Ankara’s Troubled Relations with Washington
January 29, 2024
Türkiye’s governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power following the general election on November 2, 2002. This marked the end of the coalition government led by Prime Minister Ecevit, the prominent leader of Türkiye’s democratic left. The change of government came at a critical time for Türkiye-US relations because the Bush administration had already declared its intention to invade Iraq. Vice President Cheney had visited Ankara to secure the Turkish government’s “full cooperation” in the project, but Mr. Ecevit had resisted.
Thus, the AKP government from day one faced three major foreign policy challenges: the looming invasion of Iraq, Cyprus, and Türkiye’s EU accession process. But the imminent problem was the first.
At the end of the rather stressful negotiations with the US in Ankara, a deal was reached and brought before the Turkish Parliament for approval under the constitution. On March 1, 2003, the Parliament rejected the deal which would have allowed the use of several Turkish ports and airports by the US Navy and Air Force as well as the crossing into Iraq and the deployment in Türkiye of tens of thousands of US troops. Nonetheless, the two sides were soon able to agree on a “less than full” cooperation formula. But Washington’s disappointment was to last for years. The picture changed with the coming of President Obama to the White House on January 20, 2009. After all, he too had opposed the invasion.
To put the Türkiye-US relationship in context, one needs to remember what the broad Middle East looked like when Mr. Obama took office. The war in Afghanistan was not leading anywhere. But the invasion of Iraq undertaken on false evidence and carried out in total disregard of Iraq’s realities had been a failure with regional implications. Moreover, it had damaged Washington’s claim to the world’s moral leadership.
At the time, the West’s only hope for democratizing the Middle East was Türkiye’s moderately Islamist government which had engaged in political reform and had even launched accession negotiations with the EU. Thus, President Obama arrived in Türkiye after attending a G20 summit in London, a NATO summit in Strasbourg, and an EU summit in Prague. In other words, this was his first bilateral overseas visit.
The following paragraph from the speech he delivered before the Turkish Parliament on April 6, 2009, reflected the purpose of the visit:
“This morning I had the great privilege of visiting the tomb of your extraordinary founder of your republic. And I was deeply impressed by this beautiful memorial to a man who did so much to shape the course of history. But it is also clear that the greatest monument to Ataturk’s life is not something that can be cast in stone and marble. His greatest legacy is Turkey’s strong, vibrant, secular democracy, and that is the work this assembly carries on today…”
The message was clear: Türkiye, with its secular democracy, sets an example for the Islamic world. Türkiye should continue on this path and others should follow.
Then came the Arab Spring. Widespread discontent among the peoples of the region was known. Nonetheless, the intensity of the protests was a surprise for most. On 14 January 2011, following a month of protests against his rule, Tunisian President Ben Ali was forced to flee to Saudi Arabia. Revelations about his close relations caused embarrassment to some European politicians. When protests started to threaten Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Washington vacillated but eventually gave protestors cautious support. On February 11, 2011, Hosni Mubarak stepped down.
Expecting other dominoes to fall, President Sarkozy and PM Cameron then led the military intervention in Libya which the US joined, after some hesitation. Country’s dictator Qaddafi whom European leaders had not failed on occasion to pamper went to his tragic end. President Obama eventually admitted that without adequate preparation for the “day after”, the intervention became a failure. Nobody else has shown the courage to say that.
With three leaders gone, some of America’s European and Middle East allies and partners started calling for the ouster of President Assad but the plan which had worked for Libya failed due to Russian and Chinese opposition at the UN. Thus, Syria was left to fight its own war, with both the regime and its opponents receiving external support.
Among those ardently supporting the ouster of President Assad was Türkiye’s increasingly Islamist and authoritarian AKP government which took the lead. Ankara was essentially after bringing the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Syria. Again, there were no plans, no agreement for the “day after”.
In May 2013, a group of activists staged a sit-in at Istanbul’s Gezi Park, protesting the government’s plan to demolish the park to build a replica of the Ottoman-era barracks that would include a shopping mall. The eviction of protesters from the park and the excessive use of force by the police turned out to be the breaking point with the Obama White House. Ankara’s relations with Washington started suffering a downturn. Mr. Obama no longer had words of praise for the Turkish democracy. The AKP had probably given up on him already after his address to the Turkish Parliament where he had praised Türkiye’s “secular” democracy.
On July 15, 2016, toward the end of President Obama’s second term in office, Türkiye experienced a coup attempt. It failed. Fethullah Gulen, once a partner of the AKP, became its arch-enemy. Washington’s refusal to send him back to Türkiye to stand trial became a sore point in relations.
