STAR- Columnist Zeynep Gurcanli comments on Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent visits to Italy and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), and the scope of his insight into Turkish foreign policy. A summary of her column is as follows:
AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan has begun an extensive tour of major European capitals to seek support for Turkey’s EU membership bid. As the chairman of the incoming government party, Erdogan has demonstrated a resolute attitude and pledged to implement further political reforms, a stance which the EU appreciates. However, Erdogan’s recent short visit to the TRNC served to exposed his almost complete lack of experience in foreign policy matters.
On the first stop of his tour of EU member states, Erdogan met in Rome last Wednesday with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a figure similarly inexperienced in statesmanship. Erdogan and Berlusconi did get on well. They conferred on several issues without being dragged into deep, vexing questions of foreign affairs. Erdogan laid out Turkey’s ambitions to become an EU member and reiterated that his party was determined to carry out further political reforms. Berlusconi, in turn, spoke of other European leaders on a first-name basis, so implying that they all were his close friends, and he pledged to support Turkey’s membership bid. Everything was fine with the Italy visit. Yet when he went to the TRNC, the bells tolled dangerously for Erdogan.
The press briefing Erdogan gave as soon as he landed on the island revealed that he lacks even the most basic knowledge and perspective on the Cyprus issue, a matter which carries tremendous importance for Turkey. Whatever the reason, Erdogan floundered and found it difficult to answer the questions journalists posed to him, and finally he made a terrible gaffe. Thanks to the quick thinking of some high-ranking AKP officials in his entourage, amends were made for Erdogan’s mistake through a second press briefing before his departure. Yet, that was not the only gaffe Erdogan made during his visit to the island.
The AKP leader declared the UN secretary-general’s solution plan ‘worth talking over,’ without feeling any need for further assessment of the plan. Indeed, Sukru Sina Gurel, the foreign minister of the outgoing government, last week stated that certain points contained in the plan were completely out of bounds, although his comments, coming from a lame duck member of Cabinet, were of dubious value at best. Erdogan must have gotten so angry with Gurel that he cried: ‘We are not scared of discussing the Cyprus issue,’ effectively getting caught up in Gurel’s position. In his own way of doing diplomacy, Erdogan, as the leader of Turkey’s new government party, expressed a binding view about the UN plan without even waiting to hear TRNC President Rauf Denktas’s view as to whether or not the plan could constitute a basis for negotiation. Erdogan did all this utterly unaware that even accepting the plan as a basis for negotiation could harm the interests of both Turkey and the TRNC. All of this must be seen as a source of deep concern about Erdogan, as he is heading for an extensive tour of European capitals this week. He will first meet in Athens with Greece’s premier ‘hawk’ on domestic and foreign affairs alike, Prime Minister Costas Simitis. Of course Erdogan and Simitis will discuss the Cyprus issue and Greek-Turkish relations, the heated issues on which even the most senior Turkish diplomats pay the utmost attention to their words and deeds. The Greek media will surely try to force Erdogan to make binding statements on behalf of Turkey and the TRNC. Erdogan will then move on to London to meet with British Premier Tony Blair. Again in London, two very difficult topics will be awaiting Erdogan, namely the Cyprus issue and the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). Both will require great skill and finesse. But if Erdogan demonstrates similar performances in his next European stopovers as he did in the TRNC, then hard times lay in store for Turkey.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION