Turkey in the forefront for taming Russia

Can Turkey once again act as the brake to the expansion of russian sphere of influence? There is no easy answer to this but we can see that the hotspots of active diplomacy more and more threatens turkish renewed interests in its own historical sphere of influence. Promises of better relations with Russia surface in many countries all around Turkey and it is necessary to act before Russia gets a too strong hand. It is very meaningfull that all the areas under trouble and mostly many frozen conflicts are linked or even maintained by Russia. Is Russia troublesome only to people wanting to avoid a multipolar world? No. Russia pretends to the old place that USSR once occupied and is ready to use all means for this.

It is significant that Turkey started to act to remove some energy keys from the hands of Russia by realizing the BTC, contracts with Iran and other projects aimed to reach the status of "energy hub". This is however temporary relief and does not mean the battles are over. We should see Turkey prove it can bring more than dangers to the regions of Caucasus and Central Asia. For this, a strong cultural activity would be the best way to relay the increase in economic interests known by the parties. Such an activity could also gets the interest of EU and it is possible to imagine cooperation between EU and Turkey to strenghten this traditional area of influence of Turkey. This is the time when it is possible to cool down the fireplaces and bring Russia closer to cooperation with the "West". Putin may be weaker that it has been and while his targets remain high, his realizations lack any more idea than reenforcing the status quo (or bringing back a form of USSR).

Turkey moves in too many directions

As Turkey integrates in its geopolitical surroundings with a strong hand, it seems to forget its strategy.
Positive developments on the Kurdish issue, on cooperation with Israel, Syria, Iran or Georgia should not make Turkey bet on making a pause in its accession process. It is exactly the right time to take bold measure to catch up with the pace of reforms that once amazed the EU commission. There is still some areas of improvement to build an opened, democratic and liberal Turkey. The judiciary, the military, the transportation and the job market are all keys to the development of Turkey to a closer integration with EU. The road is setup but the driver shouldn't hesitate in taking it. As we know, Turkey aims to become a bridge between civilizations, religions, economies and a facilitator in many subjects. To do this, a regional focus would kill the chicken in the egg. No! Turkey needs to reach a global scale and when times are harsh with EU, it should both

• prove it is a reliable and trusted partner for the EU, surpassing expectations and estimates
• reach to the group of countries that Turkey is starting to be part of (the famous BRIC Brazil/Russia/India/China)

In fact, Turkey shares many things, in its structure, culture, ambitions and could share much with countries like India. Turkey should achieve better results in the sectors of finance and information technology and strengthen its already strong industrial and construction sector by favoring SMEs, startups and R&D thus allowing more niche players (high added-value). The fact that countries with big potentials have little interest in products coming from Turkey can be a concern as the current trade deficits show.

With all these card in their hand there is no reason Turkey couldn't transcend its consolidated regional power. It is however still necessary to make strong choices to deliver on this potential.

Turkey's wording issues

Turkey has a lot of problems with the words used for labeling political matters linked with the fall of the Ottoman empire.

First is the use of "Kurdistan" by the terrorists of the PKK organization or also by the Kurdistan Regional Government. This upsets turkish politicians and nationalists since there is no way they may accept that a Turkish Kurdistan exists (like an Iraqi Kurdistan exists). This combat on words is very archaic since the variables of this old debate had considerably changed and that the first city of the kurds (in number) is Istanbul. There is little use of combating the words while installing the facts. There are some incentives that could be developed with the leaders of Northern Iraq to create cultural exchanges with Turkey. In fact there is a lot of ignorance in the relation between turks and iraqi kurds, including between turkish kurds and iraqi kurds (who speak and write different dialects). This does not mean independence should be recognized but positive outlook of Iraqis on Turkey would favor taking into account some sensitivities beyond the "Kurdistan" word. The first aim Turkey should have is to help lowering the corruption in Northern Iraq.

Same can be said about the famous "genocide" word. A fight for words that has helped little to understand the positions of the participant to the heated debate. There is no highlight that labeling the facts, crimes of intent should require some grounds. That the armenian of Istanbul and Jerusalem should logically have been also targeted. That population destabilizing the eastern front line were risking the existence of a threatened empire. That some armenian were engaged in political activities and propaganda (publishing mostly in Europe). That armenian lobbies often slips to territorial claims, to competition in the horror, to hatred for turks (no crime - whichever - should be answered by a crime). Yes, little remains of all these facts except a denial of genocide.

