CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS

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1 CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS THE FUTURE OF THE U.S.-TURKEY RELATIONSHIP INTRODUCTION/MODERATOR: BRIAN KATULIS, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS PANELISTS: STEVEN A. COOK, SENIOR FELLOW FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS SONER CAGAPTAY, DIRECTOR OF THE TURKISH RESEARCH PROGRAM, WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY MICHAEL WERZ, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2010 WASHINGTON, D.C. Transcript by Federal News Service Washington, D.C.

2 BRIAN KATULIS: Good afternoon. I m Brian Katulis, a senior fellow here at the Center for American Progress. Thank you all for coming out to what will I m sure will prove to be an interesting and lively discussion on what s going on in Turkey, its role in the region and an assessment of where U.S.-Turkish relations are at the midpoint of the Obama administration. I can t think of a better panel to have with us to discuss the trends in what s going on in Turkey than these three gentlemen. To my immediate left is Steven Cook, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations; an expert on Turkey and Egypt and has a book coming out, I think, on Egypt, shortly and a recent addition to the blogosphere and Twitter. So you can follow him and follow his blog posts. And we ll talk a little bit about some of his observations from his most recent trip to Turkey. To Steven s left is Soner Cagaptay, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute and director of their Turkish policy. And to his left is my colleague and friend Michael Werz, who has a broad portfolio of issues as a senior fellow here at the Center for American Progress on our national security team. Deals with climate migration and trans-atlantic relations and has done a lot of really, I think, interesting work on Turkey. And some of the papers that he s written on Turkey over the last year are available online and some should be available in the back. Most recently, Michael was in Turkey with John Podesta, the CEO of the Center for American Progress, and he ll talk a little bit about that. So three senior fellows, three doctorates are going to take us on this journey to Turkey. And what we re going to do for about the next 50 minutes or so is have a conversation here and then we ll open it up to your questions. I want to start out first with Steven and with the focus on what s going on inside of Turkey because I think for those of us who are here or following Turkey, we see it as a country that s in transformation and there s a complicated transformation going on; economic changes and then also changes in their democracy. And I want to start out with something you wrote, I think, a couple of days ago on your blog where you said: My neoconservative friends argue that Turkey needs more democracy. I agree, though I don t believe that Turkey needs more democracy because Prime Minister Erdoğan is in the thrall of the Iranian president or Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Rather, Turkey is in the intermediate stage of a transition to democracy which means that it will more often than not manifest both democratic and authoritarian tendencies. As an aside, the irony of the neoconservative argument is stunning. The new neoconservatives were, after all, in the thrall of Ankara when Turkey was decidedly not democratic and firmly under military tutelage. Also, it strikes me as odd that when a democracy

3 does begin to emerge in an overwhelming Muslim Turkey, they don t like it. I smell a logical flaw. (Laughter.) Is Turkey heading down, internally, this Islamist path? Is it heading into this axis of resistance like Hezbollah in Iran? What do you see? Because you ve been following the country for awhile. What s going on inside of Turkey? STEVEN A. COOK: Thanks, Brian. First of all, thanks to everybody for joining us here today and thanks very much for the invitation. It s great to be here. Let me just say, as a result of that blog post, I m now barred from Elliott Abrams candy bowl (laughter) that he keeps in his office. So it will be good for my weight. I think you put it best when you said complicated and I think that is the watch word here when we re talking about Turkey s domestic politics. Quite obviously, in 2003 and 2004, Turkey undertook extraordinary political reforms, so much so that the European Commission offered Turkey a date to begin negotiations for European Union membership. That was a sign that Turkey was clearly moving in a democratic trajectory. But I think that we and some Turks and observers in the West have had expectations beyond what is realistic in Turkey. Transitions to democracy are complicated; they involve many zigzags; some, even, reversals. And I think what you ve seen in Turkey, although you can make the argument that Turkey is more democratic than it s ever been before and we can discuss how that relates to Turkish foreign policy later on you can make the argument that Turkey is more democratic than it s ever been before but there remain these kinds of authoritarian problems and authoritarian overhang, you should say. Some of the democratic change has not been implemented. There is a tendency at that intermediate stage of a transition to democracy for leaders to engage in populism and demagoguery and nationalism. And that s really what we re seeing in Turkey. The coalition that the Justice and Development Party rode into power in 2002 has essentially split. And they re working to rebuild this coalition in the process they re moving from different constituency to different constituency. And let s face it, there are the party s democratic credentials, including that of its leadership is not above reproach. So you see things like the conspiracy within a conspiracy called the Ergenekon investigation in which the government has used this issue to go after political opponents. You have things like the punitive taxes levied against the Doğan Media Group. You have things like the most recent constitutional amendments, which it was genius, whoever decided to package it as either yes or no. I think what we can take from the results and 58 percent of the Turkish public that voted or voted for it is that Turks want change but if you drill down deep there are some things that should cause concern.

