Turkey at the Energy Crossroads Turkey, Present and Past Part I

 

by Tuncay Babalı

 

1^st part of 2

Turkey is increasingly at the crossroads of the world energy trade. Because of tanker traffic through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, Turkey has become an important north-south oil transit route. The Baku-Tbilisi- Ceyhan (BTC) oil and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (BTE) natural gas pipelines make Turkey an important east-west route as well. Economic opportunities, however, can present diplomatic liabilities. As the importance of Turkey's energy sector has grown, Turkey has come under increasing pressure. Turkey finds itself caught between competing U.S. and Russian interests as a result of the August 2008 Georgia conflict. Turkish-Iranian energy trade has also brought Washington's ire down on Turkey. Turkey's efforts to minimize problems with its neighbors may make it popular with some, but it has led others to question the strength of the U.S.-Turkish strategic partnership. Analysis of Ankara's options show that it has little choice besides greater caution and engagement, and that energy concerns rather than a reassessment of its Western ties motivate its outreach to Russia and, to a certain extent, Iran.

 

Turkish-Russian Bilateral Relations

Historically, U.S.-Turkish relations have been strong. Throughout the Cold War, Turkey was a staunch member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Along with Norway, it was the only NATO country to border the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union's collapse fundamentally altered Turkey's geopolitical position. To the east, Turkey found itself a neighbor to three new countries: Azerbaijan (through the Nakhchivan enclave), Armenia, and Georgia. The Warsaw Pact's demise made neighboring Bulgaria a promising new market. And the Black Sea, once the proving ground of the Turkish and Soviet navies, suddenly became a much friendlier place. It was not long before Turkish businessmen began exploring new economic opportunities.

Analysts and politicians have explained the rapprochment as "ever closer cooperation and [a] multidimensional partnership."[1] At the same time, many U.S. analysts and officials worry that Ankara's warming ties with Moscow signal a decline in the U.S.-Turkish alliance.[2] It need not be like this, however; rather, the growing Turkish-Russian relationship is based on the economic interests of both countries.

In many ways, the private sector has driven Turkish-Russian rapprochement. In 1990, Turkish-Soviet trade was $1.7 billion.[3] A decade later, it was $4.5 billion. By 2007, bilateral trade between Turkey and Russia reached a record $28 billion, albeit with an $18.6 billion Turkish trade deficit. In the first nine months of 2008, bilateral trade had already reached $30 billion with a total trade volume expected to reach $36 billion for the year. Whereas Germany was Turkey's number one trading partner up to 2007, today Russia has taken its place. Indeed, Turkish-Russian trade is now, by volume, almost three times that of U.S.-Turkish trade.[4]

In 2002, both countries completed the 16 billion cubic meter/day capacity Blue Stream pipeline, running from the Beregovaya compressor station in Arkhipo-Osipovka to the Durusu terminal located 38 miles from Samsun, Turkey. Gas flow from Russia to Turkey started in February 2003. However, because of a price dispute between the two countries, the inauguration ceremony could not be held until November 17, 2005.

Energy cooperation—both gas and oil—forms the basis of Russo-Turkish economic relations. Gas is Turkey's major import. In 2007, Turkey imported 23.15 billion cubic meters of natural gas through both western and Blue Stream pipelines, up 18 percent from the year before. Turkey, as the third largest importer of Russian gas after Germany and Italy, depends on Russia for almost two-thirds of its gas imports.[5] If Turkey cannot tap other major supplies from Azerbaijan, Iraq, and Turkmenistan by the early 2010s, then the Russian share of Turkey's gas supply will increase to 80 percent of the total.

In addition, Turkey imports approximately six million barrels of oil (seven million tons) annually from Russia, 30 percent of Turkey's total oil import and second only to that purchased from Iran. Turkey is also the third largest importer of Russian coal following Ukraine and Great Britain, spending $710 million in 2007.[6]

It is not just geography and energy that make Russia such an attractive trading partner for Turkey. Even though Russia's population is twice that of Turkey's, if the energy sector's contribution is subtracted, the Russian economy is smaller. Flush with cash from the still underdeveloped oil boom, Russia provides Turkish industry with ample opportunity. Turkish contractors have engaged in projects worth close to $28 billion; $5 billion in 2007 alone.[7] In addition, Turkish direct investments in Russia reached $6 billion by the end of 2007.

Tourism has also helped cement relations. In 2007, 2.5 million Russian tourists visited Turkey, almost four times the number of American visitors.[8] In only the first six months of 2008, Turkey welcomed two million Russians. Both Ankara and Moscow encourage this trend, which is unprecedented in the history of the two countries. According to the memorandum of understanding signed in 2006 between the Turkish Ministry of Culture and the Russian Federation's Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography, Ankara named 2007 the year of Russian culture in Turkey. Moscow reciprocated and declared 2008 the year of Turkish culture in Russia. On October 20, 2008, the Red Army Chorus and the Ottoman Army Military band (Mehter) gave a joint concert in the Kremlin.[9] Such a concert may seem a side note to a U.S. audience, but for both Turks and Russians, it had immense symbolic meaning, given that the Russian and Ottoman armies had clashed eleven times in major battles in the course of history. Few Turks ever expected a "Janissary" soldier to sing "Kalinka" in the Kremlin Palace.

The leaders of both Turkey and Russia have encouraged further bilateral developments. On December 5-6, 2004, Russian president Vladimir Putin paid his first bilateral visit to Turkey, the first by a Russian head of state since 1972 when Nikolai Podgorny, the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, paid a symbolic visit to the country. Putting aside Podgorny's visit, Putin's was the first state visit by a Russian head of state since the beginning of official diplomatic relations 512 years before. During the visit, Putin and Turkish president Ahmet Necdet Sezer signed a joint declaration of cooperation which characterized bilateral relations as a "multilateral strengthened partnership."[10] The following year, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Russia three times, and Putin returned to Turkey to mark the opening of the Blue Stream pipeline. On June 28-30, 2006, Sezer became the first Turkish president to visit Russia,[11] and his successor, Abdullah Gül was scheduled to visit Moscow in January 2009. In contrast, during this period, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Turkey only twice (February 5-6, 2005, and April 25, 2006) and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley just once.

Nor are the Russo-Turkish visits just symbolic. In follow-up agreements to the Turkish-Russian partnership, the foreign ministries of both countries established a bilateral consultation mechanism to cover twelve different subjects in February 2006. The commission held meetings in November 2006 and June 2008.[12] In contrast, the United States and Turkey do not enjoy such a comprehensive, regular mechanism for meetings or developing relations. Instead, because of the difference of opinion over the invasion of Iraq, they started in July 2006 to have irregular "Shared Vision and Strategic Dialogue" meetings. Although it is one of the key strategic partnership topics for Ankara and Washington, the parties were able to establish a working group on energy issues only in the summer of 2008.

 

Turkey's Energy Strategy

Turkey's energy strategy has three main pillars. The first is to ensure diversified, reliable, and cost-effective supplies for domestic consumption; the second is to liberalize its energy market; and the third is to become a key transit country and energy hub. Three quarters of the world's proven oil and gas resources are located in regions neighboring Turkey, and there is an increasing dependence on Russian, Caspian, and Middle Eastern oil and natural gas by Europe, the United States, and developing East Asian countries.

Approximately 3.7 percent of the world's daily oil consumption transits the Turkish Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. While this is currently only one-fifth of the traffic that passes through the Strait of Hormuz, it still represents a 240 percent increase in traffic over the last decade.[13] Two-thirds of these tankers carry Russian oil and gas exports; most of the bulk cargo trade is also Russian.

This creates a problem for Turkey, however. Istanbul, its largest city, straddles the Bosporus with a population of thirteen million. The 19-mile-long Bosporus has a convoluted morphological structure that requires ships to change course at least twelve times, including four separate bends that require turns greater than 45 degrees. At Kandilli, a blind 45-degree bend complicates navigation where the channel narrows to less than half a mile. At both Kandilli and Yenikoy, forward and rear lines of sight are blocked during turns. Moreover, two bridges built in 1973 and 1988 spanning the channel increase the navigational threats. Approximately 1.5 million people cross the waterway daily on intercity ferries and shuttle boats, accounting for about 1,000 east-west crossings.[14] No other city in the world is exposed to the transit of such volatile cargo every day.

Planning for an accident in the congested shipping passage is every Istanbul waterway official's nightmare. All Turkish officials remember the conflagration that followed a collision between two Cypriot tankers at the Black Sea entrance to the Bosporus on March 13, 1994. The accident killed twenty-nine crewmen, polluted the waterway with nineteen million gallons of crude oil, shut the channel for a week, and caused $1 billion in damage.[15] Today, ships four times as large as those involved in the accident ply the waterway. Turkey has been lucky that there have been no more major accidents. Still, between 2004 and 2007 alone, there were 103 minor accidents in the Bosporus strait. Over the same period, 651 tankers experienced technical breakdowns or malfunctions in the passage. Shipping is no longer a sustainable way of carrying hydrocarbons through the Bosporus.

Russian energy companies understand the gravity of the situation, and even as Moscow demands fulfillment of the 1936 Montreaux Convention's guarantee of "free and uninterrupted passage" through the Turkish straits, Russian officials and energy companies are aware that current traffic through the Bosporus is unsustainable. The solution lies in the use of alternative oil export options that bypass the straits.

The Blue Stream natural gas pipeline is one of the main components of a north-south axis alternative transport strategy. In 2007, Turkey imported 9.3 billion cubic meters of Russian gas through Blue Stream; the figure for 2008 is likely to be 25 percent higher. The Turkish Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy regards the implementation of gas transit projects through Turkey to third markets as possible new projects to strengthen Turkish-Russian energy cooperation.

