ANKARA: The rival Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah,
signed their long-awaited national unity agreement on Wednesday. But instead of
the ceremony taking place in Istanbul, as Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu may have hoped, it happened in Cairo.
Less than a week earlier, Davutoglu was forced to cancel a
planned meeting of Palestinian leaders after learning that he had been upstaged
by Egypt, which brokered a unity pact behind his back. Davutoglu attended the
ceremony, but as a guest rather than as a sponsor.
The setback for Turkey on the Palestinian front, where it
had worked assiduously to end the four-year-old split between Hamas and Fatah,
is the latest sign that the country’s drive to play a big and decisive role in
the Middle East is unraveling in the face of the changes wrought by the “Arab
Spring”.
Old friends, like Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and Syria’s Bashar
Assad, are threatened by rebellion. Egypt, as the Palestinian rapprochement
showed, is emerging as a competitor for regional influence. Divisions are
sharpening in place like the Gulf, where Ankara has struggled to stay on
friendly terms with everyone.
“Between 2002 and the Arab Awakening, there was a honeymoon
period between Turkey and the Middle East,” Fadi Hakura, an associate fellow at
the London-based Chatham House, told The Media Line. “Now, it has to make clear
choices because of the deep changes taking place in the region. During the
honeymoon period it didn’t have to make those choices.”
Davutoglu and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have been
leading their country away from its traditional orientation toward the West.
Their strategy upset the US, as Ankara reached out to Iran and distanced itself
from Israel, but the drive boosted Turkish trade, made the country popular in
the Arab street and eased tensions with neighbors like Syria.
Now, the regional turmoil in the Middle East has upset
Turkey’s new order and may even cause it to turn again to the West, analysts
said.
The new Middle Eastern realities have caught Ankara
flatfooted. While Turkey quickly identified itself with the Egyptian opposition,
calling for President Hosni Mubarak to step down, Turkish policy has more often
than not been characterized by flip-flops, as it tries to balance its
affinities for democracy and stability and attach itself to the side likely to
emerge victorious in the turmoil.
Turkey initially opposed Western intervention in Libya. But
eventually agreed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Western
alliance to which it belongs, supervising a no-fly zone aimed at Al-Qaddafi
forces. In early April, Turkey proposed a cease-fire, but the opposition balked
because the terms didn’t include Qaddafi’s resignation. On Tuesday, Turkey came
full circle, with Erdogan urging the Libyan leader to step down and closing
Turkey’s Embassy in Tripoli.
Closer to home, Turkey has struggled to find a stance on
Syria. Over the last several years, Ankara had cultivated diplomatic and trade
ties with Syrian leader Assad viewing him as a bulwark against instability.
Hugh Pope, who is director Turkey-Cyprus project at the
Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG), said Turkey’s Syria policy was
an example of the “universal theory” it espoused that put security and trade at
the top of its priorities.
“It was used to justify to expanding trade and increasing
Turkey’s security through deeper relationships with all kinds of regimes, some
of which have changed while others are under a lot of pressure,” Pope told The
Media Line. “Turkey is scrambling to retain the advantages it has.”
But, with hundreds reportedly dead in Syria, Erdogan has to
take into account that Syria’s anti-government opposition enjoys wide support
in Turkish public opinion. Turkey hosted leaders of the Syrian Muslim
Brotherhood and allowed a meeting of opposition leaders in Istanbul, enraging
Syrian officials.
Erdogan tried to square the circle by urging Assad to
undertake democratic reforms to assuage the opposition, but the Syrian leader
turned a deaf ear and opted instead to dispatch troops against protesters.
Meanwhile, Turkey is also seeing new rivals for influence in
the region emerge. Iran, interpreting the regional unrest as a continuation of
its own 1979 revolution, has sought to make inroads in Egypt and perhaps
Bahrain. Egypt, which sidelined itself from the Arab world for decades under
Mubarak is making a new bid for power, as its Palestinian mediation
demonstrates.
Hakura of Chatham House said Turkey doesn’t have much to
teach emerging Middle Eastern democracies, although Erdogan’s moderate-Islamic
Justice and Development AKP Party may serve as a model for Muslim groups
testing out their countries’ new democratic arenas.
“On the abstract level, Turkey does provide some lessons and
some examples to the region. But on the issue of political and economic reform
and nation-building, the key country remains Egypt,” Hakura said.
While the outlines of the new Middle East have yet to fully
emerge, Pope said it is likely that Turkey will rebalance itself toward the
West again.
“They had a good run in the last few years, but now the
opportunities are going to be fewer. Turkey is going to have to revisit the EU
relationship,” Pope said. “What makes Turkey what it is today is 80 years of
integration with the European-Western norms. In the last few years they have
neglected that in favor of the Middle East.”
