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US-Turkish Relations in the Obama Era
Abstract
As the new-look Obama administration sets foreign policy goals for the coming four years, many of the changes that swept through the Middle East during the US president's first term will continue to reshape regional geopolitics. It is within this context that the relationship between the US and its NATO partner in the region, Turkey, could come to play a vital role. Beniamin Poghosyan argues that after a period of apparent distance, during which Turkey prioritised its relations with non-Western allies, Ankara's recent policies show a renewed emphasis on its strategic alliance with the US in its attempt to successfully ride the waves of unrest in the Middle East.
... The revitalization of the US-Turkish partnership has been more broadly a part of the Obama administration's effort to build a new approach to relationships with countries in the Middle East. 47 Washington sees Ankara as a key partner to deal with Middle Eastern issues as well as with the EU, as a key economic actor and an energy hub, and as a NATO member state. 48 Moreover, there are ongoing outstanding tensions between Turkey and its neighbourhood, in particular with Greece, Cyprus and Armenia, while the country has borders with sensitive actors such as Syria, Iraq and Iran. ...
The idea for this book is derived from the scantiness of academic references on the European Union’s policies towards the Black Sea, relative to this region’s officially stated significance for the EU. Even though the EU plays a vital role in Black Sea political agendas, the EU’s cooperation with the region is not extensively covered by academic discussions and literature. This is mostly due to the fact that the EU’s focus on foreign affairs is mainly associated with the Balkans, as part the current and potential expansion, and the Middle East, as a direct consequence of the upheaval of the Arab Spring. The Black Sea region is crucially important for the EU because of the opportunities and challenges that the region presents, both politically and socio-economically.
Contributions to this book mostly focus on specific issues of EU–Black Sea cooperation, from conflict to the environment to democracy, and how these particular relationships are perceived within the region as well as through the lenses of stakeholders such as Russia, Turkey, and the USA. Overall, the collection focuses on projecting a more efficient role and a holistic strategy for the EU in its approach towards the Black Sea region, testifying to the need for a strong EU presence. For this reason, the Black Sea area remains ‘the neighbourhood too close to, yet still far from, the European Union’.
... The revitalization of the US-Turkish partnership has been more broadly a part of the Obama administration's effort to build a new approach to relationships with countries in the Middle East. 47 Washington sees Ankara as a key partner to deal with Middle Eastern issues as well as with the EU, as a key economic actor and an energy hub, and as a NATO member state. 48 Moreover, there are ongoing outstanding tensions between Turkey and its neighbourhood, in particular with Greece, Cyprus and Armenia, while the country has borders with sensitive actors such as Syria, Iraq and Iran. ...
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the USA has become one of the main actors on the Black Sea stage. Whereas energy has been the key driver of Washington's involvement in the region since the end of the 1990s, the US agenda has broadened to include security issues and democratization after the 9/11 attacks. Today, in the context of the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the pivot to Asia', the US influence in the Black Sea is retrenching. However, despite a seeming waning interest, Washington's involvement in the region is likely to remain driven by energy security considerations as well as by the deployment of NATO's Ballistic Missile Defense.
Security cooperation has always been an important aspect of the relations between Turkey and the USA. In Cold War era Turkish-American interaction within NATO played a crucial role in this cooperation. After that period the two countries began to search for a new model of their relations. Both Turkey and the USA started to use cooperation within NATO for the purpose of strengthening their global positions. At the same time the USA aspiration to use military bases in Turkey beyond NATO obligations frequently becomes a source of disagreement and crises in the relations of the two countries as it happened during the American intervention to Iraq in 2003. At present new challenges for regional security, especially in the Middle East, demands new forms of interaction between Turkey and the USA. The beginning of "the Arab spring" was met in Ankara and Washington with overlapping interest in changing conservative regimes and promoting "Turkish model". At the same time such questions as participation of Turkey in the fight against ISIL and the USA military cooperation with the Syrian Kurds, whom Ankara considers to be connected with the PKK terrorist organization, has brought serious contradictions between the two countries. The cause of these contradiction is the difference in the perception of threats in Turkey and in the Western countries. While the search for new forms of security cooperation meets with difficulties, NATO remains important for the relations between Turkey and the USA, despite traditionally high level of anti-NATO moods in the Turkish society.
US - Turkish relations have been driven by a narrow concept of geopolitics. Today, the key questions are not geographic or theoretical - whether Turkey is a bridge or a barrier, a flank or a front - but how Turkey will act, and whether Turkish and American policies are convergent or divergent. For decades, the relationship between Ankara and Washington has been described as 'strategic' - sustained and supportive of the most important objectives of both sides. The strategic quality of the relationship can no longer be taken for granted. A reinvigorated strategic relationship is possible, but is likely to have quite different contours, with new forms of engagement and more realistic expectations.
Since 2003, Turkey and Russia have drawn together in a new bilateral relationship. Mutual frustration with US regional policies and European attitudes has been the main driver of this rapprochement, along with expanding trade and increasing common ground on foreign-policy issues. Turkish-Russian relations have not yet blossomed into a strategic partnership, and suspicions linger after centuries of geopolitical competition, but the United States can no longer rely on Turkey as an automatic counterweight to Russia in regions like the Black Sea and the Caucasus. Together, Turkey and Russia also have the potential to obstruct American policy initiatives in the Middle East. To head off potential problems, Washington will have to address Turkey's concerns about US policy in Iraq.