Middle East.” Laip-son suggested that the Middle East includesTurkey today in ways that were not the case previ-ously, because two issues crucial to Turkey’s futureresonate in many if not all other Middle Easterncountries: the Kurdish issue, which directly affectsIran, Iraq, and Syria, and the future of Islam andpolitics, an issue central to Turkey’s future as a sec-ular state. Second, the Middle East peace process ispaving the way for groupings of states and political

and economic networks that would have been un-heard of before, as those who were once sworn en-emies begin to forge new relations. Third, Turkey’sforeign policy is undergoing a general re-evalua-tion, which has involved the development of rela-tions with Turkic peoples outside Turkey (some-thing that had been eschewed by the Turkishforeign policy establishment since the founding ofthe republic) and the demise of the nation’s pri-mary enemy, the Soviet Union. Now, instead of onehostile neighbor to the north, Turkey is sur-rounded by smaller, unstable countries. The oldregional categories that defined Turkey’s foreignpolicy no longer apply. This situation may allowTurkey to consider the opportunities and chal-lenges from the Middle East in a new light.

Looking to the future of Turkey’s foreign policyand its place in the world, four scenarios were out-lined by Graham Fuller of the RAND Corporation.Fuller was careful to point out that these scenarioswere not offered as probabilities, but as “food forthought” in a discussion about Turkey’s develop-ing role in the world. The first is a “straight-line”scenario under which Turkey will continue to bestrictly allied to the West and leery of involvementin the Middle East. According to this scenario,Turkey will continue to pursue a liberal free-mar-ket economy as it follows the general U.S. foreignpolicy line and, as an element of that line, continueto act as a link between the United States and theMiddle East.

The second scenario entails a nationalist course,with an emphasis on the ideology of pan-Turkism.In its broadest application, this course was notpossible in the past; now, most of the world’s Tur-kic peoples reside in independent states. The Turk-ish nationalist Alparslan Turkes, long-time head ofthe Nationalist Action Party (Milli Hareket Partisi),is now an important figure in Turkish politics. Al-though he has been on the Turkish political scenefor decades, Turkes has been a fringe figure untilnow; his increasing popularity has been aided bythe great enthusiasm of the Turkish population forties to the other Turkic peoples. Frustration overthe deteriorating Turkish economy, the continuedimpasse on the Kurdish problem, Armenian terri-torial gains in Azerbaijan, and the West’s deter-mined indifference to the plight of the BosnianMuslims just might, Fuller opined, add up to amore stridently nationalist Turkey, determined tolead and even avenge the Turkic peoples of the

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8CONCLUSION: TURKEY’SFUTURE ROLE IN THE

MIDDLE EAST

world. The downside to this scenario would likelybe an ardent hostility on the part of Russia andIran (among others) and a possible deteriorationin Turkey’s relations with the West, including theUnited States.

A third potential scenario for Turkey involvesthe renewal and strengthening of the Turks’ Is-lamic identity. Although the Turks still have notreached a full reconciliation with Islam, nor a trulycomfortable understanding of where their religionfits into their secular ideology, there is now a muchgreater acceptance of—and pride in—the Ottomanpast, when the sultan was not only the ruler of theTurkish people, but also the caliph, head of theworld’s Muslims. An Islamist course for Turkeyneed not mean Islamic fundamentalism such asthat in Iran, Fuller continued. It may involve only agreater recognition of Turkey’s historical and pre-sent role in the Islamic world. On the other hand,as in the previous scenario, resurgent Turkish na-tional or even religious fervor might look to theArabs like resurgent Turkish imperialism.

The final speculative scenario offered by Fullerinvolves Turkey’s establishment, together with sev-eral other countries, of a greater Middle East demo-cratic federation. In this scenario, Turkey wouldmaintain its generally moderate and secular orien-tation and would seek out other countries in theregion with similar values. Possible partners in thisfederation include Egypt, Iraq, and Iran, though ofcourse a change of government would be a prereq-uisite for Iraq or Iran.

Other than the first—straight-line—scenario,Fuller stressed that he was not suggesting that anyone of these outcomes was likely. Other variablesnot discussed could affect Turkey’s future, such asthe course of U.S. policy, the final outcome for theMuslims in Bosnia, how politics develop in theother Middle Eastern countries, the evolution ofsecurity in the Gulf, and the future of Arab nation-alism. The point in outlining these scenarios wasnot to predict, but to underscore that Turkey has afull and rich past involving many traditions thatcould recur. No country’s past is ever buried andforgotten forever, and Turkey is no exception.

Turkey’s ability to forge a new role for itself inthe Middle East was analyzed in a different vein byPhilip Robins of the Royal Institute for Interna-tional Affairs in London. Robins contended thatTurkey’s role in the region will remain limited. Inother regions of the world, Turkey plays an active

and high-profile role. In the Middle East, in con-trast, Turkish policies have been reactive, cautious,and tentative. Whatever its drawbacks, this pru-dence provides a brake on what otherwise mightbe impulsive actions of the Turkish government.

Robins offered five factors that hinder Turkey’sultimate ability to carve out a more proactive rolein the Middle East. First, Turkey has a different po-litical culture from most of the Middle East coun-tries, mainly because the political process over thedecades has become more formalized in Turkeythan elsewhere in the region. Politics in Turkeyhave become institutionalized to a degree notfound in most other Middle Eastern countries. Sec-ond is the fact of Turkey’s geographic marginaliza-tion; the bottom line is that Turkey sits at the edgeof the Middle East. Third is the draw of a compet-ing foreign policy agenda—the Middle East is notas important to Turkey as such areas as theBalkans, the former Soviet Union, and Cyprus.

The fourth factor inhibiting Turkey’s role in theMiddle East is what Robins characterized asTurkey’s own foreign policy contradictions. As ex-amples, he cited the Turks’ support for a Kurdishsafe haven in Iraq in the face of a denial of the exis-tence of a Kurdish problem in their own countryand Ankara’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia,even though it is known that the Saudis financiallysupport opposition Islamic groups in Turkey. Thefifth factor that Robins suggested will inhibit agreater Turkish role in Middle East politics is theunpredictability and importance of Russia and thenature of its relations with Turkey. Recently, for ex-ample, Turkey has let Russia take the upper handin negotiations on the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, despite Turkey’s keen interests there.And the Turks acquiesced to the presence of Rus-sian troops in Bosnia. They are also beginning tofeel great pressure from Russia on the issue of ac-cess through the straits. All of these are signs thatTurkey is still very susceptible to Russian foreignpolicies that may contradict Turkey’s own in-terests.

Despite these factors, and despite the fact thatTurkey is uniquely a member of many subsystemsof states—the Balkans, the Black Sea region, thewestern flank, and the Middle East—Robins saidTurkey cannot simply ignore the Middle East. Thestates of the region will not let Turkey, as a regionalpower and as an economic factor, ignore them.Furthermore, Robins asserted, the Kurdish insur-

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gency will inevitably push Turkey toward greaterdealings with neighboring countries—for example,to contend with the power vacuum in northernIraq. Ankara cannot escape the fact that Turkeyborders on Syria, Iraq, and Iran and has majorproblems with all three.

Mehmet Ali Birand asked the question that hastormented Turks since the founding of the repub-lic: What are Turks? Europeans? Middle Eastern-ers? Where do they belong? This eternal questioncan have, according to Birand, only one answer forthe people: “We are Turks.” Turks generally knowthat once they had close relations with the Arabsbut then something happened and the Arabsstabbed them in the back, leavingthe Turks feeling that they werebetter off without them. In fact,Birand said, the Middle East isseen as “quicksand” that is bestavoided. The problem, accordingto Birand, is that “we use a differ-ent language—we simply don’tunderstand each other.” Turkey’sforeign policy has been based onkeeping as far as possible fromthe intricacies of the Middle East.

The Arabs, on the other hand,view Turkey as a U.S. agent, mak-ing it an object of suspicion andgiving it an image that Turkey hasdone little to dispel. But if theTurks are agents of the Ameri-cans, Birand asked, what aboutthe Arab regimes of Egypt’sHosni Mubarak, or Jordan’s KingHussein? The Arabs also viewTurkey as a Muslim country ofsorts and as a symbol of stability,more or less. However, Turkishdiplomacy had not adapted itselfto the new world realities yet; Turkey still lacks aclear policy toward the Middle East.

Iraq represents Turkey’s greatest problem, ac-cording to Birand. Turkey’s help to the UnitedStates in the Gulf War was based on genuine fearof the extent to which Saddam was arming him-self. Also, the embargo against Iraq has exacer-bated Turkey’s “Kurdish problem” by leading Iraqto provide a safe haven for the PKK. To deal withthis problem, Turkey must improve its relationswith Iraq, including eliminating the embargo.

The most important role for Turkey in the Mid-dle East, according to Birand, is as a model of a sec-ular state. If Turkey is lost to the Sharia, to Islamicradicals, it will be the end of the struggle in theworld between secularists and religious radicals. Asecond role Turkey must play relates to water,where some level of cooperation will be necessary.The third most important issue for Turkey is itsstability, and here Birand referred again to the Kur-dish question. “Turkey cannot solve the Kurdishproblem through the [military] policies it pursuestoday.” And while the PKK cannot win the war ei-ther, it gains strength from the discontent of theKurdish people. The Turkish government must

therefore satisfy the Kurdish pop-ulation socially, economically,and politically, and not simply tryto solve the problem through theapplication of force. Birandagreed with Robins that the Mid-dle East is not, nor will it soon be,at the top of the list of regionscritical for Turkey’s foreign pol-icy. The West is number one andis likely to remain so. Russia, theCaucasus, and Central Asia arealso of great significance. Rela-tions with Israel and with Arabcountries will develop, but theywill not supplant the existing pri-orities.

Morton Abramowitz of theCarnegie Endowment for Inter-national Peace encapsulated theissue of Turkey’s future role inthe Middle East. Abramowitz sawlittle reason to project the devel-opment of a serious pan-Turkistmovement and suggested that, asthe Turkic world knows, pan-

Turkism is more of a “buzzword” for western acad-emics and think tanks than a relevant ideology forTurkey’s future. This does not mean, of course,that Turkey cannot play a constructive, if modest,role in the future of the Turkic states.

Abramowitz stated that, contrary to earlier re-marks, Turkey never offered to send troops to theGulf War, despite U.S. wishes. Most of the Turkishpublic was either opposed to or at least skeptical ofgoing to war with a neighboring country. TheTurkish military was firmly opposed to becoming

25

Abramowitz

stated that,

contrary to earlier

remarks, Turkey never

offered to send troops

to the Gulf War, despite

U.S. wishes. Most of

the Turkish public was

either opposed to or

at least skeptical of

going to war with a

neighboring country.

embroiled in any land combat with Iraq.Abramowitz explained that he raised this point tohighlight the “tenuous nature” of Turkish-Arab re-lations and the caution and conservatism—or real-ism—of the Turkish military, who remain a leadingdeterminant in Turkey’s foreign policy.

According to Abramowitz, Turkey’s policy to-ward the Middle East since the end of the AdnanMenderes government (of the 1950s) has been forthe most part “on the mark.” Turkey’s role in the re-gion needed to be cautious, limited, and largelyconfined to trade and investment, since Turkeyhad to be leery about being drawn into MiddleEastern quarrels—especially since it did not havethe economic and political wherewithal to be a ma-jor player. What is more, Turkey was not particu-larly welcomed by Middle Eastern countries in anycase. Turkey’s future role in the region will be de-termined primarily by internal developments inTurkey. Of those, the two most important are theeconomy and the Kurdish problem; if they are notresolved, Turkey’s ability to influence the widerarea is going to remain low. Turkey’s Middle Eastpolicy will be further affected by what happens inthe religious sphere. That issue arouses consider-able debate in Turkey, and there are many differentviews of its significance, though there is generallyan increased level of concern. The potential influ-ence of the Refah Party cannot be ignored. Howthis issue plays out in the end will depend in parton the policies and effectiveness of the other Turk-ish political parties and on whether they increasethe Islamic element in their platforms to enhancetheir appeal to the Islamic interests of the elec-torate. Abramowitz commented that, absent otherdevelopments, there seems to be “more rhetoricthan reality” in the “Islamic component” of Turk-ish foreign policy.

Turkey’s involvement in the Middle East willthus remain limited, Abramowitz concluded, withthe exception of its relations with the three neigh-

boring states of Iran, Iraq, and Syria, where manyproblems exist and are likely to remain. These in-clude water, political aspirations and ideologies,religion, boundaries, the development of uncon-ventional weapons, and the PKK. The very politi-cal nature of these three states generates concernfor Turkey. Iraq will, in Abramowitz’s opinion,prove the most difficult problem, and policies to-ward Iraq will continue to reflect conflict betweenthe objectives of Turkey’s foreign and domesticpolicies. On the one hand, Turkey does not wantto see a Kurdish state on its border; on the other,Turkey knows that the return of centralized rule inIraq, whether under Saddam or under a successor,is likely to result in more waves of Kurdishrefugees to Turkey and Iran. As the Kurdish prob-lem drags on, the Turks are increasingly inclinedto make peace with Saddam, in the belief that theycan and must live with him or his successor. This,in turn, according to Abramowitz, will complicaterelations with the West, particularly the UnitedStates, and render the future of the Kurdish secu-rity zone very uncertain. Thus, Abramowitz de-clared, “Iraq is a profound dilemma for Turkey be-cause the Kurdish issue for Turkey is such aprofound dilemma.”

Abramowitz finished by noting that, “sinceWorld War II, Turkey’s policy in the Middle East,from a western perspective, has been derived fromthe fact that it is not a bridge but a bulwark and abeacon for others in the area.” A stable and eco-nomically dynamic, increasingly secular and dem-ocratic state is a “rare bird” in the region and one ofgreat value to the world. Despite its very seriousproblems, Turkey has the capacity to maintain it-self in this role. Moreover, Abramowitz concluded,“If Turkey resumes rapid rates of growth, main-tains its cohesion, and deals with the Kurdish issuein some real fashion, it could indeed become amore significant force in the changing politics ofthe Middle East.”

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Ahmed M. Abdel-Halim is an analyst at the NationalCenter for Middle East Studies in Cairo.Morton Abramowitz is president of the Carnegie En-dowment for International Peace and former U.S. am-bassador to Turkey. Marshall Adair is director of the Office of Southern Eu-ropean Affairs at the Department of State where he is re-sponsible for the Turkey desk, among others.Shaul Bakhash, a 1993–94 fellow at the United StatesInstitute of Peace, is the Clarence Robinson Professor ofHistory at George Mason University and a leading ex-pert on contemporary politics and society in Iran. Amatzia Baram, a 1993–94 fellow at the Woodrow Wil-son International Center in Washington, D.C., is seniorlecturer in the Department of the Modern History of theMiddle East at the University of Haifa.Henri Barkey, the principal organizer of the Institute ofPeace conference, is associate professor in the Depart-ment of International Relations at Lehigh University. Mehmet Ali Birand is a journalist for Sabah, a widelyread Turkish daily, and editor and producer of the televi-sion news program 32nd Day, which focuses onTurkey’s international and domestic development. Selim Deringil is associate professor in the Departmentof History at Bogazici University in Istanbul. Yakup Atila Eralp is chairman of the Department of In-ternational Relations at the Middle East Technical Uni-versity in Ankara. Graham E. Fuller is senior political analyst at the RANDCorporation and a former U.S. Foreign Service officer inTurkey, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, North Yemen, andAfghanistan. Robert Greenberger is diplomatic correspondent at theWall Street Journal.Stephen Grummon has since 1989 been a member ofthe Policy Planning staff at the Department of State,where he is responsible for the Persian Gulf and SouthAsian regions. Ismet Imset is a Turkish journalist and editor of theEnglish language newspaper the Turkish Daily News. Murhaf Jouejati is a doctoral candidate in political sci-ence at the University of Utah. Kamran Karadaghi is a senior political correspondentfor the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, coveringIraqi, Kurdish, and Turkish affairs. Ibrahim Karawan is assistant professor in the Depart-ment of Political Science at the University of Utah.

Farhad Kazemi is professor of politics at New York Uni-versity and a specialist on comparative and internationalpolitics and Middle East affairs. Gun Kut is professor in the Department of Political Sci-ence and International Relations at Bogazici Universityin Istanbul. Ellen Laipson has served since September 1993 as Di-rector for Near East and South Asian affairs on the Na-tional Security Council staff and previously served as thenational intelligence officer for Near East/South Asia atthe Central Intelligence Agency. Anat Lapidot is an instructor in the Department of theHistory of the Middle East at Tel Aviv University and aresearch associate at the BESA Centre for Strategic Stud-ies at Bar-Ilan University.Samuel W. Lewis served as Director of the Office of Pol-icy Planning at the U.S. Department of State from Febru-ary 1993 to February 1994, as president of the UnitedStates Institute of Peace for five years, and as U.S. ambas-sador to Israel.Heath W. Lowry is Ataturk Professor of Ottoman andModern Turkish Studies and chairman-designate of theDepartment of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton Uni-versity. Alan Makovsky is senior research associate at the Wash-ington Institute for Near East Policy, working on Arab-Is-raeli and Turkish issues. Phebe Marr is senior fellow at the Institute for NationalStrategic Studies at the National Defense University. Hisham Melhem is the Washington-based correspon-dent for As-Safir (a Lebanese daily) and Radio MonteCarlo. Muhammad Muslih is associate professor of politicalscience and director of the Department of InternationalRelations at C. W. Post College, Long Island University. Changiz Pahlavan is currently lecturer at Tehran Uni-versity and recently completed a year as visiting fellow atSt. Antony’s College, Oxford. Philip Robins is the head of the Middle East Program atthe Royal Institute for International Affairs, ChathamHouse, London. Alvin Z. Rubinstein is professor of political science atthe University of Pennsylvania and a senior fellow at theForeign Policy Research Institute. Paul D. Wolfowitz is dean of the Paul H. Nitze School ofAdvanced International Studies, the Johns Hopkins Uni-versity, and former under secretary of defense for policyunder Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney.

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CONFERENCE

PARTICIPANTS

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Patricia Carley is a program officer at the United States Insti-tute of Peace. She co-organized the Institute conference “A Reluc-tant Neighbor: Analyzing Turkey’s Role in the Middle East.” Atthe Institute, she works primarily on issues involving the formerSoviet Union and southern tier countries, and she has co-con-vened an Institute study group examining Russian-Ukrainianrelations. Previously, she was a staff adviser at the Commissionon Security and Cooperation in Europe (the congressionalHelsinki Commission), where she authored numerous reportson the former Soviet republics, including the Central Asia sec-

tion of Human Rights and Democratization in the Newly Independent States (1993). She hasalso worked as a consultant on Central Asian affairs to various agencies, including the WorldBank and the RAND Corporation, and is the author of several articles on the politics of CentralAsian countries.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

29

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan federal institu-tion created and funded by Congress to strengthen the nation’s capacity to promote the peacefulresolution of international conflict. Established in 1984, the Institute meets its congressionalmandate through an array of programs, including grants, fellowships, conferences and work-shops, library services, publications, and other educational activities. The Institute’s Board ofDirectors is appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate.

Board of Directors

Chester A. Crocker (Chairman), Distinguished Research Professor of Diplomacy, School ofForeign Service, Georgetown University

Max M. Kampelman, Esq. (Vice Chairman), Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver and Jacobson,Washington, D.C.

Dennis L. Bark, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, StanfordUniversity

Thomas E. Harvey, former general counsel, United States Information Agency

Theodore M. Hesburgh, President Emeritus, University of Notre Dame

William R. Kintner, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania

Christopher H. Phillips, former U.S. ambassador to Brunei

Elspeth Davies Rostow, Stiles Professor of American Studies Emerita, Lyndon B. JohnsonSchool of Public Affairs, University of Texas

Mary Louise Smith, civic activist; former chairman, Republican National Committee

W. Scott Thompson, Professor of International Politics, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy,Tufts University

Allen Weinstein, President, Center for Democracy, Washington, D.C.

Members ex officio

Ralph Earle II, Deputy Director, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

Toby Trister Gati, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research

Ervin J. Rokke, Lieutenant General, U.S. Air Force; President, National Defense University

Walter B. Slocombe, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Richard H. Solomon, President, United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting)

ABOUT THE INSTITUTE

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors or conference participants alone.They do not necessarily reflect views of the United States Institute of Peace.

United States Institute of Peace1550 M Street, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20005-1708

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First published January 1995

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