Turkey and the west after the failed coup: possible scenarios.

• Author: Dedeoglu, Beril
• Position: A Turkish Perspective

Foreign relations cannot be evaluated without understanding mutual interactions between states; therefore, it is impossible to discuss Turkey's foreign policy independently of other states' attitudes. Concordantly, one should stress that the Western states, especially those who are member of NATO and the European Union (EU), comprise the main axis that determines Turkey's national and international policies. In other words, Turkey-West relations are the key determinant of almost all of Turkey's policies. Thus, even as one analyzes Turkey's stance toward the Middle East, the Caucasus or Russia, or even when its own domestic politics are studied, the U.S. and the European countries must also be referenced. In this regard, the July 15 coup attempt is no exception.

The coup attempt signifies a turning point in Turkey's social and political history. Almost every segment of the society, including non-governmental organizations and all of the political parties resisted the coup attempt; it was this resistance that prevented the coup. The attempt to overthrow the elected government by force of arms despite the People's will, however, has led to a polarization of Turkish society, as the attempt demonstrated the extent to which the system needs restructuring in order to prevent coups from occurring again. It has become obvious to many that such restructuring should have as its goal an equivalent to the models in place in states which enjoy more highly developed democratic systems.

Despite the growing cry for extensive, democracy-enhancing restructuring, the developed democratic countries --NATO and the EU countries in particular--have remained extremely aloof to the throes of democratization in Turkey in a timeframe spanning the pre- and post- failed coup periods. In recent years, it should be noted that almost every legislative regulation in Turkey has been negatively criticized by these countries, although these same regulations are in force in those countries. This approach of many years has increased levels of mistrust in Turkey against the West, and the perception has become prevalent that the aforementioned countries brush Turkey aside, despite Turkey's wish to be a respected player in the developed world. Indeed, the Western countries' attitudes became crystal-clear during the coup attempt, and Turkey has had to face the fact that these countries are only interested in the geostrategic and geopolitical position of the country, and not in the quality of its democracy.

The importance of geopolitical and geostrategic variables is undeniable in regard to Turkey's foreign affairs. However, policies cannot be made by considering countries worthy of attention solely because of their geopolitical and geostrategic importance; if that were the case, it would probably be sufficient to look into Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria in order to understand Turkey's fate.

The Recent Past

The beginning of the West's recent negative political positions adopted against Turkey dates back to the commencement of the Turkey-EU accession talks in October 2005. With the start of the membership negotiations, Turkey launched the most comprehensive reforms in its history, and accomplished a great deal of transformations during the years 2000-2008 in particular. However, the more Turkey approached the EU with reforms, the further Turkey has been pushed back by the EU. In time, Turkey has been demotivated by the EU's policy of casting out the country in spite of its efforts to close-up the gap; that policy considerably harmed Turkey's relations with the European countries. Indeed, Turkey has predicted that the EU plans to keep the country in limbo--not ratifying its membership, but not completely letting it go either--thereby keeping Turkey as a kind of buffer between the "East" and the EU.

In fact, the EU's externalizing a candidate country by implying that it is not "one of them" means, in a sense, to say that Turkey is "Eastern." Indeed, the EU used the initiative policies that Turkey adopted at that time towards the Middle East and Africa to consolidate their arguments that Turkey's approach marked a shift of axis towards the East. However, it is the EU's policy to labor the claim that Turkey is not sufficiently westernized to become an EU member that has evaluated Turkey's shift to the East as negative. In this context, the center right and far right currents are the ones to blame in Europe, particularly the governments of Nicolas Sarkozy in France and Angela Merkel in Germany. From the year 2010 on, in particular, the intensity of such attitudes has peaked through such statements that Turkey cannot, will not, and should not, be an EU member; this was also the period of the rise of the "Arab Spring."

Most of the NATO and the EU countries, along with Turkey, supported the Arab Spring at first, but later withdrew their support and promoted the platform of changing the rulers, not the regimes, in the Middle East. The strategic reason for the Western alliance to rapidly abandon Peoples' Regimes scenarios is the probability that the coming to power of the People would be "anti-Western," and that Russia might support such tendencies. The countries that are worried about losing their relative superiority in the Eastern Mediterranean to Russia have, in a way, taken the situation into their hands, wishing to avoid creating a new opportunity for Russia after the EU's rapprochement with Ukraine.

The EU appears to remain undecided as to the kind of relation it should establish with Turkey; the country is extremely vital for the West vs. Russia...