For Turkey, an Embrace of Iran Is a Matter of Building Bridges

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, right, took a photo of officials including Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, second from left, during a meeting in Tehran last month.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

June 12, 2010

For Turkey, an Embrace of Iran Is a Matter of Building Bridges

By SABRINA TAVERNISE
New York Times


ISTANBUL — Viewed from Washington, Turkey and Iran are strange bedfellows. One is a NATO member with a Constitution that mandates secularism, and the other, an Islamic republic whose nuclear program has been one of the most vexing foreign policy problems for the United States in recent years.

So why have the two countries been locked in a clumsy embrace, with Turkey openly defying the United States last week by voting against imposing new sanctions on Iran?

For the United States, the vote was a slap by a close ally that has prompted soul searching about Turkey. In London on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates mused that Turkey was “moving eastward,” a shift he attributed to the European Union’s tepid response to Turkey’s application to join it.

That is a narrative that is gaining ground: Turkey, the East-West bridge, sided with the East because it had lost its way on its path to becoming more like the West. But many here do not see it that way. Turkey is not lost, they say, but simply disagrees with the United States over how to approach the problems in the Middle East. The Obama administration chooses sanctions, while Turkey believes cooperation has more of a chance of stopping Iran from building a bomb. To that end, it has actively negotiated with Tehran over its nuclear program.

“I would be appalled if Turkey cut itself off from the West and aligned with the Islamic world, but that’s not what’s happening,” said Halil Berktay, a historian at Sabanci University. “Turkey is saying, ‘You’ve been talking about building bridges. This is the way to build them.’ ”

At the heart of the current friction is a fundamental disagreement over Iran and its intent. For the United States, Iran is a rogue state intent on building a bomb and crazy enough to use it. Turkey agrees that Iran is trying to develop the technology that would let it quickly build a weapon if it chose, but says Iran’s leaders may be satisfied stopping at that. “We believe that once we normalize relations with Iran, and it has relationships with other actors, it won’t go for the bomb,” said a Turkish official who works closely with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Besides, Turkish officials say, previous sets of sanctions have not worked with Iran, which continues to insist that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

Part of Turkey’s motivation in reaching out to Iran is based in realpolitik. Iran is Turkey’s neighbor and also supplies the country with a fifth of its natural gas.

The approach is also part of a broader policy of economic and political integration in the region that Turkey, under Mr. Erdogan, has pursued for nearly a decade. Iranians can travel to Turkey without a visa, as can Syrians, Iraqis, Russians and Georgians. More than a million Iranians travel to Turkey on vacation every year. A Turkish company built Tehran’s main airport.

The nuclear talks were part of that effort. They culminated in May in what Turkey, and its partner Brazil, said was a commitment by Iran to swap a portion of its low-enriched uranium with other countries. Iran would ship out part of its stockpile in exchange for a form of uranium less likely to be used for weapons.

But American officials went ahead with sanctions anyway, saying the amount to be swapped under the agreement was no longer enough to stop Iran from making a bomb.

Months ago Iran had negotiated a similar deal with the West, including the United States, but then backed away. At the time Iran had a smaller stockpile, and swapping material then would have deprived the country of enough fuel for a bomb for about a year.

“The prevailing sentiment in Washington is that the agreement is just another Iranian ploy and that Ankara has played into Tehran’s hands,” said Steven Cook, an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

A Western diplomat added, “The general feeling in Washington is that the Iranians really aren’t going to negotiate away their nuclear program.”

Turkey says it fears a nuclear-armed Iran, because it would upset the balance of power between the two countries, but it also worries that the Obama administration’s focus on sanctions — reminiscent of President George W. Bush’s rush to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, some here say — will lead to war.

“The Western countries do things and Turkey pays the bill,” said Sedat Laciner, director of the International Strategic Research Organization in Ankara. “We don’t want another Iraq.”

The Turkish official, meanwhile, explained the country’s rationale for treating Iran with respect. “We are saying, make them feel like they have something real to lose by going for a bomb,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Will sanctions change Iranian behavior? No. Will it stop them from further enriching uranium? It will not.”

It is a risky calculation, but one that Hooman Majd, an Iranian-American writer, says the Turks are in the best position to make. Unlike Americans, Turks travel to Iran frequently and speak a language similar to the Azeri dialect spoken in Iran’s north.

“Iran doesn’t want to be North Korea,” Mr. Majd said. “It would rather be as sophisticated, powerful and respected as Turkey. Building weapons, even if they could, does not get them there. Erdogan knows that.”

The United States expressed disappointment at Turkey’s vote against sanctions last week, saying it would undermine the Obama administration’s ability to support Turkey. But Turkey’s calculation was pragmatic, some officials said. Its “no” vote did not stop the resolution, while allowing Turkish officials to work the Arab street.

Top leaders of Mr. Erdogan’s party believe that only a Turkey that is independent from the United States will be an asset for Washington in the long run. America has a credibility problem in the Muslim world after the Bush administration’s wars, and is also seen by many as having a double standard with Israel.

“In their own minds, they’re smarter than us,” said an American expert who helps make policy for the region. “They see us as wanting crass cheerleading. But they’re saying, ‘Look, we’re going to be more useful to you.’ ”

But that can be very uncomfortable for the United States, for example when Mr. Erdogan’s political party hosted Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader, in Turkey in 2006.

The American expert argued that the regional rise of Turkey was not to be feared. It counters the influence of Iran in the Middle East, and as a NATO ally with a powerful economy, a vibrant democracy and relations with Israel, has something to teach the Muslim world, and it cannot play that role by being an American instrument.

Still, he said that “the Turks are finding that the vision that they have is very good on paper, but striking the balance of being a close American ally and popular on the Arab street is awfully difficult to achieve.”