Cyprus-Forum.com

[DT.]

This article was in Hurriyet today, it's just brilliant. It sums up turkish foreign policy.
BURAK BEKDİL
I confess! I was wrong when I doubted the wisdom of Ahmet “Strategic Depth” Davutoğlu’s ambitious peace plans for the always chaotic Middle East. The Turkish foreign minister’s vision has already created what was unthinkable only a few years ago: Israel, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon are agreeing on borders – well, not their own, but Cyprus’s offshore borders.

About three years ago, Cyprus launched a plan to draw, through bilateral agreements, the borders of its Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ, with the aim of controlling all economic resources within this specified zone including fishing, mining and oil and natural gas exploration.

Naturally, the Cypriots needed offshore “partners” in order to map their EEZ, and started talks with their offshore neighbors. That unnerved Ankara since an internationally-ratified Cypriot EEZ could have unwanted economic and political implications for Turkey. Hence, the repeated Turkish objections to Cyprus’s oil and gas exploration in eastern Mediterranean.

Luckily, the first doors the Cypriots knocked on were the Turks’ Muslim friends. All the same, before Ankara could move a finger, Orthodox Cyprus ratified an offshore border deal with Islamic Egypt. Bah… Egypt is Egypt. But Turkey’s neo-Ottoman vision would surely work with Lebanon where Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a folk hero.

In 2007, Turkey warned Lebanon about maritime agreements with Cyprus. Ankara said it would not recognize the delimitation of the EEZs and alleged that Lebanon should ask for Turkey’s opinion before signing any agreement with Cyprus. With the failure of that friend-to-friend warning, a year later Cyprus protested to the United Nations and the European Union over what it called Turkish harassment of ships conducting exploration surveys in its EEZ.

In early October 2010, Cyprus and Lebanon agreed to delimit their EEZs, pending parliamentary ratification at the Lebanese parliament. The same month, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri visited Cyprus and said Lebanon would soon define offshore boundaries with Cyprus and Syria. During the same visit, Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias thanked Mr Hariri for reconfirming “the principled position of Lebanon on the Cyprus problem for a solution.”

Apparently, Cypriot policy, through the strategic EEZ campaign, has done more than Turkish mediation efforts in bringing together major Middle Eastern adversaries. Last week, Cyprus announced that an agreement with Israel had been signed on the two countries’ sea border that will allow the offshore neighbors to press ahead in their search for energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean. Experts agree the demarcation is an important step for oil and gas exploration.

The Cypriot campaign looks like the real interfaith dialogue the Turks have been thriving for over the past several years: it unites one Jewish, three Muslim and one Orthodox state around common offshore borders, without a single bullet shot, a suicide bomb exploded or a rocket launched. The dialogue even stretches across the Aegean.

Greece, which in the 1980s was widely considered the European country most hostile to Israel –the two countries, in fact, did not have any formal diplomatic relationship until 1992 – today has soaring bilateral ties with Israel, thanks to Mr Davutoğlu’s “zero-problems with neighbors” policy.

Apart from being on a Turkish list that bans land sales to their citizens, Jewish Israel and Orthodox Greece enjoy spectacularly improving ties. According to Arye Mekel, Israel’s ambassador to Athens, “Greece and Israel have opened a new chapter in their ties [following] a decision to develop multifaceted cooperation in the fields of politics, security, economy and culture.”

Meanwhile, the Turkish diplomats in Ankara are increasingly worried that a critical dispute is spinning out of control, and in a direction they would hate the most: an internationally-recognized EEZ for the internationally-recognized, EU member state of Greek Cyprus. Mssrs Erdoğan and Davutoğlu would certainly propose a faith-based explanation if the Cypriots had signed offshore maritime agreements with Israel only. Ironically, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria are Turkey’s “Muslim friends” in the region.

The world owes a lot to Turkey’s Israel policy since it is making the eastern Mediterranean a genuine sea of peace. Hats off to Mr Strategic Depth! But wait a minute…

Wire services reported Monday that Turkey summoned the Israeli envoy to convey its unease over the deal with Cyprus. The services said Ambassador Gaby Levy was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Thursday, a day before the agreement was signed. According to Anatolia news agency, Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu warned Levy the agreement would have an adverse impact on efforts between Cyprus’ Greek and Turkish communities to end the 36-year division of the island.

I have no idea if Ambassador Levy asked Undersecretary Sinirlioğlu why the 36-year division remained for 36 years prior to, or without, the Cypriot-Israeli offshore border deal, or whether the Turkish Foreign Ministry was equally upset when Cyprus signed the same deals with Lebanon or Egypt.

But let’s look at the bright side of life: the Lebanese cheers over Mr Erdoğan’s visit last month calls for the revival of the Ottoman Caliph – in the personality of Mr Erdoğan – and the memorable moments during the prime minister’s public rally in the former Ottoman lands are still fresh memories.

[ZoC]

article by the brave burak bekdil has been removed from the hurriyet website... link below now draws a blank:

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php? ... 2010-12-21

the 'removal' of mr bbb himself will no doubt follow in due course.

(...şprınğ tıme för hıtler and ğermany...)

[insan]

Burak Bekdil is a brave journalist but M Drousatis, CM collumnists, Bananiot and the likes coward traitors?

[Oracle]

Just because there are some brave journalists who criticise Turkey, it doesn't mean anyone who criticizes the RoC is in the same league.

Well done DT. for preserving this article ...

[ZoC]

Burak Bekdil is a brave journalist but M Drousatis, CM collumnists, Bananiot and the likes coward traitors?

so do u thinking mr burak bekdil is a coward traitor then insan?

