Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has responded to last week’s coup attempt with a hammer. Over the span of just a few days, more than 50,000 people have been fired from their jobs or detained on suspicions that they’re connected to the coup or to the Gülenist movement (which President Erdoğan blames for the coup attempt). Now emergency rule has been imposed, suggesting that more detentions may follow.

Turkish leaders are assuring everyone that the state of emergency is meant to control the situation and to preserve Turkish democracy. But many observers, including in the West, aren’t buying it: There are legitimate fears that these measures will actually further consolidate Erdoğan’s authoritarian rule. And the consequences of Turkey’s continued drift away from democracy isn’t only a human rights or governance problem—it could become a real geopolitical challenge for the West. 

The swinging pendulum

Turkey—literally the bridge between Europe and Asia—sometimes seems of two minds on governance issues. On the one hand, its leaders express a commitment to a Western form of governance based on the rule of law, liberal democracy, transparency, and accountability. On the other—and more in the vein of governance styles in Russia, Iran, and China—they sometimes reject what they see as outside interference, restrict civil liberties and government transparency, and promote a heavy state role in the economy. 

Although Turkey was welcomed into NATO and other transatlantic institutions after World War II—at a time when Soviet expansionism was a real fear—its commitment to democratic values has always been shaky. The military’s shadow loomed large over Turkish politics (last week’s coup attempt was far from the first) and the country’s human rights record was poor, particularly on minority rights. 

Many thought that all this would change when Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002. They introduced political reforms that propelled Turkey toward EU membership. The Turkish economy excelled: Many people in Turkey once depended on remittances sent by Gastarbeiters (guest workers) in Germany and other West European countries, for instance, but the country quickly became host itself to immigrants from neighboring countries. Tourists, business people, students, athletes, and artists poured into the country in the millions. And Turkey enjoyed considerable soft power in the region and the world, often touted as a model in the wake of the Arab Spring of a country that properly paired mainstream Islamism and democratic governance. None of this would have been possible were it not for Turkey’s growing adherence to Western governance norms and its membership in the transatlantic community. 

But the picture has since become rather grim. The events of the past week have renewed concerns about the state of Turkish democracy, yes—but those concerns have in fact been growing for years. Turkey’s commitment to supporting freedom of expression, freedom of the media, anti-corruption efforts, and liberal markets has been in serious doubt for a while. Meanwhile, the economy has stalled, related in part to political developments and to a recent spate of terror attacks that have seriously damaged the overall security situation. It is no wonder that Turkish per capita income—which peaked at $10,800 in 2013—has now fallen to 2009 levels, at $9,950. (That’s an almost 10 percent drop in the span of just two years.) Turkey’s further slide away from Western governance norms would likely only make matters worse, making Erdoğan’s promise of putting Turkey among the largest 10 economies in the world a fantasy.

If you ask Erdoğan and his AKP colleagues why reforms sputtered out, they’re likely to answer with conspiracy theories: They’ll blame the West, the EU, the interest rate lobby, and others. But the AKP has failed to be self-critical, which could have helped it succeed. 

Turkey’s choice of orbit

So if Turkey seems to be moving away from Western norms, is it also moving away from the West? Possibly. In November 2013—after years of stop-and-go accession talks with the EU—Erdoğan sought Russian President Vladimir Putin’s support for accepting Turkey into Eurasian organizations like the Shanghai Five. That could be a big geostrategic gain for Russia, something not lost on the Russian press.

Western Europe and the United States would be the biggest losers if Turkey moved closer to Russia’s camp. Losing their partnership with Turkey would deliver a serious blow to the fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, for one thing. But it would also further dim prospects that Turkey might really embrace Western-style democracy any time soon. As Ted Piccone has written, Turkey has the potential to be a linchpin of the liberal international order—and a long-term downturn in the country could have wide detrimental effects in regional and global governance. 

The path ahead

Finally, is there a role for the United States in all this? In the short term, as Ömer Taşpınar has argued, the United States should offer real help to Ankara in investigating the role of Pennsylvania resident Fethullah Gülen and his movement in last week’s coup attempt. Extradition is a highly sensitive issue, and the United States must defend its legal standards. At the same time, that kind of cooperation could build trust in U.S.-Turkey relations, calm Ankara’s paranoia about a potential U.S. role in the coup attempt (and therefore possibly help minimize the damage to Turkish democracy that Ankara itself might cause in its heavy-handed response), and help the United States build credibility on the rule of law. A thorough investigation—including into the Gülenists—is important for determining who was behind the coup attempt. And it’s in U.S. interests to know: As Turkey is a NATO member, a threat against it should be considered a threat against all members. It is in no NATO member’s interest to allow a political earthquake like this to push Turkey from its fold or towards a rival mode of governance. 

This isn’t to downplay the burden now on Ankara; the Turkish government shouldn’t forget that its respect for civil liberties and the rule of law once helped earn it a lot of international respect and a place in the Western community. It’s disappointing that the AKP and Erdoğan supporters have failed to capitalize on their country’s potential. Among its peers in the Muslim world, Turkey had once made the most progress in terms of democratic values and economic growth. Many would still like to believe that that Turkey still exists, in spite of recent setbacks. But for Turkey to win back those gains, its leadership will have to proceed very cautiously and with reason. 

      

 

 

Kemal Kirişci,TÜSİAD Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy, discusses the recent coup in Turkey and its implications for Turkey’s regional role, foreign policy, and its democracy.

“The Turkish state is a state that has been carried over from the Ottoman Empire. It is a state with a very long history. It is not a state that was set up by colonial powers, it is a state that has deep roots in history and in Turkish society,” Kirişci says. “On that account I would like to remain hopeful because I know the state at first hand and I can see all kinds of faces in this state who are men and women that are dedicated to their tasks and are going to try to make their best to see Turkey through these extremely difficult times.”

Also in this podcast our final Syrian Refugee series segment with Matteo Garavoglia, a visiting fellow in the Foreign Policy Center on the United States and Europe. Also stay tuned for William Frey, senior fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program, as he discusses America’s racial and age divide and its effect on the political environment.

Links

Turkey after the coup attempt: Implications for Turkish democracy, foreign policy, and the future of the Syrian War

Erdoğan's real opportunity after the failed coup in Turkey

Is Turkish foreign policy becoming pragmatic again?

The geopolitics of Turkey's failed coup

Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics are Remaking America

Convention cities make exemplary stages to discuss America's racial divide

Is Italy the new Greece? New trends in Europe’s migrant crisis

Thanks to audio engineer and producer Zack Kulzer, with editing help from Mark Hoelscher, plus thanks to Carisa Nietsche, Bill Finan, Jessica Pavone, Eric Abalahin, Rebecca Viser, and our intern Sara Abdel-Rahim.

Subscribe to the Brookings Cafeteria on iTunes, listen in all the usual places, and send feedback email to BCP@Brookings.edu 

      

 

 

Event Information

The failed coup in Turkey on July 15 to 16, organized by factions within the Turkish military in an attempt to overthrow the government of President Erdoğan, represents both a victory and a new trial for Turkish democracy. Although the Turkish citizenry brought the country back from the brink of anarchy and civil war, many analysts see last week’s events as a consequence of the political instability and discord that has been mounting for years as Erdoğan has consolidated powers, marginalized the opposition, and redefined Turkey’s democracy. How will the president react in the aftermath of the coup? Will the democratic backsliding intensify, or can the thwarted coup offer new opportunity for reconciling the deeply-polarized nation?

The upheaval and political instability in Turkey also holds significant implications for Turkey’s foreign policy and the fate of a neighboring region already in turmoil from the war in Syria and insecurity in Iraq. The West desperately needs a stable, democratic, and predictable partner in its NATO-ally Turkey to address the many challenges besetting the region and to fight the Islamic State (or ISIS). How will recent events affect regional stability and Turkey’s cooperation with the West on security issues, including the resettlement of Syrian refugees? What does the failed coup mean for the coalition against ISIS engagement in Syria?

On July 20, the Foreign Policy program (FP) at Brookings hosted a panel discussion to consider these questions and other domestic and international consequences of the coup attempt in Turkey. Brookings Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on the United States and Europe Fiona Hill introduced and moderated a wide-ranging conversation featuring FP Senior Fellows Shadi Hamid, Kemal Kirişci, Michael O'Hanlon, and Ömer Taşpınar.

After the discussion, the speakers took questions from the audience.

Video

• Turkey coup attempt was a shock
• Institutional collapse of Turkey unprecedented
• Disaster averted in failed Turkey coup
• Incirlik Air Base not irreplaceable
• Turkey after the coup attempt: Implications for Turkish democracy, foreign policy, and the future of the Syrian War

Audio

• Turkey after the coup attempt: Implications for Turkish democracy, foreign policy, and the future of the Syrian War

Transcript

• Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20160720_turkey_coup_transcript

      

 

 

U.S. and EU officials have called on Turkey to show restraint amid concerns that Friday's failed coup attempt will be the pretext for an authoritarian crackdown. Turkey’s ability to investigate the putsch will be compromised by the fact that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has repressed the media and weakened the judiciary, says Kemal Kirisci, of the Brookings Institution. The coup attempt will likely bolster Erdoğan’s efforts to consolidate power, and that will make any investigation into the true causes of the coup difficult, Kirisci says.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has pinned responsibility on the cleric Fethullah Gülen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the United States. Is that credible?

It is possible [that the Gülen movement is responsible], but this needs to be thoroughly investigated. The [Turkish] government has long argued that Fethullah Gülen leads a parallel state from Pennsylvania, where he has been living since 1997. The journalist and academic Ali Bayramoğlu has said that the movement, going back to the 1980s and early 1990s, began to systematically place their students in the police and military academies. These students were closely monitored and accompanied.

Other commentators have argued that it's unbelievable how F-16 pilots, on whom the state has spent more than a million dollars each to educate, attacked the Turkish parliament, military headquarters, intelligence services, and communications centers. How can a well-trained, prestigious F-16 pilot do this unless they are deeply attached to a cause? The movement also [includes] high-ranking judges and officers, including many one-star generals, who have been arrested.

Erdoğan has renewed his calls on the United States to extradite Gülen. Is this more plausible after the attempted coup?

Turkey has for a long time been seeking Gülen’s extradition, but the United States has not been cooperative, saying there was not enough evidence to build a case. However, the [U.S.-Turkey] extradition treaty refers to an obligation to extradite anyone who attempts to assassinate the leaders of one or the other country. There clearly was an attempt to assassinate Erdoğan: the hotel where he had been staying was attacked, and there was an attempt to control the airport where he was supposed to land. A necessary condition of extradition is that a convincing connection between the coup and the sought-after person is established; that should be the focus of cooperation.

Many analysts expect that Erdoğan will use the attempt as a pretense to invest the presidency with full executive powers, as he’s long sought.

The difficult issue will be to assess Erdoğan’s accusations independent of his political ends. Many commentators say the allegations put forward by the government serve his political aspirations: Erdoğan has become, de facto, the executive president of Turkey, but he wants to introduce an element of legality to it, which will require either a constitutional amendment or a completely new constitution. Opinion polls just before the coup suggested that the public, even supporters of [the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)], did not look favorably on it. This kind of threat to the system gives him considerable leverage [to codify an executive presidency], and I suspect he will follow that path rather than what some commentators are calling for, bringing the polarized country to a consensus through dialogue.

How to sort that out from the pursuit of the truth will be a difficult exercise, and I’m not sure today’s Turkey is equipped to do it, given the way the media has been repressed and the judiciary has been brought under the influence, if not control, of the government. These measures raise serious doubts about Turkey’s ability to investigate this within the realm of the rule of law.

The Incirlik air base, from which a U.S.-led coalition carries out air strikes against the self-proclaimed Islamic State, just reopened after a temporary closure. Will the coup attempt have broader implications for the anti-ISIS campaign?

Cooperation on ISIS is important, but much more so is the future of democracy in Turkey. A Turkey that is democratic is a Turkey of the rule of law, and a secular Turkey is one in which sympathy for such extremist groups is much less. Such a Turkey shares common values with the West, which makes cooperation much easier.

It looks like a large number of officers—colonels as well as one-star generals—were involved, and so the Turkish military is going to experience a period of weakness. That’s where U.S. cooperation, on intelligence and counterterrorism, is critical. Such cooperation demands trust. That trust will partially, but importantly, be a function of [cooperation over] the Gülenist dossier.

The United States and Turkey are going to have to find a way to cooperate over the PYD (Kurdish Democratic Union Party). [Editor’s note: the United States backs the Syrian Kurdish party’s militant wing, the YPG, to combat the Islamic State; Turkey says the group has aided its compatriots in Turkey, the PKK, whose insurgency against the state resumed in July 2015]. The United States enjoys leverage over the PYD, and now it’s ever more important that it keeps the PYD in line so it does not become involved in the conflict in Turkey and strengthen the hand of the PKK while Turkey is vulnerable.

Turkey hosts roughly three million refugees and the country is party to an agreement with the EU to stem migration to Europe. What will EU-Turkey relations look like in the aftermath of the coup attempt?

If the perpetrators had gained control of government, it would have led to civil war, so the very fact that the coup attempt collapsed is saving Europe from waves of Turkish asylum seekers. The EU will need to expand its basis of cooperation with Turkey, because this coup attempt will adversely impact Turkey’s ability to deal with these refugees. There will likely be a purge from some of the bureaucracies and organizations that deal with them.

More broadly, both U.S.-Turkey and EU-Turkey ties have been strained lately. Will the Turkey’s alliance with the West come out on stronger footing after their condemnation of the coup attempt?

Helping with the investigation to establish the truth will be critical. The way in which, at the end of the day, [the EU and United States came out] with support for the elected government, just as Turkish opposition parties did, should entitle them to some influence, calling on Turkey to live up to the norms, standards, and values of democratic society.

The EU and United States together must reanchor Turkey solidly within the Western alliance. Erdoğan, as much as [the United States and EU member-states] may resent him or disagree with policies, must be made to feel that he's welcome back in the ranks, the way he was between 2003 and 2010, on the condition he reforms his policies.

Erdoğan and the people around him, especially [former Prime Minister Ahmet] Davutoglu, had delusions of grandeur. They dreamed they were going to lead the ummah, the Islamic world. This is all gone now: the emperor is naked. Erdoğan seems to recognize Turkey has boxed itself into a corner and wants to come out in the direction of the West. There is nowhere else to go. Turkey needs tourism, international trade, and foreign investment, and to protect its national security. On all these grounds it needs cooperation, and it’s not going to come from Iran, China, or Russia, even if that might be their preference. It can only come from the West.

Turkey may also recognize that the West is in trouble too, and if the West cannot come out of that trouble, Turkey will be in even deeper trouble. Brexit is going to have a negative impact on Turkey's export market and tourism. An EU in trouble is not going to be able to give visa liberalization to Turkish nationals, which symbolically will anchor Turkey in the West, and is also important economically. If the EU and United States move to the right and say no to free trade agreements [and migration], Turkey will not benefit. Both sides next each other even more than in the past.

Copyright © Council on Foreign Relations 2016, republished with permission

      

 

 

Editor's Note: With the latest coup attempt in Turkey, Turkish democracy survived a major test, and the country turned from the edge of a precipice. writes Kemal Kirisci. But Turkey’s democracy has also taken a severe blow. This article was originally published in The National Interest.

The history of Turkish politics is littered with coups and coup attempts that have occurred in roughly ten-year intervals. It is almost a genetic defect.

• The nascent Turkish democracy experienced its first coup in 1960 when it was barely into its tenth year—led by a group of left-wing “young officers,” who had also forced the General Staff into its ranks. Administrative authority was returned to civilians in October 1961, after having cost the lives of the then-Prime Minister, Adnan Menderes, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Fatin Rüştü Zorlu, and the Minister of Finance, Hasan Polatkan.
• The second military intervention took place in 1971 against the government of Süleyman Demirel—this time around, though, through a “coup by memorandum.” The military issued to the prime minister an ultimatum—to step aside and be replaced by a technocratic cabinet.
• Less than ten years later, in the midst of endemic violence between left- and right-wing radical groups, the military's top brass carried out another intervention. This was bloodier than the previous two interventions, costing hundreds of lives and leading to massive human-rights violations. After rubberstamping a suffocating constitution on the country, the military handed the government over to a semblance of a democratically-elected government in 1983.
• Surprisingly, Turkey broke this pattern of ten-yearly military interventions, and civilian authority continued until 1997, when there was what was termed a “post-modern coup.” The army rolled out a convoy of tanks into the streets of Ankara, and in a repeat of the coup of 1971, demanded the resignation of the coalition government led by Necmettin Erbakan.
• The next coup occurred a decade later (almost to the day) in April 2007, when the Chief of Staff staged an “e-coup” by posting a set of demands on its website. The coup was a reaction against a long list of democratic reforms that were introduced as a part of the leadership’s pro-EU agenda and were seen as a departure from the staunchly secularist, restrictive mode of governance. Bolstered by the public support for these reforms, however, the incumbent Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, now the current president of Turkey, successfully withstood the “e-coup,” and for the first time, pushed the military back “into the barracks”.

The latest coup attempt—which took place on Friday, July 15—has widely been attributed to a large Gülenist faction within the military and the judiciary that circumvented the established chain of command and held the high command hostage. Gülenists are the followers of the Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who leads a worldwide movement that claims to advocate a moderate form of Sunni Islam with an emphasis on tolerance and interfaith dialogue. Formerly allies with Erdoğan, the Gülenists were blamed for spearheading the corruption scandal in December 2013 that engulfed several government officials, ministers and people in Erdoğan’s intimate circle. Since then, Gülen and Erdoğan have been locked in a power struggle.

Back from the brink

Turkish democracy survived a major test, and Turkey turned from the edge of a precipice. The credit for the coup’s defeat goes to the Turkish people, who heeded Erdoğan’s call to resist this intervention “by any means possible and necessary" and filled the squares. TV reports were filled with eye-to-eye, tense, agitated confrontations between civilians and armed soldiers on the two bridges that connect the Asian and European sides of Istanbul. Public restraint and sobriety helped to prevent escalation of violence. There were nevertheless senseless causalities resulting from fire opened by the mutineers and especially attacks mounted on the parliament building as well as the Headquarters of the General Staff. It could have been a lot worse.

Erdoğan needs to rise above a majoritarian understanding of democracy and do justice to the aspirations of a public that heeded his call by pouring into the streets and squares to defeat the coup attempt.

Clearly, Turkey’s democracy has taken a severe blow—cushioned only by the unequivocal stance of the opposition leaders and the media against the coup. Once again, the nation managed to break this pattern of ten-year coups. This offers the country a matchless opportunity for reconciliation. Granted, Erdoğan has had an exceptionally rough weekend and his frustration with those responsible for or implicated in the coup is understandable. He is correct in calling “for their punishment under the full force of the law of the land.” It will, however, now be critical that he ensure that the rule of law is upheld and rises to the challenge of winning the hearts and minds across a deeply polarized nation. He has the tools for it in his repertoire and had successfully wielded them in the past—especially between 2003 and 2011, when he served as prime minister. In hindsight, this period is often referred to as AKP’s “golden age,” when the economy boomed, democracy excelled, and Turkey was touted as a model for those Muslim-majority countries aspiring to transform themselves into liberal democracies.

As he steers the country from the brink of civil war, Erdoğan needs to rise above a majoritarian understanding of democracy and do justice to the aspirations of a public that heeded his call by pouring into the streets and squares to defeat the coup attempt. This is the least that the Turkish public deserves. This would also be a move in the right direction for Turkey’s neighborhood, which desperately needs a respite from the turmoil resulting from the war in Syria, the instability in Iraq, Russia’s territorial ambitions and now Brexit. This is the moment when a stable, democratic, transparent, accountable and prosperous Turkey needs to come to the fore on the world-stage. The United States needs it too. As much as the White House declared its faith in the strength of Turkey’s democracy and its support for the elected leadership, there is a clear chance for forging closer cooperation between the two countries. The first step in cooperation should be in bringing to justice the perpetrators of this coup, followed by measures to enhance Turkey’s capacity to address and manage the many challenges facing Turkey and its neighborhood.

      

 

 

Only two months have passed since Ahmet Davutoğlu was dismissed as Turkey’s prime minister, but Turkey’s foreign policy is already seeing major shifts—U-turns, in fact, especially in its stance towards Israel and Russia. Three former Turkish foreign ministers and three retired undersecretaries—whom I interviewed in May—agreed that Turkish foreign policy had hit a wall, and that Davutoğlu’s departure might open room for realism and pragmatism to make a comeback. Pragmatism—something that had traditionally characterized Turkey’s foreign policy—seems to have finally come to the fore.

But why? And will it persist? 

Pragmatism was a key tenet of Davutoğlu’s famous “zero problems with neighbors” approach while he was an advisor in the prime minister’s office and later as minister of foreign affairs. This policy helped Turkey construct stronger bonds with its neighbors—and thereby expanded the nation’s soft-power clout in the region. Guided by this principle, Turkey supported a U.N. plan to unify the long-divided island of Cyprus; came close to mending its rift with Armenia and opening their shared border; mediated between Israel and Syria; and built lucrative economic relations with almost every country in its neighborhood. 

However, Davutoğlu’s later conviction that the Arab Spring offered an opportunity for Turkey to spearhead a new order in the Middle East shifted the nation onto a completely different trajectory. Pragmatism was set aside in favor of an ideological commitment to the cause of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East to achieve an "imperial fantasy." As the Arab Spring dissolved into social flare-ups and civil wars (with the exception of Tunisia), Turkey found itself embroiled in the internal affairs of Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. The situation in Syria—namely the international fight against the Islamic State and conflicting opinions on the fate of the Syrian President Bashar Assad—put Turkey at loggerheads with its traditional Western allies as well as with Russia and Iran. Furthermore, the chaos in Syria has triggered a wave of more than three million refugees into Turkey and has dramatically jeopardized Turkey’s internal security, as the recent terrorist attacks at Istanbul airport and other places have demonstrated. With Turkey’s web of export markets shrinking and its income from tourism decreasing, the nation’s economy is also in tatters. 

Re-friending Israel

Late last month, Israel and Turkey managed to normalize relations after a six-year hiatus sparked by the attack on the Mavi Marmara in June 2010. The ferry had been commissioned by Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), a conservative NGO with ties to the Turkish government, and had that government’s tacit approval to embark on a humanitarian trip to challenge Israel’s blockade on Gaza. After the Israeli attack, Turkey withdrew its ambassador and demanded an official apology, reparations for damages, and the lifting of the blockade on Gaza. 

Barack Obama pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to apologize to then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in May 2013. It took another three years to agree on a reparations deal for the victims’ families and reach a compromise on the future of the Gaza blockade. Most challenging was reconciling Israel’s security concerns with Erdoğan’s political ones: The final agreement kept in place Israel’s blockade, while permitting Erdoğan to extend humanitarian assistance to Gaza just in time for Eid al-Fitr celebrations—and therefore appeal to the religious sensitivities of his support base. 

Warming up with Russia

Almost simultaneously, Erdoğan sent a carefully-worded letter to the Russian President Vladimir Putin, conveying his heartfelt sorrows for the damages caused by the shooting down of a Russian warplane that had strayed into Turkish airspace from Syria in November 2015. He mentioned that Turkey was ready to pay compensation to the families of the pilots. At the time, Putin called the shoot-down a “stab in the back.” He called for a series of economic sanctions on Turkey that went into effect at the start of this year, as well as demanded compensation and prosecution of those responsible for killing one of the pilots. 

Moscow interpreted Erdoğan’s letter as an apology, which Putin accepted. Following a phone conversation, the two agreed to resuscitate economic relations by lifting the embargo on trade and tourism. There are now reports that Erdoğan and Putin may meet in July or August.

In a meeting with his Russian counterpart in Sochi on July 1, Turkish Foreign Affairs Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu stated that there may be some shifts in Turkey’s Syria policy. He announced Turkey’s willingness to cooperate more closely with Russia to tackle the situation in Syria. A number of commentators concluded that Assad’s departure was no longer a top priority for Turkey, and that a “transition period” with Assad in power would be acceptable. It also seemed that Çavuşoğlu was prepared to increase bilateral cooperation by allowing Russia to use Turkey’s military facilities—including the Incirlik airbase, from which the United States mounts its attacks on ISIS targets. However, he quickly denied those claims. Together with Davutoğlu’s successor Binali Yıldırım, Çavuşoğlu also expressed that they would work towards building more lucrative commercial ties with Egypt. 

Ripe for a comeback

A number of factors played a role in triggering this return to pragmatism. Economic considerations top the list. 

Russian sanctions—combined with the loss of Middle Eastern export markets—has cost and is still costing Turkey dearly. Turkey’s exports to Russia dropped by 40 percent between 2014 and 2015, and its exports to the Arab world dropped 11 percent. In the first four months of 2016, there was an even more dramatic drop, with exports to Russia falling 60 percent compared to the same period in 2016, and exports to the Arab world falling 17 percent. This has spelled disaster in some areas, particularly AKP strongholds in Anatolia—called the Anatolian Tigers because they have transformed themselves into export hubs under the AKP leadership. In contrast, Istanbul-based companies with closer EU trade ties—and whose success is therefore less contingent on Erdoğan’s goodwill— maintain smaller operations in the Middle East and are more active in Russia (at least among sectors that have not been severely hit by Russian sanctions). 

There is a similar picture in tourism, which accounts for 6.2 percent of Turkey’s economic output and 8 percent of employment. The impact of the fall in tourism—from Russia and more broadly—has been dramatic, and felt especially acutely in Istanbul and Antalya, Turkey’s most popular tourist destinations. Hotels and travel agencies have reported cancellations, and tour companies have removed Turkish ports from their itineraries based on “safety and customer sentiment” considerations. Hotel occupancy rates have fallen to a historical low of 20 percent to 40 percent. However, the rapprochement with Russia has already triggered an increase in bookings by Russian travelers. Improving relations with Israel is likely to yield a similar outcome. 

Security concerns emanating from the chaos in Syria is another reason for the foreign policy U-turn. Almost 300 people have reportedly died in 17 bomb attacks in the last two years. Some attacks have been ISIS-led, and others have been perpetrated by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. The PKK-affiliated splinter group known as Kurdistan Freedom Falcons has hatched a number of terrorist attacks, and together with the PKK, has led a major armed insurgency in Turkey’s southeastern, Kurdish-populated provinces, causing massive destruction and displacement. The PKK is closely allied with the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria, and has even inflicted damage on Turkey’s military hardware with weapons made in Russia. Furthermore, Russian citizens rank among ISIS foot soldiers—even more alarmingly, perpetrators of the attack on Istanbul’s airport were from the north Caucasus. This situation is now compelling Turkey to overlook its political preferences in Syria and address security challenges by cooperating with Israel and Russia. 

A greater dose of pragmatism? 

Many have welcomed the new degree of pragmatism that brought about the U-turn in Turkey’s relations with Israel and Russia. However, it is yet to be seen whether it will persist, and whether it will bring about an improvement in Turkey’s economic performance and domestic security situation. Will it help resuscitate Turkey’s famous “zero problems with neighbors” policy and improve Turkey’s relations with its Western allies? Furthermore, will pragmatism in foreign policy translate into actions that may help improve the dire state of Turkish democracy? 

      

 

 

Soon after the end of World War II, Robert Schuman, then the French minister of foreign affairs, and Konrad Adenauer, then the German chancellor—along with French diplomat Jean Monnet, a cognac producer and advocate of European unification—thought they had found a magical formula to end the cycle of war that the continent had inflicted upon itself for centuries. Simply put, they proposed that countries could transfer partial sovereignty to a supranational body that would exercise control over the production of the means of war: coal and steel.

Over the next several years, this evolved into a much broader idea: to aim for an integrated Europe, wherein labor, goods, capital, and services could move freely. This would be secured by dismantling national borders (which, advocates believed, were instruments to stoke xenophobia and a politics of fear). The ultimate goal was “an ever-closer union” among European states. 

In the following decades, and especially after the end of the Cold War, Europe moved closer and closer to achieving this goal. But it was met with backlash, too, from publics who saw the emerging supranational government in Brussels as an elitist project, disconnected from the views and concerns of average Europeans. 

The financial meltdown in 2008, and the economic crisis it unleashed, made matters worse. The economic realities of the European Union chipped away at the founding fathers’ dream of consolidating a stronger European identity that would supersede national affiliations. 

Pascal Lamy—a chief of staff to the father of the European internal market, Jacques Delors—once likened the founding fathers to medieval alchemists and remarked that “they thought they could transform the stone of economic integration into the gold of political integration.” In hindsight, what the founding fathers envisioned may indeed have been beyond the bounds of the possible. Let us hope for the time being that the “politics of fear” that brought about the Brexit result does not spin out of control, and make Europe (foremost Britain) regret its decision to reject the wisdom of Schuman, Adenauer, and Monnet—and all the others who’ve chosen to walk in their path. 

      

 

 

Much ink will be spilled analyzing the results of the U.K. referendum on whether to leave the EU. Some will highlight the xenophobic edge to the “leave” campaign, and how the Brexiteers resorted brazenly to a politics of fear to exploit the public’s worries over immigration.

Not surprisingly, Turkey became the natural pick to serve as the Brexit campaign’s boogeyman. According to the “leave” campaign’s material, Turks are inherently prone to violence and criminality. If Britain remains in the European Union, the thinking goes, it will soon be overrun by flocks of Turks. Former Mayor of London Boris Johnson—one of the staunchest advocates of Brexit—remarked cynically that “he [would] not mind whether Turkey joins the EU, provided that the U.K. leaves the EU.” He has unabashedly stoked fears that EU membership means uncontrolled immigration into Britain, and that Turkish membership to the EU would only make that problem worse. 

Stoking fear of Turkey-the-boogeyman is a longstanding pastime in Europe, stretching back centuries. Turkey’s candidacy for the European Union breathed new life into the practice. When Turkey started to undertake reforms that set the country towards accession negotiations, it was met with mighty resistance in Europe—confirming the deep-seated skepticism in Turkey that “objective” criteria, also applied to Central and Eastern European countries, would not apply to it. The image of the “terrible Turk” appeared once again: to warn the European public of an impending Turkish invasion, and therefore to keep Turkey out of the European Union. 

Old habits die hard

It’s ironic that Boris Johnson—a great-grandson of an Ottoman minister and someone who has previously spoken proudly of his Turkish heritage—would succumb to Turkey-the-boogeyman scare tactics. But he has high political ambitions, which include chipping away at Prime Minister David Cameron’s leadership of the Conservative Party, and Johnson now seems to prefer pandering to populist, euro-skeptic forces. In an attempt to secure his right-side flank, Cameron (who had long supported Turkey’s EU membership, as long as the necessary conditions were met) had a sudden conversion just a few days ago and said that Turkey’s prospects for EU membership before the year 3000 were slim. So he too apparently believes, in some sense, that Turkey is a boogeyman—so Turkey has become a punching bag in the internal Conservative Party power struggle too. 

Mirror images?

It goes without saying that Turkey is not in the shape that it was a decade ago. It is no longer the darling of the international community with an enviable growth rate, and its soft power has waned dramatically. Instead, both its democracy and its economy are limping along, at best—though, to be fair, its economy is growing faster than the EU’s. And Turks are no strangers to the kinds of politics of fear we’ve seen in the U.K.—their increasingly authoritarian and repressive leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is adept at stoking fear too. Meanwhile, he’s assumed a defiant posture towards Europe, threatening, for example, to lower the drawbridge on Greece and Bulgaria and unleash a repeat of last year’s migration crisis. These kinds of threats, of course, only bolster voices like Boris Johnson back in Britain. 

It’s quite remarkable that at the same time as prominent figures in both the “leave” and “remain” campaigns are engaging in forms of Turkey-bashing, they apparently borrow lexicon from the Turkish leader himself—employing a language of intolerance and xenophobia. This could not have been—and indeed, was not—what early promoters of European integration like Winston Churchill envisaged for their continent. They had seen the horrors that could come when politics of fear spun out of control. 

Regardless of the British referendum results, there has already been much damage inflicted on the West’s liberal image. This is why when ink is spilled in the coming days, discussing the vote’s results, we must also take a hard look at eroding liberal democratic standards and values. The very foundations of European—including British—democracies are being shaken: What will this mean for the European integration project? It seems surprising today, but there was actually a time when there were European leaders who pushed for Turkish membership in the EU—yes, Turkey the boogeyman—in order to strengthen this very project. Times and sentiments, as well as conceptions of democracy, have obviously changed. Welcome populism, welcome politics of fear, and pity to those Turks that genuinely believed in Europe’s strength as a bastion of liberal democracy and integration.

      

 

 

The Syrian crisis is now in its sixth year. Half of Syria’s population is now either an internally displaced person or a refugee. Frontline countries are now hosting close to five million refugees. Turkey, which has taken in more than 2.8 million Syrians, is by far the largest recipient. Instability in Iraq has displaced another quarter of a million people into Turkey, joining an ever-growing number of asylum seekers from countries around the world.

In 2014, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Turkey was home to the largest number of refugees in the world. That’s no accident. In 2011, when hostilities first broke out in Syria, Turkey adopted an open-door policy. Many expected at the time that regime transition would be swift and that refugees would return home quickly. 

Six years into the crisis, the situation on the ground is starkly different, and the war in Syria continues to force people away from their homes. The overwhelming majority of those seeking refuge will stay in their host countries for the foreseeable future. The situation has become, in the words of the UNHCR, “a protracted crisis.”

Mounting pressures

Unfortunately, this realization is setting in at a time when donor fatigue is growing. Although the Turkish public was initially welcoming and generous, this has changed as refugees’ presence has persisted. There are growing calls for them to leave and for new arrivals to be prevented from entering, particularly as competition for jobs, housing, and public services increases. 

[I]ntegration is the only way forward.

To avoid refugees getting locked into a permanent state of dependence on handouts or becoming alienated from the rest of society—both of which are likely to generate security challenges—integration is the only way forward. Turkey has already taken a step in the right direction by opening up its labor market to Syrian refugees. The right to legal employment is an important step, but it is not enough: refugees will need skills training and education on Turkish language and culture, and the Turkish leadership needs to develop new strategies for job creation. Recent studies estimate that less than one third of school-age children in Turkey have access to proper schooling. More worrisome, many are reportedly exposed to informal radical Islamist education. This does not bode well for the prospect of helping these children become productive members of society. It also makes them attractive targets for those trying to recruit more people into their crime or terrorism networks. 

Wanted: teamwork

Meeting these two major challenges to integration—employment and education—requires greater cooperation with the international community. More concerted action at the international level is needed to mobilize funds and implement capacity-building programs that can support Turkey’s efforts. This should be accompanied by a robust global resettlement program for refugees—possibly resembling the Comprehensive Plan of Action for Indochinese Refugees between 1988 and 1996—who are particularly vulnerable, such as single-mothers with children, the elderly, and those with particularly difficult medical conditions. 

The international community has been slow to respond to the crisis, but that is beginning to change. A donor conference for Syria in London in February 2016 raised government pledges totaling more than $11 billion. These should help to boost persistently underfunded U.N. humanitarian budgets for Syria and help improve the resilience of refugee-receiving communities in front-line countries. Another conference in Geneva in March significantly raised resettlements quotas pledged by participating countries to take Syrian refugees from Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey in order to honor the principle of burden sharing. The U.N. is gearing up to hold a major international conference in September to address refugee and migrant flows in general. 

At the ground level, these fundraising efforts are enabling an array of assistance programs to take root, and in many cases they’re already having an effect. The main areas of need—durable solutions such as integration and resettlement coupled with education and livelihood opportunities—are widely known to all involved, and specific proposals for continuing to fill those gaps have long been on the table. But progress has stalled because of an apparent communication problem in Ankara. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hasn’t exactly adopted a constructive approach to international cooperation. He speaks contemptuously of the international community in general and the West in particular (much of this rhetoric is intended for domestic consumption). But since most of the funds provided for U.N. budgets addressing refugees’ needs actually come from the West, both sides have an interest in arriving at a modus vivendi that benefits all, especially the refugees. Constructive language is also likely to lend more legitimacy to Turkish—and for that matter Jordanian and Lebanese—complaints that the international community is not doing enough to share the burden of caring for and protecting Syrian refugees. 

      

 

 

The only interlocutor for the United States in Turkey will be President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from now on, Professor Kemal Kirişci has said, adding that Washington has come to recognize the reality that whoever becomes the prime minister “knows he is not going to do anything that is unauthorized.”

The U.S. has lost its hopes regarding Turkish democracy, according to Kirişci, who is at the Washington-based Brookings Institute.

Prior to President Erdoğan’s visit, there were a record number of articles saying he would not receive a warm welcome in Washington, let alone a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama. Yet Erdoğan ended up in the White House for a long meeting.

I was able to observe both of his visits in May 2013, and the one that took place last March. The difference is day and night. In 2013 the U.S. administration was bending over backwards to welcome Erdoğan, and he was hosted very lavishly.

The last visit was also preceded by the article of Jeff Goldberg, where there was a reference to how disappointed Obama was with his relationship with Erdoğan. I think that the appointment was given because Turkey and the president of Turkey is very central and critical to the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). This is the only reason why this appointment was given; this is my reading.

The meeting took place despite Obama’s disillusionment with Erdoğan. Does that mean that Turkey is indispensable, regardless of rules Turkey? Or is Erdoğan not expendable?

Both. The term that is being used in Washington for the U.S. relationship with Turkey is “transactional,” meaning wherever we have common interests and common concerns, we are going to try to cooperate. The idea of a model partnership based on shared liberal values is no longer an issue; the cooperation is out of necessity.

Was there ever a Davutoğlu effect in bilateral relations, since he was one of the figures shaping foreign policy?

Starting in September 2015, Davutoğlu projected the image of a pragmatic person wanting to address a problem. The way in which he handled the European migration crisis was assessed as something positive compared to the rhetoric the president uses where he is constantly criticizing and using contemptuous – almost denigrating – language toward Europe but also the U.S. I suspect that Davutoğlu was offered an audience with Obama [shortly after his meeting with Erdoğan] because of this.

How do you think Washington will see his departure?

At the micro level, they thought that there was room for a pragmatic, solution-oriented relationship with Davutoğlu. But in the course of the last year or two, they had also come to realize that Davutoğlu’s foreign policy based around his book “Strategic Depth” was producing conflict between Turkey and the U.S. – the conflict areas being Syria, ISIL, Egypt, Israel and Iraq. 

Do you think there will be any changes in relations with Davutoğlu’s departure?

I think there is a recognition in Turkey, Europe, the U.S. and the rest of the world that from today onward, Turkey’s foreign policy will be run by the president. The notion that Turkey is a parliamentary system and the president is supposed to be equidistant from political parties does not reflect reality. The U.S., with this experience behind them, has come to recognize this reality. Whoever becomes the PM, they know he is not going to do anything that is unauthorized. The consequence is that Turkey-U.S. relations will not be where they were when Erdoğan first came to power; that’s how I can answer the question because it is comparative. At that time, in addition to Syria, trade, the economy and Turkey’s relations with the EU were also on the agenda.

These issues will no longer be on the agenda; there will be only one issue: the Syrian issue. [But another will be how will] NATO manage the challenges that Russia is bringing to European security? I think there is some room for interaction there.

Has the U.S. given up on Turkey as a reliable ally sharing the same values? 

It is sad but that is the reality. Turkey’s agenda today in the neighborhood is not an agenda that overlaps with the Western transatlantic community’s agenda. There is a lot of aggravation that emerges from that reality. For the U.S., the issue of ISIL is regarded as the major challenge emanating from the Middle East to U.S. and European security. I think they have reached a conclusion that cooperating with Turkey is an uphill battle. They also recognized Turkey and the U.S. have conflicting interests with respect to the PYD [Democratic Union Party]. Turkey considers it a threat to national security whereas the U.S. sees the PYD as an actor with which they are able to cooperate against ISIL in a decisive, reliable and credible manner. In the case of Turkey, there is cooperation but there are question marks over the reliability and credibility and commitment of Turkey.

Why are you using the word sad?

It is sad from a personal point of view because when you look at the world right now, it looks like there are two governance system competing with each other. One governance system is the system to which I thought Turkey was always committed. We became a member of NATO, Council of Europe and the OECD. We aspire to become part of the EU because I suppose we believed the values of members of this community provides more prosperity, stability and security to its citizens. Then there is an alternative form of governance represented by Russia, Iran and China [based on] the idea that the state should have a greater say on the economy, the state interest should prevail over the interests and the rights of individuals and that freedom of expression and media can be curtailed to serve state interests. Turkey is increasingly moving in the direction of this second form of governance.

Why, then, did Brookings invite Erdoğan, producing embarrassing moments when the president’s security detailed interfered with demonstrators?

Brookings has a long-established program called the Global Leaders Forum and invites presidents and prime ministers to give speeches. It is an independent think tank and does not confer legitimacy or illegitimacy on a speaker. The Washington audience got an opportunity to see how Turkey is being governed.

It looks like the U.S. remains indifferent to democratic backpedalling in Turkey.

There was a time at meetings on Turkey in which questions were raised along the lines of, “Why isn’t the U.S. doing more against this backsliding?” Interestingly, in the course of about six months or so, this question is being raised less and less. The U.S. has lost hopes about Turkish democracy. The primary reason for this is that they have this impression that Turkish society, especially after what happened after the June [2015] elections, gives priority to this kind of governance. Also, the Obama administration, especially compared to the Bush and Clinton administrations, is less comfortable with the idea of promoting democracy and supporting democratization.

The interview was originally published in Hürriyet Daily News.

      

 

 

World leaders, UN agencies, and relief organizations will gather in Istanbul on May 23–24 for the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit, spearheaded by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in response to the more than one hundred million people in need of assistance. The Brookings Institution's Kemal Kirişci says that the decision to hold this summit in Turkey, made in 2013 on the basis of its generous foreign-assistance program and hosting of the world's largest refugee population, has been complicated amid President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's authoritarian turn. "I suspect that the summit is not going to receive the attention it would have gotten had Turkey been in a different situation," Kirişci says.

Why was Turkey selected to host this inaugural summit?

Turkey had become one of the largest donor countries in the world—the largest on a per-capita basis. The World Humanitarian Summit was a way for the secretary-general to acknowledge this, and to encourage other countries to be as generous as Turkey has been.

Part of the agenda is criticizing the prevailing humanitarian government system led by the West: the United Nations, the United States, and big international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs). The secretary-general wanted alternative voices to emerge. A lot of the funds allocated for humanitarian and developmental goals, for example, disappear into black holes of administrative costs. Turkey has criticized this, and operates its system outside the established mechanisms.

The other side of the coin was to encourage Turkey to work more closely with existing international humanitarian governance. For example, Turkey makes very little contributions to the UN budget or to international agencies that have experience working on these issues and well-established practices on transparency and accountability. Instead, it prefers to follow its own path.

What are the political objectives underlying Turkey's largesse?

Once the Soviet Union collapsed, Turkey embarked on a policy of extending humanitarian and a little developmental assistance to Georgia, Azerbaijan, Central Asian countries, and the former Yugoslavia. This evolved into a full-fledged agency called TİKA, the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency.

By 2010, TİKA was commanding a significant budget and extending assistance to distant corners of the world. This was increasingly accompanied by faith-based—in essence, Islamic—NGOs. They have extended assistance to Syria, and also victims of the earthquake in Haiti and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, as well as the Rohingya refugees fleeing [Myanmar]. In the last couple of years, TİKA and these NGOs have increasingly focused on Muslim countries and communities in Africa and Asia. That falls in line with a Turkey that aspires to lead the Muslim world.

Turkey hosts the largest population of Syrian refugees—some 2.75 million, according to the UN. Why did Turkey open its borders in 2011?

There was a lot of empathy, but the border opening also needs to be seen as part of a geopolitical agenda. [Then Foreign Affairs Minister Ahmet] Davutoğlu and [then Prime Minister] Erdoğan, like the United States, expected that [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad would fall within a short period of time, and Turkey wanted to be seen as a country that had helped a large number of refugees. Turkey expected that it would win the hearts and minds of the international community, and also of the Syrian refugees, who are overwhelmingly Sunni Arabs. Its assumption was that a government coming from a Muslim Brotherhood tradition, like Mohamed Morsi’s in Egypt, [would follow Assad's fall]. Turkey expected to enjoy considerable influence with this new regime, beyond the quite intimate relationship it had acquired with Assad [prior to 2011, when Turkey lent its backing to the opposition].

Erdoğan complains that the international community has contributed miserably to Turkey, which has spent more than $10 billion on Syrian refugees over the past five years. But the international community has contributed $1.5 billion [to Syrian refugees in Turkey] through the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, World Food Program, and UNICEF, and also through groups like Médecins Sans Frontières and a number of [U.S.-based] INGOs. Turkey doesn't count that [since it doesn't go through the national budget].

Most refugees are not in camps, but rather, scattered in communities across Turkey. Is Turkey providing them with adequate protection and services?

After Turkey formally adopted an open-door policy late in 2011, it extended temporary protection to Syrian refugees, meaning that as long as they are in Turkey, no one will send them back to Syria, in line with international refugee law. But with the international community not sharing the burden in the form of more generous funding and resettlement, the numbers are becoming unmanageable and extremely costly, and public opinion is beginning to react to it.

A lot of children don’t have access to proper education. The state was confused as to whether it would incorporate them into the Turkish education system and transform them into Turks, or follow a Syrian curriculum, with the assumption that they would return. Until January this year, Syrian refugees were not allowed to work legally. The Turkish government doesn’t provide pocket money, only health services, and, through some local government budgets, limited food. Civil society provides something on top, but it’s never enough. Many children have been forced to work to make ends meet.

There are now questions about whether Turkey's border remains open to Syrians seeking protection. Human Rights Watch recently reported on Syrian asylum-seekers shot at by Turkish border guards while attempting to make the crossing.

I don’t think they were killed because they were [identified as] refugees; rather, the security forces are under massive pressure to prevent Islamic State militants from crossing the border.

[Security concerns, coupled with the escalating costs of hosting so many refugees,] are leading to a situation where Syrians who want to flee to Turkey for protection are now being prevented from doing that. Formal crossing points have fallen in numbers, and at these points I’m not sure that the Turkish government is welcoming new refugees. Instead, would-be refugees end up in makeshift camps on the Syrian side. One of them was recently attacked.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu is stepping down amid an apparent power grab by Erdoğan. Does that jeopardize the EU-Turkey migrant deal

There is immediate concern on both the Turkish side—among civil society, academics, some columnists, and some bureaucrats—and the European side that Erdoğan is going to blow apart the deal, which stipulates that Turkey will readmit irregular migrants and asylum-seekers who have come to Europe through Turkey and whose asylum applications have been turned down.

Part of the quid pro quo [on the migrant and refugee negotiations] is that if Turkey meets seventy-two criteria, the EU will lift visa requirements for Turkish nationals [to travel in the visa-free Schengen Zone]. That is no different than deals the EU has negotiated with Moldova, Serbia, and Georgia. Turkey has met all but five of those criteria. One of the outstanding ones has to do with the recent counterterrorism law, which has been the [legal grounds for] the arrest or detention of journalists and academics.

The EU's position is that as soon as the criteria are met, the European Union, on the basis of pacta sunt servanda (pacts must be respected), will lift visa requirements. However, populist politicians who frame this deal as "barbarian Turks descending on Christian Europe" complicate matters. [If visa liberalization falters,] we have to see whether other parts of the deal will continue to be practiced.

If this refugee swap arrangement does fall through at the end of June, what is Europe's plan B?

I’m not sure that there is a plan B. If anything, there is a widespread recognition that even if this deal works impeccably, there will still be people trying to make the crossing [to Europe by sea], and human smugglers will put into place other routes that are costly both in monetary terms and lives.

The end to this humanitarian drama will not come unless the conflict in Syria is resolved. One issue that is being debated is [establishing a] safe haven [on the Syrian side of the border]. The Turkish government has pushed hard for one from the beginning, and [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel signaled that she might be prepared to go along with one, but the United States is very much against it. Many humanitarian officials are against it, too, on the grounds that it could actually make civilians even more vulnerable than they already are. Furthermore, there is always the danger that such a zone risks being used for all kinds of political ends by the Islamic State, the opposition, or external actors, including Turkey.

Turkey's governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) called a party congress to consider Davutoğlu's successor for Sunday, a day ahead of the summit. How will this summit play out for Turkey?

When the World Humanitarian Summit [was awarded] to Turkey, it was a big deal, a bit like getting the Olympics. Today, Brazil, deep in political crisis, probably regrets that it got the Olympics. A similar situation exists in Turkey, if on a smaller scale. I suspect that the summit is not going to receive the attention it would have gotten had Turkey been in a different situation.

Tourism had been collapsing because of the security situation, so the World Humanitarian Summit was not only meant to reward Turkey for its humanitarian generosity, but also as a recognition of how great a country Turkey is to visit. That is not going to be the case.

This interview has been edited and condensed. Copyright © Council on Foreign Relations 2016, republished with permission.

     

 

 

When the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced at the 68th session of the General Assembly in 2013 that Turkey would host the first-ever world humanitarian summit, Turkey’s soft power was standing tall. Its economy was growing a respectable 4.2 percent rate in 2013—when the United States was still battling with the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the EU was mired in a currency crisis. That year, Turkish exports reached unprecedented heights (including cultural exports: Turkish soap operas were popular in as faraway lands as Brazil). Turkey was still receiving a record number of tourists, despite the civil war raging next door in Syria. And, as Ban Ki-moon noted, Turkey was rising as a major donor country and was playing a critical role in providing humanitarian assistance in Syria (as well as in Haiti, the Philippines, and elsewhere). Its open-door policy towards Syrian refugees received high praise. And Turkey ranked 20th in Monocle’s first-ever Soft Power Index.

Now the international community is gearing up to gather in Istanbul for the World Humanitarian Summit on May 22 to 24, and the picture is strikingly different. The crisis in Syria has escalated dramatically, morphing into a major security predicament for Turkey. Bombings in Turkey masterminded and hatched by the Islamic State (ISIS) have killed hundreds, and rockets are raining on Kilis, a town close to the Syrian border that now hosts more refugees than locals. The number of refugees in Turkey has increased more than threefold, from about 600,000 at the end of 2013 to almost 2.8 million today, excluding refugees from Iraq and elsewhere. More refugees now live in difficult urban conditions and are increasingly resorting to negative coping strategies as illegal work, child labor, and even prostitution. More than half of about 700,000 refugee children are not receiving proper education. Hundreds of refugees have lost their lives trying to cross into Greece across the Aegean Sea, while a lucrative smuggling business has emerged—precisely the type of commercial activity that does not sit well with Turkey’s soft power image. 

The scorecard

Let’s give credit where credit is due: The Turkish government has spent more than $10 billion in protection and public services for refugees since 2011 (not including what Turkish civil society and local governments have spent), and the Turkish people were welcoming of beleaguered Syrian refugees when they first began to arrive.

Turkey contributed to the humanitarian effort long before real offers to share the burden came from the international community. But even those offers have fallen short: The U.N. Syria Regional Refugee and Resilience Plans (3RPs) have remained consistently underfunded. From 2012 to May 2016, Turkey received $2.3 billion under U.N. funds and appeals—less than a quarter of its humanitarian spending. Furthermore, when Turkey was listed as the country with the largest refugee population in 2014, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees submitted only 15,738 requests for resettlement. This is about 0.5 percent of the current Syrian refugee population in Turkey—hardly a generous manifestation of international solidarity. Hence, it is difficult not to sympathize with the Turkish leadership’s complaints that the international community has failed in its responsibility to share this burden. 

To again give credit where credit is due, the international community is increasingly recognizing this failure and is more willing to do something about it. A February donor conference for Syria in London raised pledges totaling more than $11 billion, and another in Geneva in March raised resettlement quotas, for example. And the U.N. is gearing up to hold a major international conference in September to address refugee and migrant flows. The fact that the first World Humanitarian Summit is being held in Istanbul is an opportunity for Turkey to make a constructive contribution to these efforts.

An attempt at resuscitation 

Unfortunately, the summit comes at a time when Turkey’s soft power and economy are in serious decline. New instability and violence in Turkey has scared away tourists, delivering a big blow to the economy: Tourism decreased by 16.5 percent in the first quarter of 2016 compared to the same period last year, and last week Turkish Airlines announced its worst losses since 1999. Exports have fallen, too—these are a critical driver of Turkey’s economic growth. No doubt these economic troubles—combined with more critical public opinion—will impact Turkey’s ability to manage the Syrian refugee situation. 

What should Turkey do about its spiraling dilemmas? Foremost, the Turkish government needs to revisit its broader Syria policy. Hopes for swift regime change in Damascus have obviously been dashed, and now Syria is a battleground for multi-layered proxy wars. There are no innocent parties in the fight, except for suffering civilians, and Turkey itself is not unsullied. 

However, unlike most of these not-so-innocent parties, Turkey is also trying to alleviate the suffering of displaced civilians by facilitating the transfer of humanitarian assistance into Syria and by hosting large numbers of refugees. So Turkey still has some soft power to salvage and should put it to use at the upcoming summit. 

[T]he spirit and tradition of Turkish humanitarianism must live on.

First, it should address one of the international community’s growing concerns: that Syrian refugees are being denied entry into Turkey. Human Rights Watch recently reported that Turkish security forces caused the death of some refugees trying to enter Turkey; this should be taken very seriously and future similar incidents must be prevented. Turkey should retain its commendable open-door policy, in place since November 2011—that policy no doubt played a role in bringing the World Humanitarian Summit to Istanbul. 

Second, the Turkish leadership should converse constructively—not contemptuously—with its transatlantic partners. This leadership is not incorrect in complaining about failures in international burden-sharing. But it is not just the West that has failed Turkey (and for that matter Jordan and Lebanon), but the international community as a whole. In fact, the United States, the European Union, and individual European countries have provided $10.8 billion of the $16.8 billion (65 percent) for the U.N.’s emergency funds for this humanitarian crisis. Turkey should use its leverage with countries in the Muslim world to increase their funding and take more refugees for resettlement. 

Third, Turkey should not let the deal it reached with the European Union in March collapse. The deal was hard to negotiate and received appropriate criticism for prioritizing the political interests of the EU and Turkey over refugees’ humanitarian needs. While Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu—the architect of the deal and the person who brought the World Humanitarian Summit to Turkey—may no longer be in office, the spirit and tradition of Turkish humanitarianism must live on. Turkey might be able to salvage some of its soft power if it manages to smoothly transition to the next administration while preserving the deal. This would help alleviate the human consequences of Syria’s chaos and help Turkey resuscitate the trust and good will it once enjoyed in the world. In the end, that’s a key part of the effort to rescue Syrians and Syria. 