4 Like, the problem of court-packing. Nobody, I think, argues I don t think Soner would argue with me, either that the Turkish judiciary needs reform. It s just that in the constitutional amendment they seem to have gone in the other direction. So what I would say is it s a complex, complicated mixed bag. We don t know how it s going to turn out. But I stick to the argument that Turkey has moved down a path towards that will potentially bring it towards a democratic future. MR. KATULIS: So a mixed bag but, on balance, positive. Several steps forward but a few steps back that s the MR. COOK: I think that s the way we need to look at it. MR. KATULIS: Yeah. I think we re going to go to Michael next. We re going to go in order of who s been most recently, I think, in Turkey. Michael, your response what did you see? I know you and John met with top leaders of the government and also key constituencies. How do you see, in particular, the political and the economic dynamics transforming politics and democracy in Turkey? MICHAEL WERZ: I think I pretty much concur with Steve s points. It s a mixed bag but it s an overall dynamic which is fascinating not only for the reason that it is important for us to get Turkey right because it is an important ally but it has a certain paradigmatic value. It is a large country which is rapidly democratizing in a very complicated and complex manner with two steps forwards, one step backward. And I think this is a foreign policy challenge of the first order because it is important for the United States and NATO and the Western allies to figure out a way to engage a country like Turkey on many, many different levels and make it a success story. I think for that reason it is extremely important to get the analytical tools right. And the way we talk about Turkey in the West, often having a culturalizing perspective, thinking that religion or Islam or Islamic political organizations may be the root cause of the changes, I think is applying a faulty perspective. I think it s important to understand that the tremendous dynamic that happened in Turkey which was basically unleashed after the end of the Cold War, of the economic reforms in the early 1990s, and basically freed up a tremendous amount of arrested development in the center and the east of the country and also gave possibility to people for the first time to participate politically in a way they could not participate before. That this tremendous change is the root cause of what we now see as a change in the political picture. So I would argue that the AK Party is much more the result of tremendous social transformations within Turkey than the root cause. And I think that is isn t it s very important to get that dynamic right because otherwise we are just falling back into simplifying identifications of saying this is an Islamist movement, here s the West, there are

5 incompatibilities and we have to talk about these in religious or cultural terms. I think that is entirely wrong. Second point, maybe briefly, much of their development especially the foreign policy in the recent years has been driven by economic interests. Not exclusively. There is an ideological dimension to it, obviously. But if you look at the fact that there are over 20 cities now in central and eastern Anatolia that produce more than a billion euros worth of exports, you have an entirely new environment of emerging middle classes of businessmen that are looking for new markets. And the way Turkey is set up with the old, established elites in the west of the country owning a lot of the export routes, it is absolutely clear that this is one of the driving factors behind the new foreign policy that has directed us toward the Levant, that has directed toward Africa, that is looking at Latin America much more closely and also into Central Asia. So I think complex picture; not making the mistake to over-interpret the rhetoric but look at the social and political core causes of what we are seeing now and then we can enter into this interesting discussion about how we relate to this from a U.S. perspective. MR. KATULIS: Great. Thanks, Michael. And we re going to talk about the regional dynamic. But Soner, I want to get your reactions to this assessment and before I do that I want to highlight something that I really enjoyed you wrote recently in the Monocle. Very interesting article people should take a look at from August 24 th. And the opening, I think, is great. It says: Turkey has nearly a year to go before it holds elections but one outcome seems certain. The country s next prime minister will wear a moustache. (Laughter.) And he goes into it s an interesting opening in terms of trying to talk about political trends and what s going on with the Justice and Development Party. Do you agree with Steve and Michael s assessment? Do you disagree? And if so, where? Where are the main points of disagreement? What s your take? SONER CAGAPTAY: Sure. Thanks, Brian, for having me over. I think it s a useful conversation for us to look at Turkey at this time and date. And I m happy to be sitting in the center here so I can take ostentatious position and disagree with both my panelists at the same time. The article you mentioned, it was fun writing that for the Monocle. Actually, one of my previous interns ed me and said, I saw you published in the Monocle and you re cool. So I was very happy. But I mean, the bottom line of the article is that I was looking at Turkey s changing dynamics. Michael elaborated on it. I agree with him that this has got nothing to do with Islam because AKP does not represent Islam so it s not about that. It s about political moods. We re looking at Turkey s direction as a young 60-year-old democracy. And I think there are two ways of looking at

