Turkey’s awakening: Its gradual exit from the Western camp

Vendredi 26 Février 2010

- Excerpt GEAB N°39 (November 16, 2009) -

Taking advantage of the ongoing systemic crisis, and of the weakening of the US and of the Western superstructure over which the latter’s might is based, Turkey has entered a process of fundamental redefinition of its key geopolitical interests. The new priorities ready to break out by 2012 will account for Ankara’s most profound reappraisal since the country joined NATO in 1952. This process illustrates a return to the Kemalist vision of Turkey’s vital interests (1) i.e., different from the agenda set for the country by big powers. It is quite ironical that this evolution is initiated by leaders of religious-oriented party, the AKP. There will be substantial geopolitical, economic and commercial consequences to this strategic shift which challenges the traditional vision of a pro-Western Turkey waiting to join the EU.



In the Eastern Mediterranean region, the relation with Israel is often a reliable indicator of a country’s relation with the Western camp altogether. Indeed, for more than a decade, the West has been defining itself along the Washington/Tel Aviv guiding line. But, in this regard, in the past few months, Turkey seems to have undertaken to move away from this line which, for many years, it used to follow as closely as possible. The attack on Gaza by the Israeli army in December 2008 is the marking event of this change of tone first, of orientation then. Since then, Ankara has gradually undertaken to move all the way backward along the road to its diplomatic and military cooperation with Tel Aviv. Two recent examples: Ankara’s decision to ban Israeli air force drills from Turkey; and its barring Israel from participating in a NATO exercise in October 2009 (2), soon followed by the announcement that Turkey would hold military exercises with Syria (3). We are far from the military and strategic behavior expected from a faithful ally of the United States and a prominent member of NATO.

However, changes in strategic priorities in the region have been brewing ever since the USSR collapsed, turning Turkey’s decade long and cold war-related dead-end position into a wide open space with huge cultural, economic and commercial potentialities. Since then, under the compliant Turkey, it was possible to catch glimpses of a country growingly reluctant to put the uniform lent by a Western world with regional aims more and more alien to Turkish interests (4). As long as the Cold War went on and the Soviet threat was on the borders, Turkey agreed to be a “Western towerâ€