Turkey also has begun work on other pipeline bypass options. While the Trans-Thrace pipeline has been cancelled because of environmental concerns, the Samsun-Ceyhan project (also called the Trans-Anatolian pipeline) broke ground at Ceyhan on April 24, 2007, in a joint venture between Turkey's Çalık Energy, Italy's Eni, and the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC); it is expected to have a capacity of 60 million barrels annually (70 million tons). Ceyhan provides distinct advantages for its existing infrastructure and linkages to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Originally meant to terminate at Samsun, its directors calculated that Unye, a small town in eastern Samsun province, would allow larger offshore facilities while reducing the total length by sixty miles. The proximity of Unye-Samsun to the oil outlets of Novorossiysk, Supsa, and Batum on the eastern Black Sea minimizes seaborne transportation of oil in the Black Sea.

While environmental concerns have also caused Turkish officials to oppose plans for an oil terminal in the Aegean Sea, there has been preliminary progress on the potential Medstream project, which envisions a network of pipelines to supply oil, natural gas, electricity, and water, possibly along with a fiber optic line from Turkey to Israel by connecting the Blue Stream and Samsun-Ceyhan pipelines to Israel's Ashkelon-Eilat pipeline. Feasibility studies have been positive, and Israeli demand would enable Russia's state oil company, Gazprom, to fill the Blue Stream pipeline although progress has stalled as Moscow and Jerusalem have yet to agree on a contractor to lay the pipeline from Ceyhan to Ashkelon.[16]

 

Tuncay Babalı                                    ./..

 

Turkey at the Energy Crossroads Turkey, Present and Past Part II

 

by Tuncay Babalı

 

2^nd  part of 2

Turkey's Energy Relations with Iran

Despite frequent Iranian declarations of contracts and partnerships, since 2001 Turkey has been the only significant importer of Iranian gas. Turkey signed the Iran contract in 1996, during the short tenure of the Refah Party, whose leader Necmettin Erbakan's Islamist leanings later led to public pressure for his resignation. While the Islamic Republic is Turkey's second largest gas supplier after Russia, Ankara's dealings with Tehran have not been easy. Iran often demands prices higher than those of alternative suppliers, and gas quality and quantity often fall below the terms agreed. Even after renegotiation, Iran currently supplies Turkey with a little over half of its contracted 9.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year (6.16 billion cubic meters in 2007).[17] In both January 2007 and January 2008, Tehran slashed gas exports to Turkey in the face of high Iranian domestic demand.[18]

Turks certainly do not always consider Iran a reliable partner. Ankara and Tehran have also come to loggerheads over Iran's failure to respect commercial contracts. On May 8, 2004, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forced the expulsion of the Turkish construction consortium TAV from Tehran's flagship Imam Khomeini International Airport despite a 15-year service contract. That same year, the Iranian government also cancelled Turkcell's successful bid to enter the Iranian cell phone market.

Still, under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) chairman and prime minister Erdoğan's administration, there has been a renewed drive for energy partnership with the Islamic Republic. On July 14, 2007, Iranian oil minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh and his Turkish counterpart, Hilmi Güler, signed a memorandum of understanding by which the two sides agreed to build 2,200 miles of gas pipelines to transport up to forty billion cubic meters of gas annually to Europe through Turkey. They also agreed to increase cooperation in electricity generation and to construct natural gas power stations. This would allow the Turkish state oil company, Türkiye Petrolleri Anonim Ortaklığı, to develop successive phases of the South Pars gas field, a $3.5 billion undertaking.[19] But one year later, the energy accords remained formally unconcluded.[20]

Turkish-Iranian energy cooperation has angered Washington because it undercuts White House efforts to isolate the Islamic Republic over its defiance of three U.N. Security Council sanctions seeking suspension of uranium enrichment.[21] Reuben Jeffery III, undersecretary of state for economic affairs, urged Turkish officials to bypass Iran and develop alternatives in the Caucasus and Central Asia. U.S. energy secretary Samuel Bodman and undersecretary of state Nicholas Burns have traveled to Ankara to underscore U.S. displeasure. Burns even alluded to possible application of the Iran Sanctions Act which would enable the U.S. government to sanction any company investing more than $20 million in the Iranian hydrocarbon sector.[22]

Erdoğan, however, has shrugged off Washington's displeasure and said Turkey seeks diversified energy supplies. It would be "out of the question to stop imports from either country [Russia or Iran],"[23] Erdoğan said following the Georgian war, especially as Turkey's energy needs grow by almost 6 percent per year.

 

Geopolitical Reality Check

The August 8, 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia has complicated Turkish strategy. Immediately after the invasion, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of Russia's General Staff, warned Ankara that Moscow would hold Turkey responsible for allowing U.S. navy ships through the Turkish straits to provide humanitarian assistance to Georgia should U.S. ships remain in the Black Sea for more than three weeks, as stipulated by the Montreaux Convention.[24]

According to some analysts, in apparent retaliation for allowing the U.S. ships passage, Russia has imposed new import controls on trucks at Russian border points. Russian foreign affairs minister Sergei Lavrov's September 2, 2008 visit to Turkey failed to resolve the dispute although he denied any connection with the U.S. ships' passage to the Black Sea.[25] Some Turkish trade officials say—depending upon the timing of final resolution of the problem—Turkey may lose roughly $3 billion because of these new Russian restrictions.

