IT is good that President Barack Obama has set out to rebuild ties with America’s NATO ally Turkey after relations between Ankara and Washington soured in the Bush years thanks to Turkish opposition to the Iraq invasion. In his first presidential visit to a Muslim country, Obama went out of his way to underline his is a new US administration, with a new and listening way of doing things.
However, he has ruffled European feathers by making it plain he believes Turkey’s long-delayed accession to the EU should happen soon. He pointed out that Turkish membership would send a clear signal to the Muslim world and would also anchor Turkey firmly in Europe. There are many who would agree. Turkey is a dynamic market of over 70 million souls that would contribute significantly to the EU.
There are some who doubt whether Obama has been right to go out on such a public limb on behalf Turkey’s EU ambitions. How would, they ask, the Americans feel if the EU openly suggested that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) area would be immeasurably benefited by the accession of Cuba.
All the same it would have been better if Obama had used his power and considerable influence privately in urging EU heads of state Sunday in Prague, that it made sense in both political and economic terms for Turkey to join. One can only hope that by going public with his conviction, he has not hindered Turkey’s still pending accession application and hardened positions on the other side of the divide.
The Turks, of course, will be pleased. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains committed to the EU membership and will regard the US president’s endorsement as a significant advance. As the leader of a Muslim government of a constitutionally secular state, Erdogan will see Obama’s endorsement as a counter to those EU states such as France and Italy, which have in the past voiced the objection that the EU has been built out of nominally Christian states and would be changed radically by the Turkish accession.
There nevertheless remains the fact that Obama has gone so public with his view. We hope he will demonstrate US power and influence in a similar way to persuade the new government in Israel to resume peace negotiations.
There are those who will suspect Obama of an act of realpolitik here. At the NATO summit, he persuaded Ankara to withdraw its objection to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s appointment as the alliance’s next secretary-general. The Erdogan government had protested that the Dane had supported the publication of the cartoons denigrating the Prophet (peace be upon him). Was Obama’s open support for Turkey’s EU membership the other side of the bargain?
One way to gauge the issue will be the extent to which EU leaders protest the US president’s intervention. If, however, Obama was sincere and has actually prompted a EU rethink about Turkey, then his intervention will one day be seen as historic.
Diplomacy on the sidelines
NEW York Times yesterday commented on President Obama’s constructive tone and efforts to engage Iran, saying in part:
Obama’s tentative outreach to Iran inched forward last week. At an international conference on Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke — one of the president’s top diplomats — managed a brief exchange with an Iranian counterpart. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, had an aide pass the Iranians a letter seeking the release of three Americans held by the Tehran government. (Washington usually leaves such contacts to third parties.)
After 30 years of mutual isolation, we fully support Obama’s constructive tone and efforts to engage the Tehran government. But we wonder whether this incremental, seemingly ad hoc approach is best.
Time is on Tehran’s side when it comes to the core issue: Its nuclear ambitions and ever-improving technical skills. Even after the Bush administration grudgingly joined Europe, Russia and China in offering a deal (economic and political inducements if Iran stopped producing nuclear fuel, sanctions if it did not), Tehran relentlessly advanced its ability to produce nuclear fuel. It brilliantly exploited international divisions to ward off significant sanctions.
The difference now is that Obama is making a serious effort to find common ground with Iran on Afghanistan and Iraq and to dispel the Bush-era threat of regime change. The administration’s decision to invite Iran to the Afghanistan conference was a smart one. It was encouraging that Iran offered to help combat the Afghan drug trade. It would have been even better if it had also promised to stop aiding the Taleban.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the Iranian people are eager for contact. But Iranian officials, who have long used their hatred of the Great Satan to justify their repression and failed policies, seem at best ambivalent. They certainly took pains to play down the brief encounter with Holbrooke, and have dismissed Obama’s outreach as too little.