Finally, on December 29, 2017, only three weeks before President Obama left the White House, Türkiye signed the S-400s deal with Russia in its first major weapons purchase from Moscow. Türkiye’s NATO allies were critical of the deal, but Ankara said this was its sovereign decision. As allied criticism became more vocal Ankara simply said this was a “done deal”.
For the Obama White House, even before the S-400s deal, Türkiye had ceased to be a democratic, forward-looking reformist, and strong NATO/Middle East partner. For Ankara, Washington had become more of an adversary than an ally.
Why did Ankara sign the S-400s deal which has become such an intractable problem for years?
At the beginning of the Syrian conflict Russia and Türkiye were on diametrically opposite sides. Russia supported the regime, and the Turkish government the opposition. Nonetheless, Turkish-Russian relations remained on track.
On November 24, 2015, a stunning development changed the picture. Turkish Air Force shot down a Russian Su-24 military plane for having violated Turkish airspace for 17 seconds.
Had Turkish-Russian relations been characterized by antagonism, unresolved disputes, and continuing tensions, the path to this incident could have been explained more easily. But the two countries enjoyed a stable, friendly, and mutually rewarding relationship for decades. Russia met more than 50% of Türkiye’s natural gas needs. Every year more than 4 million Russians visited Türkiye, in particular our Mediterranean coast for the summer holidays. Turkish companies had contracts worth billions of dollars in Russia providing jobs for thousands of Turks. Russia was going to build Türkiye’s first nuclear power plant. Presidents Putin and Erdogan always gave the impression of maintaining a close personal relationship. Political relations perhaps were not yet abreast of economic cooperation but continued to improve.
In the wake of the incident, President Putin vented his anger. He directed far-reaching accusations against the Turkish government for having links to the Islamic State (IS). And he imposed a series of punishing economic sanctions against Ankara. In response, the AKP government said that more than enough warnings had been issued for airspace violations. It rejected IS-related accusations as slander.
The downing of Su-24 helped NATO and Türkiye remember one another. The reality, however, was that NATO countries preferred to avoid a confrontation with Russia over an incident that had occurred without their having an opportunity to say a word.
Soon, the AKP government’s initial bravado gave way to reality. Ankara had to recognize that a confrontation with Russia was not sustainable. Thus, in June 2016 Türkiye apologized for the incident and an effort to restore the relationship was launched. However, misfortunes were not over. On 19 December 2016, Andrei Karlov, the Russian Ambassador to Türkiye, was assassinated by an off-duty Turkish police officer with dubious links, at an art exhibition in Ankara.
Türkiye could have valid points regarding the price and the technology transfer aspects of Western air defense systems. However, it was hard to imagine that Russia would be more generous towards Türkiye in defense technology transfer than Ankara’s NATO allies. Moscow was more interested in driving wedges between Türkiye and the West than the 2.5 billion dollars it would get out of the deal. In the end, it accomplished both.
As for Ankara’s defense needs, it can be said that when Türkiye felt threatened NATO was there to offer support. For example, when internal fighting in Syria started to take a turn for the worse, in response to Türkiye’s request, NATO Foreign Ministers decided on December 4, 2012, to augment Türkiye’s air defense capabilities against threats posed by missiles from across its border with Syria. As of January 2013, five NATO Allies, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and the US started contributing missile batteries to augment Türkiye’s air defense.
What still remains unclear about Türkiye’s purchase of S-400 missile defense is the underlying threat assessment. Were these batteries going to be deployed against threats from Türkiye’s neighbors? If so, which were these countries?
In early March 2019, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said the deployment of S-400s would begin in October. He added that the acquisition of Russian air defense systems was not Türkiye’s preference, but an inevitable measure to protect the Turkish people. He also said the Turkish Air Force was studying in which regions to deploy the batteries. It seems that this is still the case.
A day later, neither the F-35 fifth-generation fighter jets nor the Patriot air defense systems will be available to the Turkish military once they get the S-400s, a Pentagon spokesman threatened. Eventually, Türkiye was excluded from the F-35 program. Ankara gradually started thinking about buying some new F-16s and modernizing its existing F-16 fleet. But Washington was not forthcoming. In brief, the purchase of the S-400s proved to be a politically and economically costly way of putting behind the damage done.