[insan]

Burak Bekdil is a brave journalist but M Drousatis, CM collumnists, Bananiot and the likes coward traitors?

so do u thinking mr burak bekdil is a coward traitor then insan?

No. I have full respect for freedom of speech, unlike u and ur likes...

[ZoC]

Burak Bekdil is a brave journalist but M Drousatis, CM collumnists, Bananiot and the likes coward traitors?

so do u thinking mr burak bekdil is a coward traitor then insan?

No. I have full respect for freedom of speech, unlike u and ur likes...

shut up!

[Kikapu]

Just because there are some brave journalists who criticise Turkey, it doesn't mean anyone who criticizes the RoC is in the same league.

Well done DT. for preserving this article ...

It is also preserved here in the comments section by "DAVE THE IMPALER".!

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/oil-a ... l/20101218

[boomerang]

Strategic depth - the self-aggrandizing versionFont Size: Larger|Smaller

Tuesday, December 14, 2010
BURAK BEKDİL
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu may be proudly boasting of his jewel doctrine of “strategic depth” wherever and whenever possible, yet in contrast, United States embassy cables illustrate him as a dangerously deluded man at the helm of Turkish foreign policy. Whether “strategic depthist” or “delusionist,” Mr. Davutoğlu’s vision is certainly self-aggrandizing – and apparently contagious.

The Europeans must have sighed with enormous relief – and probably blushed – when EU Minister Egemen Bağış told them in Denmark: “Hold on Europe, Turkey is coming to rescue you!” Having read Mr. Bağış’s remarks, a European friend joyfully wrote to this columnist: “We beleaguered Europeans are indeed grateful that Mr. Bağış has come to rescue us.” But the same friend was equally gloomy with a punishing feeling of guilt: “…that we are unable to respond in kind is only a measure of our ingratitude!”

Give it a few more years and further WikiLeaks dumps and we shall probably learn how EU diplomats must have cheered over the good – no, wonderful! – news Mr. Bağış heralded. Not so hard to imagine a cable quoting Minister X from a major European capital as telling his American counterpart, in shy tears: “We are saved! For centuries we waited for the Turks to come and rescue us!” Not so hard to imagine, either, the American minister cabling to Washington that he watched his colleague with poisonous envy.

In the same near future, Mr. Bağış (or his successor) could be inviting the EU to join the “Middle Eastern Steel and Coal Union” which his boss, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is thriving in building. Turkey in the EU may be passé, but EU nations seeking to join a Turkish-led Muslim bloc may sound more interesting.

Speaking of WikiLeaks, self-aggrandizing Turks must have done more self-aggrandizing when they read with pride that President Barack Obama’s first WikiLeaks call of apology was to their beloved prime minister – of all world leaders! The Turks may currently hate America, but they always look to America for a few pats on the shoulder.

For most Turks, the “news” is that President Obama called Prime Minister Erdoğan for an apology. In fact, wire services quoted Mr. Obama as “expressing his regrets for the deplorable action by WikiLeaks...” The real “news” in that story was the fact that “Mr. Obama did not apologize for the “content.”” It is a disturbing fact that Mr. Erdoğan and his men were not annoyed because WikiLeaks leaked the documents, but that they were annoyed by the content of the documents. And in Mr. Obama’s apology, there was no apology for the content.

But that gives an idea for a potential rapprochement. If Mr. Erdoğan is prepared to embrace apologies of “this kind,” why not apply the same logic to the flotilla crisis with Israel? At the moment, as Ankara and Jerusalem are testing the water to normalize ties – but with Mr. Erdoğan insisting on an apology for the deadly attack on the Mavi Marmara – why do we not think of an Obama-style way out?

In this Obama-apology-inspired model, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls Prime Minister Erdoğan to apologize and “expresses his regrets for the deplorable events that strained Turkish-Israeli relations.” And that should suffice to ensure a graceful exit from the crisis. But would it? The answer is no – for obvious reasons.

But WikiLeaks leaks did not kill any Turks, whereas the flotilla raid of May 31 did. That’s true. All the same, the difference does not justify selective Turkish perception of foreign apologies. In both cases, there will be apologies, and in both cases the apologies will be for the sake of apologizing rather than for what really annoyed the Turks. But never mind, as soon as these lines appear on the page Mr. Erdoğan’s fans will remind us – at best – that hypocrisy is part of politics and – at worst – anyone criticizing Mr. Erdoğan is either a traitor or an enemy of Islam.

All the same, it is fabulous that after having saved the Palestinians and brokered peace in all corners of the world’s disputed geographies, the Turks are now coming to rescue Europe. But why all this Turkish benevolence and generosity? According to Mr. Strategic Depth: “The only target we have is to normalize the trajectory of history.” So, the foreign minister is saying the trajectory of history is abnormal and therefore has to be normalized – by the Turks. In what sense? Why is it abnormal? How would it have been normal? How can it be normalized? What/who made it abnormal? And why can it be normalized by the Turks?

I am not sure if Minister Davutoğlu would care to answer those questions – he would probably not, even if our newspaper offered a generous donation to human rights champions İHH in return for an interview. Fortunately, we have a sense of what the “normalization of history” might mean in self-aggrandizing language. If we understand incorrectly we’ll learn the truth from another wave of very important leaks.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=strategic-depth----self-aggrandizing-version-2010-12-14

[Oracle]

Just because there are some brave journalists who criticise Turkey, it doesn't mean anyone who criticizes the RoC is in the same league.

Well done DT. for preserving this article ...

It is also preserved here in the comments section by "DAVE THE IMPALER".!

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/oil-a ... l/20101218

I see!