6 Turkey in this town two arguments you hear. One is and I m quoting other people s arguments one is, people would say, well, Turkey was never a liberal democracy, so what s happening today wiretaps, long detentions, media freedom disappearing it s only part of the picture. Nothing has really changed. And the other argument is saying, well, it s time for Turkey to become a liberal democracy because this country is in accession talks with the European Union and two wrongs don t make a right. Just because 20 years ago it was imperfect doesn t mean it should continue to be imperfect. And I think these are both arguments you would hear in town and I would take a third view, kind of bringing these two together, to say what we re seeing in Turkey, I think, is a country that is run by a governing party which has been charge for, now, eight years. And if it wins the elections, that will be the longest-running single-party government in Turkey s history of multiparty democracy ever since Turkey became one in So it s very long. And I think the best way to describe this party, as I agree with Michael, is not about religion. I think this is an authoritarian party with illiberal tendencies. It goes against media freedom, it goes against dissent, it goes against, you know, in its acts especially in terms of the media s ability to dissent and to report. And you can pull down any index: World Economic Forum s Gender Equality Index, Reporters without Frontiers (sic), Media Freedom Index (sic). Any index will show you that Turkey is sliding on those indices of gender equality, media freedom, freedom of expression, Internet freedom. Not since the AKP came to power when the coalition that Steven mentioned was in charge of liberals and AKP s core constituency but sometime since 2005 and 06, when the EU accession process came to a halt and the reforms stopped, the coalition gradually dissipated. And then you ve seen Turkey slide in those indicators. So I think we can look at the last eight years of Turkish history as two periods: the AKP 1.0 period which covers pretty much from 2002 up to 2005 and 06, when Turkey was, indeed, reforming and moving towards the EU accession; and the AKP 2.0 period when this coalition, as Steven mentioned, collapsed. And you re seeing increasingly more illiberal and authoritarian trends take hold. What that means, I think, is fascinating for us because it is you know, are there illiberal and authoritarian parties in other democracies? Yes. There s nothing unusual in that. But this is a young democracy 60-year-old. Checks and balances are not powerful. And when you have such tendencies that splurge or, that spring up with the governing party, which is the longest governing party of this democracy, then you run into a country, I think, where debate becomes and dissent becomes very difficult. And I think that s, to me, the core problem of Turkish democracy today.

7 Let me elaborate with one incident and then I ll stop. Debate becomes difficult. What do I mean by that? The European Union leaked its latest progress report on Turkey s accession a few days ago saying that the EU would criticize Turkey on diminishing media freedoms. The Turkish media did not discuss this report. Is there a problem? The EU says that there s a big problem in Turkey; this report does not get coverage in Turkish media. Two problems: one is Turkey is not interested EU accession. Big problem. Second is, the Turkish media is not daring to discuss this report because it means there s dissent and there s going to be disagreement with the government and it s a very tough position to take. I would say the disappearing amount of room for dissent and debate in Turkey is a problem that not only has implications for domestic politics and the runup to the next elections but also for foreign policy because it becomes, then, really difficult for the foreign policymaking process to be a debate process where different actors participate because it s really hard to disagree with the government. And I think a lot of what we re going to discuss next Turkey s, you know, moves in Iran and elsewhere not shocking because this comes within the background of a country in which it becomes increasingly more difficult for pundits, opinion-makers, people like Michael and Steve or their counterparts in Turkey to disagree with the government openly and publicly. MR. KATULIS: Great, thanks. And before we talk about the regional dynamics and Turkey s role in it, I want to get Steven s reaction to Soner s assessment in terms of Justice Development being an authoritarian party with illiberal tendencies. I get the impression, listening to Soner that there s much more a chance of things closing down in the next few years. And maybe want to get your reaction to that and a prediction of where heading into the next elections and where are the trends taking us? Because it seems like both you and Michael are saying mixed bag; Soner is saying, really bad since 05, 06. What s your best prediction about these internal trends before we talk about Turkey s role in the region? MR. COOK: Sure. I think that the thing to keep in mind, however, is that, you know, Soner keeps talking about a 60-year-old democracy. I would say it s a 6-year-old or 7-year-old democracy. I mean, this is a country that certainly has had multiparty elections since 1946 and all kinds of political contestation but you have to remember that this a country that was under a number of authoritarian constitutions and certainly the authoritarian constitution that was written at the behest of the military in the 1980s. So we are only at the very beginning of what is likely to be a long transition process. And what we know from transition processes from other parts of the world, including Turkey s own region in Southeastern Europe if you want to still consider Turkey as part of Europe is

8 that you have transition processes that move as I said before, they move forward, they zigzag; there are reversals. It s quite hard to know, to make a hard prediction about what is going on. I think at the point that we re at and I don t disagree with Soner there are strong illiberal tendencies within the Justice and Development Party. At the point that we re at now, we don t know which direction we re going to end up. We may end up with an illiberal democracy and we could end up with a liberal democracy. Although, let me just point out that we need to tell the entire story of what s going on. And this is not a normative argument about what the Justice and Development Party has done since 2.0 began, let s say, arguably 2005, 2006 certainly since they won the election in But they have confronted a closure case, efforts on the part of traditional elite to undermine the party. You can see this as the party trying involved in an internal struggle to consolidate its own power against powerful forces including the military, the judiciary and others who would prefer not to see the Justice and Development Party. And what we know that happens in situations like this, that parties and political leaders actually seek authoritarian solutions to those problems and that s why we re seeing some of these problems. That s, like I said, not a normative statement. Not making an excuse for the Justice and Development Party. It s just an observation about what happens to leaders as they re buffeted by these kinds of political challenges; in particular, the ones that such high stakes as AKP confronted in terms of being closed or coup plots and so on and so forth. But the bottom line, to answer your question: It s very hard to predict where we are right now. I do think that, you know, knowing that Turkish politics really doesn t crystalize until three or five weeks before an election I do think, though, that Justice and Development is very well positioned to win an unprecedented third term where they will once again dominate the Grand National Assembly. MR. KATULIS: Soner wanted to jump in. But Mike, before that, Michael, do you have a prediction about where trends are going? MR. WERZ: I mean, predictions are always difficult and you better be careful because otherwise you ll look stupid especially if you re on TV. (Laughter.) But I m slightly more optimistic than Steve s take. I think it is a complex process and the AK Party is, certainly, in its self-perception, a conservative force. But objectively, given the circumstances in Turkey, it s often playing a progressive role or a liberating role. And I think the keywords here are democratization and pluralism. And the fact that the party s historic achievement of pushing, fairly successfully, the military out of the political picture in Turkey is one that we ll be looking back at 20 years from now as a major achievement which will generate a new dynamic in the region and hopefully be helping our policies there and also opening up new venues for people in Turkey.

9 And the second point is that because of that ironic situation, there s a party in power which sees itself as, at least, partially a religious movement. It is to a certain degree maybe not to the degree that we like to see enhancing pluralism both in regard to ethnic and religious minorities. These are extremely important steps because they are much harder to reverse. So I would say a more comprehensive perspective is important. Independently of the points that Soner has made, I wouldn t see them in as drastic colors but maybe that s a question of interpretation. I think freedom of press needs to be not only a talking point but a policy point for the United States, for Europe and for everybody who s dealing with Turkey. But the overall picture, I would say, is one where you can be modestly positive and hopeful. MR. KATULIS: Soner, your response. MR. CAGAPTAY: Yeah, I think I can bring some of what Michael said into my conversation. Look, I think we re confusing when we look at what s going on in Turkey and saying this is all very positive, I agree with you; this is all positive. But the question is, what is this? This is not democratization; it s civilianization. Turkey has become more civilian and that s good, but just because it has become more civilian doesn t mean it has become more democratic because that includes the pluralism aspect of democracy and that has not necessarily followed. So I think, yes, it has become more civilianized and that s good but I think it has not become more democratic as a result and that s where the jury is out. So election results are hard to figure out. We don t know what s going to happen. They re six, nine months down the road. But until then, I think we re going to see that on the one hand, if the governing parties taking democracy is, you know, missing the pluralistic element of it, meaning, I win elections, therefore this is a democracy and I get to do whatever I want, then you re going to run into further problems in terms of these illiberal and authoritarian tendencies, should the AKP win a supermajority on June 2011, crossing 50-percent threshold. Because then, as per the party s interpretation of democracy, you know, whoever wins majority gets to do whatever they want regardless of checks and balances. And anyone who tries to check and balance my power is an affront to public will. If that s the perception of democracy that exists, I think it s an infant one; it s not a mature one. But I think it can grow. How it can grow and I think there are two ways you can look at Turkey s future. One is the pessimistic; one is the optimistic. I like to be the optimistic one or, take the optimistic perspective, rather. How it evolves, I think, really depends on to what extent the context of what has happened in the last eight years. Kind of, the new elites with the AKP coming, making room for themselves, pushing back, getting pushed back, pushing back again. Just a tit-and-tat process of the closure case and the elections and everything else that went with it.

10 Whether you can come to a Turkey at the end of this process in which the governing party internalizes democracy not just as civilianization but also a governance of consensusbuilding and pluralistic society but also whether both Turkeys, meaning the AKP and its opponents, can come to a point where they agree that there is room for everyone in Turkey. Right now, that doesn t seem to be the case. It s kind of like, we get to rule; it s our turn; there s no more room for you because that s what you did to us. Now, that might work if the governing party s opponents were 2 percent of the society. As of the last referendum, they re 42 percent. They re not going to disappear. You can t just wish them away. And so I think we re seeing a polarized country. You know, red and blue states exist in Turkey also, if you look at the referendum results, which was basically a referendum on the AKP; not necessarily on the constitution, the way it went forward. Coastal states and a whole bunch of others were overwhelmingly against the governing party and the heartland states were overwhelming for it. So not only is this country polarized but it s also geographically polarized. And I think some leader whether this is Mr. Erdoğan or somebody else has to come up and say, we need a new social consensus in Turkey, which basically builds the idea that there is room for these two Turkeys to coexist and they don t have to eat one another. Because they can t digest one another if they try to eat because they re both too large as constituencies. They can t wish that each other will go away. And I think that kind of requires a more realistic understanding of, you know, a Turkey that s different than the Turkey than the Turkey before 2002 but also a Turkey that s different than the Turkey of 2002 and So it s a new Turkey that will require these two Turkeys to agree to coexist and build a social consensus based on that. The new constitution that the AKP promises to make after the new elections will be the perfect ground to launch that. MR. KATULIS: Great. Well, as you can see we had a very rich discussion just on the internal dynamics in Turkey. And I want to take the discussion more to Turkey s regional role. And when I say region, I mean in all directions. But I am personally most interested, also, and I think a lot of people here Turkey s evolving role in the broader Middle East and greater Middle East. Michael, in your introductory comments, you mentioned the economic dimension that s driving and shaping Turkey s foreign policy. And I d like to get Steven s reactions to that, your thoughts on what you know, where are we? Where s Turkey and its zero problems with its neighbors? Clearly with Israel it s not having zero problems these days. (Laughter.) And we talked a little bit about its role on Iran earlier this spring and what happened there. And just the general notion which I think some have of Turkey turning away from the West, rejected by the EU and turning to the East. Is this a useful conception or is it an outdated one?

11 MR. COOK: I m not sure I feel a little uncomfortable with the argument that Turkey is leaving the West and turning east because it s angry at the European Union or angry at the United States. If you look at Turkey, Turkey remains institutionalized within NATO, it remains institutionalized with the European Union and certainly the bulk of Turkey s trade and economic relations are and will continue to be with the West, given the overwhelming amount. But I m not an economic determinist and I don t think that economics is necessarily driving it. I think it s one very important factor and the rise of this new elite within Central Anatolia that is exploiting new markets is something that is, I think, leading Turkish foreign policy but I don t think it s the only issue. And I know we had my article from June on frenemies which I will now forever be remembered. You will forever be remembered for the moustache comment; I will forever be remembered for bringing Paris Hilton into foreign policy analysis. (Laughter.) And what I laid out in that piece is that it was a combination of factors. Certainly the economic opportunities that are available to Turkey now, too, I think that we are still feeling the after effects of the end of the Cold War. And Turkey is now more able to and confident enough to strike its own independent foreign policy. That overarching threat that glued Turkey to the West and glued Turkey to the United States obviously no longer exists and as a result Turkey is free to exploit new opportunities and countries to the east and north and south and what have you. And then I think the other critical factor is that Turkey is more democratic than it has been before and public opinion matters more in foreign policy formulation than it ever has before. This is no longer just the province of the Turkish general staff and a number of elites in the Turkish foreign ministry and that is hammered out at national security council meetings. The public, clearly, has a say and the Justice and Development Party has been trying to mint political gold out of public opinion in foreign policy. So now, what does that mean? It means that, I think, what we re seeing is a normalization of Turkish foreign policy. Turkey is being Turkey. It is pursuing its interests in a 360 way. Certainly, as you point out, the zero-problem policy doesn t necessarily mean no problems. It has gone from being a tepid observer of events in the Middle East, in particular, to being a country that is quite active diplomatically. And it has you know, we ve heard a lot about Turkish soap operas being watched in Cairo and so on and so forth and I certainly think at, you know, the, kind of, popular level the Turks it s kind of a stunning reversal between, you know, in 10 years. When I was living in Cairo in the late 90s and 2000 you couldn t find an Egyptian to say a nice word about the Turks. Now people are, you know, they like the role that the Turks are playing but there s a difference, I think, between this, kind of, popular perception of Prime Minister Erdoğan whose, you know, pictures are showing up in places like the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon and the difference between what regimes in the region, how they view Turkey s role.

12 So for example, the Egyptians are quite unhappy with the Turkish relationship with Hamas, believing that this undermines their ability to negotiate some sort of agreement between the two Palestinian authorities as crazy as that may sound. The Saudis are particularly unhappy about the Turkish relationship with the Iranians, which they suspect is an effort to institutionalize relations between Turkey and Iran, thus enabling Iran s nuclear program and its efforts to extend its influence throughout the region. So I think that there are differences. And then certainly, there are not no problems. Obviously, the Israel issue is a major one. The question that I had is, how durable is Turkey s role in the region? I certainly think if you look at it from the perspective of economics, Turkey now is 16 th -largest economy in the world, growing trade and investment with the region that may be something that is durable over time. The question is, though, Turkey s popular perception in the Arab world is based on, essentially, one issue: and that its position on Israel and, particular, on Gaza. And what one Turkish parliamentarian told me well, he was in Lebanon and he was giving a talk and there seems to be a real disconnect between the way Arab publics view Turkey and what Turkey s real intentions are. Because when he was finished with his talk, he got all kinds of questions: So when are you going to fight Israel? When are you going to when are you going to do what we were never able to do? And he said, not only are we not going to fight Israel, we re not even going to break diplomatic relations with the Israelis. We may have our difference with the Israelis but these relations remain important to us. So I think that, you know, as I said, there is a disconnect. But Turkey s role is certainly different from what it s been; whether it s constructive or not remains to be seen. It certainly had an opportunity but its posture with regard to Hamas and Israel, in particular, has essentially written itself out of the peace process business. And that s important. We don t necessarily the Obama administration doesn t necessarily regards Turkey s position on Iran as helpful. So they may be active, they may be Erdoğan may be quite popular in places but no problems, I think there are plenty of problems for them. MR. KATULIS: Yeah. Michael, you met you and John Podesta met with Erdoğan and Gül and the top leadership. And building on your first comment about the economic drivers for the foreign policy and what I think, is Steven painted a very, I think, textured picture of a region in which, you know, it s a multipolar region which Turkey s asserting itself and it s unclear how sustainable its overall role will be on foreign policy beyond economic dimensions where do you see Turkey heading on some of the key issues, the basket of issues? Iran, I think, is top of mind, obviously; Arab-Israeli what was your sense from the discussions with the top leaders in Turkey? MR. WERZ: I think I mean, with regard to Iran when we spoke to President Gül and Prime Minister Erdoğan, it is fairly clear that Turkey and the United States share exactly the