When looked at in the broad context of Türkiye’s relationship with Russia, one cannot but conclude that the S-400 contract was the price Ankara had to pay to put behind the downing of the Su-24, the murder of the Ambassador and thus restore its cooperation with Moscow. Because Türkiye’s well-advanced multidimensional economic cooperation with Russia was not something Ankara could easily give up. Moreover, Ankara had no other option than to cooperate with Russia in Syria.
Despite rosy statements in the beginning, Türkiye-US relations failed to make any progress during the Trump years. On October 29, 2019, the Turkish National Day, the US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to formally recognize the “Armenian genocide”. The Senate voted unanimously for the same resolution.
In December 2020, weeks ahead of President-elect Biden’s ascension to the White House, the Trump administration slapped sanctions on Türkiye over its purchase of the S-400s.
President Biden’s coming to the White House was not good news for Ankara as he had been a leading adversary of Türkiye throughout his political career. Since then, ideas to restore Turkey’s relations with Washington have remained in short supply.
On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine adding another dimension to Ankara’s already problematic relationship with the West.
Finally, the Hamas onslaught of October 7 and Israel’s military response leading to accusations of violation of international humanitarian law once again put Washington and Ankara on opposite sides with the latter taking the lead in its condemnation of Israel.
Türkiye’s involvement in the Syrian conflict has been the greatest foreign and security policy blunder in the history of the Republic. Thirteen years ago, we started off partnering with our NATO allies and regional “friends” to overthrow President Assad and were on opposite sides with Russia. Thirteen years on, we are partnering with Russia and confronting our NATO allies for their support of terrorists. Because the US maintains a military presence in Iraq and Syria ostensibly to fight the Islamic State. But Ankara and Tehran believe that those troops are there to support the terrorist organizations PKK, PYD, YPG, and PJAK, all seen as tools of Washington’s “divide and rule” policy that they perceive as a threat. Both capitals would be watching closely, how the negotiations between Iraq and the US on American troop presence in the former would end up. Intentions are usually hard to define but perceptions matter.
Last week, President Raisi of Iran was in Ankara for a visit at the invitation of President Erdogan. In statements to the press, both leaders expressed their determination to fight the aforementioned groups.
Iran is perceived by Washington and its European allies as a regional power fighting a proxy war with Israel and the West in Gaza and beyond. This is what the Turkish-Iranian joint statement said on Gaza:
“- Condemning the barbaric crimes of the Zionist regime against the oppressed people of Gaza was one of the main topics of the Presidents of the two countries. Expressing concern over the continuation of these crimes, the two sides demanded an immediate end to the Israeli regime’s attacks, an immediate and unconditional lifting of the cruel blockade of the Gaza Strip, and the immediate, sufficient and unimpeded delivery of essential goods and services to the Palestinian people, and emphasized the legitimate and indisputable rights of the Palestinian people, especially the right to defend itself.
“- The two sides also emphasized the need to confront the impunity of the political and military leaders of the Israeli regime and try them in competent courts for war crimes, genocide and other forms of crimes and welcomed the legal action of the South African government against the Israeli regime in the International Court of Justice.” [i]
And yesterday, President Biden said, “Three US service members were killed—and many wounded—during an unmanned aerial drone attack on our forces stationed in northeast Jordan near the Syria border. While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq,” adding that the US “will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner our choosing.” Where the attack actually occurred is not exactly clear as “it was not on Jordanian soil but in Syria,” a spokesperson for Jordan’s government said according to some reports. Regardless, this could mark a considerable rise in regional tensions. Washington would probably persist that the attack occurred in Jordan because its military presence in Syria has no legal basis.
After Ankara finally approved Sweden’s membership in NATO, the White House sent a letter to members of Congress urging approval of the $20 billion sale of F-16 aircraft and modernization kits to Türkiye.
Would the eventual launching of the F-16 deal pave the way for an improvement in relations between Ankara and Washington? Hardly, because compared to Türkiye’s participation in the F-35 project this is a step backward and the AKP government knows that no matter what is said publicly. After all, Ankara’s democratic decline and Islamist agenda has turned Türkiye into an unlikeable partner for Washington and the Westi to say the least. President Biden is no friend of Türkiye and would not become one regardless of who is in power in Ankara. Relations with Washington are more often than not confrontational. There is little mutual trust, if any. The EU accession process is dead and buried. In Türkiye, anti-Western sentiment is on the rise across the political spectrum. Thus, it is clear that there is no going back to the days of the Obama visit to Ankara. For some years at least, one is likely to see “more of the same” at best. However, if the present picture were to turn for the worse, a more fundamental divergence of paths cannot be excluded.
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