The motivation for the
award of the Nobel Prize Peace 2012 to the European Union refers to "the possibility of EU membership for
Turkey" as a factor that "advanced democracy and human rights in that
country". No mention is made to Turkey foreign and security policy. To be
sure, Turkey has strong ties with the Euro-Atlantic security framework, and
that strategic choice is not meant to change in the near future. However,
Turkey has its own national and regional interests to promote and defend. The
recent worsening of the relations of Turkey with Israel and Syria could trigger
or accelerate a process on "inter-independence" between Ankara and
the Euro-Atlantic world, leading to a restructuring of the regional security
balance.
This would not mean,
however, that Turkey will turn its back on the West. The multidimensional
"strategic depth" of Turkey interests an priorities, however, has
already generated a wider and more problematic spectre or interaction, the
Lybian case being a first evidence of that. Turkey advocated for
non-intervention in military terms without necessarily opposing effective
actions against Gheddafi's regime. It will be fair to say that Turkey is now widening
the scope of its initiatives in the Mediterranean and Middle East, especially
after the "Arab Spring" emerged as a game changer in the area.
However, the illusion of maintaining a "zero problems" policy with
its neighbours had to face the harsh reality of a region in turmoil and structural
transformation. According to the Turkish analyst Sinan Ulgen, the new
drivers in the areas were to create new objectives for Turkish foreign-policy
strategists. Unfortunately, the growing tension in the Middle East did not
confirme the prediction that Turkey’s leaders would have been “downgrading the
importance of hard power security
issues in favor of enhancing the country’s soft power while also grasping
economic opportunities.” (Sinan Ulgen) By the same token, it is not necessarily
true that the Turkish foreign policy is going through an “ontological”
transformation in the direction of a “de-securitization”, which would imply –
as a secondary consequences - an alteration of the balance of power between the
country’s military and civilian establishments (this process is driven, in
fact, by internal political factors).
At any
rate, the present situation of Turkey is not necessarily ambigous. It is rather
the result of a difficult balance of national, regional, transnational and
international factors. According to some analysts, the new Turkish-Western relationship should probably be “à la
carte”, driven by convergent national interests rather than “amorphous notions
of geopolitics and identity” (Ian Lesser).
Those challenges
notwithstanding, can we still consider Ankara as embedded in the Euro Atlantic
framework? Or course we can. We just need to adjust the framework of our
relationship. One
could claim that Turkey finds NATO working on its top “hard security”
priorities whereas the EU appears to benefit from a more comprehensive agenda
focused on “soft security.”Turkey
continues to share most of the goals of the Euro-Atlantic “security community”,
such as no nuclear weapons proliferation in the region, a peaceful and just
solution to the Israeli Palestinian and to other Middle East conflicts; the
fight against transnational terrorism.
We should nevertheless be ready to accept that Turkey might have a
different attitude towards certain “hot” topics (the Middle East Peace Process,
Iran, Syria) and might be willing to pursue them with its own tactics and
methodology. More crucially, in dealing
with Turkey, we should take into account that the country is now willing to
play a role as responsible stakeholder in the regional and global arena. Especially
as far as the Middle East is concerned, we should not take Turkey’s support for
granted but treat it as an equal partner while devising policies, establishing
new mechanisms for regular dialogue and better coordination. We should
recognise Turkish pivotal role in the region and consider such an ambition more
as an asset than a liability, as the special relationship of Turkey with some
key-countries (Iran, Iraq, Syria before the current crisis) and some relevant
non state actors (Hamas, Hezbollah) in the area gives us a unique chance to
reinforce our dialogue capacities in the region. What is needed, in addition to
the existing for a of cooperation, it is new framework for the partnership
between Turkey and the West that should primarily aim at creating a
“special relationship” with Turkey in the area of security, giving Ankara a
prominent role in the Mediterranean and Middle East area. A closer co-operation
should therefore be first sought in the areas where interests converge. Other
“missions” might be managing the game in Afghanistan and Iraq, promoting
stability in the Black Sea and in the Balkans. Turkey has participated in several military
and civilian missions in the context of
the European Security and Defence Policy, including Concordia and Proxima (Macedonia), and EUFOR the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Althea (Bosnia), EUPM (Bosnia),
and EUPOL Kinshasa. As such, it is one of the most active participant in such missions
in comparison to other “third countries”
and makes better that many EU member states as well. Turkey also takes regular
commitments to the EU’s headline goals and is a quite important contributor to
the EU battlegroups.
What is missing in
this apparently rosy scenario?
So far, the security aspects of
the Mediterranean area has been so far dealt with in different security fora.
For
instance, the “5+5” is a
loose format for political dialogue which brings together ten countries
bordering the Western Mediterranean Basin: five countries of the Arab Maghreb
Union - Algeria, Libya, Morocco,
Mauritania and Tunisia - and five countries of the European Union - Spain,
France, Italy, Malta and Portugal.
Unfortunately,
the project of the Union for the Mediterranean is not going anywhere for the
time being. The Union for the Mediterranean
was proposed by President Nicolas Sarkozy, who wanted to strengthen
relations between the EU’s southern member-states - such as France, Italy and
Spain - and their North African and Arab neighbours across the sea. It was not a bad idea in principle. The Union for the Mediterranean was launched at a glittering ceremony
in Paris in July 2008, it began life with no fewer than 43 members - the EU 27,
plus 16 others ranging from Albania and Algeria to Israel and the Palestinian
Authority. The Union for the Mediterranean
had barely got off the ground before it ran into trouble in the shape of
the Gaza conflict between Israel and Hamas at the beginning of 2009;
consequently, high-level Union for the Mediterranean meetings were suspended.
Like the Barcelona process, the Union for the Mediterranean turned out to be hostage to
decades-old political tensions in the Middle East. On the
other hand, the Union for the Mediterranean
is supposed to steer clear of politics and concentrate on uncontroversial
projects such as solar energy, cleaning up pollution in the Mediterranean Sea
and encouraging small and medium-sized enterprises in the region. In principle,
there is no explicit and comprehensive security dimension. After the incident occurred in may
2012, when Israel halted with a military blitz a flotilla of ships trying to
break the blockade of the Gaza strip, it became difficult to be optimistic on
the next development. Apart from the impact on Arab-Israeli relations, the incident
damaged relationship between Israel and Turkey. Though one of the Mediterranean
region’s most influential states, Turkey has never thought very highly of the Union
for the Mediterranean, in the fear that that solution was offered merely as a
surrogate of the full membership of the European Union. So, we need to think in
a more creative way, taking into account also more informal channels.
To deal with the security aspects of the
cooperation in the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic Council initiated in 1994
a NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue, that involves seven non-NATO countries of the
Mediterranean region (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and
Tunisia). Its main mission, according to the original project, the Dialogue
“reflects the Alliance’s view that security in Europe is closely linked to
security and stability in the Mediterranean. It is an integral part of NATO's
adaptation to the post-Cold War security environment, as well as an important
component of the Alliance’s policy of outreach and cooperation.”. The Dialogue
pursue three specific goals: “contribute to regional security and
stability; achieve better mutual
understanding dispel any misconceptions about NATO among Dialogue countries.”
Moreover, NATO launched, in June 2004,
the “Istanbul Cooperation Initiative”,
with the goal to contribute to long-term global and regional security by
offering countries of the broader Middle East region practical bilateral
security cooperation with NATO. Based on the principle of inclusiveness, the
Initiative is, however, open to all interested countries of the broader Middle
East region who subscribe to its aims and content, including the fight against
terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Six countries
of the Gulf Cooperation Council were initially invited to participate. To date,
four of these -- Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates -- have
joined. Saudia Arabia and Oman have also shown an interest in the Initiative.
So, we have in place a rather baroque
structure that is only partially functional.
It
appears though necessary to identify more comprehensive instruments to promote
a holistic approach to the security of the region, taking into account all its
possible aspects, including soft security. Unlike previous examples, such an
instrument ought to be larger in terms of both the countries and the nature of
the participants involve.
An option
could be the establishment of an
annual Mediterranean Conference, modelled after the Munich Conference on
Security Policy, which would deal with
security in the region, with the participation of Ministers (Foreign Affairs
and Defence), Members of Parliaments, high representatives of the armed forces,
academics, journalists and business people from the countries of the region and
from other actors concerned. The agenda of the
Conference could focus on several dimensions of soft security, such as fight
against terrorism and nuclear proliferation, human trafficking and illegal
migration, energy and environmental security, catastrophe prevention, maritime
security. The Forum could be organised jointly, for instance, by Italy and Turkey, in the light of the close
co-operation between the two countries, and take place alternatively in the two
countries. By means
of such an informal instrument, Ankara would no longer provide just a logistic
support to security in the area, but would instead become a “hub” for
identification of policies in the area.
In a
changing security environment, it is not safe continuing thinking in terms of
formal “alliances” and organizational structures. On the contrary, the capacity
to adapt to the new challenges cannot be mummified in forma format of
cooperation, although it is not suggested here to get ride of treaties and
legally binding agreements. As in the
climate change narrative, countries like Turkey have to learn how to cope in
practical terms with growing complexity and intractability, switching fast
between the two polarities of adaptation and mitigation. Adaptation requires a mentality of flexible
arrangements, whereas mitigation implies responsive capabilities in the medium
and long term. Our difficulty in framing in a new way the security concerns of
Turkey is due to the adoption of old categories, based on military commitments,
hard security and strong legal and political engagements.
