Erbakan Striking Balance Between Islamic Neighbors and Secular Army

by James M. Dorsey

Feeding on a growing anti-Western sentiment at home, Turkey’s Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan is balancing a tightrope as he shifts his country’s focus eastward without surrendering its long-standing Western ties.

In doing so, Mr. Erbakan, a fiery politician who came to power last June dreaming of an Islamic world order, is keeping Western capitals as well as his own country’s staunchly secular elite on their toes.

“He’s got us somewhat confused,” says Ilter Turan, a prominent political scientist at Istanbul’s Koc University.

Since taking office in late June, Mr. Erbakan has gone out of his way to prove himself a reliable ally to the West while also making all the moves one would expect of an Islamist politician.

Within days of becoming prime minister, he was conferring with United States Undersecretary of State Peter Tarnoff and attending a July 4 Independence Day celebration at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara. Mr. Erbakan then shepherded through parliament an extension of the mandate for Operation Provide Comfort, the U.S.-led force stationed in southeastern Turkey to protect the Kurds of northern Iraq against the wrath of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussain. Erbakan also has been careful to honor a controversial military cooperation agreement with Israel he had previously denounced.

Yet, less than a week after U.S. President Bill Clinton signed new restrictions on doing energy business with Iran, Mr. Erbakan visited Tehran on his first major foreign visit since becoming prime minister to sign a $23 billion deal to supply Turkey with Iranian gas, Iran’s largest gas export agreement to date. By doing so, Erbakan handed Iran a significant victory in its campaign against U.S. efforts to force Iran economically to its knees.

Simultaneously, Erbakan dispatched two senior cabinet officials to Baghdad to secure Turkey’s share of contracts to supply food and medicine to Iraq under the food-for-oil deal concluded between the government of Saddam Hussain and the United Nations (and subsequently postponed as a result of the push by Iraqi forces into the Iraqi Kurdish city of Irbil.).

Turkish officials say Mr. Erbakan soon will visit Syria, which, like Iran and Iraq, figures prominently on the U.S. list of nations accused of sponsoring terrorism.

“The price for good relations with Israel is Turkey’s dance with Iran. This does not mean the dance has any substance,” Mr. Turan says.

Both Mr. Turan and European diplomats suggest that how far Mr. Erbakan goes in refocusing Turkey, a country that not only straddles East and West but is also caught in an uncertain political transition from militant secularism to a greater role for Islam in public affairs, may depend on how its Western allies respond.

Turkey has much to gain from improved relations with its most difficult neighbors.

“Erbakan is capturing the latent unhappiness that permeates Turkish society about its relations with the West,” Mr. Turan says, echoing Turkish perceptions that the United States and Europe favor Greece in its perennial dispute with Turkey as well as fears that the West may be using the Kurds to weaken Turkey.

“Confrontation with the West would only work in his favor. If his goal is to take Turkey out of the Western camp, then a strong Western reaction will allow him to tap latent anti-Western feelings and achieve his goal,” Mr. Turan says. “Subtle, non-public pressure may ensure that this apparent policy shift remains limited to symbolic gestures.”

For the time being, Western officials appear to be heeding Mr. Turan’s advice. The United States last week insisted that Mr. Erbakan’s signing of the gas deal with Iran would not cause a rift in relations between Washington and Ankara.

Nonetheless, U.S. officials appear far more concerned than their European counterparts. Quipped one U.S. official when asked about shifts in Turkish foreign policy: “So far so good said the man who jumped from the 20th floor as he passed the 13th.”

Indeed, while Mr. Erbakan’s moves appear so far to have put a dent in U.S. efforts to isolate Iran, they have done little to provoke great concern among Europeans already up in arms about U.S. efforts to restrict their trade not only with Iran, but also with Libya.

“I’m certainly not being flooded with calls from Brussels,” says Alexander Borges Gomez, a senior EU diplomat in Ankara.

In fact, some European diplomats and analysts argue that enhanced relations with Iran, Iraq and Syria serve both the economic and the security interests of Turkey.

“Turkey has to deal with these people and the West cannot deny them the right to do so,” says a diplomat from an EU member state.

Turkey, faced with likely energy shortages later this year, severe pollution problems in its major cities and a 13-year-old insurgency supported by Iran, Iraq and Syria in its underdeveloped southeast, has much to gain from improved relations with its most difficult neighbors.

A Dictate of Economics

“This is something one should understand,” Mr. Turan says. “Its a dictate of economics.”

As a result, European diplomats as well as Mr. Turan argue that Mr. Erbakan has done little so far that had not been initiated or would not have been done by previous Turkish governments with no Islamic baggage.

Turkey’s gas deal with Iran, for instance, was negotiated last year under the auspices of Tansu Ciller, leader of the center-right True Path Party, who was then prime minister and now serves as foreign minister in a coalition with Mr. Erbakan’s Islamist Refah (Welfare) Party.

Similarly, Mr. Erbakan’s efforts to secure a share of the Iraqi cake are no different from those of his European counterparts.

“There is a change of emphasis rather than of substance. All of these issues were part of Turkish foreign policy before Erbakan. All he has done is made them a priority,” says a European diplomat.

Quoted by Germany’s Bild Zeitung, German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel cautioned against concluding from Mr. Erbakan’s visit to Tehran that Turkey was adopting a “completely new orientation.” Mr. Kinkel said further that “Turkey is one of our close friends and since the fall of the Iron Curtain an important bridge between Europe, the Islamic and Asian world. Therefore, it can’t be allowed to be isolated.”

Mr. Erbakan’s foreign policy moves are also closely linked to his efforts to shift away from a military emphasis in solving the 13-year-old Kurdish insurgency in southeastern Turkey that has cost already more than 20,000 lives. Since coming to power, Mr. Erbakan has tentatively signalled willingness to open indirect talks with rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Mr. Erbakan hopes that increased Turkish ties to Iran, Iraq and Syria will reduce these countries’ support for the PKK.

However, analysts see the indictment in late August of top members of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HADEP) for forming an armed separatist gang as indication of serious policy differences between the government and the military. Some 41 HADEP members have been charged in a trial reminiscent of the sentencing in 1994 of seven Kurdish deputies to lengthy prison terms and the banning of HADEP’s predecessor, the Democratic Party (DEP).

“The hawks are still in control in Turkey,” said political analyst Mehmet Altan. Erbakan, two months into his premiership, did not look like he could combat the hard-line military thinking that dominates Turkish state affairs, Altan said.

The case against HADEP could cast a serious shadow over Turkey’s relations with its Western allies. Turkey, as a result of the DEP trial in 1994, was pressed by Europe to improve its human rights record as a condition for signing a customs union deal. It changed its 1992 military-era constitution and slightly eased restrictions on freedom of expression. But human rights activists and lawyers say the changes were cosmetic and failed to address the core of the problem.