SABAH- Retired Ambassador Sukru Elekdag writes on Turkish-US relations and the concept of strategic partnership. A summary of his column is as follows:
The US is defining its relations with Turkey as a strategic partnership. This definition shows the special importance Washington is attributing to another country and the privileged allied relations it maintains with that country. It is a fact that the US is protecting some of Turkey's interests within this framework. However, it is hard to say that it is fulfilling all the requirements of a strategic partnership. Strategic partnership covers cooperation on trade, cultural matters; the economy and many other fields in addition to the military and political spheres. This privileged alliance envisages the establishment of bilateral institutions to protect each others's interests as well as the sharing of intelligence, and it provides for political and military consultations at all levels. The US sees nothing wrong in giving sophisticated, high-tech weapons to countries such as Great Britain, Canada and Israel with which it enjoys strategic partnership relations. When loooked at closely, we can see that the strategic partnerships with these countries are based on human, ethnic, social and historical ties. The most important point of them all, is that the American public has adopted these common interests. However, as the Turkish presence in the US is still marginal, there is no group defending the interests of Turkish-American common interests. In fact, the anti-Turkish lobbies in the US are so influential that they are still able to derail Washington's policy regarding Turkey and seriously damage bilateral relations. Therefore, if the anti-Turkey ethnic lobbies are not neutralized, it will be very hard to base the relations between Turkey and the US on a strategic partnership. However, increasing the trade volume between our two countries as well as the number of investments by three or fourfold may be a way of neutralizing these lobbies. As a result, there will be groups and lobbies which will defend common interests in both countries. The present situation seem ripe for taking necessary steps. Washington has realized that Ankara has the potential to steer the Islamic sensibilities away from fundamentalism using its 'secular-democatic-republican' administrative system, and also that Turkey is of pivotal importance in its strategy against terrorism. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's visit to the US is an important opportunity to revitalize the 'no aid, but trade' policy together with increasing of investments in Turkey.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION