Cyclical crises and Turkish foreign policy

We are going through a critical period in terms of Turkey's foreign policy. Perhaps despite the large-scale crises experienced after World War II, our region has never been so unstable. Because a belt of instability is forming both in our east and in our west.

Iran, one of our neighbors, came out of the nuclear negotiations it held with Western countries successfully, but it has not yet been able to integrate fully into the system. It is certain that it is making an effort to integrate, but it appears that the clerical regime in the country is afraid of losing its power in Iran after this integration. For this reason a policy of controlled tension continues to be pursued. Therefore a normalization hanging by a thread is at issue. What could happen when the thread breaks, and the scale of it, is quite difficult to predict.

The situation in Iraq is far graver. After the US intervened in Afghanistan, it also intervened in Iraq and set about building a democratic role model there. The plan was to create an oasis of democracy of federal governments organized in the American style and equipped with broad powers. The picture that emerged in the end is this. Moreover, as the US realized it could not build such a democracy in Iraq, it withdrew first to its bases and then to its aircraft carriers and its own country, creating a terrible power vacuum. The bitter fruit of this power vacuum was DAESH.

This terrorist organization, which first expanded its sphere of influence in Iraq, split Iraq into several pieces within a very short time. In this expansion, of course, sociology was also quite effective. It is known today that some senior figures within DAESH were important military officials of the Saddam regime, and that its human resources were provided to a degree by Sunni groups in Iraq that supported the Baath regime.

It is quite thought-provoking that the one who created this sociology was the US, which had come to the region to create an oasis of democracy in Iraq. It is hard to tell what DAESH is the cause of or the result of; it is a true chicken-and-egg story. At the same time, the fact that it serves as a source of legitimacy for all countries wishing to intervene in the region, and that, like a Swiss army knife, it opens the same door to Russia, to the US and to Iran alike, brings with it a number of questions and problems.

The most important of these problems is Syria. It is the country with which Turkey shares its longest border. The civilian massacres Russia has carried out there, and the unthinkable violence and torture that Hezbollah militias and certain Iranian military elements inflict on Sunni sections of the population, lay bare the magnitude of the problem.

Not many years ago, the great silence toward the Assad regime, which all international organizations established had used chemical and biological weapons against its own citizens in Eastern Ghouta, has been broken in the case of DAESH; moreover, in order to fight this terrorist organization, other terrorist organizations that carry out terrorist acts inside Turkey and that support terrorist acts yet to be carried out are being armed and used. As we said at the beginning, this clearly shows that a critical period is being passed through in terms of Turkish foreign policy.

The same instability, perhaps for the first time since World War II?, has also shown itself on our western borders. The European Union, which, in the debates over the measures to be taken against the economic crisis in Greece, managed to carry the pitcher without breaking it but with slight cracks, is now fixated on the referendum to be held in Britain.

Politicians and researchers openly state that if the referendum in Britain produces a decision for Britain to leave the European Union, there is a possibility the Union will break up. Let us not think that such opposition to the European Union exists only in Britain.

Today in France, the right, known for its anti-EU stance and demanding that the powers transferred to the EU be returned to the French "nation-state," is the second largest political movement. In Germany too the anti-EU movement is rising rapidly.

David Cameron, whom Turkey has always regarded as a friend, recently uttered a sentence to the effect that "if Turkey continues at this pace, it can only become a member of the EU in 3000 years." We would not want to disappoint our friend Cameron, but it seems that the life of the European Union may not last even that much longer.

We must always keep in mind that Turkey is a NATO member and a country holding membership negotiations with the European Union. Within this framework, Turkey strives to be a strong and reliable ally in its region for both the European Union and NATO. What it expects in return is that both the European Union and NATO uphold the same law of alliance. If this law is not going to be upheld, what meaning would the strategic alliances that have been established have? Turkey will continue to uphold these alliances and to protect the law of alliance, even if its allies do not uphold them.

There is no institutional or structural crisis in Turkey's foreign policy. When the conjuncture changes, when an environment of stability re-forms in the countries of the region, Turkey will once again become the most important country in the region. The EU and NATO, on the other hand, are dealing with institutional and structural crises in foreign policy. The only country that can produce a solution to these structural crises is Turkey. We hope they see this before it is too late.