Ankara ceases to be mediator in Middle East

PanARMENIAN.Net - Not only did Turkey put a veto on Israel's participation in the NATO Summit in Chicago, but it also stated it was going to block the participation of EU representatives in the NATO Summit in Chicago, if members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), too, were not allowed to participate in the summit.

At the moment there are expected to participate in the NATO summit President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso and President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy. At that, if the EU member states insist on the presence of EU representatives at the summit taking into account the participation in the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, Turkey argues that only representatives of NATO states should be present at the summit.

“If non-NATO members also participate, the OIC should be represented [in the Chicago summit] first and foremost,” Turkish diplomatic sources said in explaining Ankara’s position to Today’s Zaman. The same sources claimed that the OIC’s commitment exceeded the EU contribution in the Afghanistan peace mission. Statement of the Turkish diplomats is more than controversial, because it was the OIC countries that made a “contribution” to arming the Taliban movement and its rival Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. It should be noted that OIC itself least of all serves the purpose of uniting all Islamic states. Let us recall that Organization of the Islamic Conference – so was the organization called before 2011 – was originally established to support the Palestinians. But then, as always, there changed the goals and objectives, and ever since the moment Turkey and Azerbaijan (to a certain extent) began to dominate in the OIC, the situation has radically changed. Presently, OIC has brought together 57 countries with a total population of about 1.5 billion people. Initially, it included 25 Asian and African states and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Objectives of the establishment of OIC were cooperation among Muslim states, joint activity in the international level, as well as sustainable development of the member states.

But let us revert to the NATO summit in Chicago. It is still unclear what point of uttering the Alliance members will reach and whether they will allow themselves to be led by Turkey (which happened more than once) or whether they’ll refuse. Recently, there have begun to appear in the Turkish press articles blackmailing the NATO leadership: “If you do not listen to us, you will be sorry”. In response, a number of Western diplomats stated Turkey should be excluded from NATO...

In addition to the NATO blackmail, Turkey, in the person of Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, declared that she plays a leading role in the new Middle East. Deputy Chairman of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Faruk Loğoğlu regarded Davutoglu’s words as “a dangerous fantasy”. Retired diplomat Loğoğlu considers that with its actions Turkey shows disrespect to the Arabs. This, by the way, is quite near the truth. Despite the identical religion (both the Turks and Arabs are Sunni) conflicts between them are no fewer than between Sunnis and Shiites. It is natural that oil monarchies of the Gulf should support Turkey, or rather the United States against Syria and Iran, on behalf of Turkey. But this situation cannot continue for long. Moreover, quite likely is recurrence of the “Arab spring” in Turkey, to which indicate grand Turkish experts.

This probability proceeds from the behavior of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, along with the U.S. and EU against Syria. It so happened that the Syrian nut proved too hard for the West and now the U.S. is trying to persuade Turkey to do the “dirty work”. To this end, one can sacrifice even a number of members of the NATO summit.

At the times of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey used to play the role of the leader of the Islamic world. But now that the Muslim world has been actively involved in the growing confrontation between Shiites and Sunnis, Turkey, finding itself in the Sunni alliance can only be satisfied with the role of a leader of one of the Muslim sects.

In a recent article in The Economist it was noted that Turkey was able to mediate between warring factions in Lebanon, between Sunnis and Shiites of Iraq, until 2009 between Israel and Syria. However, according to former Dutch Ambassador in Ankara, Nicolas Van Dam, it was this ability of Turkey to engage in dialogue that made Ankara an effective player in the Middle East. “However, she chose one of the sides and ceased to be a mediator,” the diplomat said.