25 - 31 October 2001
Issue No.557
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 25 - 31 October 2001 Issue No.557 |
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In two minds
Turkish military and the country's nationalists are eager for an active role in the US-led campaign in Afghanistan. But as Gareth Jenkins in Istanbul writes, the Turkish public is less enthusiastic
Turkey last week stepped up its quest for a role in the US-led operations against the Taliban in which it would be seen in the West as standing shoulder to shoulder with its NATO allies without doing anything that would damage its already precarious standing in the Muslim world and risk triggering widespread domestic unrest.
The flip side: in the town of Charikar, held by opposition forces, locals mourn the death of a market seller killed in a Taliban attack (photo: AFP)
Turkey has long touted itself as a bridge between East and West. But prior to the 11 September attacks in the US, Turkey appeared to be heading for international isolation. The West, particularly the EU, had become exasperated by Ankara's obstinacy over Cyprus and the planned European Strategic Defence Project (ESDP). Turkey's continued failure to address human rights abuses and endemic corruption and nepotism were also bones of contention. At the same time, Ankara's decision to maintain its ties with Israel, even under the new government of Ariel Sharon, had infuriated many in the Muslim world.
For Turkish nationalists, 11 September offered Turkey an opportunity, as the sole Muslim member of NATO, to prove its strategic importance to the West and thus both try to enhance its international prestige and secure foreign funding to try to prop up its ailing economy.
Privately, the fiercely secular Turkish military has made it clear that it would not object to sending special forces to train, and even operate alongside, troops of the Northern Alliance in their war against the Taliban.
"It wouldn't be a large deployment. It would comprise a maximum of 300-400 special trained commandos," said a source close to the Turkish military, claiming that the terrain in Afghanistan was similar to southeast Turkey and northern Iraq where the security forces spent 15 years battling the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). "We have a lot of experience in fighting in caves and mountains from the war against the PKK."
In September, Turkey opened its airspace to US and UK planes intended to engage in strikes on Afghanistan. Earlier this month, the Turkish parliament approved the granting of wide powers to the government to send troops abroad and has despatched anti- terrorism experts to the US to coordinate the sharing of experience and intelligence. But the government has balked at actually deploying troops in Afghanistan.
Initially, Turkish commentators enthusiastically suggested that the US would need the participation of Turkish troops to refute accusations that the West was launching an anti-Islamic crusade. But recently there has been a growing awareness that, unless other Muslim countries were also involved, the military operations could still be interpreted as anti-Islamic with Turkey being merely portrayed as a lackey of the West.
The launching of the US-led air campaign against Afghanistan has also fuelled a rapid increase in public opposition to the deployment of Turkish troops. The latest opinion polls suggest that over 80 per cent of Turks oppose the country's active involvement in the military campaign against the Taliban.
"I don't like Bin Laden and I don't like the Taliban," said Ahmet, who runs a small grocery stall in Istanbul. "But why should America be able to send Turkish troops to die just so that it can look better? Does it really care about justice? What about all these poor Afghan civilians it is now bombing? Aren't those children, women and old people as innocent as those who were killed in New York?"
On Thursday, the Turkish media thought it had found the solution, proudly reporting that during a visit to Ankara British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had proposed that Turkey should lead a peace-keeping force to secure order during the interim period between the toppling of the Taliban and the establishment of a new broad-based Afghan government.
But privately British officials denied that Straw had made any such proposal.
"The foreign secretary was in Turkey in listening mode," said a British official. "He does not consider that it is for Britain to tell Turkey what it should and should not do."
On Saturday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem announced that Turkey had offered to host a meeting between the EU and members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to try to allay fears that what the West termed an anti-terrorism campaign was really aimed at Islam.
But privately, even officials from his own ministry were sceptical about what such a meeting could hope to achieve and were insistent that if the West really wanted Turkey to participate in its anti-terrorism campaign, even in a peace-keeping force, it should be prepared to foot the bill.
"The deployment of troops in Afghanistan would be very expensive," said one official. "If the US wants us to have some role in peace-keeping then it should pay. And we would need a clear goal and a clear exit strategy. We have no intention of making an open-ended commitment to try to keep the peace in a country like Afghanistan indefinitely."
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