Turkey seeks to strike a balance between appeasing the US and forging closer ties with its neighbours, writes Gareth Jenkins from Istanbul Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul travelled to Lebanon last weekend to discuss developments in the region, particularly Iraq and Palestine, amid growing concern both at home and abroad about Turkey's possible role in the United States' government's Greater Middle East Initiative (GMEI). The visit was the first to Lebanon by a serving Turkish Foreign Minister in 20 years and came after US President George W Bush had used the 28-29 June NATO summit in Istanbul to single out Turkey as a model for other Muslim countries to follow as part of Washington's declared aim of increasing democratisation in the region. Although they have been publicly basking in the praise heaped upon Turkey by Bush at the NATO summit, privately Turkish officials have been more ambivalent about both the US and the GMEI. There is a general consensus amongst the members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (JDP) that, whatever personal doubts they may have about the US and its "global war on terrorism", for political and economic reasons, Turkey needs to preserve its good relations with Washington. But they are nevertheless reluctant to be used as pawns in US foreign policy and many suspect that the GMEI is merely a pretext for Washington to exert greater control over the region and its energy supplies. Many in the JDP are also keen to forge closer ties with the region, whether through a sense of Muslim solidarity or neo-Ottoman dreams of re-establishing an area of Turkish influence. When he was government spokesman in the mid-1990s Gul often referred to the possibility of creating an "Ottoman Commonwealth" with Turkey at its head -- apparently oblivious to the fact that the other countries in the region do not share Turkey's happy memories of the Ottoman Empire. Speaking in Lebanon, Gul sought to downplay fears that the GMEI would serve as an instrument for foreign domination. "According to my point of view, domestic demands, instead of foreign proposals, should be effective in the reform process of Middle Eastern countries," he said. But it is not only other countries who are concerned about Turkey's possible role in the GMEI. Before leaving for Lebanon Gul last week dismissed suggestions from his critics at home that Turkey would be used as a platform from which the US, acting under the umbrella of NATO, would exert military influence in the region. "Turkey has been a very important member of NATO for more than 50 years. It is already one of NATO's heavyweights, both politically and militarily," he said. "But speculation over Turkey's role as a new NATO operations base in this region or the opening of new military airports in Turkey are not true." But in a country increasingly inured to the promises of its politicians, Gul's denial has merely fuelled further speculation and conspiracy theories. Whatever the real motivation behind the GMEI, it has already succeeded in uniting traditional foes from across almost the entire spectrum of Turkish politics. The NATO summit was accompanied by the most sustained anti-US demonstrations in almost 40 years as protestors battled daily with police in the streets surrounding the conference hall where the meeting was taking place. Perhaps more worryingly for the Turkish authorities, anti-US sentiments have revitalised radical leftist organisations in Turkey, which were at the forefront of the street protests and firebombed a string of Western targets in the run-up to the NATO summit. One such bomb exploded prematurely, killing four people. Last week the Turkish police admitted that they had found and defused more bombs, several of them very large, in the days before the summit but had imposed a news blackout for fear that the negative publicity would harm Turkey's international image. In recent weeks there have also been signs that other militant groups are also moving onto the offensive. Since Kongra- Gel, the separatist Kurdish group formerly known as the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), abandoned its five-year unilateral ceasefire in June a day has rarely gone by without news of an ambush or killing. On Friday morning the governor of the city of Van in the predominantly Kurdish south-east of the country narrowly escaped death when a car-bomb exploded as his official convoy was passing by. Three bystanders were killed and another 21 injured. Even though Kongra-Gel has denied responsibility, Turkish security forces remain convinced that it was involved, perhaps in collaboration with the militant group known in Turkey as Hizbullah. In addition to growing instability at home, the JDP government is also facing another challenge in its foreign policy, one which could seriously test its relations with the US. Last week, Turkey's already deteriorating relations with Israel took another downturn following press reports that Israel was training Kurdish military personnel in northern Iraq. Although the allegations have been denied by the Israeli government, Turkish security officials have long been aware that Israeli intelligence is active in northern Iraq in what is rapidly turning into a "mini Great Game" for influence involving the intelligence services of Iran, Syria and Turkey as well as the US and the Iraqi Kurds. The suspicion is that Israel has already decided that the Iraqi Kurds will soon establish a distinct political identity in the north of the country -- albeit probably as part of a federal Iraq -- and so decided that it is in its best interests to forge closer links with one of the few non-Arab peoples in the region. As an added benefit, Israel thinks that northern Iraq could also serve as a platform for intelligence operations against Iran. But a rapprochement between Israel and the Iraqi Kurds would strain relations with Turkey to breaking point, and push Ankara closer to the other Muslim countries in the region. Yet, as far as the Arab states in particular are concerned, forging closer ties with them would involve convincing them that Turkey neither has neo-Ottoman ambitions nor is acting as a proxy for the US and its GMEI.
