Brookings: Centers - Center on the United States and Europe

U.S.-Turkey Civil Nuclear Cooperation in the Post-Cold War World

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 14:30:00 -0400

Event Information

June 20, 2013
2:30 PM - 4:00 PM EDT

SEIU Building
1800 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC

Register for the Event
On June 20, the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at Brookings will host a discussion on the challenges and opportunities facing Turkey’s civil nuclear energy program and what they mean for U.S.-Turkish relations. The event, which is part of the TUSIAD U.S.-Turkey Forum at Brookings, will feature a presentation by Jessica C. Varnum of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. In her remarks, Varnum will discuss her new report on the potential for nuclear cooperation between the United States and Turkey to enhance what President Obama has called their “model partnership.” The report is the inaugural publication of the recently-launched Turkey Project Policy Paper Series.

Jessica Varnum is a research associate and adjunct professor at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. She is an expert on Turkey, U.S.-Turkey relations, and nuclear energy policy.

TUSIAD Senior Fellow Kemal Kirişci will provide introductory remarks and moderate the discussion. Charles Ebinger, director of the Energy Security Initiative at Brookings, will offer comments following Varnum’s presentation. After the program, the speakers will take audience questions.

Nuclear Arms: Obama Visits Berlin—and Returns to Prague

Steven Pifer — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:15:00 -0400

President Obama used part of his speech at Berlin’s historic Brandenburg Gate to return to the vision of reducing the role and number of nuclear weapons that he first articulated four years ago in Prague. In doing so, he outlined his arms control agenda for the remainder of his presidency. Let’s hope he makes progress. It would be good for U.S. and global security.

One year after his Prague speech, the president signed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with then-Russian President Medvedev. New START requires that the United States and Russia each reduce to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads by 2018, and the sides currently are well along in implementing those cuts.

The president has issued new guidance regarding the employment of nuclear weapons. We won’t see that document, which is highly classified. But he told his audience in Germany that the United States could reduce its deployed strategic weapons further—by one-third below New START levels.

This is a logical next step in the process of moving U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces to lower and more reasonable levels 20 years after the end of the Cold War. It would cut the nuclear threat to the United States, offer the prospect of future defense budget savings, and bolster U.S. diplomatic efforts with third countries to increase the pressure on problem states such as Iran and North Korea.

Some wasted no time in criticizing the proposed reductions as undercutting U.S. security. That is difficult to see. Even with an arsenal reduced to some 1,000 deployed strategic warheads—plus several thousand reserve strategic and tactical weapons—the United States could easily maintain a robust, effective and credible nuclear deterrent. Can the critics explain what new danger would arise or what country would act differently toward the United States? Would Pyongyang adopt an aggressive new course if the U.S. military had only 300-400 times as many nuclear weapons as North Korea instead of 500 times?

The main question is whether President Putin will engage. Moscow publicly has shown little enthusiasm for further nuclear cuts, but the Russians may have incentives—such as saving money on their strategic forces—to deal. We’ll get a better sense of this when the two presidents meet in Russia in early September.

Mr. Obama also called for cuts in U.S. and Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. It is high time for the nuclear superpowers to expand their discussion to include tactical weapons (and reserve strategic warheads as well). Getting the Russians to agree to talk about these will be hard, but Washington should press and not take nyet for an answer.

The president announced that he would extend the nuclear material security process that he launched in 2010. That brought together leaders of more than 40 countries to develop an action plan to ensure tight controls on stockpiles of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium in order to keep those essential components of nuclear bombs out of the hands of rogue states and terrorist groups. Significant progress has been made, but the president’s original four-year timeline was way too ambitious. Following next year’s meeting in the Netherlands, Mr. Obama will host another summit in 2016 to keep the nuclear security effort going.

The president stated that he would continue to work to build Senate support for ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Gaining a two-thirds majority, particularly given the partisan nature of politics today, poses an enormous challenge. But ratification would serve the U.S. interest by bringing the treaty closer to entry into force.

The United States has built the capability to maintain confidence in the reliability of its nuclear arsenal without testing, and improved verification mechanisms mean that any militarily significant test would be detected. Moreover, Nevada fought tooth and nail against storage of nuclear waste at the former test site located 60 miles from Las Vegas; does anyone believe a resumption of testing would be feasible politically? Finally, the United States conducted more nuclear tests than the rest of the world combined and acquired a huge amount of data. Why let other countries have a chance to catch up?

Mr. Obama also reiterated his earlier calls for a treaty to end the production of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium. That would be an important action, though Pakistan so far has blocked consensus at the Conference on Disarmament on a mandate for such a negotiation. Perhaps it is time for Washington and other like-minded countries to explore an alternate venue for addressing this question.

When the president spoke in Prague in 2009, he laid out his ultimate vision of a world without nuclear weapons, albeit with a number of qualifiers. He mentioned that objective only in passing at the Brandenburg Gate, perhaps reflecting his understanding that, given the need to negotiate with other countries and Congress, achieving truly transformational nuclear reductions will be far more difficult than he might have hoped four years ago. He nevertheless laid out in Berlin a sensible agenda to move us toward a more secure nuclear future for the United States and the world.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Russia's Development of Siberia: What is to be Done?

Clifford G. Gaddy — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:30:00 -0400

Russians are famous for their “eternal questions.” “Who is to blame?” and “What is to be done?” are the best-known. Another of the timeless quandaries seems to be, “What is the future of Siberia?” In 2003 Fiona Hill and I wrote a book about the legacy of Soviet-era development of Siberia for today’s Russia, The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold. Ten years later, people still ask us the Siberian question. Last week I received an inquiry from a journalist who had been tasked to write about Russia’s new plans for Siberian development. My replies to a couple of her questions might be of interest.

Could Siberia be Russia's secret economic weapon?

It is interesting that you entertain the thesis that Siberia could be "Russia's secret economic weapon." My view is pretty different. It’s the same that Fiona Hill and I expressed in our book. I recently had a chance to restate it directly to a Russian audience.

This past February I was invited to Krasnoyarsk for the annual Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum. At a breakout session moderated by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, economist Vladislav Inozemtsev and I debated the governor of Krasnoyarsk Kray, Lev Kuznetsov, and the aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska, about policies for Siberian development. My basic points were as follows:

First, Siberia is part of Russia. That means Siberian development has to be viewed as a national problem, not a local one. Second, even though there are important noneconomic reasons - national security, culture, history - why one might prefer one or another path for Siberian development, one needs to know the economic costs and benefits. Taken together, these two points mean that the question has to be: Does this or that plan for Siberia reflect the best use of Russia’s resources for the nation’s well-being? Specifically, as far as regional policy is concerned, the general rule should be: "Locate economic activity in Siberia only if it cannot be done more efficiently (at lower cost) elsewhere."
The Siberian dilemma is that, while Siberia has more natural wealth than any other place in the world, it also has unequaled disadvantages of cold and remoteness. Siberia's main activity will continue to be resource extraction. (This is not the same as low-tech. Resource industries do not have to be low-tech.) Siberia does not have a comparative advantage in manufacturing. The share of manufacturing and other industry in Siberia should be relatively small. It should be businesses that primarily serve the local region. In the future, large-scale manufacturing plants should not be located to Siberia.
In the past, (largely in the Soviet period, although to some extent even before that) this rule of efficient economic location was violated. It may or may not have been justified for non-economic reasons. That does not matter today. Russia today is burdened with massive amounts of physical and human capital that is handicapped by location. Today, the point is to remove the handicaps if possible, and most important, avoid unnecessary ones in the future. Merely compensating for the disadvantages through subsidies, artificially low rail and electricity tariffs, and the like, is not enough. That is still costly. (Russia’s handicapped capital is the theme of my new book with Barry Ickes, Bear Traps on Russia’s Road to Modernization.)
The issue of Siberian development must also consider the particular problem Russia now faces with its population. Russia's most critical bottleneck in the next 20-30 years is its shrinking labor force. Under those circumstances it makes no sense to have policies intended to attract more people to Siberia. They would be less productive there than elsewhere, and that would weaken the national economy. In the future, Siberia must be developed by a different approach than in the past. Massive concentrated investments to build and support large cities was the past approach. Now, Russia needs to find ways to develop its resources with the fewest number of people possible. So-called Canadian methods — temporary stationing of work teams for resource development at the point of extraction, and so on — would be more important for Russia than Canada.

Why Russia has been late to develop its eastern territory further?

You ask why Russia has been late in developing its eastern regions. I'd say it's just the opposite: its East is far over-developed. Consider the contrast between Russia, on the one hand, and the US and Canada, on the other. In terms of relative shares of total national population and territory, Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East are roughly 15 times more densely populated than Alaska and Canada's northern territories. Alaska has only 710,000 residents; Canada's Northwest Territory and Yukon Territory together have 79,000. Russians complain about the "depopulation" of the East. But if Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East had followed the American and Canadian patterns, they would in total have barely 1 million residents instead of their current 15 million.

But if your focus is on Siberia as a target for international investment, then all that matters is whether these investments can be profitable for the investor. If Mr. Putin wants to defy sound economics and damage Russia’s national economic health by spending tens or hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidize manufacturing, high-tech, or build infrastructure in Siberia, it may still represent an opportunity for a business that jumps on that bandwagon. But then the profitability of the venture will depend on the continued commitment (and resources) from the government to subsidize the East. The Russian state will have to continue to be strong enough to channel resources to that end. This gets to the question of the durability of the Putin regime and/or the likelihood that any successor government will share his same commitment and ability to distribute oil and gas rents to subsidize Siberia.

Authors

Clifford G. Gaddy

Image Source: © RIA Novosti / Reuters

Closing the Nuclear Trapdoor in the U.S.-Turkey Model Partnership: Opportunities for Civil Nuclear Cooperation

Jessica C. Varnum — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400

In the first Turkey Project Policy Paper, Jessica Varnum examines the potential for nuclear cooperation between the United States and Turkey to enhance what President Obama has called a "model partnership."

Under this new series, the Turkey Project of the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings will publish regular in-depth reports on a range of issues that are shaping U.S.-Turkish relations. The quarterly analysis papers are designed to encourage independent thinking and informed debate on how the United States should engage this pivotal country.

Varnum will discuss this policy paper at a June 20 event at 2:30 PM EST at the SEIU Building. Register to attend the event »

INTRODUCTION: WHY CIVIL NUCLEAR COOPERATION?

The strategic partnership between Turkey and the United States remains vital to both countries, but has struggled to adapt to a post-Cold War world. Under the ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party), Turkey has developed an assertive and increasingly independent voice on the international stage, articulating views that do not always align with U.S. preferences. Recognizing the need for a new bilateral paradigm, in 2009 the Obama Administration called for a “model partnership” to broaden and deepen cooperation. Civil nuclear issues are currently a trapdoor in this “model partnership,” through which fall many unexploited opportunities for enhanced bilateral cooperation.

Given a plethora of common concerns—from free trade to the crisis in Syria—why focus finite resources on nuclear cooperation? Civil nuclear issues are uniquely salient to the health of the alliance, yet there is little positive bilateral engagement on these issues. In 2008, a U.S.-Turkey 123 nuclear cooperation agreement to enable bilateral nuclear trade entered into force, but so far very little cooperation has occurred. Meanwhile, some of the more serious bilateral disputes in recent years have involved so-called “peaceful” nuclear uses, because Ankara and Washington embrace separate and contradictory interpretations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Like many non-nuclear weapons states (NNWS), Turkey believes the NNWS possess an inalienable right under Article IV to nuclear fuel cycle capabilities, including enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technologies. The United States believes the NPT grants NNWS a right to peaceful nuclear applications, but interprets this to mean fuel cycle services, not technologies. Fundamental to Turkey’s perennial defense of Iran’s “right” to uranium enrichment is the precedent it might set for Ankara’s nuclear program. Although Turkey has no nearterm interest in ENR, it wishes to preserve all options. Accordingly, Ankara stood up to the United States in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to ensure the NSG did not pass what it saw as overly restrictive technology transfer rules. In light of these and other differences, the relative absence of positive civil nuclear engagement undermines U.S.-Turkey relations.

The U.S. government has good strategic reason to support Turkey’s nuclear energy ambitions. Doing so would benefit bilateral relations, and lend credibility to the U.S. claim that it supports the responsible spread of nuclear energy in accordance with the NPT. Ankara has demonstrated a consistently robust commitment to nonproliferation, as a party to all relevant treaties and regimes and a member of voluntary mechanisms such as the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). Unlike those energy-rich countries considering nuclear power, whose motivations may seem questionable, Turkey needs nuclear power to address chronic energy insecurity; the country’s “increasing rate of demand for natural gas and electricity [which nearly doubled in the past decade] is topped only by China.” Prime Minister Erdoğan cites nuclear power as the key to transitioning Turkey from its staggering 72% energy import dependence (primarily on Iran and Russia), into a country with “…the potential to export energy.”

This paper therefore explores opportunities for the United States and Turkey to forge a new narrative of cooperation rather than conflict in the civil nuclear arena. Examining Turkey’s decades-long nuclear power ambitions, the paper finds that U.S.-Turkish civil nuclear cooperation has a lengthy but inconsistent history. For primarily commercial reasons, U.S. industry is not currently involved in Turkey’s first nuclear power plants (NPPs). U.S. industry disinterest is mistakenly perceived by many in Turkey, however, as evidence of U.S. distrust of Ankara’s program. This misperception contributes to a difficult official-level dynamic, often overshadowing bilateral cooperative programs on nuclear nonproliferation, security, and safeguards. As such, the paper first considers cooperation challenges and opportunities for the U.S. government, but concludes by examining unexploited opportunities for industry, universities and civil society organizations to lead new nuclear cooperation initiatives in support of realizing a true “model partnership.”

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Authors

Jessica C. Varnum

Image Source: © Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Obama, Putin to Talk Syria at G-8

Fiona Hill — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 16:36:00 -0400

Russian president Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama will meet privately on the sidelines of the 2013 G-8 Summit in Northern Ireland. It will be the first time these leaders have met since they were both returned to office. While they have many critical issues to discuss, the troubling events in Syria will likely top the list. Fiona Hill, director of the Center on the U.S. and Europe, previews the meetings, saying there’s little hope that these talks can persuade Russia to change its stance on Syria. She also expects President Putin to participate in the meetings under his "statist persona," a facet of the Russian president that she describes in her book, with Clifford Gaddy, Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Brookings, 2012).

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G-8 Not a Good Setting for Obama-Putin Sidebar

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Putin and Obama Have a Difficult Relationship

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Putin’s Statist Persona Coming to G-8 Meeting

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Authors

Fiona Hill

Image Source: © Jason Reed / Reuters

Turkey Protests: Are the Youth at Gezi Park a New Actor in Turkish Democracy?

Kemal Kirişci — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:10:00 -0400

As the heavy-handed Turkish police try to reinstate order in Taksim Square after ongoing protests, the country’s democracy faces a unique and completely novel test. Disproportionate use of force by police is a well-established state practice in Turkey and clearly predates the current AK Party government. Taksim Square has a long history that is steeped in violent confrontations between protesters and security forces. A number of them have turned deadly, the memory of which still haunts the public conscience. Tuesday’s police intervention came with an uncharacteristic nuance, however.

After an almost two-week absence from the area, the police reentered Taksim along with repeated announcements that their mandate was limited to clearing the banners around the square. This pretext was obviously false, as their operation gradually expanded throughout the day. What was noteworthy, however, were the police’s painstaking efforts to give the youth camped in the adjacent Gezi Park assurances that they would be left alone. Simultaneous to the police’s appearance on the scene, several social media messages were sent by the governor of Istanbul who, clearly under government instructions, tried to reiterate that the security forces acted with a clear distinction between what they saw as peaceful demonstrations at Gezi Park and politically motivated provocations in Taksim Square. Ironically, the governor had chosen to reach the protesters at Gezi on Twitter, a medium recently criticized by the prime minister as a “curse.” At the end of the day, it would be difficult to say that the protestors at Gezi Park remained completely unharmed; the heavy use of tear gas and plastic bullets in Tuesday’s standoff also affected them and it is still not clear whether or not they were at times intentionally targeted.

Gezi Park: recent home to an unusual coalition

As one walks through the stalls and tents at Gezi Park one is struck by the communal atmosphere that seems to engulf this small green spot, a rarity in concrete-filled central Istanbul. Nevertheless, another distinctly unique feature of the protesters here is also the kind of individualism that a great majority among them have displayed since the end of May. This is pure and simple individualism that resents any intrusion into their private lives, such as those attempts by the Prime Minister to dictate how many children they should have or what they should and should not be allowed to drink.

Their protest is also against a desire on the part of Turkish administrators to regulate social behavior. For example, a loudspeaker warning in an Ankara metro station aimed at a kissing couple attracted much criticism; a few days later a kiss-in was held in protest. Another distinguishing characteristic of these youth, as put forward in a recent poll by Konda, is the lack of ideology behind their movement and the absence of allegiances to any political party. Their rejection of allowing any political party to dominate or expropriate what they have started is particularly significant - the Republican People’s Party’s opportunistic efforts to take ownership of the protests were swiftly dismissed.

The youth at Gezi Park are also a leaderless group. This has not prevented them, however, from developing cooperation mechanisms to ensure that the park is kept clean and safe for everyone. Their organizational skills are displayed in the makeshift health center and the small free library that they set up among the tents; food stalls continue to offer Turkish dishes to anyone that would like to help themselves. The park has also hosted a number of lectures, as some professors moved their classes to the site before the approaching university finals. Most spectacularly, all this activity was accompanied with a keen use of humor. The hundreds of banners that almost completely wrapped some of the trees in the park are a testament to the ingenuity of this generation that has chosen wit over violence.

This, coupled with their savvy use of social media, has enabled them to deflect the Prime Minister’s most denigrating salvoes. For example, they were swift in twisting the term that Erdoğan used to call them riff-raff and looters, “çapulcu,” from its original meaning and inventing a whole new slogan for the protest. They took possession of the word and gave it a much more positive connotation. “Çapulcu” is now taking root in popular terminology as a group who champions the environment and personal freedoms.

This is clearly a novel development in Turkish politics and points to the rise of a new generation that is very different from that of the 60s and 70s. The youth then were much more ideological and deeply committed to the agendas of political parties and movements. They were often uncompromising and rarely hesitant to resort to violence. They were followed by the emergence of a largely apolitical generation, the product of an education system installed by the military in the aftermath of the coup of 1980. Ironically, the youth at Gezi Park have not witnessed anything but successive AK party governments in their lifetimes; many came of age in the period when AK party gradually began to strip away the dominance of the military in Turkish politics.

But it should also be said that these youth represent neither the majority of contemporary Turkish youth nor the Turkish population at large. As shown in the Konda poll, the protesting youth display a much higher level of education than the public in general; most of them are also the children of older Turks who received more education than their contemporaries. Nevertheless, if the large crowds that they have attracted to Gezi are any indication, these youth have succeeded in earning the respect of a large segment of Turkish society. Their occupation of Gezi Park has been given support by a large number of citizens; during the first two weeks, their site was visited by thousands, ranging from high school students to the middle aged.

Although grudgingly, their protest was also recognized by the state authorities. President Abdullah Gül was followed by Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç in heeding their effort; they were told that their message had been heard. In these speeches, the activists were referred to as peaceful protesters that should be distinguished from the extremists or the politically motivated youth that the PM has chosen to call “terrorists.” The police raid on Tuesday and the effort to spare the protesters at Gezi Park from the fate of the others at Taksim Square needs to be seen from this perspective. The police had to battle with radical youth throwing Molotov cocktails while the protestors at Gezi Park remained peaceful. This nuance may well open the way to an improved democracy in Turkey.

In the coming days, the government, and Turkish democracy more broadly, will face a great challenge. The government appears to have cleared Taksim Square and restored some semblance of calm and normalcy in a city recognized as a major regional, if not global, center for commerce, culture, education, finance and tourism. The major test now revolves around a number of questions. Will Prime Minister Erdoğan be able to draw lessons from these protests and adjust his (widely perceived as authoritarian) policies to be more accommodating? Or will the Prime Minister pursue an age old, deeply paternalistic Turkish attitude towards those with views considered ‘liberal’ or ‘different’? Will he treat them as “naïves” at best, or “traitors” at worst? Will he continue to repeat the cliché of viewing them as tools of a much larger scheme put in place by external powers to destabilize Turkey? Will the government recognize that the youth of Gezi Park represents a globally integrated and highly westernized section of Turks that exists beyond Istanbul, even if as a minority? Or will the Prime Minister pursue a majoritarian view of democracy and, as he has threatened, call upon the youth that support him, his worldview and the AK Party to start counter protests? Whatever path is chosen, Turkey and the world have seen a Turkish youth from which, as described by former UK foreign minister Jack Straw, “will emerge a new generation of politicians” that will hopefully take Turkish democracy to a different level.

Authors

Kemal Kirişci

Image Source: © Yannis Behrakis / Reuters

Why Focus On Iran When It's North Korea That Has The Bomb?

Steven Pifer — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 09:25:00 -0400

Iran is pursuing a nuclear program that clearly goes beyond peaceful, civilian purposes, though the U.S. intelligence community assesses that Tehran has not yet decided to build a bomb, only to have the capability to do so. North Korea, on the other hand, has tested nuclear devices three times since 2006. So why do the United States and international community usually focus more attention on Iran than on North Korea?

Two reasons explain this. First, the international community is more likely to affect Tehran’s calculus than Pyongyang’s. Second, the proliferation ramifications of Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be much worse.

North Korea and Iran are both under UN Security Council sanctions for their nuclear programs. The United States has led the way in applying additional sanctions on the two countries.

North Korea, however, has a poor, autarkic economy. The CIA World Fact Book estimated per capita gross domestic product in 2011 at $1800. North Korea has limited trade with the outside world. In 2011, the CIA put its total trade turnover at less than $9 billion; two-thirds of that was with China, which has been reluctant to apply a real economic bite to North Korea. The impact of sanctions on North Korea’s largely stagnant economy to date is difficult to see.

Iran, on the other hand, is a richer country and far more integrated into the global economy. The CIA estimated per capita gross domestic product in Iran at just over $13,000 in 2012 and put its trade turnover in 2012 at $133 billion. Oil is Iran’s main export commodity. Recent energy trends— including development of unconventional gas and oil deposits in the United States and soft global energy demand— have allowed countries to curb their imports of Iranian oil, which make up 80 percent of Iran’s exports. The CIA estimated that the country’s total exports fell from $129 billion in 2011 to $66 billion in 2012. The financial and other economic sanctions are having a bite; Iran’s currency, the rial, lost 40 percent of its value in one week last fall, and the country’s gross domestic product declined for the first time in some 20 years.

How this all affects Tehran’s calculations remains to be seen. The West hopes that the Iranian government will not be able to ignore the sanctions’ effect on the economy or the political impact as falling economic standards provoke popular disgruntlement. In any event, the effect in Tehran is certain to be greater than in North Korea, where a large portion of the population barely ekes out a living and probably sees no incremental economic effect from the sanctions applied on their country.

The second reason for a focus on Iran is the potential ramifications for the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) should Tehran develop a nuclear weapon. That would be a game-changer in the Middle East, leading other countries in the region, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey, to consider whether they should acquire nuclear weapons as well. In the worst case, the emergence of four new nuclear weapons states in the region would put huge stress on the NPT regime. And with these four states, plus Israel, having nuclear weapons, the Middle East would become a far more volatile region.

To be sure, North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons puts the NPT regime under stress— but not as much. The two countries in the region most concerned, South Korea and Japan, have long been American allies under protection of the U.S. nuclear umbrella. The U.S. military deployed tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea until the early 1990s, and the B-2 overflight during the March tensions with North Korea provided a pointed reminder that the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal still protects the country. While some in South Korea and Japan have pondered whether their countries should go nuclear, the governments appear reassured that the U.S. nuclear guarantee remains and that they do not need nuclear weapons of their own.

Should Iran get nuclear weapons, the United States might seek to extend a nuclear umbrella in the Middle East. Former Secretary of State Clinton suggested that possibility several years ago. Turkey has long rested under the nuclear umbrella provided by the United States to NATO (and reportedly hosts U.S. nuclear weapons). But would it work with other states in the region, which have not had nuclear security arrangements with the United States that go back decades?

Iran may feel that it is being unfairly singled out. Perhaps. Life, particularly life in international politics, isn’t fair. But the United States and international community have a clear rationale for doing so. A nuclear-armed Iran would put more stress on the nuclear non-proliferation regime than does North Korea. And the chances that sanctions may have an impact on Tehran’s calculations are far greater than in the case with Pyongyang.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Ukraine: Yanukovych, Tymoshenko and Europe—Again

Steven Pifer — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:18:00 -0400

Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych hopes to sign an association agreement with the European Union at the EU’s Eastern Partnership summit in November. Doing so almost certainly will require that he make some move regarding imprisoned opposition leader Yuliya Tymoshenko. Will Yanukovych finally take the necessary step?

EU and Ukrainian negotiators concluded the association agreement, which includes a deep and comprehensive free trade arrangement, at the end of 2011. But democratic regression in Ukraine over the past two years has raised concern among EU member states, and the European Union has to date refrained from signing the agreement.

In February, EU leaders agreed with Yanukovych to set the November summit as the target for signing, but they made clear that the Ukrainian government must first make progress on several issues, including putting an end to selective prosecution. Many translate that as a requirement for a move on Tymoshenko, whose jailing has been regularly criticized in European capitals as well as in Washington.

The European Union originally called for demonstrable progress by May. Almost everyone, however, sees the real EU decision coming later, in September or October. That extends the timeline for action by Ukraine.

Conversations during a June 5-8 visit to Kyiv produced a sense that Yanukovych may be contemplating action, perhaps permitting Tymoshenko to travel to Germany for medical treatment. People seemed more optimistic on this than during a visit in mid-April. Then, many held that Yanukovych would not budge. Moreover, Ukrainian officials expressed a belief that they could secure EU agreement to sign the association agreement without addressing Tymoshenko’s case.

EU member states are not of one mind on Tymoshenko, which may have given Yanukovych hope that he need do nothing. But most EU states—including heavy-weights Germany and France—reportedly insist on some action.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was clear in April, when she said that “if the Yuliya Tymoshenko case is not settled, the association agreement cannot be signed.” Sweden, which earlier joined with Poland in reaching out to engage Ukraine, also wants Kyiv to demonstrate its commitment to European values. And a senior Central European diplomat, whose government favors signing the agreement, recently observed that Yanukovych needs to make some gesture on Tymoshenko to bring other EU members to agree to sign.

Yanukovych’s prosecutor general is pursuing new charges against Tymoshenko. That is unlikely to help Kyiv’s case with the European Union. At the same time, Yanukovych continues publicly to stress the European vector of his foreign policy and attach great importance to the association agreement.

In his state of the union message the first week of June—delivered in written form rather than as a speech to the parliament—the Ukrainian president stated that “concluding the agreement on association for Ukraine ... will shift our state’s cooperation with the EU onto a qualitatively new level of political association and economic integration.” He has continued to eschew membership in Moscow’s favored alternative—a customs union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan—though Ukraine has agreed to observer status.

Advisors close to Yanukovych reportedly have told him that signature of the association agreement would position him to run for reelection in 2015 as the man who brought Ukraine into—or, at the least, very close to—the European Union. They think that would boost his struggling electoral prospects. That has to intrigue Yanukovych, whose popularity has plummeted as the economy has stagnated and the government underperformed.

So is Yanukovych prepared to do something on Tymoshenko that would unblock the path to signing the association agreement? Perhaps, though before becoming too hopeful, we should remember that this could be a movie that we have seen before.

Following Tymoshenko’s arrest and trial in August 2011, and the ensuing storm of criticism from Europe and the United States, Ukrainian parliamentary deputies proposed that the legal code be amended. They suggested dropping the abuse of power article that had provided the basis for her trial. That seemed like an elegant way out of the mess.

At a September 2011 conference in Yalta, Yanukovych himself alluded to the possibility of amending the outdated code. In a lengthy conversation with Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele on the margins of the conference, Yanukovych left the two believing that he would support such parliamentary action. Optimism grew that Kyiv might find a way to release Tymoshenko.

But Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, which controlled a majority of seats in the parliament, did nothing to remove the relevant article. Tymoshenko was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Yanukovych faces a decision point in the next months. EU diplomats have said that, if the association agreement is not signed in November, it will move to the EU backburner until the second half of 2015. Letting Tymoshenko languish in prison thus could well cause Yanukovych to miss the opportunity to sign the agreement and claim the mantle of the person who brought Ukraine into Europe. How badly Yanukovych wants his European vector should become clear this fall.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Image Source: © Gleb Garanich / Reuters

Vladimir Putin’s Russia

Fiona Hill — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's Note: In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s "Start the Week" with Anne McElvoy, Fiona Hill discusses her new book on Vladimir Putin, his personal life and Russia’s political system. Read an excerpt below and listen to the full discussion online.

Anne McElvoy: Fiona, you characterize Putin as a Mr. Benn-type figure, with the various roles that he plays in public life, when it suits him or when he needs the votes. Who’s the real Putin?

Fiona Hill: Well that’s a good question, and I don’t think we’ll ever really know who is the real Putin. Maybe not even after some time has elapsed, if he ever leaves the political stage. There are so many uncertainties about elements of his biography. But just like Mr. Benn, who’s my favorite cartoon when I was a kid, here in the UK - not everybody outside of the UK quite grasped the Mr. Benn concept – but I think if anyone listening today remembers that from the ‘70s and ‘80s. Remember Mr. Benn was somewhat of a faceless cartoon figure, but then he assumed these great identities with everyday as a new adventure in the magic costume shop. And Putin has done exactly the same: he’s been a blank slate for the Russian people because there’s so little known about his real background. He has been able to assume sometimes these rather fantastical guises. He’s been, like Mr. Benn, a firefighter, he’s been a deep-sea diver (though we actually now know that he didn’t dive quite so deep when he was retrieving an amphora from the bottom of the Black Sea, it was apparently only about 10 feet or something like that, a few meters). But nonetheless, he’s really got into the spirit of this. And the question is, why? Part of it is to create this very vigorous political image, it’s been a way of showing everyone that he’s the “action man” for Russia, that he’s the person that can really do everything, that he’s a really indispensable figure. But it’s also part of mobilization of the population.

McElvoy: I noticed that there’s one website that had 39 different images of him, including calming a tiger, hunting bears, any possible demographic really.

Hill: Yes, tugging whales, anything imaginable. The things that you just picked up on, that’s conservation, that’s taking pride in its vast territory and its nature. He’s trying to mobilize the Russian population behind various causes, not just in support of him. He actually says that he himself selects many of these roles that he plays. And of course this just further obfuscates what is the real “Mr. Putin.”

McElvoy: But what would you then make of the announcement of the divorce from his long-standing, and possibly long-suffering, wife? Because that was a case where he was putting himself out there as a man like any other with family troubles – albeit quite controlled – that’s a different side of a Russian leader. They often don’t like to be seen as having weaknesses or family turmoil.

Hill: You know, it’s very interesting that he’s done this, because he’s really put his private life off-limits. One of the things that has been extraordinarily difficult before this announcement was actually to find any details out about Lyudmila and his two daughters. His daughters are conspicuously absent from this incredible array of public imagery. Lyudmila hadn’t been seen with Putin for years, in fact. There were even rumors in Russia that she’d been sent to a nunnery, you know, which is rather medieval even in the Russian context. And I think in many respects he stepped forward because he’s obviously now in the process of re-crafting his public image again. Something that Putin has done is engage in this perpetual political campaign. And every time there’s a sense of trouble, which is one of the junctures where we are now, he comes up with some new invention of self. And as I said, because we know so little about him, now we know he’s divorced or in the process of divorcing (certainly that he and Lyudmila have formally separated), the idea that he’s now about to go on to a second stage, and everyone in Russia is waiting to see what’s going to be the second act.

McElvoy: What interests me, apart from Putin himself, is what it says about the political system. Does it all revolve around him, whether or not he’s being Mr. Benn on Monday and Mr. Putin on Tuesday?

Hill: Well unfortunately since he said he was coming back, and using the Hollywood imagery like Arnold Schwarzenegger who always seems to come back and reinvent himself from The Terminator or whatever movie he’s in now, Putin has made the system all about him. I think we could actually say that during this strange dual-monarchy or the tandem of Medvedev and Putin, that it wasn’t quite like that. For four years, we actually had – and that’s what everyone was really reacting to when there was a bit of a rise in the opposition movement in 2011 and 2012 - was the idea that the system was widening out and that for once, it wasn’t really about one man or one particular clique. It seemed to be that with nominating Dmitry Medvedev as president for four years, he was sort of stepping back a little. And he himself said that it’s not healthy for a system to have everything in the hands of one man. And then he said, “Oh! I’m coming back again and picking it up, and here I am!”

Authors

Fiona Hill

Publication: BBC

Image Source: © RIA Novosti / Reuters

Iran In Syria: Let Your Enemy Make A Mistake

Jeremy Shapiro — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 08:23:00 -0400

The Syrian civil war, all acknowledge, is a humanitarian tragedy and a threat to regional stability. For many, however, it is also a proxy battle in a larger struggle between Iran and the United States. Worse, many say that the U.S. is losing that battle or as Vali Nasr, who is a Brookings non-resident senior fellow and dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, puts it in a recent op-ed, “Iran is beating the U.S. in Syria.” In an echo of the Cold War struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, the U.S.-Iran rivalry will now play out in shadow wars and guerilla struggles across the Middle East. As we often heard during the Cold War, the United States must fight its enemy everywhere, lest it lose credibility—in Nasr’s words “the aura of power”—in the larger struggle.

This is the logic that brought us the Vietnam War and innumerable ugly and unnecessary struggles in Central America and Africa during the latter stages of the Cold War. It was dangerously wrong then and it is similarly wrong now.

The U.S. and Iran are clearly locked in competition, but to see Syria as a prize in that competition is to misunderstand the dynamics of the Syrian war. Neither the United States nor Iran has any hope of effectively controlling Syria. Syria, like Iraq, will remain both too unstable and too nationalistic for that level of control for many years to come.

We have too often assumed that tactical victories by either side foreshadow total victory. The current conventional wisdom holds that the Assad regime’s victory in Qusayr portends an unstoppable momentum; just as opposition advances a few months ago spelled doom for the regime. In fact, neither side has the capacity to achieve a decisive victory anytime soon. Assad has the allies and the firepower necessary to sustain himself in Damascus and other cities, but he lacks the manpower and the mobility to take to the fight to the insurgents throughout the country. Similarly, the opposition has the numbers in the population and sufficient access to external support to maintain an insurgency and to control rural areas effectively forever, but they cannot stand up against the superior firepower of massed regime security forces.

In these circumstances, external support is rarely decisive, as long as both sides have such support. As is so often the case, weapons and fighters from outside simply reinforce the dynamics of the civil war, bringing it to new levels of violence but not to any sort of decision. Iran and Hizbollah on the one side and the Turks and Gulf Arabs on the other are playing this game, but far from acquiring an “aura of power,” they are simply wasting themselves in the process.

For Iran and Hizbollah, in particular, the Syrian war offers few upsides. To try to save an allied regime, they have alienated publics throughout the Middle East, including in Lebanon and Palestine, and exposed themselves as more interested in Iranian or Shi’a power than in popular sovereignty. They have wasted precious Hizballah cadres and weapons that they might have preferred to put to better use elsewhere, while Iran, already short of foreign reserves and allies, is forced to throw money and political capital down the Syrian pit. And the war simply continues on.

As Napoleon supposedly counseled, “when your enemy is in the process of making mistake, do not interrupt him.” The Soviets did not interrupt the U.S. in Vietnam with direct intervention. The United States paid them the same geopolitical courtesy in Afghanistan. In each case, the appearance of masterly inactivity did far more for credibility and the aura of power than getting bogged down in an unwinnable war. In this vein, the only thing that can redeem Iran's disastrous commitment to the Syrian civil war is for the United States to muddy the waters with Western intervention and to become similarly bogged down. Then at least, Syria would offer Iran the opportunity to pose once against as the regional defender against Western imperialism and to attack its enemy directly on the favorable terrain of a Middle Eastern civil war.

So by all means, let us try to deal with the humanitarian tragedy of Syria and try to find a settlement that might preserve regional stability. But a Syria in the process of implosion is no prize and if the Iranians want to make the mistake of seeing it as one, the United States should let them.

Authors

Jeremy Shapiro

Unrest in Turkey: Assessing the Causes and Impact of the Protests

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 16:00:00 -0400

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June 6, 2013
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM EDT

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Last week police in Istanbul raided the encampment of a group of activists opposed to the destruction of a well-liked public park and the construction a new shopping mall in its place. The police’s harsh assault on the demonstrators with tear gas and water cannons backfired, however, and ignited a rapidly-escalating, nationwide protest with calls for the resignation of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The unprecedented expansion of the demonstrations and riots suggests that the outburst of anger and opposition is fueled by more than a simple determination to save a green space in central Istanbul. For many Turks, the unrest appears to be a reaction to the perceived autocratic leanings of the prime minister and resistance to the direction of Turkish democracy, freedom of expression, and the role of religion in society.

On June 6, the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) and the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings hosted a discussion to assess the underlying causes of the recent protests and their likely impact on Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy. Panelists included Brookings TUSIAD Senior Fellow Kemal Kirişci, Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Ömer Taşpınar, Henri Barkey of Lehigh University, and Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations. Senior Fellow Tamara Cofman Wittes, director of the Saban Center, moderated the discussion.

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How Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Fell From Grace

Kemal Kirişci — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:08:00 -0400

Last week’s early-morning police raid on a group of people occupying a park in Istanbul has spread into a nationwide protest with calls for the resignation of the Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The group was protesting a shopping-center construction project near Taksim Square in the central city. The tree-lined precinct known as Gezi Park has long been popular among the public and considered an oasis in a city otherwise increasingly overwhelmed by skyscrapers, large shopping centers and concrete buildings. In 2011, the city opened the way for the park to be replaced with a shopping center in the form of reconstructed early-nineteenth-century Ottoman army barracks.

Erdoğan has been a staunch and unyielding defender of the project at a time of growing opposition. At a first glance, the demonstrations and the riots appear to have been sparked by a longstanding local opposition, which regards tree cutting as the first step towards the realization of the shopping center. Yet, there is much more to this outburst of anger and opposition across the country than just a determination to save rows of majestic trees. These protests, therefore, beg the old quo vadis question: Where is Turkey going?

Read the full article at The National Interest »

Authors

Kemal Kirişci

Publication: The National Interest

Image Source: © Youssef Boudlal / Reuters

Excluding Iran From Syria Talks Will Backfire

Jeremy Shapiro — Tue, 28 May 2013 09:43:00 -0400

Diplomatic wisdom holds that you make peace with your enemies, not your friends. This mantra has been intoned by such diverse figures as Moshe Dayan, Desmond Tutu, and James Baker. When they said it, it seemed almost self-evident, even trite. But it is nonetheless often repudiated in U.S. domestic debates, where a willingness to negotiate is seen as a sign of weakness or an inappropriate reward for bad behavior.

Negotiating with the United States is not a reward. Anyone who has ever spent long hours shut in a windowless conference room with Secretary of State John Kerry understands this basic truth at the core of his being.

The question of whether to seek Iran’s involvement in the proposed Geneva talks on Syria illustrates how this concept of reward can lead us astray. The reason to involve Iran is not because Iran is a constructive actor on Syria. According to a recent report by The New York Times, Iran has been a key supporter of the Assad regime’s violent oppression and is a party to the conflict. It is not because U.S. officials believe that agreement with Iran on Syria could herald the dawn of a new era of U.S.-Iranian friendship. After more than ten years of dealing with the Iranian regime on the nuclear file, there are few illusions and even less trust left in the U.S. government when it comes to the Iran. The regime in Iran is, quite simply, our enemy.

The reason to involve the Iranians is because talking to that enemy is the only conceivable route to achieving a political settlement in Syria. We know (or should know) from long, hard experience that civil wars like the one in Syria don’t end as long as powerful external supporters oppose a settlement. Iran has the capacity to spoil any deal reached at Geneva. This brutal fact leads to the simple conclusion that we need to reach agreement with Iran if we want a political solution in Syria.

Of course, many people in the United States don’t believe that a political settlement in Syria is possible. They may be right. History tells us that externally-brokered negotiations rarely succeed in ending civil wars, particularly ones as brutal as that in Syria. But, even in that case, it matters why the negotiations fail. The U.S. strategy at Geneva must be to ensure that any failure of the negotiations demonstrates to the world, and particularly to the other UN Security Council members, that the Assad regime and its supporters are the obstacles to peace and the threat to regional stability so that the international community can bring maximum pressure to bear on Assad after the talks fail. If the U.S. excludes Iran from the negotiations, this will provide a ready and arguably even valid excuse for blaming the United States for the failure of the talks.

There are others on the American political spectrum— probably fewer— who don’t see a political solution in Syria as desirable. They would prefer to enhance U.S. credibility with our Arab “friends” through an all-out push for military victory over the Assad regime, in many cases specifically because they see the Syrian conflict as part of the larger struggle between the U.S. and Iran. In this zero-sum logic, the fall of the Assad regime is a loss for Iran and thus a win for U.S. interests, regardless of any collateral damage done to the Syrian people or to regional stability. In that case, there is precious little reason to have Iran at the Geneva talks, or even to hold the Geneva talks at all.

But let us be clear about what these people are advocating. They are seeking to wage a proxy war in Syria against Iran and Hizballah. That war will take years to wage. It will involve the destruction of the Syrian state and the deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands more Syrians, millions more Syrian refugees, and a very real threat of even more destabilizing spillover into Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and Israel. To win that war will probably require direct U.S. intervention of one sort or another and even then success is not guaranteed. The Obama administration has decided that deep involvement in another Middle Eastern war of this sort will harm U.S. interests and erode U.S. power and that it would be better for all involved to reach a political settlement in Syria as soon as possible. It is that view that has led the administration to favor a political solution and promote the Geneva talks. But I must concede that if you disagree with the administration and see such a war as desirable, it makes little sense to try to work with Iran to make peace in Syria.

Authors

Jeremy Shapiro

The Future of Transatlantic Trade and Investment: Opportunities and Challenges

Thu, 23 May 2013 13:30:00 -0400

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May 23, 2013
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM EDT

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Brookings Institution
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On May 23, the Center on the U.S. and Europe (CUSE) and Global Economy and Development at Brookings, with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, hosted German Vice-Chancellor Philipp Rösler for an address on the prospects for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). In his remarks, Dr. Rösler explored the direction of EU-U.S. negotiations on TTIP and the current state of transatlantic economic relations in an increasingly globalized world.

From 2001 until 2003, Dr. Philipp Rösler worked as a doctor and medical officer of the Federal Armed Forces. In 2003, Dr. Rösler was elected to the state parliament of Lower Saxony and remained a member of this parliament and chairman of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) state parliamentary group until 2009. At the beginning of 2009, he was appointed minister of Economics, Labor and Transport and deputy minister-president of the State of Lower Saxony. In October 2009 he joined the federal government as federal minister of Health. He has been federal minister of Economics and Technology, federal chairman of the FDP and vice-chancellor since May 2011.

Senior Fellow and CUSE Director Fiona Hill provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion.

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The Future of Transatlantic Trade and Investment: Opportunities and Challenges

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What is Iran's Nuclear Red Line?

Steven Pifer — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:05:00 -0400

Tehran’s denials and protestations to the contrary, its nuclear ambitions clearly go beyond peaceful, civilian purposes. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is soon expected to issue a report stating that Iran has increased its capacity to enrich uranium but is limiting the most worrisome activity. This raises the question of how far Iran wishes to proceed down the nuclear path. The answer is important, as there is an important distinction between an Iran that has assembled (and perhaps tested) a nuclear weapon, and an Iran that has a latent nuclear capability but does not take the final step of pulling the pieces together to have a nuclear weapon.

The short answer to the question now is that we do not know. The U.S. intelligence community assesses that Iran wishes to have a nuclear weapons option but has not yet decided whether to build a bomb.

Concern about Iran’s nuclear intentions has grown as it has enriched uranium at facilities at Natanz and Fordow, facilities about which Tehran did not inform the IAEA until others revealed them. The Iranians conduct uranium enrichment operations to 3.5 percent, which they say they need for fuel rods for nuclear power reactors, despite the fact that Russia has contracted to sell Iran the fuel rods that it needs for its sole power reactor at Bushehr. More troublesome, Iran also enriches to 20 percent. The Iranian government claims that it needs 20 percent enriched uranium for fuel for the Tehran research reactor, though it is not clear that Iran has the technical capability to produce fuel rods for that reactor.

Although 20 percent qualifies as “highly-enriched uranium,” weapons-grade uranium is enriched to 90 percent or greater. Once uranium has been enriched to 20 percent, it is much of the way to 90 percent. Interestingly, while enriching to 20 percent, Iran has taken some of the resulting uranium gas (referred to as uranium hexafluoride) and converted it to uranium oxide, a solid powder. Iran thus has kept its stock of uranium hexafluoride enriched to 20 percent below the amount that, if enriched to 90 percent, would suffice for a nuclear bomb. Some see that as a signal that Tehran is sensitive to Western concerns. While the process of converting uranium hexafluoride to uranium oxide can be reversed, it takes time.

Of course, Iran must do more than have fissile material. Can it construct a deliverable nuclear weapon? Building a “gun-type” bomb is relatively simple (to the extent that the physics of nuclear weapons can be called simple). U.S. scientists in 1945 were so confident of the design for the bomb used on Hiroshima that they did not bother to test it. But a gun-type weapon would be large and bulky, probably weighing on the order of five tons.

Building a sophisticated weapon that could fit in a ballistic missile warhead—the delivery means of choice—poses a more demanding technical task. The weapon needs to be small and durable enough to withstand the dynamic and thermal stresses of ballistic flight. While the IAEA has questions about past Iranian weaponization activities, the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Iran in 2003 halted its nuclear weapons program (PDF), which it defined as weaponization work as well as enrichment.

As for the delivery system, Iran has an inventory of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. The Sajjil-2, currently under development, has an estimated range of 2200 kilometers. That puts the Gulf states, Israel and southeastern Europe in range, but Iran still has a long way to go before it could develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States.

So Iran has made varying degrees of progress down the tracks—enrichment, weaponization and delivery system—needed to have a viable nuclear weapon. How far will it proceed?

One option is to build a bomb and, to show the world its nuclear prowess, conduct a test. But that option poses real risks for the Iranian government. It would make Iran even more of a nuclear pariah and increase its international isolation. It would provoke huge concern in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, perhaps leading the Saudis—and others such as Egypt and Turkey—to pursue their own nuclear weapons programs. And it would indisputably cross the red lines that Jerusalem and Washington have drawn.

The second option is that Iran develops its enrichment, weaponization and missile technologies so that it has a latent nuclear weapons capability but stops short of putting the pieces together. In this option, Tehran might continue to limit its stock of uranium hexafluoride enriched to 20 percent by converting some to uranium oxide. Assuming that Iran does not have a covert enrichment facility (something Western intelligence services undoubtedly spend considerable time and effort looking for), we would know of an Iranian decision to enrich its uranium to weapons-grade, as the IAEA monitors its facilities at Natanz and Fordow. While experts differ regarding how much alert time the world would have, there would be tactical warning—currently measured in months—of a decision by Tehran to produce weapons-grade uranium.

