Introduction
Officially, Turkey's political strategy must be directed toward ‘peace at home, peace in the world,’ the motto put forward by the country's founder and national leader, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Hence, because theoretically Turkey's foreign policy should never pursue imperialist goals, the nation's inclusion in the Korean War occurred under the umbrella of the United Nations, and its military operation in Cyprus was linked to its guarantor state status under the 1959–1960 London and Zurich Agreements. These interventions, Turkish authorities stated continually, were meant to bring ‘peace’ to these regions under the framework of international agreements and the United Nations. Turkey's fight against the PKK (the Workers’ Party of Kurdistan), which began in 1984, is therefore also officially interpreted in terms of Turkey's domestic policy to bring peace through military force.
Another important detail is that, as Cooper notes, ‘[Turkey] is the only Muslim country to initiate something resembling a military understanding with Israel and at the time of writing it is the only Muslim country which appears actively to be seeking a role in the military response to the Islamist challenge.’Reference Cooper1 This unique approach results from the fact that Turkey, besides being a Muslim state, is in a geostrategic position that made it a compatible ally for the US during the Cold War against the USSR. Therefore, as a member of NATO, Turkey wants to be seen as a secular, ‘democratic,’ and ‘pro-Western’ country that is opposed to pan-Arabism, pan-Islamism, and pan-Turkism.
Nonetheless, both during and after the Cold War, the country struggled with various internal instabilities: political confrontations between leftists and rightists, as well as between nationalists and Islamists; military interventions in 1960, 1971, and 1980; the Kurdish insurgency (PKK); and unstable coalition governments. All these developments weakened Turkey and limited its field of maneuver by making it ‘hesitant’ in foreign policy, a hesitancy that may explain its apparent need to pursue a rather ‘pacifist’ policy abroad. In contrast, a country wishing to be proactive in foreign policy needs such assets as political, economic, military, and sociocultural dynamics. After decades of political turbulence, however, the Turkish economy was far removed from the economic levels in developed countries, and Turkish society in the 1970s was divided politically (leftists versus rightists), ethnically (Kurds versus Turks), and culturally (secularists versus religious). At the same time, industrialization and modernization were advancing only slowly.
After the 1922 establishment of the Republic of Turkey, Kemal Atatürk believed in the value of strengthening ties with countries both in the East and the West. This interpretation of foreign policy led to Turkey's involvement in ‘setting up the Balkan Pact in 1934,’ the signing of the Saadabad Pact in 1937, and the continuation of Atatürk's active policy ‘in the Western direction with the signature of the Anglo-Franco-Turkish Alliance in 1939.’Reference Bilgin2 Through the end of the 1970s, however, the military leaders – who were monitoring the nation's social and political events and problems – claimed that Turkey's domestic problems were either unstoppable or no more than containable. Therefore, on September 12, 1980, the army generals unilaterally decided to launch a military coup d’état against the democratic and legitimate government, of which Süleyman Demirel was prime minister. As Hale explains, the generals had ‘four distinct aims in mind: to suppress “terrorism” and radicalism; to restore economic growth and stability; to introduce a new constitution and legal arrangements that would stabilize the system and prevent anarchy; to re-establish civilian democracy on a Kemalist basis.’Reference Hale3
Subsequently, in June 1981, a decision was made to form a new Constituent Assembly that included members of the National Security Council (MGK) and the Advisory Assembly (DM), who would prepare a new constitution.4 This constitution, however, which has governed the country since 1982, also ‘provided an ideal context for the expansion of military power vis-à-vis the three branches of government through legal-constitutional channels.’Reference Sakallıoğlu5 Such power has been augmented by the ‘military's claim that the 1980 coup saved Turkey's political democracy from civil war.’Reference Sakallıoğlu5 Specifically, the leaders of the 1980 coup d’état claimed that the generals had unilaterally launched their ‘reforms’ to bring a sort of ‘tranquility’ to the country and halt the continuation of Turkey's outstanding problems.
The Cold War between the USSR and the US, however, forced Turkey to choose alignment with one of these blocs. During this era, Turkey's strategic location made Turkey a crucial asset for the US and a valuable helpmate in its dealings with the Middle East. After both countries had calculated their mutual gains and losses, Turkey became an ally of the United States, with Turkish-American relations becoming closer than they had been for over half a century.Reference Isyar6 Following the Second World War, Turkey gained membership in the UN and NATO, thereby joining the Western bloc under the 1947 Truman Doctrine and having its ‘economic and military positions … significantly fortified by the 1948 Marshal Plan.’Reference Isyar6 Understanding these developments, however, requires exploration of political occurrences in the areas surrounding Turkey.
Methodology
Being primarily a literature review and descriptive analysis, this study favors a critical rather than a realist approach to international relations. Most particularly, it seeks correlations among contentious issues such as the Kurdish question, Operation Provide Comfort I, Turkish politics and economy, and violence. This latter, it could be argued, when it occurs in a country that economically and politically is not yet a fully liberal democracy, tends to be a consequence of ignorance or the suppression of the political, economic, and social rights of any ethnic group. Such violence is also frequently linked to what is often termed ‘terrorism,’ written here in quotation marks for lack of an agreed-upon definition of the concept.Reference Cooper7
The Decade of Turning Points: the 1980s
The Iran–Iraq war,8 which broke out between Turkey's southeastern neighbors in 1980 and lasted until 1988, presented a serious risk for a predominantly Muslim country with traditional ties to perhaps all Middle Eastern countries. Accordingly, during this conflict, Turkey remained neutral, a policy that arguably had been successful when İsmet İnönü maintained Turkey's neutrality during the Second World War. The war did, however, negatively affect Turkey's economy at a time when it needed to improve foreign trade with its neighbors: until the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in the summer of 1990, Iraq had been Turkey's largest trade partner. Nonetheless, as Hale points out, ‘[a] factor of more immediate importance in Turkey's relations with the other Middle Eastern nations [was] the position of the Kurdish minorities in Iraq and Iran, and their relations with Turkey's Kurds.’Reference Hale9 Since 1984, Turkey's southeastern region had been under the shadow of violence by the PKK, an international network loosely organized in Europe under different political parties and nongovernmental organizations.Reference Bruinessen10 In Turkey, this movement grew primarily out of two sources: ‘the older Kurdish nationalist movement … [seemingly] crushed in the 1920s and 1930s and the new leftist, Marxist movement … formed in Turkey during the 1960s.’Reference Gunter11 During this era, Turkey, unlike other Middle Eastern nations, did not have cordial relations with Syria, whose territory later became a base for PKK ‘terrorists’ intent on gaining ‘self-determination for Turkey's 15 million Kurds.’Reference Kürkçü12 This situation was ‘compounded by the flight towards Turkey of some 800,000 Kurds from northern Iraq, as the armed forces of Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad moved to crush the popular uprising triggered by Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War.’Reference Kürkçü12 These Kurdish refugees thus became yet another problem for the nation.
Whereas traditionally Turkey had had problems with Armenia and Greece, relations with the Soviet Union were now also cold because of Turkey's alliance with the US. Turkey therefore needed a more prudent foreign policy, making the decision to remain neutral during the Iran–Iraq War an understandable one. Indeed, it may be argued that such neutrality, rather than being a conscious choice, was a necessary outcome of Turkey's problematic relations with its neighbors. In fact, Cold War considerations occasionally forced Turkey into neutrality. Nonetheless, because of its open alliance with the US and Israel, Turkey was not seen as a neutral state. Rather, according to Sayarı, during the Cold War period, Turkey's relations with the Arab world were characterized by avoidance of any ‘involvement in inter-Arab disputes, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and other regional conflicts such as the Iran-Iraq War.’Reference Sayarı13
In terms of domestic politics, although the 1980 military coup d’état aimed at bringing some type of stability to Turkey, the attempt failed because democracy was suspended during the approximately three years of military rule, when political party leaders were tried and jailed and political parties disbanded. The smooth re-transition to democracy that Turkey needed occurred in 1983 after the enactment of the 1982 constitution, which allowed the forming of political parties. On May 20, 1983, Turgut Özal, together with members of Necmettin Erbakan's former MSP party, founded the Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi).14 During this year, most political parties were able to resume their activities, although the former political party leaders were still banned from office until 1987 when, as a consequence of the normalization process, a political pardon was issued and a referendum restored their political rights.Reference Aslankaya15
Özal's Motherland Party, which directed the country from the end of the military regime until the early 1990s, won ‘45.2 percent of the vote and an absolute majority of seats in the new unicameral National Assembly,’16 a victory not seen in Turkish politics since Adnan Menderes and his Democratic Party in the 1950s. This majority was sufficient for the party to form a non-coalition government, only the second since Menderes's time. In contrast, the Populist Party won 30.5% of the vote and the Nationalist Democracy Party only 23.3%.16 Thus, Özal, feeling the overwhelming support of the voters behind him, decided to tilt more toward the United States, which triggered his unilateral political actions and decisions.
During the Iran–Iraq war and the conflict in Afghanistan, Özal wanted Turkey to play a greater role in the international arena. Therefore, in 1987, Turkey made a formal application to Brussels for full membership in the European Economic Community (EC), of which it had been an associate member since 1964. Today, ‘although Turkish accession to the EC remains an uncertain and, at best, rather distant prospect, it seems unlikely that Turkey will abandon [this] ambition.’Reference Hale9 Nor was Özal's globalist vision limited to relations with European countries: Turkey under Özal was neither a pacifist nor a neutral state. Most particularly, Özal established close diplomatic relations with then US President George Bush, whose visit to Turkey after the Gulf War had the primary purpose of ‘expressing gratitude to the Turks for their support in the Gulf’ but which, according to Kohen, led to realization by both sides ‘that even with the Cold War over and detente in Europe, the two countries [needed] each other.’Reference Kohen17 As a result, the opposition parties accused Özal of being a sole representative of the United States, even warning him against overplaying his cards in foreign relations. In the late 1980s, his popularity declined and Özal ‘[falling] back on his family circle … was responsible for massive state spending around elections in 1987 and 1989 that left Turkey with chronic high inflation.’Reference Pope18
Such massive over expenditure, together with the negative impact of the Gulf War, became a major problem for the Turkish economy in the 1990s, when chronic inflation rates increased year by year. In reality, however, this problem can be traced back to before 1980, when, as Beyazıtoğlu et al. point out, ‘Turkey experienced a high degree of financial repression … characterized by negative real interest rates, credit rationing, undeveloped capital markets, excessive reliance on Central Bank resources for public sector financing requirements, severe restrictions on foreign exchange operations, and a high level of taxation on financial income and transactions.’Reference Beyazıtoğlu, Ersel and Öztürk19 The Gulf War was therefore not singularly responsible for the negative impact on Turkish politics domestically or internationally. Rather, because Özal believed that to be a ‘valued ally of the West,’ Turkey needed to ‘[expand] its regional role and influence,’Reference Sayarı13 his political decisions and actions in foreign and domestic policies differed radically from those of Turkey's previous coalition governments.
The PKK-Kurdish Question and its Impact on Turkish Politics
The PKK-Kurdish question became a serious problem for Turkish politics after 1984, when PKK violence caused major economic damage and the loss of thousands of lives.Reference Kocher20
Having splintered in the mid-1970s from ‘urban Turkish Marxist-Leninist youth groups that engaged in political violence … [the PKK] largely crosscut the Turkish-Kurdish divide.’Reference Göçek21 To tackle this violence, military expenditures were increased at a time when the Turkish economy was already relatively weak and very vulnerable. In fact, the rise of the PKK, together with the instabilities in Iraq, increased Turkey's military spending from $1.7 billion in 1989 to $7.2 billion in 2001.Reference Nachmani22 This economic pain was increased by high rates of inflation, high unemployment rates, a devalued Turkish lira, and an inadequate industrial infrastructure. Rapid inflation plagued the country for over two decades, with annual rates fluctuating between 11 and nearly 59% in the 1970s, and then breaking the 100% barrier in the 1980s before decreasing to about 30% only to rise over 73%.Reference Rivlin23 This negative situation was further worsened by the impact of the Arab oil embargo on the Turkish economy.
Once the Turkish economy had been so affected by the rapidly growing inflation and economic crisis, the politicians could no longer act effectively, either in terms of rational and appropriate foreign policies or of decision making and implementation in internal politics. In other words, Turkey's economic hardships were transmitted to Turkish foreign policy and politics. Within this framework, PKK violence became not simply a bilateral problem between the Turkish government and Kurdish guerillas but rather a complex problem with multiple aspects. First, PKK ‘terrorism’ has been supported financially by enemies of Turkey worldwide. For instance, as Dunn points out, not only did Iran and Syria, unlike Turkey, remain relatively distant from the Kurdish question, but Syria was a supporter of the PKK.Reference Dunn24 Moreover, according to Romano, ‘once the PKK matured into a larger, more established movement, it could finance itself via contributions from Kurds in the region and abroad as well as with support from foreign state powers and involvement in the narcotics trade and smuggling.’Reference Romano25 Therefore, as Romano clearly implies, the PKK found financial resources in a large spectrum of the region.
Admittedly, according to former PKK member Selim Curukkaya, although ‘the PKK's foreign supporters—particularly Syria and later Iran—wanted the PKK to hurt Turkey,’ they did not want the PKK to have arms and had ‘little interest in the PKK actually succeeding in its battle.’Reference Marcus26 However, as Marcus points out, the PKK managed anyway to cheaply boost its stock of weapons from the massive amount left behind by Iraqi soldiers in the cities, towns, and villages they abandoned. Moreover, according to Roth and Sever, at various times since its inception, the movement has received ‘logistical and moral support’ from ‘the Soviet Union, Cyprus, Greece, Armenia, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Bulgaria, and Cuba.’Reference Roth and Sever27
The Kurdish question, although probably ‘most significant as a domestic issue’ in Turkey and northern Iraq, whose bilateral relationship it greatly affects,Reference Robins28 is also a problem for Iran and Syria. For example, the revelation of PKK training camps in the Syrian-controlled part of the Bekaa Valley (located between Syria and Lebanon) strained Turkish-Syrian relations in the mid-1990s. Yet Kurdish separatism did not spring up overnight in Turkey: without doubt, Kurds have had problems of political representation stemming from the 10% election barrier, which dictates 10% as the minimum percentage of total votes to gain representation in parliament. Likewise, compared with the western industrialized cities of Turkey, the eastern cities in which most Kurdish people live tend to be economically backward.
Nor was the problem helped by the controversial Özal regime, which not only failed to find a solution to the issue but, driven by Özal's vision of transforming Turkey into a ‘little America,’Reference Anderson29 propelled Turkey into taking a major step toward opening up its borders to foreign trade. Previously, Turkish internal sociopolitical instabilities had kept the Turkish economy largely closed, and, judged according to capitalist principles, industrialization came late to the nation. Now, however, a free market economy and the establishment of new trade partnerships jettisoned Turkey swiftly into a process of integration with global economic markets. Yet any country attempting to integrate into the global political economy needs positive relations with its neighbors, relations normally assumed to bring larger trade revenues. Hence, for Turkey, in this problematic region, establishing normal political relations and providing a framework for larger trade revenues became highly important issues.
Friction between the Motherland Party and Opposition Parties
Another criticism within Turkish politics in the 1980s was that the Motherland Party, especially its leader Turgut Özal, was paying inadequate attention to the opposition's views on the nation's problems. After Özal became president in 1989,Reference Kalın30 he wanted Turkey to continue following the liberal political and economic policies that he had constructed after the 1980 coup d’état. This path of political unilateralism was strongly opposed by Süleyman Demirel, who claimed that ‘[s]ince 1983, Turgut Özal and the Motherland Party [have] increasingly diverged from the traditional non-adventurous line of Turkish foreign policy.’ Deringil also argued that after becoming president, ‘Özal's flights into the realm of “entrepreneurial haute-politique” have tended to give serious concerns to the professionals at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and even to those in the armed forces.’Reference Deringil31 As a result, the opposition parties, as well as Mesut Yılmaz, who later became leader of the Motherland Party, clashed with Özal over his political overreactions. These clashes resulted in major differences between the Motherland Party as headed by Özal and the same party under Yilmaz, who, following Özal's presidency (and with Prime Minister Yıldırım Akbulut a mere figurehead), began ‘forming contacts to start a new movement.’Reference Kaynak32 In fact, once Özal's political decisions and unilateralism began clashing with opposition groups, the entire notion of the separation of powers between president and prime minister became a seriously contentious issue. (It should also be noted that Turkey had seen nine different governments and seven different prime ministers between 1991 and 200233). Özal himself had decided to shift from prime minister to president during the 1980s, when the outstanding political problems between Turkey and its neighbors made matters even more difficult for the Motherland Party. He had thus run in the presidential elections and become the eighth president of the Republic of Turkey. Had Özal continued in his duties as prime minister and allowed another president to be elected based on a consensus among all the political parties, the country's national interests might have been better served.
Turkish Generals as Political Actors
Addressing the role of the army in Turkish politics is imperative because, despite the takeover by the politicians in 1983, the army generals still continued to monitor events related to domestic and foreign politics. Most particularly, the generals were concerned that the rise of Kurdish nationalism posed a serious threat to the Turkish state's very existence, a concern that was also one of the pretexts for their intervention in the 1980 coup d’état. Also influential was the Sheikh Said Rebellion, a Kurdish and Islamist revolt in the 1920s that was seen as a major threat to the new Republic of Turkey's democratic regime, which was based on the generals’ secularist ideology of separating religion from political decision making. As a result, from the Sheikh Said Rebellion onward, the army has remained cautious of both extreme Islamists and Kurdish separatism, and the generals have never left the initiative totally in the hands of civilian political authorities. Rather, especially as regards these two hot political issues throughout the 1980s, they have protected their dominant position in the process of determining Turkish policies and politics.
Saddam's Occupation of Kuwait and the Gulf Crisis
In 1988, after the former USSR realized it had no apparent hope of winning its war in Afghanistan, both this offensive and the war between Iran and Iraq came to an end. These factors, therefore, were added to the complex formula that Turkish foreign policy makers had to deal with in the late 1980s. Not only was the region still open to new conflicts, but in August 1990, Saddam Hussein's regime chose to declare war against the oil-rich but tiny Arab kingdom of Kuwait, which is south of Iraq and borders the Gulf Sea. In contrast to Iraq's position, which gives no easy access to the Gulf Sea, Kuwait's strategic location made its oil easier to export. Another important problem between Kuwait and Iraq was that until the 1960s, Kuwait had been seen as a part of Iraq, and Iraq had never subsequently recognized Kuwait's independence. In addition, the Kuwaitis were creating difficulties for Iraqi oil exportsReference El-Najjar34 at a time when Iraq, desperate to pay off the huge $80 million dollar debt incurred in its war against Iran, needed a pipeline or access to the Gulf Sea in order to raise funds by exporting more oil. After Saddam Hussein failed in his attempts to borrow billions of dollars from other Middle Eastern countries, he accused Kuwait of ‘keeping oil prices low and pumping more than its quota from the two countries’ shared oil field.’35 More oil production by Kuwait meant lower oil prices, which in turn made it more difficult or virtually impossible for Iraq to meet its scheduled debt payments, ‘half owed to Saudi Arabia, some $13 billion to Kuwait, and the rest to the smaller Gulf States.’Reference Dunne36 Thus, Kuwait, to which Iraq was also indebted, was making repayment harder.