Turkey's leaders are treading carefully around the Georgia crisis. Although Turkey has called for Georgia's territorial integrity to be respected, it has refrained from embracing the stronger rhetoric coming out of Washington and Brussels. An explosion on the Turkish portion of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline three days before the Russia-Georgia conflict highlighted Turkish vulnerability, even if it were caused by technical error.[26]

Prime Minister Erdoğan walked a very tight rope, explaining to the Turkish daily Milliyet, "It would not be right for Turkey to be pushed toward any side. Certain circles want to push Turkey into a corner either with the United States or Russia after the Georgian incident. One of the sides is our closest ally, the United States. The other side is Russia with which we have an important trade volume. We would act in line with what Turkey's national interests require."[27] Prime Minister Erdoğan's top foreign policy advisor Ahmet Davutoğlu explained, "You can't say that Turkish-Russian relations can be like Danish-Russian relations, or Norwegian-Russian relations, or Canada-Russian [sic] relations. ... Any other European country can follow certain isolationist policies against Russia. Can Turkey do this? I ask you to understand the geographical conditions of Turkey... We don't want to pay the bill of strategic mistakes or miscalculation by Russia, or by Georgia."[28]

As some analysts at Stratfor Intelligence Service put it, however, "Moscow got its point across: Europe can sink its money into projects designed to leave Russia in the cold [mainly east-west energy corridor projects like Baku-Tbilisi- Ceyhan, Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum, and Nabucco], but the Russians still have the will and capacity to disrupt many of these projects."[29]

The Georgian crisis has shattered many of the assumptions in both the East and West about how oil and gas from the Caspian Basin can best be transported to international markets and, as a result, about the relations between producing and transit countries on the one hand and those two categories and the rest of the world on the other.[30]

Both Caspian Basin oil and gas producers and Western powers have wanted oil and gas export pipelines from that region to bypass Russia but, at the same time, have ruled out Iran as an alternative. Following the successful completion of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Erzurum pipelines and the first leg of the Turkey-Greece-Italy gas interconnector, the U.S.-Turkish "east-west energy corridor" concept envisions extending these pipelines east to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan via the Trans-Caspian pipeline and west to Europe via the Nabucco pipeline between Turkey and Austria. This would, for the first time, allow the European Union to buy Caspian gas without a Russian intermediary.

Given the continued standoff between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, that leaves only one route available: the current BTC pipeline route through Georgia. Georgian and Russian actions there have called into question the security of this pipeline. According to analyst Soner Cagaptay, "It is hard to imagine today how any energy company would invest in extensions to the East-West corridor, along which Georgia has become the weak link." [31] With its actions in Georgia, Russia has sent a strong message to "the U.S.-Turkish plans to boost the East-West corridor and make Turkey an entrepôt of Caspian energy. Moscow has also preemptively blocked the EU's plans to buy energy from the Caspian Basin without having to go through Russia." [32]

As a result, some Caspian Basin states are now considering exporting their hydrocarbons via Russia even if that gives Moscow leverage over them,[33] while some Western countries that want to punish Russia are discussing allowing exports via Iran;[34] still others are pushing to resolve the Karabakh crisis in order to allow the export of oil and gas via Armenia.[35]

No matter what solutions major powers pursue, the mere discussion of alternative energy strategies suggests old allies may come into conflict while old enemies may begin to cooperate. Perhaps the first major shift will be in Turkish-Armenian relations. On September 6, 2008, at the invitation of Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan, Turkey's president Abdullah Gül visited Armenia—a country with which Turkey does not have diplomatic relations—to watch the 2010 World Cup qualifier soccer match between their national teams.

A second outgrowth of the Georgian crisis has been plans to create a "Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform" to include Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia as well as Turkey and Russia.[36] In principle, each country has agreed to support the initiative.[37]

 

Conclusions

Energy dominates Turkish strategic thinking. While the United States enjoys a relatively peaceful neighborhood, Turkey exists in a tough and complicated region. As Turkey continues to industrialize and develop into a regional hub, its thirst for oil will only increase. This requires not only diversification but also good relations with all its neighbors, in addition to and not to the exclusion of its traditional partnerships. Turkey simply does not have the luxury to remain aloof from its neighbors, even if they are Russia and Iran.

Still, the Russian invasion of Georgia underlines the uncertainty that marks Turkey's diplomatic realignment. The future of Turkish-Russian energy relations and the north-south corridor depend largely on Moscow's vision of energy security for Europe and the world. Russian officials often point out that during the Cold War, they did not stop supplying oil to the West. While that is correct, it is equally true that the reputation of the Russian Federation as a consistent and trustworthy energy supplier is questionable. Moscow's use of energy as a trump card against Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and the Czech Republic raised eyebrows. Even if Russian decision-makers perceive energy as not only an economic but also a political matter, energy bottlenecks due to political risks are always a possibility[38]—a situation that will increase the legitimacy of energy policies aimed at creating alternative supply routes.