13 same strategic goal: having Iran not become a nuclear power. It was also fairly clear that there may be different red lines that countries are prepared to cross or not to cross, and that they are different will remain different between the United States and Turkey. I think the overall regional perception is much more similar than we may think from some of the exaggerated rhetoric and some of the political, domestic fallout that the Turkish-U.S. relationship is generating in each of the countries. But I think for us, from a U.S. perspective, taking a step back, it s very important to get this right also in the broader geopolitical sense. And I think the rhetoric of the country shifting is not helpful at all. Again, it s a skewed analytical tool because A, it doesn t explain anything and B, countries do not shift anymore since there are not no camps anymore. Turkey is where it is, and it is not even reinserting itself in the region. But there is an entirely new geopolitical space that is developing in the Levant, with the visa requirements being lifted for Lebanon and Syria and Jordan, and the economic developments that we ve been describing. And on top of that, you have a foreign policy that is being run partially because of economic interests, partially because of the notion that Turkey needs to play a larger role in the region, which then again is measured against a foreign policy that actually never existed because if you look at the last 40 or 50 years, Turkey was literally frozen into the Cold War. The borders towards the east were no-go zones. The Cold War was hot internally with over 40,000 people killed in the Kurdish conflict. And it was a society that was run by a political establishment that would not allow to acknowledge ethnic and religious diversity. So this all this changing now in a very dramatic way, and it s like Turkey becomes unfrozen like in a microwave at a very short time period, if you look at it in historical terms. And I think the government is still trying out different options; some are more appetizing than others. But it s also trying to grapple with the fact that there is no great tradition of think tanks that do international relations in Turkey. There are not many people in the diplomatic service, per se. There are not many people in the diplomatic service that is a small per se, that speak Arabic or English or French. There is relatively little historical experience over the last three, four or five decades of dealing with the countries because simply for the reason: the countries have all changed. So it s a big picture with many moving targets, and my impression is, the government is trying to navigate its way through this, always keeping an eye on potential political capital that can be gained domestically, at the same time and President Gül and Prime Minister Erdoğan made this abundantly clear being aware of the fact that it s not, in the longer term, Turkish interest to have a fallout with the United States. MR. KATULIS: Great. Now, Soner Michael and Steven talked mostly about Turkey looking east and south. I nudged him in that direction. I d like your reactions to what they said, but then also with the NATO summit in Lisbon next week, what s your sense of how the Turkish government is looking at, you know, the sets of issues with the NATO alliance and looking westward too?

14 MR. CAGAPTAY: Sure, actually this gives me a segue into the point I wanted to make. I think, since you mentioned that I love to write as we re discussing, I was writing an op-ed in the back of my mind, and I m going to call it Great Expectations, meaning the expectations that we, the people in Washington, in Brussels, in Istanbul and Ankara had of the AKP when it came to power in And I will call my op-ed Great Expectations and Some Disappointment. So just as I argued earlier that a more civilian Turkey has not produced a more democratic one, this sense of a Turkey that, you know, defines a new role for itself and let s not use our terminology, it s not about leaving the West. The AKP s terminology for this was that, you know, they could act as a go-between, as a bridge, as a center country that had the trust of Iranians and the Americans, the Palestinians and the Israelis to mediate in all sorts of regional conflicts. And as a center country that will rise as a regional power, has that expectation been fulfilled? And I think both of my co-panelists have pointed at it and I will emphasize that issue. I think not. I think that Turkey has not emerged as a bridge country, as we expected it would, able to balance its relations with regional countries and its traditional Western partners. But it also has a kind of a more of an interesting big-thing question for me there: What I m asking for the audience here what is, tell me an adjective that, for you, defines Turkey. Muslim? Q: Dynamic. MR. CAGAPTAY: Or dynamic, growing. I think that for the governing party, there are two adjectives that had been it has had a difficult time balancing. And that the Turkey s Islamic identity and past and that s not going to change, and that s something that will remain and I like that. But overlaid with Turkey s Western commitments or institutions: that includes EU and NATO, and that includes the fact that what makes Turkey special of the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference is not that it s a Muslim country; there are 56 others. It s that it s the only Muslim country that has a Western overlay; there s none other. So for me, from the perspective in Washington, that is what I m looking at and I m saying, yes, of course this country s new identity means that it will have a different take on foreign policy in the region. But has it, in the meantime, kept a Western overlay? Is this a country that has been able to garner the trust of Israelis and Palestinians, Americans and Iranians? And Steven is saying, that s not the case necessarily. So the expectation of the AKP rising to be a bridge, a center country, therefore bill Turkey as a regional power, I think, has not necessarily been fully fulfilled. It could still happen, you know. I think people can learn from their mistakes. I think the expectations in Ankara was that Turkey s steps on Iran were, you know, going to produce some bear some results.