Let's make Turkey move to the content of the debates. Let's make it no longer a problem to use "sensitive" words. Let's make ideas more free and sharing information easier..

Armenia : Dark Age or New Age ?

After the murder of Agos editor in chief Hrant Dink, the place has opened for renewed exchanges between Turkey and Armenia. His sound approach to the problems in Turkey wether they are related to his armenian descent or not should be highlighted. He was in no doubt that his beloved country was engaged on a much better way for the respect of his thoughts and writings than Armenia would be. This is a trigger on how vigilant we should be to not let any situation deteriorate and that Armenia should be brought closer to Turkey and the EU, not that Turkey should copy the backward mentalities that corrode the political life in Armenia. So let's hope for a Turkey ready to invest on its relation with Armenia and an Armenia investing on democracy (in coming elections - 12th of May). The exchanges between armenian and turks have always been fruitful and have a long background of shared culture and values. The armenian diaspora should not disturb this process and lower their hateful rhetoric to help each country in the steps that are unavoidable. The EU is not welcomed in this process since they failed so many times in solving anything in this area from Georgia to Karabakh and they tend to impose views that are all but helping progress on this issue.

Happy New Year To All 27 EU members

(and of course to the one hundred ninety something other countries)

Two more countries have joined the EU, adding more than 30 millions people and hundreds of new problems to the already clogged EU enlargement process. Politics are betting on keeping a low profile for hiding the risks inherent to this fast integration of a big and poor chunk of the Balkan. More precisely the least developed part of Europe. However the mechanisms in place provide control over the evolutions of Romania and Bulgaria. This may still direct Germany and EU in general to a tougher attitude and the adoption of new institutions.

More interesting, as former Ottoman Empire members, this may seal a more decisive policy about turning the head of Europe towards East. If for many centuries, Europe's center was the Mediterranean Sea, and after that the Atlantic Ocean, we can hope that the time is coming for being more directed to the Black Sea / Caspian Sea.

The path to a multicultural Europe is certainly at the cost of an effort for this century to be a collaboration with countries that we contradicted for so long. But they still have exchanged extensively with Europe and are much open to its lights and values.

Diplomatic moves: Learning slalom

On Cyprus, Turkey has learned to move more smoothly across the troubled EU waters. Previously, on the path to EU, when issues were faced by Turkey, the classical situation was an escalation of incomprehension, the definition of red lines and the accusation of unfair or unbalanced treatments. Turkey is moving more easily and is getting experienced with the tough process awaiting it. Result is that even if the move created uneasiness at home, the turkish hand has been stronger and Europe mainly sticked to European Commission recommendations.

Most important is that Republic Of Cyprus has been incited to move for a settlement for the long lasting dispute on the island. The idea of reciprocity of efforts on both parts of the island is making its way and it will be harder in the coming years to maintain status quo. Greece has given up trying anything with Cyprus, EU is pushing both sides to get closer economically but has no power and legitimity to solve political problems and ultimately UN is fed up with trying to separate spoilt local powers of this tiny island from spitting to eachother face. So this can be a turning point in the Cyprus Problem and Greek Cyprus will whether defend the current state of affairs in the wait of the "European Solution" whether it will review its strategy and look for an Annan plan with improved implementation phases and calendars.

So in a similar way Turkey can take a tremendous step on the armenian genocide claims
by voting a law stating the following :

"The Ottoman Empire on the verge of its implosion under the external pressure of the greatest military powers of the XXth century, ordered in 1915 a migration of the local armenian communities in order to keep the control of its supply lines, and avoid clashes among ethnic lines. The relocation has been run into a failure and the empire could not protect these citizens that contributed so much to many ottoman achievements. Thus, Turkey recognizes that in the Ottoman Empire a genocide by negligence has taken place."

This implies that the recognition of their suffering asked by many armenians is clearly worded as they desired. However, any legal action is not helped with this formulation since :

1. No author is labeled

2. A genocide according to UN resolutions cannot be the consequence of a negligence

This position is a compromise solution that allows to move out of the debate on words and denial. This is a true challenge for Turkey but bold steps on such issue would better integrate Turkey in the EU-Caucasus axis and maybe even help resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.

Where is the European Commisssion heading ?

One month ago, the European Commission the core of the European machinery, criticized Turkey for its slowing pace of reforms and for a change in its will to move forward. The recommendations issued at that time were in order to avoid the 'train crash' between the EU and Turkey, meaning a stop of the harmonization process and of the integration of Turkey in the EU.

Under political pressure, the European Commission is now advising that the negociations with Turkey should "slow down" ! Probably, when things are not moving fast enough, everybody is required to use its energy to impose speed limits. That trick is quite unwise but however the negociations will continue with less chapters having the green light to be opened and closed. Furthermore like every six months only one subject of focus will be in the mouths of the paralyzed EU leaders: Turkey (and Cyprus). Their only way to evolve the EU seems to try to force Turkey to make concessions on Cyprus... I think there is clearly no relation between the future of EU and Cyprus. If EU ever cared about Cyprus as something else than a puppet at the hands of Greece, Cyprus would have not entered EU by creating 300 000 outlaws. This Turkish Community of the island are European Citizens labelled as Out Of Control. When you can create such situations and ask others to solve it, there is a limit to reason.

So that is what it comes to, a few political leader have decided to play the Cyprus card against Turkey but this masquerade can easily slips out of hands since Cyprus has a right of veto on EU decisions. Cyprus is for example imposing with its deemed 'veto strategy' that the United Nations stay at distance with the island problems. This is clearly leading to two possible exits: the partition of the island in a Greek and a Turk Republic of Cyprus or the merge of the Turkish Community in the 'Republic Of Cyprus'. When the EU leaders will have played enough with Turkey for electoral gains, they will come back to the world realities and will want to have again closer relations with Turkey may it be for the energy supply lines, for the democratization of Georgia, for coutering the Iran rise in the region, for middle east peace intiitatives, etc. Wether the situation in Cyprus had evolved or not, there will still be a member (a Greek Republic Of Cyprus or any kind of Republic Of Cyprus with a Greek Cypriot majority) that has a hate relation with Turkey. Any decision by the EU on Turkey would be vetoed.

How can the EU fix its mess? There is only one option, wich is to pressure the Greek Cypriots to accept a new version of the Annan plan engaging in the creation of the United Cyprus. What is the best pressure to apply on the Republic Of Cyprus ? There is a main option that is the improvement of socio-economic conditions in the Northern part Of Cyprus (that is officially part of the EU territory). Seeing that their turkish neighbours could live by themselves without their help and without restrictions, will change the look of Greek Cypriots on the Turkish Community. Let's hope the EU will understand where its interest as well as the interest of all the citizens of Cyprus is.

When hypocrisy rules

The position of France on what is considered here as the periphery of Europe, i.e. Ukraine, Turkey and Maghreb is somewhat ... a hope of strenghtening a shield from the instabilities of some emerging economies and of political difficulties. The creation of this buffer zone also called privileged partnership or neighborhood politics is merely a hope for an alternative to the structural reforms and the move in the global competition that Paris feels forced to.

This reluctance to have a strategy of conquest explains the defensive positions France has taken by default so far on many subjects and most stikingly on the European Constitution (that has been shaped mostly after french wishes). France is looking for some energy to revitalize its cultural influence(french language), economy, youth. Most french feel stuck in a corner and this is the reason for a major generational change on the potential politician french will vote for.

France has in politics the same defaults that are plaguing its educational system. This can be resumed as opting for a diversification of aims and goals, to widen the understanding of the basics and to enlarge a general culture. This means less practical and specialized skills can be found on young people, so the very necessity of experience is very much felt and emboldened as a result. Of course, this is much more true in politics, and competitors that are less than 55 are usually not esteemed as strong players in a major elections, they are often limited to play the second roles.

But still it seems very clear that every day passing the radicality of the actions planned by the presidential candidates are melting in an undrinkable soup that can only make us fear the surprise of another extremist party rise. The mixture that is being prepared for French People has surely the possibility of being unpleasant to many and so the softeners that will be used until the last minute can be feared to amount to excessive quantities.

This means that France will stay prisonner of its defensive strategies and won't be able to move quickly to a resolute and decisive fight against the blocking factors that are slowing down its performances. Contrary to what most may think, things will not become clearer in one month but we will have to wait for the last 40 days of the campaign to get clearer on what may or may not happen.