     

 

 

The migration deal that Turkey and the European Union reached in March received heavy criticism. It was slammed for giving unacceptable concessions to Turkey’s strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, with critics accusing German Chancellor Angela Merkel—desperate to stem the tide of Syrian refugees and irregular migration into Europe—of being willing to overlook Erdoğan’s disregard for democratic values. Some expected to see Merkel’s downfall. Instead, however, it is the Turkish prime minister who is losing his job.

As revealed in the Financial Times, it was not Erdoğan but rather Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and his team who negotiated the migrant deal. Davutoğlu hoped the deal would secure Europe’s assistance in tackling the major humanitarian challenge Turkey faces, while also setting Turkey on track towards visa liberalization with Europe. The latter would clearly strengthen Davutoğlu’s hand in an ongoing, but fairly discreet, power struggle with Erdoğan. A document, now known as “the Pelican brief,” has made this behind-the-scenes struggle public. The report lays out Erdoğan’s displeasure over the fact that the migration deal was Davutoğlu’s brainchild and reveals that the president had not been adequately consulted. 

The revelation coincided with the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) decision to curtail Davutoğlu’s executive powers within the party. These powers had specifically been granted to Erdoğan during his tenure as the prime minister (from 2003 to 2014) and the leader of the party prior to his election as president in August 2014. 

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu speaks during a news conference at his ruling AK Party headquarters in Ankara, Turkey May 5, 2016. Photo credit: Reuters/Umit Bektas.

Bruised by this decision, Davutoğlu went on to address AKP members and announced that he would never sacrifice party interests to political ambitions. This precipitated speculations that he was preparing to resign from his post. Meanwhile, Erdoğan summoned him—apparently disregarding constitutional requirements that as president he remain uninvolved with political parties—and simply asked him to call for an extraordinary congress of the AKP, effectively sacking him. 

A columnist who used to be pro-AKP, writing in one of the few surviving opposition papers in Turkey, noted that this development signaled a shift from “a single-man party to a single-man regime.” This reality became starker in a note circulated by a presidential advisor, while Davutoğlu was still addressing his party colleagues at the parliament. The note simply read: “Turkey=RTE=AK Party.” He noted that whether you read the formula from right to left or left to right, reality speaks for itself: Erdoğan is the undisputed leader of Turkey and the AKP. 

So this is where Turkey stands today—a far cry from the days when the AKP came to power in 2002 on a ticket promoting liberal democracy, diversity, rule of law, and EU accession. It is ironic that all this coincides with the European Commission issuing a conditional backing for visa liberalization for Turkish nationals. Many are already speculating that one of the possible candidates as Davutoğlu’s successor could well be Erdoğan’s son-in-law, the current minister of energy. Whoever gets appointed—not elected, as there will be only one candidate—at the party congress as party leader (and eventually prime minister), his paramount task will be to ensure that a new constitution legalizes Erdoğan’s “one-man” rule and is supported through a referendum. Will Merkel find in the new premier a partner committed to seeing the implementation of the EU-Turkey deal through? Or will she and her critics actually miss Davutoğlu when he’s gone?

     

 

 

Half of Syria’s population is now either an internally displaced person (IDP) or a refugee. The international community is still struggling to respond to this humanitarian catastrophe, now in its sixth year, with the resources of host governments, aid agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and a multitude of other actors stretched to the limit. In the absence of viable political solutions to the Syrian conflict, no end to the war is in sight—and funds to support an ever-increasing population of displaced persons are neither sufficient now nor likely to be sustainable in the future. Displaced Syrians—whom we should see not just as victims but as survivors—are taking matters into their own hands, leaving Syria in massive numbers and making treacherous journeys to seek safety elsewhere.

The Syrian tragedy is occurring against the backdrop of a global displacement crisis. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, almost 60 million people have been forced from their homes by conflict, violence, and persecution. And a large proportion doesn’t go home quickly. Finding solutions for long-term displacement has been on the global humanitarian agenda for years, but the international community is failing in this task, especially in terms of providing adequate support for refugees and IDPs to become self-reliant, resettling refugees, and planning for sustainable solutions.

All trends point to Syria becoming yet another protracted displacement crisis with profound implications for Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, the major host countries for Syrian refugees—as well as the EU and the broader international community. Can something be done about it?

Failed by our international structures?

We need to first recognize the implications of Syrian displacement for the international order. The ongoing conflict and the displacement it has caused demonstrate that international structures designed to prevent and resolve conflicts—including the United Nations and regional bodies—are not working, at least not in the Middle East. 

Ultimately, the solution to the Syrian IDP and refugee crisis is a political one, since it requires an end to the violence and destruction in Syria. It was only in late-2015, when the Syria conflict began to affect the security and stability of Europe, that high-level efforts were intensified to address the root cause of displacement. So far, a highly fragile and partial truce on the ground, paired with efforts by U.N. Envoy Staffan de Mistura to keep the warring parties at the negotiation table in Geneva, have not in any way lessened the challenges of extending humanitarian assistance to displaced Syrians. The dire humanitarian situation continues to call for burden sharing and international solidarity.

The dire humanitarian situation continues to call for burden sharing and international solidarity.

To date, the burden of protecting and assisting refugees has largely fallen on the shoulders of major host countries—primarily Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. The governments of these countries are providing a public good for the international community, and it is indeed disappointing that appeals by host governments and the U.N. system for more assistance received such scant attention—until large numbers of Syrians began to arrive in Europe. Even now, the resources that have been marshaled aren’t sufficient for the gargantuan task at hand, though Europe and the international community are realizing that they need a new formula for better burden sharing with host countries in Syria’s neighborhood. 

A how-to

It is against this background that we propose a New Global Approach for Syria in our new book (part of the forthcoming Brookings Marshall Paper series), "Consequences of Chaos." This approach would bring together the governments of refugee-hosting countries, the U.N. and other intergovernmental agencies, regional bodies, international nongovernmental organizations, local civil society actors, and donor governments to consider and adopt a new system of burden sharing. The focus would be: 

• Reaffirming the principle that protecting refugees is an international responsibility; 
• Supporting common legal and policy approaches to Syrian refugees in the region that includes access to livelihood opportunities; 
• Reaffirming resettlement as a core component of refugee protection and assistance and re-tooling elements of resettlement policy to meet the needs of the most vulnerable refugees, in particular; 
• Providing a forum for creative thinking on solutions for internally displaced people; 
• Establishing a new relationship between humanitarian and development actors; 
• Engaging development actors such as the World Bank more effectively; and 
• Laying the groundwork for longer-term reconstruction and recovery efforts in Syria. 

We propose that developing this New Global Approach for Syria could be worked out through a consultative process with stakeholders over a six-to-twelve-month period. It would be jointly led by the U.N. secretary general and the president of the World Bank, and could culminate in a global meeting in early 2017. There is no shortage of creative ideas for strengthening all of these elements—from enhancing resettlement to strengthening coordination between humanitarian and development agencies. The main challenge, as always, comes in implementation, to be carried out by a range of actors, including by national governments and international organizations. If successfully implemented, the New Global Approach for Syria would offer a win-win outcome: foremost for Syrian refugees and IDPs, but also for major host countries as well as the EU, not to mention the broader international community. This new system of combining relief and humanitarian assistance with a developmental approach may form the skeleton of a template for managing the broader global refugee crisis, as well as help reform international humanitarian governance.

Some tentative steps have already been taken towards implementing such an approach. In early February, the “Supporting Syria and the Region” conference in London raised over $11 billion in pledges. In March, the UNHCR held a high-level meeting calling on governments around the world to substantially increase their own resettlement programs for Syrian refugees. A deal struck in March between the European Union and Turkey has received considerable criticism but might mark a turning point in terms of regional engagement with the issue. However, what is still lacking is a comprehensive and well-coordinated approach to addressing the Syrian displacement crisis that is in some sync with efforts to consolidate the truce in Syria, ensure humanitarian access to affected populations, and push for a political solution to the conflict.

     

 

 

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