BY HASAN BULENT KAHRAMAN
RADIKAL- Columnist Hasan Bulent Kahraman writes about Turkey’s apparent state of perennial crisis. A summary of his column is as follows:
Last week Turkey saw a brand new crisis. Have you noticed how for a while now, after the dust settles and smoke clears on these crises, we close our eyes to them and act as if they never happened? It’s like the sides are sizing each other up, the circles involved in crises just make their opponents aware that they are there and then fall back to their own corners. Apparently, both sides are waiting for just the right time and place for a decisive strike. The recent crisis will perhaps be remembered in the future as ‘the April 23 Crisis’ or ‘the Second Headscarf Crisis.’ Yet, it is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, Turkey is currently plagued by a more serious and deeper crisis.
This can be characterized as the crisis of the state or the statist mentality, and people holding positions and offices in the state all have a share in this odd situation. Let’s first look at the sources of this crisis.
The powers responsible for Turkey’s security and defense have proven gravely mistaken in their assumptions and plans about the war in Iraq. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul first declared that Turkey could intervene in northern Iraq, but later announced that in no way was such an intervention possible. Hence, there is a crisis in defining strategies and concepts.
Turkey has made clear that it would have the right to intervene into northern Iraq should Ankara’s ‘red lines’ be crossed. Those ‘red lines’ have already been breached, but Turkey failed to take the appropriate initiative. Hence, there is a planning crisis.
Ankara stressed that Turkey would react firmly to any Kurdish movement into Mosul. But now we see almost everything that Turkey could find undesirable happening in Mosul. Yet Ankara has confined itself to merely watching developments unfolding there. Hence, there is an assessment and foresight crisis.
And the Cyprus issue… Turkey had formerly said that it would annex the Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) should the Greek Cypriot administration become an EU member. The island has all but become a part of the Union, and unfortunately ‘enosis’ [union between mainland Greece and Cyprus] was thereby accomplished, but Turkey merely sat and watched. Hence, there is a foreign policy crisis.
In short, all of the state’s policies have gone bankrupt, and strategically Turkey is now in a very difficult position.
The answer to the question of why Turkey suffers from all of these crises lies in the country’s perception of the ‘world’ and its understanding of (foreign) policy.
These crises are likely to get even worse unless the Turkish state abandons its efforts to remain static in the midst of unfolding events.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION