Refah Foreign Affairs Expert: Turkey’s Outreach to Muslim States “Realistic”

by M.M. Ali

“Turkey is at a crossroads today. My party [Refah or Welfare], under the very able leadership of [Prime Minister] Necmettin Erbakan, is trying to bring realism to our situation,” Abdullah Gul, Turkish minister of state for foreign affairs told invitees at a Feb. 20 meeting hosted by the American Muslim Council in Washington, DC. During a week-long visit to the United States Gul, a deputy from the prime minister’s Islamist party who heads the foreign affairs committee in Turkey’s parliament, visited the Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (the think-tank spinoff of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), and met with members of the Turkish community in the U.S. national capital area.

Gul, 46, who might be described as the Refah Party’s “shadow foreign minister” in a coalition government in which Refah’s Erbakan is prime minister and former prime minister Tansu Ciller of the True Path Party is foreign minister, is an engineer by training and hails from Kayseri, in Central Anatolia. His association with Erbakan began when Gul was a professor at Istanbul University. He has served for some time as foreign policy adviser of the Refah Party. His unusual but important role in the coalition, in which Erbakan is scheduled to step down in favor of Ciller after two years, is illustrated by the Turkish government’s decision to send Gul on an official visit to the United States.

Expanding on his statement that Erbakan is seeking to inject “realism” into its policies, Gul observed that Turkey has always had very close and friendly relations with the West but has “lagged” in its relations both with its immediate neighbors and with its “Muslim brothers” outside of its region. He reminded his audience that Turks are Muslims and have always remained so.

“We are slowly building bridges and are reaching out to countries like Indonesia and Malaysia where we find we have natural allies. These are some of the ties that have been neglected in the past and need to be strengthened now,” he added.

Discussing his visit to the United States, Gul said: “I am amazed at the distortion that exists about the present government of Turkey in this country…I found both misinformation and deliberate disinformation being spread through the electronic and the print media here. I will try to dispel some of the fears and present the correct picture of my government. We are a democratic country and the Refah Party seeks nothing but peace and goodwill with all.”

Commenting on the gas pipeline accord reached between Turkey and Iran, the minister pointed out: “Iran is our neighbor and part of our regional reality. Above all, if we find a much needed natural resource close by, it makes eminent economic sense to utilize that…I am surprised at the reaction our deal has generated, particularly in the United States when nothing is said about the more weighty deals that have been struck by Japan and Germany with Iran.” He called the U.S. reaction “selective target shooting.”

In answer to questions about the Kurdish problem and Turkey’s relations with Iraq, Gul observed: “Turkey has an unmatched history of siding with the international community on all major issues. In spite of the fact that Iraq is our Muslim neighbor, we went along with the U.N. resolutions and supported the West in the Gulf war, however uncomfortable that was for us regionally.”

He added that in his opinion Turkey’s role in this regard was never fully appreciated. Describing contemporary Turkey as a nation where ethnicity has never been a problem, he dismissed the Kurdish issue as “an artificially created question” that “some people try to blow out of proportion.”

Economic Issues a Priority

According to Abdullah Gul, the real challenge facing the ruling Refah Party is to put Turkey’s internal economic house in order. “My government places the highest priority on the very pressing economic issues faced by the country,” he said. “Our efforts already have started to show positive results. We have brought down the inflation rate from 140 percent in January 1996 to 80 percent in January of this year, and similarly the interest rate has dropped 10 percent to 5.5 percent during the period.” He said Turkey has launched an aggressive privatization program and that investments from abroad are coming in.

Explaining Prime Minister Erbakan’s emphasis on domestic affairs, Gul said governments in the developing parts of the world can ill afford to ignore or neglect their internal economic health while concentrating on external relations. Such countries and leaders, he pointed out, have paid a steep price for their oversights. Prime Minister Erbakan, he told the audience, is trying his best to pull Turkey out of the economic malaise into which it had fallen. “Our people support us for what we do and not for what we say,” he remarked.

Directly addressing members of the American Muslim Council (AMC), the Turkish minister declared: “Muslim populations now living in the West are in a position to provide expertise and technical assistance to countries that are striving hard to keep pace with modern times…Muslims living in countries like Germany, France, England and America, who have had the opportunity to be educated and trained in the West, should help the less-developed world…At the same time it is important that they take advantage of their growing numbers here to develop political clout and influence governments where they now live…Organizations like the AMC can play a vital role in garnering and galvanizing the Muslim community and building it into a political force that can help shape public policy that is even-handed.”