15 But well, I think I ll disagree with Michael that I think Turkish foreign ministry is very able and capable, and they have a great tradition of foreign-policy making inside and outside of government, and helping with that process. But I think what we re seeing now is a country which basically is saying, oh, maybe on Iran including with the governing party maybe that was a big problem, maybe that was a mistake. How can we, you know, take a step back without taking a step back? And rhetoric on Iran has gone down, rhetoric on Israel has gone down. And so the question is, what happens next? Because maybe we are now past these two episodes. I think the next episode we re going to face is in the NATO missile defense issue, which is big. It s incredibly important for the White House, if not more important than some of the other debates of the past summer. And on that, I think, you know, the fact that there were disagreements really caused alarm because now there s going to be always a question in the back of a lot of people s minds you know, can we trust what our next initiative, whatever NATO is doing, can we trust the AKP government to be onboard with us? So I think without using, are they leaving the West, are they with the West, I think the question is, we should look at it from the perspective of their own terminology of Turkey becoming a bridge, rising as a center country and becoming a regional power. MR. KATULIS: That s great. And that s a great segue into the last bit before we open it up to questions of assessing where is U.S. policy on Turkey. And we re about two years into this Obama administration, pass the close to the midpoint. Steven, I know you wrote, you ve written a lot several papers with Liz Sherwood-Randall way back when. I had a paper in December of 08 with Spencer Boyer which talked about a template for moving forward, some of which I think they ve looked at, some of which not. Starting with you, Steven where, you know, given the dynamism within Turkey and its changing role in the region how well do you think the Obama administration has handled bilateral relations? What are the good parts, what are the places that really need strengthening and shoring up? MR. COOK: Well, I think that the Obama administration came into office very much wanting to develop a Turkey policy. Turkey became a priority for President Obama; certainly Liz Sherwood-Randall and Phil Gordon together saw this country as a pivotal country, and that s where you get this idea of a model partnership. The underlying assumptions in which they approached this notion of a model partnership was that Turkey is strategically located at literally the center of many of our most important foreign policy concerns can be helpful to us. We can leverage Turkey s assets in Afghanistan, Iraq, Arab-Israeli conflict, Syria, Central Asia, what have you. I think those were good assumptions except for the fact that oh the administration didn t take into account the full, kind of, dynamism of Turkish foreign policy and the fact that the Turks were going to want to pursue their interests in these places differently from the United States.

16 And that is where they hit a wall. And they hit the wall in particular, there were some notions of this during the first year. But it really became clear after Mavi Marmara, after the TRR deal, after the U.N. Security Council no-vote and people looking warily at Lisbon as what is going to happen here. And I think that this is I think the series of incidences that happened over this past summer reveal that the assumption that because Turkey and the United States have this long history we re on the same page, we stood shoulder to shoulder in Korea and the Cold War and so on and so forth that somehow, we did share strategic interests. And I take Michael s point that, well, they say that they share strategic interests. But do they really? Do they really? I think that the one thing that I came away from Turkey in my trip a couple weeks ago is that the Turks really do not share our perception threat on Iran at all at all and that there is an effort to institutionalize the relationship. I m not saying that they are supporting Iran s drive for nuclear technology, but certainly about some of the things they are doing to certainly enabling enabling it. So I think that there was the problem that the administration has was taking as a given, given the long history of the relationship, that we share similar interests. Or that if we do share similar interests, we have a common way towards achieving those interests. And I think it just hasn t worked out that way. So the question now is and the question that has been dominating the debate within the administration, at least from what I understand because I know all of three of us have been part of a, you know, interchangeable band of traveling Turkey experts to go and talk to senior government officials and they start out by saying, what is going on with Turkey? (Laughter.) I think that they re still in the they re still in the mode of trying to figure out what the way forward is. But you can tell by public statements among some of them that there is a certain growing frustration with Prime Minister Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Davutoğlu. My own sense is that there s really and inevitably in these meetings, people say, well what can we do about it? How are we going to walk this back? And my answer is, we can t we re not going to. True one of my first blog posts was Turkey Being Turkey. And this is what we re talking about, is I don t like bridge. I want to ban bridge, I want to ban all those kinds of things MR. KATULIS: That s a liberal MR. COOK: Turkey is seeing itself as itself, not part of any camp. It is pursuing its interests as Turkey; Turkey being Turkey. And it views the world differently, now, than it did 10, 15, 20 years ago. MR. KATULIS: Yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, it made me even think about this we ll go to Michael. Where s the problem in terms of was the administration too naïve and didn t work

