Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

At the time that Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan won re-election in June 2011, we drew attention to his victory speech from the balcony of his party’s headquarters in which he proclaimed that “Sarajevo won today as much as Istanbul; Beirut won as much as Izmir; Damascus won as much as Ankara; Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, the West Bank, Jerusalem won as much as Diyarbakir.”  That Erdogan has been as good as his word has been demonstrated by two relatively small, but symptomatic incidents in the past fortnight, one concerning Jerusalem, the other Sarajevo.

The first we reported last week but repeat now for context: On 26 February Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay told the International Conference on the Defence of Jerusalem: “Without the liberation of Jerusalem, no real peace and stability can be achieved in the Middle East or farther afield...Turkey will not allow...Israel’s oppressive attempt...at changing Jerusalem’s historic fabric by intimidating Palestinians.”

This week there is the news from Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, that the Dnevni Avaz newspaper has named Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as its 2011 “man of the year”.  The paper’s editor-in-chief said: “Davutoglu is chosen as of the man of the year because of his close interest in the Balkans and contributions to solution of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s problems.”  He also pointed to the Turkish foreign minister’s efforts on behalf of the Muslims in the Serbian region of Sanjak.

As we said, these are small incidents, but they are illustrative of the larger point about Turkey’s expanding regional role.  There are now three key pillars to Turkey’s foreign policy, namely: promoting the Turkish model for the Arab world of Islamic-tinged democracy; expanding Turkish influence in the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia; and providing unquestioning support for the Palestinian cause.

On this latter point, according to sources in Ankara it is not an exaggeration to say that, for Turkey, Palestine is now competing with Cyprus as a focus for patriotic fervour.  This is a remarkable turnaround.  As one Turkish official puts it: “[In 1967] there were big demonstrations of joy for Israel’s victory in the Six Day War and the occupation of the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza.  Turks expressed happiness at the Arabs’ defeat at the hands of their friend and ally Israel.”  Now, the same official says: “Ninety-eight percent of Turks stand side-by-side with the Palestinian people and their just cause.  Not only that, but Turkey has had a major change of heart, especially after Turks were killed for the sake of Palestine at the hands of the Israeli army.”  He was referring to the May 2010 Mavi Marmara incident in which nine Turkish activists were killed trying to run the Israeli blockade of Gaza .

That this dramatic re-orientation in Turkish foreign policy under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is popular is clearly demonstrated by the polls.  The AKP won power 12 years ago with 37% of the vote.  In the subsequent election, it took 46% of the vote.  And in the 2011 election it won 50% of the vote.

Not everything is rosy, however.  Sources in Ankara report growing Turkish concern about what will happen when Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad falls from power – even though this is an outcome Turkey is encouraging.  The first concern is that a civil war in Syria could provide an opportunity for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to reactivate militancy in Syria’s Kurdish regions.  It is thought that a third of PKK militants are of Syrian origins.  Secondly, the impact of a Syria in chaos on Lebanon will be profound, possibly reigniting the civil war that in its previous manifestation raged for 15 years.  Thirdly, it could encourage the further fragmentation of Iraq, with Iran moving to consolidate its domination of the Shia regions.  Nor, Ankara fears, will Jordan be immune to the turmoil; and some in Ankara go so far as to say that the royal family could struggle to survive.

All of this, as we suggested last week, could force Turkey to consider intervention in Syria.  We know that there remains strong opposition to this in Ankara, with powerful elements saying that such an intervention could undermine Turkey’s influence over the wider ‘Arab Awakening’ as well as cause problems with Russia.  It would be a last resort; but it is being considered.  What is not being considered is any dilution of Turkey’s core foreign-policy objectives, of which unequivocal support for the Palestinian cause remains central.

NOTE: In a very interesting development, Egypt has come out strongly against arming the Syrian opposition.  It might have been supposed that the new Egyptian government would be a strong supporter of the Sunni-based Syrian opposition, but on 6 March, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Muhammad Kamil Amr warned that “arming the Syrian opposition would trigger a civil war in Syria”.

Amr will be hosting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on 10 March, and Amr’s public opposition to arming the rebels will be a comfort to Lavrov, who might have feared that Russian obstructionism on anti-Assad moves at the UN could undermine Russian influence in the Middle East.

Lavrov will have been particularly taken by Amr’s strong opposition to foreign military intervention and by his invoking of the Libyan example as a bad precedent.  This is exactly in line with the Russian view.  Amr told state-run Nile News TV: “Look at the consequences of such foreign military intervention in neighbouring countries.”

He pointed to the situation in Libya, in particular the declaration on 6 March by tribal leaders and militia commanders in the eastern city of Benghazi of a partly autonomous Barqa province stretching from Sirte to the Egyptian border, and he warned: “Toppling regimes is easy, but what is most difficult is to restore the unity of the country.”  He said that he hoped the “brothers in Libya” would overcome their divisions and “maintain the unity of the country”.

Amr also objected to the presence of foreign military bases in Libya, saying: “We reject the presence of any foreign military bases on our territories or any Arab lands.”