Turkey reaps rewards of high regional profile

Ankara’s efforts to cultivate good relations with its neighbours and play a more active role in regional diplomacy paid off handsomely this week when Turkey became the first country to host a formal state visit from Barack Obama.

In a two-day charm offensive, the US president gave praise to parliamentarians for Turkey’s “strong and secular democracy”, took questions from wide-eyed students, admired Istanbul’s Blue Mosque and left a handwritten tribute at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the republic’s founder.

“This is the first overseas visit – the first bilateral visit – of the new US president. The fact that he has chosen Turkey and has chosen to address the Islamic world from the Turkish parliament made us very happy,” Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s president, told the Financial Times in an interview.

The display of friendship will help Turkey’s government, which has roots in political Islam, counter claims that it has been promoting ties with Muslim states at the expense of its traditional western alignment.

Mr Obama said Turkey’s new popularity in the Muslim world made it the ally he needed in a region suspicious of US intentions.

Mr Gul is proud of the fact that he and Turkish ministers have been able to travel relatively freely in Iraq and Afghanistan recently, in contrast with western leaders’ high-security dashes.

“We are not leaders who go to Afghanistan to visit our troops there in an isolated manner and then come back. So Turkey’s ability to contribute in these matters is very large,” said Mr Gul.

Ankara put more emphasis on civilian activities in Afghanistan, Mr Gul said, reeling off lists of girls’ schools opened and roads surfaced, but he said Turkey would also send more non-combat troops when it took command of Nato forces in Kabul later this year.

The president is far more guarded when questioned about Armenia, the neighbour with which Turkey has no formal diplomatic relations. Mr Obama used his visit to convene Turkish and Armenian foreign ministers in Istanbul and urge rapid progress in talks to open their border, which was closed by Turkey in 1993 to support Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan shunned the talks, alarmed that Turkey might reach a deal it had previously linked to resolving the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The major problem in the Caucasus is the Karabakh question between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” said Mr Gul. “I believe that 2009 is a year of opportunity in that respect.” But he did not rule out Turkey normalising relations with Armenia before any progress is made over the disputed territory.

Turkey’s new profile in regional politics appears, if anything, to have helped to revive its partnership with the US. Both sides will hope that Mr Obama’s visit helps stem a rising tide of anti-US sentiment in Turkey.

But Ankara’s growing assertiveness – whether berating Israel’s policies in Gaza, holding out for better terms over the planned Nabucco gas pipeline across Turkey, or voicing loud objections to Europe’s favoured candidate for Nato’s leadership – is doing nothing to further its flagging efforts to join the European Union.

Bernard Kouchner, one of the few French politicians to have backed Turkey’s EU ambitions, expressed shock at Turkey’s objection – later withdrawn – to the Danish premier Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s nomination as Nato secretary-general.

Mr Gul, who as foreign minister led Turkey’s drive to begin EU membership talks, does not hide his frustration at obstacles placed in Turkey’s EU path – by Greek Cypriots and others – blaming them for sapping public support for reform.

Certain countries “are in conflict with their own signatures, their own commitments”, he said, maintaining that Turkey, in contrast, remained serious about talks to end divisions on Cyprus.

As foreign minister, he said, he had told Nato and EU colleagues “time and again that we have to solve this problem on time, as soon as possible, because in the future it is likely to poison some more important and strategic issues.

“In the meantime...we are going to continue our reform process, because these are our reforms and we want to do them ourselves.”