The Western Condition - St Antony's College - University of Oxford

The Western Condition: Turkey, the US and the EU in the New Middle East
sentenced over 300 officers to up to 20 years in prison, heralding the definitive end of the era of
military coups, albeit amidst serious concerns of political revanchism and judicial irregularities. 106
Another watershed moment came when the widely followed murder trial of Hrant Dink ended
after five years of bureaucratic foot-dragging, covered-up evidence and missing witnesses, with a
verdict that left the senior bureaucrats and members of the police force implicated in the case
untouched and then, eventually promoted. 107
It is against this background that Turkey witnessed the Arab uprisings. At the height of the Egyptian
revolution, Prime Minister Erdoğan claimed the moral high ground long before most world leaders
by calling on Hosni Mubarak to heed the people’s message and step down. In Libya, where the
Turkish government had built extensive political and business relations with the Gaddafi regime, the
AKP initially came out strongly against a NATO military intervention, with Erdoğan calling it
“unthinkable” and President Gül saying it was “out of the question”. 108 A week later, alarmed by
French President Sarkozy’s apparent eagerness to assume a leading role in a possible intervention and
in an attempt not to be left on the side lines, the Turkish parliament had despatched five navy ships
and a submarine to Libya and had also agreed to commit troops if necessary. 109
As noted earlier, a similar volte-face came in Syria, where after several months of sitting on the
fence, the AKP government assumed a leading role in supporting the Syrian opposition. By early
2012, the main anti-Assad bloc, the Syrian National Council (SNC) designated Istanbul as their
headquarter, while the wide range of disparate armed groups loosely united under the Free Syrian
Army (FSA) found a safe haven and logistical base along Turkey’s porous border with Syria. It
was at this moment that the Turkish – American relationship entered, in the words of Foreign
Minister Davutoğlu, its “golden age”, 110 prompting the US foreign policy establishment and
mainstream media to once again showcase Turkey as a model of economic growth, political
stability and democratic governance and the ‘moderate Islamist’ alternative to both Shia Iran and
anti-western Sunni movements in the region. US President Obama described Prime Minister
Erdoğan as “an outstanding partner and an outstanding friend on a wide range of issues.” 111
Soner Çağaptay, who spent years portraying Erdoğan’s government as driven by an avowedly
anti-western and radical religious ideology, now argued that the AKP had been promoting all
along a “soft form of secularism that allows for more religious expression in government,
politics and education”, which could serve as a better model for the Arab world than Ataturk’s
106 Kerem Öktem, ‘Turkey, the end of Islamism with a human face’, Open Democracy, 20 January 2012.
107 ‘Turkey fails to deliver justice for murdered Armenian journalist as trial ends’, Amnesty International, 16 January
2012, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/turkey-fails-deliver-justice-murdered-armenian-journalist-trial-ends-2012-
01-16
108 ‘Turkey opposed to NATO military intervention in Libya, says Erdoğan’, Ahram Online, 14 March 2011.
109 Jonathan Head, ‘Libya: Turkey's troubles with Nato and no-fly zone’, BBC News, 25 March 2011.
110 ‘Erdoğan at bay’, Economist, 25 February 2012.
111 Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, 25 March 2012, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pressoffice/2012/03/25/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-Erdoğan-turkey-after-bilatera
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