Using each of these claims to justify his offensive actions, in August 1990, Saddam launched the occupation of Kuwait. Within a few days, Iraq had declared Kuwait a part of Iraqi territory, which of course presented a threat to the balance of power, the global economy, and the politics and power dynamics in the region. The United Nations’ diplomatic response to the invasion was strong: declaring Saddam's actions a clear violation against a country's territorial integrity, it immediately issued Resolutions 66037 and 661.38 As a result, at the outbreak of the Gulf War, Turkey – which had just reinstated a democratic political system – had to make a critical political decision: whether to act with the United States and the international organizations or continue as a neutral state. Another important dimension of the Gulf Crisis was that, as previously mentioned, Iraq was not only Turkey's neighbor but also its largest trading partner. However, besides being one of the largest oil-exporting countries in the world, Iraq is composed of several different ethnic groups, including hundreds of thousands of Kurds living on its northern borders, which makes it somewhat unstable. Therefore, on the eve of Operation Desert Storm, Turkey had to calculate very carefully the costs and benefits of supporting the international effort.
Conclusion
As this paper shows, during the 1980s and early 1990s, Turkish politics and Turkish foreign policy were interrelated and interdependent; however, political tendencies in the country were also deeply affected by both the Gulf War and the Kurdish question. Although it could be argued that this latter emerged because of certain internal shortcomings, external factors have also played a crucial role in the problem's persistence. Among these, perhaps the most important are the Gulf War and its long-term effects on Turkish foreign policy, politics, and economy.
Specifically, the Gulf War of 1990 made de facto divisions of Iraq, creating three separate zones, which was of serious concern to Turkey. The establishment of no-fly zones in Iraq also made Turkey's struggle against PKK ‘terrorism’ more painful and expensive and, from the perspective of nationalist sentiments, went against Turkey's interests by stimulating the Iraqi Kurds’ secessionist movement in northern Iraq. Turkey was thus clearly in support of Iraq's territorial unity and integrity. At the same time, because of the UN-imposed sanctions on Iraq, the Turkish economy lost one of its major trading partners. Later in the decade, in 1998, Turkish-Syrian tensions also began escalating after Syria became host to Abdullah Öcalan, the head of the PKK. Öcalan's later capture in Nairobi on February 16, 1999, and his return to Turkey for trial led to the rise of nationalist movements in the country that became apparent in the 1999 general elections.
When other dimensions of the problem are considered, armed fighting against the PKK may not have been enough to solve the problem. That is, although Turkey may have recognized the necessity for economic investment in the region, uprisings and instability in its southeastern environs made investors scarce and skeptical of whether PKK attacks could be prevented. In reality, the PKK cannot simply be considered an uprising of the Kurds: rather, as discussed earlier, it is a highly invested organization that has received support from several countries. It is also impossible to ignore the importance to this problem of Turkey's internal shortcomings and failures in economic development, democratic standards, and nation building. Therefore, to resolve this Kurdish issue, Turkey should adopt multidimensional policies, such as working for regional development, building effective diplomatic relations in the international arena, and increasing standards of democracy in the country's internal politics.
Haldun Çanci earned undergraduate, graduate, and PhD degrees from METU-Sociology, Bilkent-Political Science, and Marmara- Social and Political Sciences departments and programs respectively. He is a staff member of the Eastern Mediterranean University, Department of Political Science Northern Cyprus, and earlier taught sociology, political sociology, and political science at Kırıkkale and Girne American Universities. He has published books and articles on nationalism, the clash of civilizations, the Cyprus Dispute, Turkish politics, political party systems, and political party discipline.
Şevket Serkan Şen holds a Master of Arts from the Department of International Relations in 2009, and a Bachelor of Arts from the Public Relations and Advertising Department in 2005, both at the Eastern Mediterranean University. He now works as an Instructor in the Public Relations and Advertising Department of the Faculty of Communication, Eastern Mediterranean University. He has taught Event Management, Copywriting for PR, Presentation Skills, Advertising, Marketing, and Introduction to PR courses since 2005. He also serves as PR specialist for the University Radio and TV.