The distinction between these two options is important. While no one, particularly Israel, would be comfortable with a latent Iranian nuclear capability, that is vastly preferable to an Iran with even a small stockpile of nuclear weapons. It would pose less of a threat to the nuclear non-proliferation regime. It would leave time for international sanctions to intensify their impact on the Iranian economy and perhaps affect the calculations in Tehran. And it would give the UN Security Council Permanent Five plus Germany time to explore whether the Iranian government is prepared to consider a negotiated settlement that satisfies international concerns.

Authors

Steven Pifer

A Statesman’s Forum with H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister of Turkey

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:30:00 -0400

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May 17, 2013
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM EDT

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On May 17, the Center on the U.S. and Europe at Brookings hosted a Stateman's Forum with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In his remarks, Mr. Erdoğan reflected on three terms of Justice and Development Party (AK Party) leadership during a period of rapid evolution for Turkey and its role in the world.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became Prime Minister of Turkey in March 2003, following the electoral success in 2002 of the AK Party. In the 2007and 2011 elections, the AK Party was returned to power with landslide victories in Turkey's parliamentary elections, making Mr. Erdoğan the longest-serving prime minister in Turkish history. Previously, Mr. Erdoğan served as Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1997. He was educated at Marmara University.

Brookings President Strobe Talbott introduced Mr. Erdoğan. At the conclusion of the Prime Minister's remarks, Brookings TUSIAD Senior Fellow Kemal Kirişci moderated a discussion.

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Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan's U.S. Agenda

Kemal Kirişci — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:46:00 -0400

Editor's note: On May 17, 2013 Brookings hosted Prime Minister Erdogan for an event on U.S.-Turkish relations.

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is visiting Washington this week and will meet with President Obama today. This is his first visit to the United States since December 2009. But the world and the Middle East have changed dramatically since then. Thus, the agenda for Erdogan’s talks with Obama will be a very crowded one. Four topics in particular are likely to stand out.

1. The Situation in Syria

Erdogan arrives in Washington at a time when there is growing pressure on the Obama administration to change its course on Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry has already taken some steps to increase nonlethal support for the opposition in Syria while putting growing pressure on the moderate opposition to tighten their ranks and distance themselves from radical Islamist groups. These measures are unlikely to satisfy Erdogan. He has long been a vocal critic of the international community, the United Nations Security Council and the United States for idly “watching the tragedy” unfolding in Syria.

He is likely to remind Obama quite loudly that the butchery of civilians by the Assad regime has reached levels that makes it unethical not to respond to and that, as the car bombs that exploded in Turkish border town of Reyhanli last weekend demonstrate, Turkish national security is being directly affected. He will also offer facts and figures to show how the humanitarian situation is fast deteriorating and becoming untenable with an ever expanding flow of refugees and displaced people. He will not miss the opportunity to share with Obama the evidence collected from refugees arriving in Turkish hospitals that the Syrian regime is using chemical weapons. Erdogan may go as far as to push Obama to support the idea of creating a no-fly zone along the Turkish border.

Read the full article »

Authors

Kemal Kirişci

Publication: The National Interest

Pragmatism May Drive Israeli-Turkish Ties

Kemal Kirişci — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Israeli-Turkish relations are likely to feature prominently during Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Washington, DC. Turkish and Israeli officials are engaged in talks to work out Israeli compensation to the families killed and injured during the 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla incident. These talks are part of a U.S.-brokered rapprochement between the two countries, which began with an official apology by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Erdoğan in late March for “any mistakes that might have led to the loss of life or injury” aboard the Mavi Marmara. This hasn’t been an easy exercise; a major challenge for Turkey comes from finding a balance between the domestic debate over the lifting of the blockade of Gaza and Turkey’s own compensation issues for the Kurdish population on the one hand and Turkey’s pressing national security needs against the deteriorating situation in Syria on the other.

The families of the Mavi Marmara victims have repeatedly objected to compensation talks until the Gaza Strip blockade is lifted. The Humanitarian Relief Foundation (İHH), the Turkish NGO which organized the Mavi Marmara trip, and the hard-core Islamists who partly constitute the electoral basis of Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) also publicly support their position. Recently, they held a major public meeting promoting the idea of “first lifting the blockade” and took a critical view of Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç’s involvement in compensation talks with Israel. Interestingly, Erdoğan chose to remain silent on the issue and allow Arınç to face the criticism on his own. Arınç’s position and Erdoğan’s silence should be viewed in the context of Turkey’s own domestic compensation issues.

As much as the Turkish government in recent times has been trying to address the Kurdish problem and reach a political solution, the three decades’ old conflict between the Turkish Armed Forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has taken a heavy toll on civilians. It has led to the injury and death of many civilians, loss and destruction of property, and the internal displacement of over 1 million civilians. Long discussions related to compensation for these individuals finally culminated in the Turkish government’s passing of a compensation law in 2004. The law aimed to facilitate the return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and compensate them for their losses. Yet, critics of the implementation of this law say it falls short of sufficiently compensating the economic losses and emotional pain IDPs have suffered. Furthermore, critics cite high rejection rates among those applying for compensation and a failure to formally recognize victims and acknowledge any wrongdoings toward the individuals as shortfalls of the compensation law.

A more recent example is the Uludere incident where 34 civilians of Kurdish ethnicity were mistaken for PKK terrorists and killed in an airstrike by the Turkish military in the southeastern corner of Turkey in December 2011. Although the Turkish government has offered close to $70,000 in compensation for each victim, families of the victims have refused to accept the offer until a full investigation takes place, those responsible for the attack are brought to justice, and an official apology is issued by the Turkish state. Such an apology has not so far been issued, prompting criticism in Turkish media outlets over the importance placed on an Israeli apology for the victims of the Mavi Marmara while the victims of Uludere wait for an apology and compensation from the Turkish government.

As compensation talks with Israel continue, the real challenge will lie in the Turkish government’s ability to soften the position of the İHH, hard-liners within AK Party and the victims’ families toward the Gaza blockade while keeping an eye on Turkey’s immediate geopolitical interests. Shifts in the balance of power in the region brought about by the Arab Awakening and most recently the Syrian crisis is pushing Turkey to re-evaluate its position toward Israel. Pragmatism on the part of Turkey and Israel in resolving their differences will be of greater benefit to addressing the growing security and humanitarian challenges resulting from the Syrian crisis as well as improving the welfare of the Palestinians in Gaza than if negotiations between the two countries failed. As Prime Minister Erdoğan prepares for his visit to Washington, DC, this week, the carnage provoked by two car bombs that exploded in the Turkish border town of Reyhanlı on Saturday will surely be a stark reminder of the need for this kind of pragmatism. U.S. President Barack Obama should seize the occasion of the visit to promote such pragmatism but also be willing to listen to Erdoğan’s deep-seated and genuine frustration with the situation in Syria. An empathetic ear on the part of Obama may go a long way in not only helping to improve Israeli-Turkish relations, a major U.S. objective, but also start cooperating in concrete terms to address an ever-expanding Syrian crisis.

Authors

Kemal Kirişci

Publication: Hurriyet Daily News