Gonul Tol
WASHINGTON—The 1990s were marked by hostile relations between Iran and Turkey, which was the direct outcome of Turkish foreign policy elite’s conviction that Iran was supporting the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and had a campaign to export Islamic revolution to Turkey.
Iran was perceived as posing an existential threat to the survival of the organizing ideology of the state, secularism, and the territorial integrity of the country. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, however, there has been a notable softening in Turkey’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Iran. Since it came to power in 2002, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has adopted a new policy approach, which aims to minimize the problems in Turkey’s neighboring regions and develop political and economic relations to foster peace and stability in the region. Under the current government, the trade between Turkey and Iran has increased more than six-fold, hitting $7.5 billion in 2007.
Bilateral relations have flourished on the political front as well. Turkey is playing a facilitator role between Iran and 5+1—the permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany. In November 2009, Iranian and Turkish officials held talks on a proposal put forward by Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, for Iran’s uranium to be sent to Turkey for temporary safekeeping. In late December 2009, after Iran previously stated that it would only accept a nuclear exchange with the West on its own territory, Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran’s foreign minister, stated that Iran would be willing to swap nuclear material with the West in Turkey as a counteroffer to the UN-drafted deal.
The change in Turkey’s foreign policy toward Iran is due to political transformation that has been taking place in Turkey, mainly as a result of the European Union accession process. Turkey has been going through a process of democratization, which accelerated after Turkey’s official recognition as a candidate country by the European Union in 1999. This reform process initiated changes in Turkey’s national security priorities and a shift from bureaucratic-authoritarian tradition of the 1990s to civilian and societal foreign policymaking.
Turkey’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Iran in the 1990s was directly tied to security concerns, which identified Kurdish irredentism and political Islam as the main threats Turkey was facing. Turkish foreign policymakers held Iran responsible for giving support to Kurdish separatists and Islamist groups. The European Union accession process and concomitant steps toward democratization at the domestic level have triggered a change in perceptions through which securitized issues such as minority rights start to be downplayed. Since 1999, there have been more open discussions on Kurdish rights, which had previously been perceived as a threat to the state. In 2009, the ruling Justice and Development Party announced a new initiative to give more rights and freedoms to the country’s Kurdish citizens, further signaling the changing political climate in Turkey.
The prospect of EU membership also has transformed the civil-military relations, giving the former the upper hand in foreign policymaking. The reforms undertaken since 1999 shifted the balance of power in the National Security Council (MGK) in favor of civilian members. A civilian secretary general was appointed for the MGK and the Turkish Armed Forces were brought under the complete judicial control of the Court of Accounts. These changes promoted a decline in the role of the military in the securitization of political issues, paving the way for narrowing the range of “others” both at domestic and international levels and redefining friends and enemies in the region. Within this redefinition, Iran no longer poses a threat to Turkey but is considered as an important regional actor that should be engaged rather than isolated.
The Turkish establishment’s representation of Iran in the 1990s was tainted by its tendency to see all Islamists and Kurds as “others” in domestic politics. The EU membership process and the accompanying democratization have altered the established understandings of national security and the place Islam and ethnic minorities occupy within this understanding. As Turkey finds a new modus vivendi between the previously excluded segments of its socio-political mosaic, Turkish foreign policy has become less defensive, thus more confident. Within this new foreign policy paradigm, past hostilities have given way to strategic partnerships, changing the strategic landscape of the region. Turkey is not the Turkey of the 1990s. With its new foreign policy vision and the friends it has made in the region in the past decade, Turkey is more crucial to U.S. interests than ever. Turkey-Iran rapprochement should be seen from this view—not as a threat, but an opportunity.
Dr. Gonul Tol is Director of Center for Turkish Studies at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC.