The US and Turkey: End of an Alliance?

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Ian O. Lesser, ‘Turkey, the United States and the Delusion of Geopolitics’, Survival, vol. 48, no. 3, Autumn 2006, p. 83. The same point is made in Graham Fuller and Ian O. Lesser, Turkey's New Geopolitics (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1993); and Soner Cagaptay, Turkey at the Crossroads: Preserving Ankara's Western Orientation (Washington DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy Studies, 2005). 2. Seyfi Tashan, ‘Is It a Cold War for Turkey?’, Foreign Policy Institute, 6 March 2007, http://www.foreignpolicy.org/tr/documents/270207_b.html. 3. These examples are noted in Phillip Gordon and Omer Taspinar, ‘Turkey on the Brink’, Washington Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 3, Summer 2006, pp. 65–6. 4. See http://www.turkeyfinancial.com/news/category/turkish-trade/. 5. For the full text of Putin's speech, see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/12/AR2007021200555.html. 6. The best analysis of the Turkish Kurds is Henri J. Barkey and Graham Fuller, Turkey's Kurdish Question (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998). 7. This seems not to apply to the Shia Alevi minority, which AKP acolytes regard as veritable apostates. 8. This despite the arcane splits that followed Öcalan's arrest, producing changes in ideology and nomenclature. The PKK – or elements of it – appeared in April 2002 as KADEK, Kongreya Azad’ z Demokrasiya Kurdistan (Kurdistan Democratic and Freedom Congress), which in November metamorphosed into the Kongra-Gel (People's Congress). A third group, the Partîya Welatparêzên Kurdistan (Patriotic Democratic Front), led by Öcalan's brother, Osman, also emerged. To compound the confusion, the new names may have created separate organisations. For details, see James Brandon, ‘The Evolution of the PKK: New Faces, New Challenges’, Jamestown Foundation, Terrorism Monitor, vol. 4, no. 23, 30 November, 2006, pp. 4–7; ‘Predicament after the PKK Leaders Trial’, http://www.enclopedia.com/doc/1G1-131997305.html. 9. Öcalan's prestige among Iraqi Kurds was observed first-hand by Christopher Bellaigue. See his ‘The Uncontainable Kurds’, New York Review of Books, 1 March, 2007, p. 35. 10. ‘Detention Strains Already Tense US–Turkey Relations’, Christian Science Monitor, 15 July 2003, http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0715/p11s01-woeu.html. Established in 1995, the ITF subsumes six political parties. 11. The ITF comprises the Iraqi National Turkmen Party, the Turkmenli Party, the Adalet Party, the Islamic Movement of Iraqi Turkmen, the Provincial Turkmen Party and the Movement of Independent Iraqi Turkmen. The ITF website can be found at http://www.kerkuk.net/eng/index.asp. The Turkmen Nationalist Movement, the Turkmen Wafa Movement and the Islamic Union of Iraqi Turkmen are outside the ITF. 12. The Iraqi Turkmen are Oghuz Turks (descendents of the Seljuks, who created an empire that spread west from Central Asia in the eleventh century), as are the Turks of modern-day Turkey. 13. See Carol Migdalovitz, ‘Iraq: The Turkish Factor’, CRS Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service Report, updated 31 October 2002. 14. For a statement of the Turkish position, see ‘An Inhouse [sic] Debate on the Future of Iraq’, Foreign Policy Institute, 6 March 2007, http://www.foreignpolicy.org.tr/documents/220207.html. 15. We draw here on ‘Iraqi Turkmen: Challenges Surrounding Kirkuk’, Washington Institute for Near East Policy Studies, 18 January 2007, http://www.unpo/article.php?id=6180. For a detailed (32-page) analysis of the complex dispute over Kirkuk, see International Crisis Croup, Iraq and the Kurds: The Brewing Battle over Kirkuk, Middle East Report No. 56 (Washington DC: ICG, 18 July 2006). 16. On PJAK, see Mahan Abedin, ‘Iran's Enemy Lurking Within’, Asia Times Online, 8 June 2006, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HF08Ak03.html; James Brandon, ‘Mount Kandil: A Safe Haven for Kurdish Militants – Part 1’, Jamestown Foundation, Terrorism Monitor, vol. 4, no. 17, 8 September 2006, pp. 1–3, and Part 2, vol. 4, no. 18, 21 September 2006), pp. 1–4. 17. ‘Turkey Will Not Respond to EU Deadline’, International Herald Tribune, 21 November 2006; Gordon and Taspinar, ‘Turkey on The Brink’, p. 64. 18. Omer Taspinar, ‘Turkey's Fading Dream of Europe’, Current History, vol. 206, no. 698, March 2007, p. 124. 19. Ibid., p. 125: ‘Turkish Nationalism: Waving Ataturk's Flag’, Economist, 10 March 2007, pp. 45–6. Additional informationNotes on contributorsRajan MenonRajan Menon is Monroe J. Rathbone Professor of International Relations, Lehigh University, and Fellow, New America Foundation. His latest book, The End of Alliances, was published by Oxford University Press this year.S. Enders WimbushS. Enders Wimbush is Director, Center for Future Security Strategies and Senior Fellow, the Hudson Institute, Washington DC.