In what appeared to be a well considered communications strategy, on November 12, 2008, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggested in an interview with the New York Times that Turkey wanted to use its influence in the Middle East to mediate between the incoming Obama administration and Iran. [1]  Prime Minister Erdoğan repeated this offer in a speech three days later at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C., asserting that Turkey was uniquely positioned for the job given its good rapport and increasing trade with Iran in addition to the two nations’ cultural and religious ties. [2]  Following this speech, Turkish foreign and security policy experts debated the feasibility of such an offer, reflecting Ankara’s competing strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis both Tehran and Washington. 

The recent offer appears to be part of a significant Turkish foreign policy initiative that envisions proactive peace diplomacy in its surrounding regions and a new vision-oriented foreign policy for Turkey.

The Turkish Strategic Context: Turkey’s New
“Pro-Active Peace Diplomacy”
The new foreign policy initiative that provides the context for Turkey’s proposal to mediate between the two estranged countries was devised by Ahmet Davutoğlu, the official chief foreign policy advisor to the prime minister since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002.  A bright academic who has been described as “Turkey’s Henry Kissinger,” [3] Davutoğlu’s 2001 book entitled Strategic Depth outlines his vision for a new Turkish foreign policy.  Davutoğlu asserts that Turkey has long denied its Ottoman past and cultural ties with neighbors, leading the country to become isolated from those neighboring countries, and causing it only to react to their policies.  According to this vision, Turkey should strive to achieve “zero problems with its neighbors,” and pursue “pro-active peace diplomacy” in surrounding regions, including the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus. In his book, Davutoğlu claims that Turkey needs to be at peace with its Muslim identity and have “a sense of grandeur and self-confidence.”

Further, he argues that the international community must build “a participatory global political order” and that, in that process, countries like Turkey that stand between different civilizations have something important to offer. In contrast to the academic Samuel Huntington, who viewed Turkey as a torn country, Davutoğlu argues that being “torn” between East and West is an advantage. Turkey can speak the language of both civilizations; it can talk to Damascus and Jerusalem, Tehran and Washington. According to this vision, Turkey can be an effective arbiter and peacemaker in the Middle East, the Caucasus, and the Balkans. [4]

Recent Turkish efforts that demonstrate a commitment to this new policy include: a Turkish contribution to solving the Lebanese crisis; the Turkish initiative for talks between Syria and Israel; the trilateral summits between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey; and the trilateral summits in Ankara between Turkey, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority.  The initiative with the most direct implications for proliferation and weapons of mass destruction issues is the Turkish offer to mediate between the United States and Iran.

Turkey’s Offer to Mediate between the U.S. and Iran
Prime Minister Erdoğan was quoted in the New York Times as saying that Barack Obama’s election created new opportunities and that he believed Turkey could be very useful in resolving relations between Iran and the United States. During his Brookings Institution speech, the prime minister highlighted Turkey’s new-found role as peace broker and said that, given the trust Turkey had established with Iran, it was better positioned than the European Union’s “troika” (Britain, France, and Germany) to facilitate talks with Tehran.   Erdoğan also maintained, however, that trying to force Iran to halt its nuclear program while allowing other countries to maintain nuclear arsenals was unlikely to reduce tension. Instead, he urged those countries pressuring Iran to eliminate their own nuclear arsenals, a move that he claimed would be a better basis for a comprehensive solution. [5] Following Erdoğan’s offer, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hassan Qashqavi indicated that Iran would not oppose Turkish mediation of nuclear talks with the West, saying, “We will certainly not create any obstacles in the way of such moves.” [6] Meanwhile, Washington gave no official response to the prime minister’s suggestion, prompting most observers to conclude that then President-elect Obama would not indicate his position on the matter until he took office.

Background on Turkish-Iranian Relation
Turkey and Iran have not suffered from border violations or similar problems since the signing of the Kasr-i Shirin treaty in 1639. [7]  (For a detailed background on Turkey-Iran relations, see “Turkey Copes with Iran, Using Mix of Strategies” in the April 2006 issue of WMD Insights).  Historically, despite ideological differences between Turkey’s secular establishment and Iran’s Islamic Republic, geopolitical realities and economic imperatives have forced the two to work together on a number of issues. Turkey and Iran’s shared concern over Kurdish militant organizations, for example, has led to close cooperation.  Additionally, Turkey’s energy needs dictated a $23 billion natural gas agreement with Iran signed in 1996.  Since that time, trade between the two countries has steadily increased. While Turkey does not want to see a nuclear Iran, the perception of Iran as a member of the “Axis of Evil” does not prevail in Turkey. [8]  Given its relations with the country, and its May 2008 success in bringing Israel and Syria together for talks for the first time in years, Turkey is hoping to play a similar role between Washington and Tehran.

The recently departed Bush administration was generally supportive of Turkey playing such a role. Prime Minister Erdoğan’s government helped facilitate talks during the summer of 2008 among the United States, Europe, and Iran. In July, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said that both Iran and the six powers negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program had requested Turkish help.  Babacan met his Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mouttaki, in Ankara while Mouttaki was on his way to the Geneva talks with European Union (EU) leaders, which were also attended by the U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, William Burns.  Babacan also met with Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, on Jalili’s way back from Geneva after talks with EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana.  Babacan described Turkey’s role as “one that is in a sense consolidating and facilitating” the negotiations between Iran and the six major powers. The six had offered Iran a package of incentives in return for freezing uranium enrichment.  Part of the proposed deal, for example, was a promise by the six not to seek further UN Security Council resolutions against Tehran, in exchange for Iran not installing additional centrifuges for uranium enrichment. Iran was given a two-week deadline to respond.    At that time, Babacan spoke of “a deep confidence gap” between the sides and said Turkey was trying “to rectify any misunderstandings and ensure that they better understand their mutual concerns.” Reflecting further on Turkey’s useful positioning, Babacan noted that Turkey “has means of easy dialogue with the parties” [9] because Turkey is a NATO member and a candidate for European Union membership while, at the same time, it maintains good ties with Iran.  Indeed, in August 2008, even as the two week deadline passed and Iran faced more sanctions due to its nuclear ambitions, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad visited Turkey to discuss energy agreements, trade ties, and cooperation against terrorism.

Turkish Perspectives on the Offer
Many Turkish experts agreed that Turkey is uniquely positioned for the role envisioned by Prime Minister Erdoğan.  Turkish foreign policy experts cite the following factors as reasons for a potentially positive contribution: 

• Turkey has good relations with both parties, and the nation has earned their trust and support.
  
  
• Turkey does not want new tensions, particularly military ones, in its neighborhood. Ankara finds it beneficial to contribute to the resolution of current problems via negotiations.
  
  
• Turkey wants to play a bigger role as a regional actor.
  
  
• Turkey can provide Iran with a dignified disengagement plan, because if Iran is to make any concessions it will more likely make them to a fellow Muslim-majority state with whom it has had long and friendly relations. [10]

At the same time, some commentators have expressed concerns with respect to whether and how successfully Turkey can perform the role it wants to play. This concern emerged largely as a result of Prime Minister Erdoğan’s comments on “zero nuclear powers” in the Middle East, which many interpreted as being aimed at Israel and unlikely to please the United States.  In response to a question about Iran’s nuclear program, the prime minister argued that, “We are against the possession of nuclear weapons in our region...but those who ask Iran not to produce nuclear weapons should themselves give up their nuclear weapons first.” [11] Erdoğan insisted such a course would be a better basis for a comprehensive solution.

The prime minister’s approach yielded significant criticism at home. [12] His call for “total nuclear disarmament” in the region was noted as a fundamental deviation from Turkey’s official position. [13] Others argued that, while Erdoğan’s comments on nuclear disarmament would certainly please Tehran, his words would upset the United States and Turkey’s other NATO allies because of the appearance of appeasement.  Erdoğan was also criticized for appearing unaware of NATO’s nuclear policy or of the fact that Turkey had approved the policy. [14]

 Turkish pundits noted that this was the first speech ever given by a Turkish prime minister at the Brookings Institution.  Because some Turkish analysts view the Brookings Institution as a “Democratic” think tank, they suggested that Erdoğan’s choice of venue was an “investment” in the future Obama administration. [15] Erdoğan’s call for a nuclear-free zone, however, was cited as a possible reason that Turkey would be unlikely to win the trust of the Obama administration. [16] As Turkey expert Ömer Taşpınar of the Brookings Institution argued, “The prime minister…said that the ideal situation in the Middle East is ‘zero nuclear’ [powers]. Although this mention of ‘zero nuclear‘ would not please the Israel lobby, it carries the signals for why Iran would trust Turkey as a mediator more than the West would. But let’s see if the Obama administration will feel the same trust for Turkey? That is where the problem lies.” [17]

Commentators also discussed Turkey’s difficult position given the country’s energy situation. While Turkey’s current $8 billion trade with Iran gives it some leverage over Tehran, it also needs Iranian energy to reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas.  Thus, it cannot afford to be at loggerheads with Tehran. [18] (For a detailed background on Turkey’s energy relations with Iran, see “Amid Growing Hopes for the Future, Turkish Nuclear Energy Ambitions Suffer Setback” in the December 2008 / January 2009 issue of WMD Insights.)

Turkey’s Perceptions Regarding a Nuclear-Ready Iran and the NATO Security Guarantee
Ian Lesser, a senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Washington D.C., has claimed that Turkish policymakers are “in denial” regarding the nature of proliferation risks on Turkey’s borders. [19] In fact, despite Turkey’s exposure to WMD and missile risks from the Middle East, Ankara has remained relatively unconcerned, adopting a “surprisingly nonchalant attitude” toward the threat. [20] In the past, this was likely due to Turkey’s assumption that the NATO security guarantee was sufficient to deter regional threats. The 1990 Gulf War, however, had a negative effect on Turkey’s assumptions about the NATO security guarantee in “out-of-area” contingencies. [21] Moreover, it is clear that Turks do not share the U.S. concern regarding nuclear and missile risks emanating from Iran, largely because Turkish observers find it difficult to imagine circumstances in which Iran would employ such weapons against Turkey. [22] As a result, Turks consider that a possible Western or Israeli intervention in Iran would place them in a precarious position between allies and a neighbor, which would result in Turkey playing a role analogous to that of Germany during the Cold War.

Even though Turks view a state-to-state conflict as unlikely, they also see difficult downsides related to a possibly nuclear-armed Iran for Turkey and the region as a whole. First, a nuclear Iran would complicate Turkey’s security relationships with the United States, Israel, and Europe. Second, Turks concede that a nuclear Iran would affect military balances and perceptions not only in the Middle East, but in Russia, the Balkans, and the Aegean. Third, given that the country would border a possibly nuclear-armed Iran, Turkey fears becoming viewed as a possible transit route for the leakage of nuclear materials and technology. This could also affect Turkey’s aspirations to join the EU, an entity that may be reluctant to acquire a formal border with a nuclear Iran. [23]

Conclusion
The Turkish prime minister’s offer to mediate the dispute between Washington and Tehran is an important development and one that Turkey hopes will elevate its status as a key regional and global power. Turkey’s proposal to mediate between the two estranged countries is taking place within the context of a greater foreign policy initiative in which Turkey is trying to create a new image and role for itself in the international arena and is seeking to take advantage of its soft power and diplomatic clout to show how it can be a major contributor to global order. [24] Reactions to the proposal thus far suggest that Turkey still has some distance to go before such an ambitious role can be realized.  Further, recent events seem to indicate that other attempts by Turkey to realize Davotoglu’s vision may come up short, as evidenced by the heated conversation over Israel’s actions in Gaza held between the Turkish and Israeli prime ministers during the annual meeting at Davos on January 29.  While some commentators believe that the harsh words exchanged between the two world leaders will blow over with time, others question the long term ability of Turkey to enhance its role as regional peacemaker.

Karen Kaya - SAIC