2008_10_SRP_CornellKaraveli_Turkey

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66 Svante E. Cornell and Halil Magnus Karaveli Central Asia is visible in the AKP’s foreign policy. The 2008 war in Georgia, which elicited only a half-hearted Turkish reaction, is a case in point. Turkey has great potential for economic and political influence in the areas of the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Nevertheless, this remains an unfulfilled potential largely due to a relative lack of interest on the part of the current government, perhaps understandable given the multitude of more prioritized issues such as Europe, Iraq and Cyprus. To that, recent experience has shown that Turkish policy in the Caspian region is likely to be effective and influential only if coordinated with the West, primarily but not only in the energy sphere. By contrast, flirtations with the idea of dealing with Russia in the region are bound to failure. This is the case simply because there is little room for Turkey in Russia’s plans for the region – which overtly seek Russian dominance over the South Caucasus – while Turkey could play a considerable role in Western strategies. This reality notwithstanding, the war in Georgia in 2008 showed that Turkish leaders by no means felt an instinctive reaction to coordinate policies with the West. In fact, when Prime Minister Erdoğan revived the moribund idea of a Caucasus Stability Pact (swiftly renamed into a somewhat less compelling Initiative) in the middle of the war, the proposed structure would include the three states of the South Caucasus, Turkey, and Russia. Neither Iran nor the EU or the U.S. featured in Turkey’s calculations, in spite of them all being included in earlier proposals for a stability mechanism for the region; and western spokesmen made it clear that the initiative had not been discussed with them. Naturally, this raised eyebrows in western capitals, as it seemed to indicate a submissive reaction to blatantly aggressive Russian policies, salvaging Turkish interests by accommodating Moscow. It prompted worries across the South Caucasus that the AKP government had defected from playing a leading role in Western policies toward the Caucasus, instead beginning to play second fiddle to Russia, a role hitherto reserved for Iran. Russia – Rival and Partner Turkish-Russian relations have developed greatly since the collapse of the USSR, becoming a vector in its own right not least because of the huge trade relationship: Turkey’s economic ties with Russia by far outweigh Turkish
Prospects for a ‘Torn’ Turkey 67 economic interests in the Turkic world. Yet Turkey and Russia, while experiencing a rapprochement in the 2003-07 period, always remained uneasy. On the one hand, commercial ties combined with a common skepticism on the part of the Erdoğan and Putin governments toward American designs on the broader region. Indeed, in the Black Sea, Turkey and Russia share a consensus on preventing the militarization of the sea, shorthand for hindering greater American and NATO presence there. While these issues provided some common ground, it also remained patently clear that any true partnership between Ankara and Moscow is unlikely, because the fundamental interests of the two countries are not compatible. In Central Asia and the Caucasus, Moscow seeks dominance and control, something that effectively negates a meaningful Turkish role, unless it develops on Moscow’s terms. Likewise, in energy politics, Moscow seeks to continue to dominate the export of Caspian oil and gas. Conversely, Turkey’s ambition to function as an energy hub for Europe is directly dependent on supplies of Caspian energy that do not cross Russian territory. Turkey and Russia are hence direct competitors, a fact most blatantly exposed by the competing pipeline projects under development. Turkey support Trans-Caspian pipelines that would bring greater amounts of energy across the South Caucasus energy corridor, into Turkey for onward transit to Europe via the Nabucco pipeline. Russia, by contrast, seeks to absorb the Caspian reserves, re-exporting them across an direct competitor to Nabucco, the South Stream pipeline project. Even in terms of Bosporus bypass, the two countries clash: Turkey’s pet project is the Samsun-Ceyhan pipeline, while Russia opted for the rival Burgas-Alexandropouli project. Considerations of national interest imply that Turkish-Russian relations are likely to remain cordial, given the amount of common interests uniting the countries; but not much more, given the obvious differences. Turkey’s Regional and Global Role Turkey’s location and size provide the country with an importance in regional and to some extent global affairs that indicate a potential for a role as a power in its own right. Indeed, both Western and Turkish observers regularly ascribe a role to Turkey as a regional power, sometimes even as a
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Summary In October 2008, The Turkis
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