Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

The past week has seen Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan step up his anti-Israel rhetoric.  Despite Turkey’s agreement to station Nato’s anti-missile system on Turkish soil (in return, it seems, for increased US assistance against Kurdish guerrillas), Erdogan is continuing to shift Turkey decisively away from its Ataturkist Western orientation.  His goal is to make Turkey the leading power in the Middle East.  Erdogan is doing this largely but not exclusively on the back of Turkish support for the Palestinians, and his remarks in Pretoria on 5 October were amongst his strongest so far.  He said that Israel imposes “state terrorism” in the region; that it has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians with “bombs that have rained down on them from Israel”, including phosphorus bombs; and that he saw “Israel as a threat for its region because it has the atomic bomb”.  He also said that the West applied double standards (by pursuing Iran over its nuclear programme and not Israel) and that the United Nations had failed to implement its resolutions against Israel (“89 from the UN Security Council and 247 resolutions of the General Assembly”).

That Turkey since the re-election of Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) on 12 June has dramatically shifted its foreign policy in a neo-Ottoman direction is without question.  Erdogan’s victory speech made it clear this is what he wanted to happen, and it has happened.  In addition to championing the Palestinian cause and confronting Israel at every opportunity, Erdogan is challenging Cyprus (and the EU) over drilling rights in the Eastern Mediterranean, he is moving Turkey closer to post-Mubarak Egypt, and he is increasingly supporting the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

None of this is helpful to securing a Mideast peace settlement (which depends upon Israel feeling safe and being prepared to compromise), but nor is any of it surprising given Erdogan’s personal views and his ambitions for Turkey.  What is interesting, however, is that Erdogan seems so prepared to upset Iran.  He has now made three moves that have been interpreted in Tehran as hostile.  The first was the decision to host the Nato anti-missile shield on Turkish soil.  The second was his insistence on his recent visit to Egypt that its post-Mubarak model for government should be secular, and the third has been his increasing support for the Syrian opposition.

The first was probably unavoidable, given US pressure (and the incentive of additional help against the Kurdistan Workers Party – PKK - guerrillas).  The second could probably be overlooked by Tehran given that the sort of secular regime that Erdogan has in mind is Islam-based and very far from the militant secularism of Turkey’s military-backed governments.  The Syrian question, however, is a far more serious challenge to Tehran.

All the information we have suggests that Iran has been keen to forge close ties with post-Mubarak Egypt and had been putting pressure on the Assad regime to welcome the increased influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.  In other words, Tehran has been trying to play down the Shia-Sunni divide with regard to Egypt (if not Saudi Arabia).  Tehran’s hope was that Turkey would see the advantage in an Egypt-Iran-Turkey collaboration over the shape of the new Middle East - but Erdogan’s increasing opposition to Assad appears to be pushing Iran away.

From a Turkish perspective, this makes good sense.  It makes it more difficult for the US to turn against Turkey, despite Erdogan’s strong shift against Israel.  He also knows that the removal of the Assad regime in Syria will have Saudi Arabian support and is unlikely to alienate Egypt.  The downside, though, is that it will stir up Iran, which in turn is likely to increase sectarian tensions in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

It is also possible that Iran, which has recently been collaborating with Turkey against Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq, could return to supporting the PKK against Turkey.  On 10 October, the head of Iran’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Brigadier-General Masoud Jazayeri, warned Turkey of “adverse consequences” if it continued with the plan to host the Nato anti-missile radar.  He said: “Turkey should rethink its long-term strategic interests and draw lessons from the bitter historical experiences of other countries.”  On 11 October, Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc admitted: “Iran and the PKK might be having negotiations.”  It was also reported the same day that senior PKK guerrilla Murat Karayilan, who had been captured in August, had been released by Iran.

Another pointer is a ceasefire that Iran has reached with the Iranian PKK offshoot, the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), which intelligence sources believe could be linked to a new cooperation deal between Iran and the PKK in Turkey.

The Iranian narrative is that Turkey under Erdogan is in reality serving pro-Israeli interests by calling for secular government in Egypt, working for the overthrow of Assad, and by stationing Nato’s anti-missile radar on its territory.  But that is certainly wrong.  Erdogan is being far more subtle.  He is continuing, indeed increasing, his hostility to Israel as the way to Arab Sunni hearts and to increased Turkish influence in the Middle East, but by supporting the Syrian opposition and eschewing an alliance with Iran he is making it far more difficult for the US to oppose his moves.  He is also endearing himself to Saudi Arabia, which itself is becoming increasingly vocal against Israel as it seeks to mollify its own restive public opinion.  The downside, in addition to making it more difficult for the US to modify Turkey’s anti-Israeli stance, is that it further incites Iran to exploit Shia and Kurdish frustrations – in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon.  JdeC.

NOTE: The Kurds remain Turkey’s Achilles Heel.  Although Turkey has not collected ethnic data in censuses since 1965, it is estimated that there are between 11m and 15m Kurds in Turkey’s 74m population, half living in the south-east and half in western cities.  The Kurdish rebellion has resulted in at least 30,000 deaths since 1984, and there has been a resurgence in violence since Erdogan’s re-election in June when there was a clear hardening of Erdogan’s stance on the Kurdish question (he dropped two key pro-Kurdish candidates from his list and announced that he would have hanged Ocalan).  Since then, over 60 Turkish soldiers have been killed and around 170 Kurdish guerrillas.  There have been Turkish air attacks on PKK bases in northern Iraq, where it is thought there are 3,000-5,000 PKK guerrillas.  And it is thought that there are more than 3,000 Kurdish activists still in Turkish jails following a crackdown that began in April 2009.  Mostly these activists were arrested simply for expressing opinions considered to be pro-PKK.