17 the issue too much? I mean it clearly two countries of great importance to the U.S. and Turkey will not be fully in strategic alignment, you know. And part of statecraft and diplomacy is trying to get countries closer. Was it just wildly naïve and Obama went there and did a speech and then there was no follow-up? You know, where was the disconnect that occurred? MR. COOK: (It was Kurd speech?) MR. WERZ: Well, I think I mean there was strategic alignment in the 1980s, right? But this is democracy. So welcome to the 21 st century. And to say that things were good during the Cold War, when the country had all the problems that we spoke about and that we know about and people in Turkey paid a fairly high price, by and large, for the way the regime was run. This is a changed environment and I think it s important to for the U.S. to clearly communicate what we want, where we stand and what we expect others to do and where we disagree and we don t disagree that may or may not have happened, especially with regard to the Iran issue. But it s also important to be able to engage an increasingly pluralistic multilayered society at different layers. That includes the economic sphere. It includes civil society. That includes to be able to ask hard questions and make tough points about civil liberties and freedom of expression. But is also means to engage in the longer-term perspective and ask Turkey what Turkey s interests are, not with regard to the next year or the next two year, not with regard to maybe an angry relationship with Israel, but beyond that immediate timeframe. And I think that is a configuration that we need to establish here on our side and enter in a longer-term conversation with Turkey. And I m not really sure that this is entirely tied to the AK Party. I mean if there were a different party, the discussion would be maybe partially different, but not entirely different because of the reasons that Steve just pointed out. My real concern is that it seems that that it seems to be almost unavoidable that the Israeli-Turkish relationship is going to continue to go down south and this has the potential to create problems here on the Hill, in the United States, not only for the White House, but also for Turkey to becoming potentially a collateral damage of a vigorous foreign-policy debate that we may have in the next year or so. That is a big problem. We need to be aware of this and team up with the Europeans and everybody that is willing to help to find ways to keep Israel and Turkey on a different track. MR. KATULIS: Yeah, Soner, pick up on that last bit that Michael just talked about in terms of political dynamics here at home. I mean I want to hear maybe start with where you think the Obama administration has been strong and then weaker on U.S.-Turkish policy. And then I want to bring the discussion a little bit towards the possible political dynamics here in the U.S. If you can mention those two and then we ll open it up. MR. CAGAPTAY: Good point. I think Steven was, you know, saying there s been a lot of frustration with both the prime minister and the foreign minister of Turkey with the

18 administration because they re seeing that, you know, Turkey-Israel policies, it s not necessarily where they think it was or it has evolved. So to go back to the I think I can give you two answers to this question of Obama administration Turkey policy. And the first one would be short one and then a longer one. And I think the short one would be to use the title that I used again, it would be, great expectations and disappointments. And I think the great expectation was the speech and the visit. And I was supportive of that step with my work. I think it was essential that the Obama administration gave Turkey a bear hug at the onset of its term. That was crucial to, you know, reset or restore U.S.-Turkish ties. What got lost in translation, though, I think, is that while the administration reached out to Turkey with great expectations, those were not necessarily the expectations of the governing party in Turkey. Whether it comes to Turkey s democratic consolidation or Turkey s foreign policy, and I think the party s take on the U.S. policy to reengage Turkey was one where they thought, oh, so maybe we ll just continue with our path and there, they seem to be happy with us. And that wasn t necessarily made, I think, clear enough early on. If, you know, press freedom had been a central point of U.S. rhetoric on Turkey, not this year, but you know, three years ago, that would have made a big difference than it would have. But I think as the everoptimist, I want to look at this and say and look at the domestic dynamics here as well and say there are a few ways I think we can still get back on track. One is in terms of great expectations, the AKP still has a chance to prove its critics wrong, that it is a party committed to making Turkey more democratic. And the test of that is going to be Turkey s new constitution. When that constitution is made, if it s a constitution that allows space for all Turks, all diversity that Michael mentioned, liberal democracy that the party is committed to, then I think they have passed the test. If not, I think it will be an even bigger disappointment. The second part of it, I think, is now that I think the AKP government is seeing has seen some of Washington s ire on issues such as Iran and I think Iran issue is bigger than the Turkish-Israeli ties in terms of creating problems over here, I think you re going to see, you know, maybe an adjustment of Turkish attitudes of I should see an adjustment of rhetoric, but it would help to see an adjustment of policies as well. And that, once again, requires Turkey to come back to adopt something that I think the AKP government has ignored, its Western overlay. Because what makes Turkey special for the administration, as I said earlier, is the fact that this country is fascinating. It s Muslim and it s in NATO. It s not that it s Muslim that it s Muslim and it s in accession talks with the European Union, the second part being the more important part. I think that overlay, commitment to the EU process, commitment to NATO, of course, will be a way forward that would require the Europeans to reengage Turkey on the EU accession