February 27, 1998
The New York Times
To the Editor:
Stephen Kinzer’s near-reverence for Turkey’s U.S. alliance, in his 2/22/98 report "A Firm Friend Starts to Waver", underlies much of what is wrong with our foreign policy establishment’s image of Turkey: it is based far more on hype than reality. Despite five decades of unwavering military, economic and political assistance lavished upon the Turkish government by the U.S., the Turks have as yet been unable to adopt a genuine western democratic ethic.
This was dramatically underscored last month when a report issued by Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz shocked the world with its explicit admissions to a litany of murders, bombings, kidnappings and other terrorist acts by the Turkish State against journalists, politicians, businessmen, lawmakers, writers, foreign nationals, activists and other dissidents during the 1990’s. This report served as a gruesome reminder that Turkey, with its juntas, balks at free elections and the continuing oversight of its fledgling democracy by the military, has never internalized a genuine democracy.
As with the Turks’ undeclared alliance with Nazi Germany during WWII, and then Turkey’s about-face at the close of that war, Turkey’s lack of genuine affinity for western democratic values has proven its present alignment with NATO to be less of an alliance than a liaison of strategic convenience. Furthermore, Turkey’s destabilizing and belligerent expansionism in a highly sensitive region of the world has not only made it far more of a liability than an asset, but its refusal to cooperate on key issues of U.S. foreign policy has already compromised important American interests.
In contravention of American policy and of prior assurances made to the U.S., last September Turkey urged Saddam Hussein to assert his authority over the safe haven established by the Gulf War allies for Kurds in northern Iraq. Risking a schism in the alliance and the potential of further regional instability, Turkey then proceeded to unilaterally invade northern Iraq despite strong international protests. Turkey has since deployed thousands of troops into Iraq on numerous occasions--most recently on February 9th--exporting its war against its Kurds dangerously, and illegally, beyond Turkey’s borders.
While unreported by the American press, Turkey has repeatedly refused to allow American forces adequate use of its facilities for operations in the Persian Gulf. Most recently, when the U.S. was seeking support for its military action against Saddam Hussein in response to his noncompliance with weapons inspections, Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz stated that Turkey would refuse to "take an active role in any military action against Iraq" and ruled out the use of its crucial Incirlik base by allied forces. The inconsistency of this position with Turkey’s recent deployments of its own forces into Iraq has further placed Ankara’s U.S. commitment and regional intentions into doubt.
During Desert Storm, as today, the Turks’ fear of an autonomous Kurdistan in an Iraqi power vacuum, or alternatively of an influx of Kurdish refugees fleeing a war zone, has substantially prevented the U.S. from dealing decisively with Saddam Hussein. As a result, innocent Iraqi civilians and U.S. soldiers are placed in harms way, a festering global problem is left to linger, and the United States is once again brought to the brink of war.
Ethnic, historical and linguistic ties between Turkey and Central Asia have been vastly overstated as factors engendering Turkish influence in the region. Thus far, Turkey has lacked the financial and ideological clout to take a leadership role in Central Asia. This has greatly disappointed American interests and has mooted one of the State Department’s most ambitious arguments for continued support of Turkey in the post-Cold War era, namely, that Turkey could have served as the key to unlocking the 70 billion barrels of proven oil reserves (and their gas equivalent) in the Caspian Basin. Furthermore, Turkey’s foreign policy has also served to undermine Western interests in the region, interests which have since leapfrogged Turkey as a middleman and aggressively pursued oil deals on their own.
Ankara’s encouragement of Azeri belligerency in Nagorno-Karabakh and the Turks’ blockade of their former genocide victims in fledgling Armenia (the most democratic and pro-American nation in the whole of Central Asia) have further aggravated the instability of this geopolitically sensitive area--one already exposed raw by years of war and ethnic strife. The investigation published last month by Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz further revealed that the administration of his predecessor, Tansu Ciller, was responsible for an attempted 1995 coup against the Azeri government.
Moreover, Turkey’s expansionist aggression against Greece and Cyprus has created dangerous instability in NATO's crucial eastern European flank, threatening to unhinge the two most democratic, peaceable and Western-oriented nations in the entire Balkan and Middle East region. Such a destabilization of Greece--an ally which has served American interests far more faithfully than Turkey through both World Wars, the Korean conflict and the Gulf War--in an area as explosive as the Balkans would be tantamount to removing the only solid keystone supporting that region’s precariously balanced geopolitical and geoeconomic house of cards.
Finally, Israel’s axis with Turkey will prove harmful not only to the image Israel is projecting to its Arab neighbors during this delicate period of reconciliation, but to the self-image of Israelis as well. The moral absurdity of the children of the survivors of one genocide abetting the perpetrators of another will no doubt seriously undermine one of the Jewish state’s most precious commodities: its moral legitimacy.
Very truly yours,
P. D. Spyropoulos, Esq.
Director
February 27, 1998
Via Fax: 212-556-3622
To the Editor of The New York Times:
Stephen Kinzer’s near-reverence for Turkey’s U.S. alliance, in his 2/22/98 report "A Firm Friend Starts to Waver", underlies much of what is wrong with our foreign policy establishment’s image of Turkey: it is based far more on hype than reality. Despite five decades of unwavering military, economic and political assistance lavished upon the Turkish government by the U.S., the Turks have as yet been unable to adopt a genuine western democratic ethic.
This was dramatically underscored last month when a report issued by Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz shocked the world with its explicit admissions to a litany of murders, bombings, kidnappings and other terrorist acts by the Turkish State against journalists, politicians, businessmen, lawmakers, writers, foreign nationals and other dissidents during the 1990’s.
Turkey’s lack of genuine affinity for western democratic values has proven its present alignment with NATO to be less of an alliance than a liaison of strategic convenience. Furthermore, Turkey’s destabilizing and belligerent expansionism in a highly sensitive region of the world has not only made it far more of a liability than an asset, but its refusal to cooperate on key issues of U.S. foreign policy has already compromised important American interests.
During Desert Storm, as today, the Turks’ fear of an autonomous Kurdistan in an Iraqi power vacuum, or alternatively of an influx of Kurdish refugees fleeing a war zone, has substantially prevented the U.S. from dealing decisively with Saddam Hussein. As a result, innocent Iraqi civilians and U.S. soldiers are placed in harms way, a festering global problem is left to linger, and the United States is once again brought to the brink of war.
Moreover, Turkey’s expansionist aggression against Greece and Cyprus has created dangerous instability in NATO's crucial eastern European flank, threatening to unhinge the two most democratic, peaceable and Western-oriented nations in the entire Balkan and Middle East region. Such a destabilization of Greece--an ally which has served American interests far more faithfully than Turkey through both World Wars, the Korean conflict and the Gulf War--in an area as explosive as the Balkans would be tantamount to removing the only solid keystone supporting that region’s precariously balanced geopolitical and geoeconomic house of cards.
Finally, Israel’s axis with Turkey will prove harmful not only to the image Israel is projecting to its Arab neighbors during this delicate period of reconciliation, but to the self-image of Israelis as well. The moral absurdity of the children of the survivors of one genocide abetting the perpetrators of another will no doubt seriously undermine one of the Jewish state’s most precious commodities: its moral legitimacy.
Very truly yours,
P. D. Spyropoulos, Esq.
Director