This should make Turkey's long-term energy development important to the United States and Europe even if Washington remains upset at the short-term implications of Ankara's dealings with Tehran. Diversification of new energy supply routes remains crucial not only to Turkey's development but also for the West's energy security.

 

Tuncay Babalı, Ph.D., is counselor at the embassy of the Republic of Turkey in Washington D.C. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

[1] Igor Torbakov, "Making Sense of the Current Phase of the Turkish-Russian Relations," Jamestown Foundation, Washington, D.C. Oct. 11, 2007.
[2] Zeyno Baran, "Will Turkey Abandon NATO?" The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 29, 2008.
[3] Confidential report of the Commercial Counselor's Office of the Embassy of Turkey in Moscow, Nov. 11, 2008.
[4] "Trade with Turkey: 2007," Foreign Trade Statistics, U.S. Census Bureau, accessed Jan. 7, 2009; "Turkish-American Trade and Economic Relations," General Directorate of Agreements, Undersecretariat of the Prime Ministry for Foreign Trade of the Republic of Turkey, May 8, 2008.
[5] Annual Report 2007, BOTAŞ (Petroleum Pipeline Corporation), p. 49, accessed Jan. 7, 2009; "Natural Gas Sale and Purchase Agreements, Natural Gas Pipeline Activities," Portrait of BOTAŞ Activities, accessed Jan. 21, 2009; "Natural Gas and LNG Purchases," "(Gas) Trade Movements 2007 by Pipeline," BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2008, p. 30.
[6] Bill Powell, "Just How Scary Is Russia?" Fortune, Sept. 15, 2008.
[7] Interagency special 2007 report, International Contracting and Technical Services Department, Undersecretariat of the Turkish Prime Ministry for Foreign Trade.
[8] "Tourism Statistics for 2007," Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey, Ankara, accessed Jan. 8, 2009.
[9] Today's Zaman (Istanbul), Oct. 22, 2008.
[10] Axis Information and Analysis news service, Aug. 21, 2005.
[11] Turkish Embassy, Moscow, news release, June 29, 2006.
[12] Internal Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Information Bureau Monthly Activity Announcement, Nov. 2006, June 2008.
[13] "Vessel Traffic Statistics in the Istanbul Straits 2003-2007," confidential report, Ministry of Transportation, General Directorate of Coastal Security, obtained from the Turkish representative to the International Maritime Organization.
[14] John C. K. Daly, "Tankers, Pipelines and the Turkish Straits," Eurasia Daily Monitor (Jamestown Foundation, Washington, D.C.), June 26, 2008.
[15] Anatolian News Agency (Ankara), Mar. 14-30, 1994.
[16] Turkish Daily News (Ankara), July 14, 2008; Agence France-Presse, Oct. 23, 2008.
[17] "Trade Movements 2007 by Pipeline," BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2008, p. 30.
[18] Reuters, Jan. 1, 2008; Agence France-Presse, Jan. 1, 2008; Voice of America News, Jan. 1, 2008.
[19] John C. K. Daly, "Iran and Turkey Energy Ties Deepen," Eurasia Daily Monitor, July 2, 2008; Press TV (Tehran), Aug. 13, 2007.
[20] Eurasia Daily Monitor, Nov. 21, 2008.
[21] Milliyet (Istanbul), Sept. 28, 2007; Radikal (Istanbul), Sept. 28, 2007.
[22] John C.K. Daly, "Analysis: Turkey Iran Energy Ties," United Press International, Nov. 30, 2007.
[23] Gareth Jenkins, "Turkey Determined to Press Ahead with Iranian Gas Deal," Eurasia Daily Monitor, Oct. 5, 2007.
[24] Hurriyet, (Istanbul), Aug. 25, 26, 27, 2008; Milliyet, Aug. 25, 26, 27, 2008; Turkish Daily New, Aug. 25, 26, 27, 2008.
[25] Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Hamburg), Sept. 2, 2008.
[26] Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Sept. 2, 2008; BBC Monitoring European (BBC Monitoring/Factiva), Aug. 6, 2008; John Roberts, "Georgia Falls Victim to Pipeline Politics," BBC Analysis, Aug. 12, 2008.
[27] Bulent Aliriza, "Turkey and the Crisis in the Caucasus," Center for Strategic and International Studies, Turkey Project, Washington, D.C., Sept. 9, 2008.
[28] "Turkey's Top Foreign Policy Aide Worries about False Optimism in Iraq," Council on Foreign Relations, Sept. 19, 2008.
[29] "Turkey: Eyeing Central Asian Energy Ties," Stratfor Intelligence Service (Austin, Tex.), Sept. 3, 2008.
[30] Paul Goble, "Assessing The Global Impact of Russia's Aggression in Georgia," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Sept. 3, 2008.
[31] Soner Cagaptay, "The Caucasus: Small War, Big Damage," Turkish Daily News, Sept. 8, 2008.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Lindsey Alexander, "Seeking a Way Forward on Trans-Caspian Pipeline," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Sept. 2, 2008; Spiegel Online (Hamburg), Sept. 12, 2008.
[34] Goble, "Assessing the Global Impact of Russia's Aggression in Georgia."
[35] "Turkey: Energy Cooperation with Armenia and Azerbaijan?" Stratfor Intelligence Service, Sept. 12, 2008.
[36] Zaman (Istanbul), Aug. 19, 2008.
[37] Azeri-Press Agency (Baku, Azerbaijan), Sept. 24, 2008.
[38] Suat Akgün, "The Russian Federation as an Energy Supplier," Turkish Policy Quarterly, Summer 2007.

                                                                             ../..

What Britain can teach the West about dealing with Islamism.

 

by Barry Rubin

 

Almost unnoticed in North America, three major victories have been won in the United Kingdom against radical Islamist forces. Collectively, they represent the biggest successes on this front in a decade and may constitute a turning point.

They include: the barring from the country of an extremist Hizballah leader, the government decision to break relations with a radical posing as moderate Muslim group, and the announcing of a new government policy on combating extremism.

First, the Home Office barred Ibrahim Moussawi, Hizballah's propaganda chief, from entering the country to address a conference at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

According to a school representative, ""Had he on any previous occasion indulged in any racist incitement, he would not have been allowed to continue with his presentation, and were he to do so in the future, the same would apply."

Clearly, the school has a rather loose definition of racist incitement since the al-Manar station that he runs claims that the September 11 terror attacks, wars, and the poor state of the economy are all Zionist or Jewish conspiracies. It produced a drama claiming Jews murder children to make matzoh for Passover and Moussawi is quoted as having once said that Jews were "a lesion on the forehead of history." The station also helped channel money to terrorist organizations including Islamic Jihad.

All of this so impressed the U.S. Treasury Department that it gave al-Manar the title of "Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entity" three years ago. France and Germany banned al-Manar due to its incitement to racial hatred and violence.

SOAS must not have been paying attention.

These kinds of victories do not come automatically and, sadly, the massive information- and intelligence gathering apparatuses of governments don't seem sufficient to find out these publicly reported facts. That's why research groups like the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC), which played the leading role in informing the British government and public in this case, are so important.

Yet the group's second success within a month was even more spectacular. Back on February 12-14, a pro-Hamas "Victory in Gaza" conference was held in Istanbul, organized by two Saudi clerics who had been supporters of Usama bin Ladin. But it produced a declaration urging jihad to destroy Israel, rejecting any peaceful solution to the conflict. In addition, they called for continuing jihad (read: murdering fellow Muslims, killing Western peacekeepers, and imposing extremist Islamist regimes) in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Little notice of the meeting was taken in the West, whose media usually largely focuses on propagandistic declarations aimed at the West, made in English and designed to show a combination of their grievances and purported moderation.

What made the Istanbul declaration important for Britain was the fact that one of the signers was Daud Abdullah. The problem was that Abdullah is deputy general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, a group which itself purports to be the leader of British Muslims and which the government has purported to be the proper, moderate interlocutor with that community. He is also a member of the powerful, government-endorsed Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board.

In fact, though, many of its leaders are radical Islamists, which makes the idea of its aiding the British government fight extremism to be rather ironic.

Abdullah's defense of his signing was basically to say that all Muslims must fight Israel and those who support it, but that doesn't mean all Jews. Of course, it does mean the United Kingdom and all its officers and institutions, doesn't it?

This is even clearer in point 8 which states the:

"Obligation of the Islamic Nation to regard the sending of foreign warships into Muslim waters, claiming to control the borders and prevent the smuggling of arms to Gaza, as a declaration of war, a new occupation, sinful aggression, and a clear violation of the sovereignty of the Nation. This must be rejected and fought by all means and ways."

Or, in other words, since the British government supports such action, Abdullah is calling for attacks on his nation's armed services. And we know, from experience, this means the kidnapping and killing of any individual members of the British armed forces.

Abdullah's defense was to say that this was a hypothetical situation.

Pressed by the public exposure of these facts, the British government asked the Council how it felt about Abdullah's statements and whether it would distance itself from them. The Council said it would never support killing British troops but would not criticize Abdullah. In response, the British government — to its credit — showed backbone and cut ties with the Council.

Finally, at the same time, a new policy was announced by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. The theme was to focus on combating Islamist ideology as well as a call for Muslims to support not violence against the system but rather what she termed "our shared values": democracy, the rule of law, and the rights of women, homosexuals, other religions, and communities. She concluded: "We should all stand up for our shared values and not concede the floor to those who dismiss them."

Up to this point, the government had subsidized groups which might not engage in violence but do propagate radical Islamist ideas which inspire others toward violence. Or, in the words of Policy Exchange, the government has been, "Underwriting the very Islamist ideology which spawns an illiberal, intolerant and anti-Western world view."

The response to the new policy of Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, the board's secretary-general, is that if Britain wants to combat the causes of terrorism it should condemn Israel for the "barbaric" "war crime" of its war in Gaza (a war begun by Hamas), which the Board supports.

The Board has generally, for eight of the last nine years, boycotted the Holocaust day commemoration because it says that Israel is carrying out "genocide" against Muslims. Its leadership has condemned homosexuality as unacceptable, blamed terrorism in Britain exclusively on the country's involvement in invading Iraq, and advocated a law that would — at least in its interpretation — bar criticism of Islam as religious hatred. This is the group that the British government has entrusted with preparing materials for Muslim schools.

Taken together, the three recent developments are of paramount importance in fostering a more realistic attitude and policy toward the threat of extremism and terrorism by the British government. That this was brought about not by a powerful lobby but by a small number of researchers who merely exposed and publicized the truth is all the more impressive.

 

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary Center, and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs. His latest book is "The Truth About Syria".

 

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

How and why Muslims riot in liberal democracies.

 

by Caroline B. Glick

Tuesday's violent riots in Umm el Fahm and the debate which accompanied them are emblematic of one of the greatest challenges facing not only Israel, but much of the Western world today. Far right Jewish Israeli political activists held a peaceful demonstration in the radical Arab-Islamist dominated city of Umm el Fahm in the Galilee under heavy police protection. Thousands of Arab Israelis supported by far left Jewish Israeli political activists reacted with violent rioting. And the media blamed the violence on the peaceful Jewish Israeli demonstrators.

Tuesday's demonstration, which was led by former followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane MK Michael Ben-Ari, Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben Gvir was supposed to take place last December after the Supreme Court upheld the activists' legal right to march through the city. But the police blocked the it, claiming they could not guarantee the marchers' security. Only after again being ordered by the Supreme Court to the let demonstration to go forward did the police relent. But they limited the march to the outskirts of the city.

In accordance with the police guidelines, Tuesday the marchers were transported to the outskirts of the town in bullet-proof buses. 2,500 policemen deployed along Wadi Ara highway, and throughout the town to protect them. They were allowed to march holding flags and singing folksongs for a half an hour and then returned to their bullet proof buses. In the meantime, thousands of local residents standing on rooftops and crowding into the streets began rioting. They threw volley after volley of rocks at the Jewish marchers and the police protecting them. They cursed them. They cursed the police. In the end, some 15 policemen were wounded by the projectiles - including Inspector General Shahar Ayalon, the Deputy Superintendent of the National Police.

As far as the media were concerned, the fact that thousands of Arabs attacked the police and the lawful demonstrators was a non-story. The fact that these Israeli Arab citizens claimed to be personally insulted and injured because the demonstration "forced" them to set their eyes on their national flag was seemingly understandable. The fact that these Israeli citizens rejected Israel's flag while waving Palestinian and Islamic flags was neither newsworthy nor controversial. No one in the media asked the Arab rioters whom they felt threatened by. No one asked them why seeing Jews marching with the flag of Israel should provoke them to attack.

To the extent the media found a culprit, it was the Israeli demonstrators. They were "provocateurs" who forced taxpayers to spend millions of shekels to deploy 2,500 policemen armed with riot gear to the city. It never occurred to the media that Ben Ari, Marzel and Ben Gvir were not the cause of the enormous police presence. They were a danger to no one. The reason the police were forced to deploy so massively was because they believed that the Arabs would violently attack the Jewish demonstrators. It was the Arabs, not the Jews whom the police feared would break the law. And as it works out, they were right.

The media's coverage of the Umm el Fahm riot fits into an ongoing patter. Over the years, the local media have developed a code for reporting on Arabs - whether Palestinian or Israeli or foreign. And it is a bigoted code.

As far as Israel's media are concerned, Arabs cannot be expected to act like responsible citizens. They cannot be required to abide by the law like the rest of the country's citizens. As far as Israel's media and the rest of the political Left are concerned, Arabs are either victims or objects. They cannot be culprits or independent actors. Their will -- to the extent they have one -- is collective. No individual can be held accountable for his or her actions. And their will is reactive. All Arab actions are but reactions to Jewish provocations. Many in the US and Europe have expressed surprise and indeed mystification about Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu party's strong third place showing in last month's elections. And there is good reason for their confusion. Lieberman is not an easy candidate to swallow for either rightists or leftists. Right wingers find his plan to make the Galilee and parts of the Negev part of a future Palestinian state absurd and wrong. Leftists find his call for all Israelis, including Arab Israelis -- to declare their loyalty to the state as a condition for keeping their citizenship absurd and wrong. And yet, due to the 15 Knesset seats he won from both right and left wing voters, Lieberman will serve as the foreign minister in the incoming Netanyahu government.

The Israel Left has demonized Lieberman as a racist for his positions on the Arabs. The anti-Israel lobby in Washington is already using their attacks to discredit the incoming government. But the fact is that fundamentally, Lieberman is little different from the Left which demonizes him.

Lieberman is a populist. He owes his popularity to the fact that he properly identified the political radicalization and increasing lawlessness among Israel's Arab citizens as the major domestic issue of our times. Lieberman is unique among politicians from both the Left and the Right in that he is the only one who is willing to confront the issue head on. And it is due to his readiness to discuss this issue that the public rewarded him with fifteen Knesset seats.

Like most populists, Lieberman is not a deep thinker. As a consequence, he adopted the bigoted framework of the Left for contending with the challenge posed today by Israel's Arabs. His idea of removing the Galilee from sovereign Israel and attaching it to a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is based on the Left's bigoted assumption that Israeli Arabs cannot be expected to be loyal to the country or act as law abiding citizens. Lieberman's adoption of the Left's prejudiced perspective on Israeli Arabs has engendered a dismal situation where while the debate has now been joined on the issue of how to contend with Israeli Arab disloyalty and crime, the debate that has developed is nothing more than a dialogue of the deaf.

No one talks about the need to inculcate Israeli values of liberal democracy among our Arab citizens. No one talks about blunting the power of radical leaders like Sheikh Ra'ad Salah, who heads the Islamic Movement's Northern Branch or Arab parliamentarians who openly treat with Hizbullah and Hamas and side with Israel's enemies in time of war. No one talks about empowering Israeli Arabs who are loyal to Israel. That is, no one talks about adopting policies that could actually improve the situation.

And this is a tragedy because the situation is truly grave. Early this week a Hizbullah-controlled Israeli Arab terror group which calls itself the Free People of the Galilee claimed responsibility for the attempted car bombing at Haifa's largest shopping mall Saturday night. That bomb, planted in a car trunk outside the mall, was large enough to have toppled the three story mall and kill hundreds of people. Mercifully, it was discovered before it was detonated.

Since 2001, the same group has claimed responsibility for a string of murderous attacks - mainly centered in Jerusalem. It claimed responsibility for the massacre of eight students at Mercaz Harav Yeshiva last year. It claimed responsibility for the first bulldozer attack in Jerusalem last year in which three people were murdered. And it claimed responsibility for the murder of several individual Jews around the Old City in Jerusalem since August 2001.

Also this week, the Jerusalem District Attorney's office announced that four Israeli Arabs have been indicted for the attempted murder of an American Hebrew University student last month. The four attacked the student as he walked through the Jerusalem Forest on the way to his dormitory. They beat him, stabbed him in the cheek, and tried to slash his throat before fleeing the scene. And earlier this month, the police announced the arrest last month of another Israeli Arab on charges of spying for Hizbullah. The arrest of 27-year-old Ismail Sulaiman from a village in the Jezreel Valley is the latest in a string of arrests of Israeli Arabs on charges of spying for Hizbullah. Last September IDF Sgt. Maj. Louai Balut from the Western Galilee, who served as a tracker along the Lebanese border was sentenced to 11 years in prison for spying for Hizbullah. And of course, former MK and Balad Party leader Azmi Bishara remains on the lam after he fled the country just before being charged with spying for Hizbullah during the 2006 war.

Israel of course is not alone in contending with this challenge. Throughout Europe governments are forced to contend with the fact that increasingly, the greatest threat to the security of their general citizenry comes from their Muslim and Arab citizens. The only difference is that Israel alone is castigated as a racist state simply for suffering from the problem of Muslim extremism.

On Sunday Phillip Johnston published a column in the Sunday Telegraph critiquing the British government's new strategy for defending against Islamic terror. Johnston bemoaned the fact that the new plan pays no attention to the fact that most of the terrorists sitting in British jails as well as the perpetrators of the July7, 2005 bombings are British. Whereas the new strategy concentrates on the need to fight terrorists in places like Afghanistan, as Johnston put it, "There was not a single mention of the undeniable truth that the extremists who will actually carry out atrocities live among us and need to be confronted here and now."

Johnston argued that rather than ignore the problem of increased extremism among Britain's Muslims "in the interests of 'community harmony'," the British government should actively engage in "an unequivocal and enthusiastic espousal of British values of tolerance and liberal democracy."

That is, to contend with the growing radicalization of British Muslims, the government in London should end its current policy of appeasement of radical Muslim groups which is based on the bigoted assumption that Muslims cannot be expected to either abide by the laws or to integrate into wider society. Britain should instead embrace its own identity as a liberal democracy and require its citizens to abide by liberal democratic norms.

In Britain as in Israel and indeed throughout the free world, those norms are based on the understanding that the ability of a society to remain a free society is contingent on its citizenry's recognition that there can be no civil rights without civic duties. The Umm el Fahm riots serve as yet another warning of this fundamental truth.

Here in Israel we face the same choice. Either we encourage our Arab citizens to fully accept both the rights and duties of citizenship or we continue - through either populism of cowardice - to facilitate their rejection of our society. If we embark on the first path, we will safeguard our national identity as a Jewish liberal democracy. If we remain on the second path, we will imperil our lives, our way of life and our national existence.

 

Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post.

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