Turkey courting Islam?

Ankara’s insistence on boosting ties with Muslim world alienating it from US, EU

The political leader of the militant Palestinian group Hamas, Khaled Mashaal, addresses the press at the Metropol Hotel before leaving Ankara on February 17 following talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and other government officials.

By Gareth Jones - Reuters

ANKARA - US Congressman Robert Wexler did not mince his words during a visit to Ankara last week when he condemned Turkey’s decision in February to host leaders of the militant Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

“Your opponents have been bolstered and your friends have been deflated (by that invitation),” he told a gathering that included members of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Foreign Ministry officials.

Wexler’s comments, coming nearly two months after the event, underlined the continued repercussions of a visit that outraged Israel and the United States, dismayed the EU and many Turkish diplomats, and stirred suspicions that the AKP wants to remold Turkey’s foreign policy along more Islamist lines.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has roots in political Islam, has defended the decision as an attempt, made in good faith, to bridge the gulf between Israel and the Palestinians, who had just handed power to Hamas in a democratic election.

“(But) I cannot for the life of me imagine how this visit could serve Turkey’s interests,” said Wexler, a Democrat who has long worked to promote relations between Washington and Ankara.

Though overwhelmingly Muslim, Turkey has been firmly in the Western camp under successive governments since the start of the Cold War. It has a strictly secular political system, belongs to NATO and last year began European Union membership talks.

Ankara also has close security and trade ties with Israel, hence the shock that greeted Turkey’s invitation to an organization which denies the Jewish state’s right to exist and which is branded as “terrorist” by Washington and the EU.

The Hamas-led Palestinian government sparked fresh Western ire this week when it called a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv by kindred militant group Islamic Jihad an act of “self-defense.” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the bombing.

For some analysts, the Hamas trip is a clear example of how Erdogan, heeding his own advisers more than Turkey’s cautious Foreign Ministry, wants to boost ties with the Islamic world even at the risk of undermining Ankara’s traditional alliances.

“Foreign policy is definitely taking on a more Islamist tone under this government,” said Ali Tekin, who teaches international relations at Ankara’s Bilkent University.

“Erdogan seems to be vying to become more popular than Arab leaders in the Middle East, but this is a dangerous tactic.”

Analysts say Erdogan travels more often to other Muslim countries than to Europe these days.

Last week, attending a meeting of the Arab League in Sudan as an observer, he raised eyebrows in the EU by rejecting Western accusations that the Khartoum government is guilty of genocide in its Darfur region.

Some see Erdogan’s increased contacts with the Muslim world as a result of Turkey’s EU woes. Turkey has accused the bloc of treating it unfairly, especially over the thorny Cyprus issue.

“As the AKP loses faith in the EU process, this corresponds to a stronger interest and involvement in the Middle East,” said Ayhan Simsek in the English-language daily The New Anatolian.

Erdogan still needs the EU to modernize Turkey’s laws and institutions and to keep foreign investment flowing into its booming economy, analysts say, but his heart is no longer in it. He likes to portray Turkey as a bridge between the West and the Muslim world, helping to avert a “clash of civilizations.”

Turkey, which under the Ottoman Empire once ruled much of the Middle East, also has strong practical reasons to cultivate its Muslim neighbors, even anti-Western Iran and Syria.

But analysts say the AKP has probably forfeited for good the trust of the Israelis — crucial if it is to be taken seriously as an honest broker in the Middle East — and they say Erdogan may also be overestimating Turkey’s clout on the global stage.

“Clearly they have ambition for a foreign policy with more outreach, going beyond Europe, but they are now trying to punch above their weight,” said one Ankara-based EU diplomat.

Cengiz Aktar of Istanbul’s Bahcesehir University said the Hamas visit was an example of the AKP’s “inexperience.”

The AKP, a loose coalition of liberals, nationalists and Islamists, was formed only a few months before winning the 2002 general election.

Most ministers, including Erdogan, speak no foreign languages and have a background in provincial politics.

“I see opportunism and sheer clumsiness rather than a clear Islamist agenda,” Aktar said. “They lack sophistication.”

He and other analysts also saw in recent foreign policy moves Erdogan’s desire to impress his Islamist-minded voters as Turkey gears up for elections next year.

Opinion polls suggest he may be right. A recent poll showed Turks saw the USA as the biggest threat to national security. Greece also scored highly, while Muslim neighbors Iran, Syria and Iraq barely registered.