Interview with Gareth Jenkins, non-resident Turkey expert at the USA’s Johns Hopkins University.
Q: Will Turkey’s peacemaking initiative in the South Caucasus be successful?
A: I don’t think Turkey has been successful yet, although I don’t doubt the commitment of the Turkish authorities. But Turkey has had difficulty moving from rhetoric to reality, particularly with regard to Azerbaijan and Armenia. It is all very well to adopt “zero problems with neighbours” as a slogan but some of the countries in the region have problems with each other. Once Turkey becomes more engaged with its neighbours, then it also becomes more involved in their problems; and it sometimes simply isn’t possible to keep everybody happy.
Like it or not, it is also a fact that the dominant power in the Caucasus is still Russia. Although Turkey can play a role in peacemaking in the Caucasus, my feeling is that the most it can hope for at the moment is to play a supporting role. For longstanding problems such as Nagorno-Karabakh, it is still Russia which has the best chance of brokering a settlement.
Q: Is the Turkish initiative on stability and security in the Caucasus realistic?
A: I am not a supporter of the AK Party [Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party], but I think its initiative to establish stability and security in the Caucasus was well-intentioned. But the fact remains that Turkey does not have the ability to create it. For the moment at least, only Russia can do that and the most that Turkey can do is to help. This is not to say that Turkey is wasting its time. But it is possible to foresee Russia creating peace and stability in the Caucasus without Turkey. It is not possible to see Turkey creating peace and stability in the Caucasus without Russia.
Q: Turkey and Russia agreed during Prime Minister Erdogan’s recent visit to Moscow to intensify bilateral relations. Could this cooperation have a positive influence on the situation in the Caucasus?
A: The intensification of bilateral relations between Russia and Turkey is likely to have a positive rather than a negative impact on the Caucasus. But it is not a solution in itself. Ultimately, there is not going to be peace and security in the Caucasus unless the disputes and frozen conflicts are resolved (e.g. Russia-Georgia and Azerbaijan-Armenia). Closer ties between Russia and Turkey are not, by themselves, going to solve these problems.
Q: How serious is the recent diplomatic scandal between Turkey and Israel?
A: The latest diplomatic scandal between Turkey and Israel would not be so serious if it had come in isolation. But, set in the context of other things that have happened in the last year (e.g. the cancellation of the Anatolian Eagle military exercises, Davos 2009 etc), then it is indicative of how fraught the relationship has now become. The tensions in the relationship become clearer when one looks at Turkey’s relations with other countries in the Middle East over the last couple of years. Although some relationships have not changed much (e.g. with Egypt, Jordan), others have grown much closer (Syria, Iran). The only country with which Turkey’s relationship has deteriorated considerably is Israel. I think that the latest tensions are more important as symptoms of the poor health of the relations than important in themselves.
Q: Could this scandal harm the military cooperation between the two countries?
A: The closer ties between Turkey and Israel were driven by the two countries’ militaries at a time when the Turkish military dominated certain aspects of Turkish foreign policy. The Turkish military’s political influence in Turkey is currently much less than it was in the past, largely as the result of the campaign against the military by supporters of the AK Party government. It is significant that the decision to ban Israel from the Anatolian Eagle military exercises was taken by the Turkish government not the Turkish military. Until only a few years ago, the Turkish government would not even have dared to take such a decision in an area regarded by the Turkish military as its prerogative. But military cooperation had declined even before the latest tensions — again largely as a result of the anti-Israeli policies and rhetoric of the AK Party government. Although there are areas in which the militaries of the two countries would probably be happy to cooperate more closely (training, defence industry etc), while the AK Party is in power, it is difficult to see how ties will become as close as they were in the late 1990s.
Gareth Jenkins is senior associate fellow at the Joint Centre’s Silk Road Studies Program, Turkey Initiative, Johns Hopkins University.
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