Turkish Ambassador on the Referendum, the West & Georgia

INTERVIEW

Turkey is bracing itself for a historic referendum, and it comes at a time when the relationship between President Erdogan and with the West, with the EU chiefly, is at its skewered worst we’ve seen thus far. Why do some in Europe think that, as the Foreign Policy put it, “Turkey is using democracy to undermine democracy”? Has the relationship with NATO also been strained, as Russian media would lead us to believe? Is Turkey being isolated or is it entering a self-exile? Is there a real alliance brewing between Putin and Erdogan? These were the questions Panorama Talk Show and GEORGIA TODAY put to the Turkish Ambassador in Georgia, Zeki Levent Gumrukcu, and the Ankara envoy duly obliged with some top-notch commentary.

The upcoming referendum is widely criticized world-wide, named an authoritarian move to strengthen presidential powers, a Putinesque move to diminish parliamentary powers, and so on. What do you say?

First of all, I don’t think the entire world is critical of it; yes, there are certain circles in Europe which are highly critical of this change, but I think they are getting it wrong. First and foremost, the whole process is very democratic. What we are doing is changing our constitution and moving from a parliamentary system to a presidential system, which happened and happens in many different countries in the world. This is a very basic democratic right of every country; to look into its constitution from time to time and to see if there are any changes that need to be made based on the current realities of both the country and the international system. I think what we need to see here, before the substance, is the process itself and whether the process is democratic or not. And we in Turkey are proud that we have a very democratic process in terms of amending our constitution. For example, the amendments were taken up at the parliament, at a commission in which all the big parties are represented. It was a very democratic process; it took weeks of discussion on items to be amended. Then it came to a plenary session, where we again had about two weeks of discussion, which was broadcast live on television, so the Turkish public could also watch the process; what this amendment brought, what it meant, what it entailed and such. And now, even though the parliament has adopted that with a 2/3 majority vote, we are obliged – even if that wasn’t the case, the government has committed itself before the vote in the parliament – to take it to a referendum, so that it’s not only up to the 550 MPs in the assembly to decide on it, but to all Turkish people. They all are given a say on this change, because it is an important one. In terms of the process itself, no one can criticize what has transpired in Turkey so far.

Now if you look into the substance of it, transition from a parliamentary system to a presidential system is very common thing that happens in many countries. Georgia, for instance, is now moving in the opposite direction, but every country has its own peculiar situations and conditions. And in Turkey, we have come to a certain stage when we have tripled our national income, extended our foreign policy horizons, created a much larger network of relations in our region and beyond. And now the government believes that we need a quicker pace of decision-making and more political stability in the country so that we can do things that we believe need to be done in order to take Turkey to a different level of economic development and political stability. That’s why the governing party wants to move to a presidential system, but without taking away anything from the separation of powers or strength of the parliament, aimed at creating a more executive decision-making process under the auspices of the president. But again, the president will be elected by the people; he will be there for just two terms - just like in the United States, for example – and he will be monitored and held accountable for his actions: first of all by the parliament and then by the public vote when it comes to the ballot box. So, I don’t think the presidential system itself, or any change in the system in this direction, is necessarily undemocratic. Furthermore, we don’t even know yet what the result of the referendum will be, and that’s the beauty of it. That is in itself a sign of democracy in Turkey. We’re only ten days away from the referendum, which is going to be held on April 16, and we still don’t know what the result might be. All the polls are showing a neck-to-neck race between the “yes” and the “no” campaign. So, in the end, it will be our people who decide, and they are not under any pressure towards either direction. And all our politicians, from the president to the most junior politicians, whatever the people decide, we will agree to it; we will respect it and we will act accordingly.

Let’s discuss Turkey vs. Europe. We’ve heard several statements from Erdogan- calling Germans fascists, to mention just one example. What’s it all about? Why this fight with Europe?

When it comes to Turkey-EU relations and what’s going on between them, your question somewhat implies that Turkey is moving away from the EU, whereas the EU seems to be doing everything it can to maintain a relationship with Turkey. But unfortunately, this is not the case. When you look at Turkey-EU relations, it’s the EU that fails to deliver on its side of the deal. But before I come to this let me say that the Turkish-EU relationship is based on, first and foremost, common interests and values, which I believe are still there. So whatever you see now is not going to change the basic, fundamental nature of this relationship. I believe that with the common sense prevailing on both sides, we will be able to maintain and sustain this very intricate, very close relationship in the years to come, because we will both be either winning or losing with this relationship depending on how we treat it.

By “not delivering on their side of the deal,” you mean refugees?

No, it doesn’t even come to that. That’s a very specific latest example. Go earlier than that: the Turkish-EU relationship reached a different level in 2004, when Turkey was given the status of a candidate country and we started our accession negotiations. And since then, do you know what has happened? We’ve been able to open only four or five chapters out of more than 30 chapters of negotiations, but we were not given the opportunity to close even one of them – even the cultural and scientific chapter. And for the last four or five years, we were not allowed to open even a single chapter of accession negotiations. They are almost frozen. And the reason is the EU, for certain political reasons, is not allowing this process to continue. It is Turkey who is constantly asking to take this process forward, who is constantly knocking on the doors of the EU in order to be able to have this dialogue, this cooperation, the level playing ground given to all other candidate countries. So, when you look at this relationship, Turkey is not the party that doesn’t want this relationship to work. On the contrary, we are doing our best, despite years and years of rejection. In other words, as a candidate country, Turkey is not treated in the way it should have been. There are so many examples of double standards. But, lately, there’s something even more serious that worries us in terms of what’s happening in Europe: I’m sure you will agree with me that now in Europe there is an undeniable rise of far-right political parties and movements. And what does this mean for countries that are trying to integrate with Europe? That’s not only a problem for Turkey, I believe, but for Georgia, too. Unfortunately, we see a more xenophobic, Islamophobic and introverted Europe, which is not really as eager as it was in the past to expand its space of values, standards and principles to the neighboring regions. What brought European countries together as the EU in the first place was not merely geography, but their commitment to these common and universal values. If they move away from them, then that is a dangerous sign for all of us. This is the reason Turkey is paying so much attention to what is happening in Europe, and sometimes becoming a bit emotional maybe. But that has nothing to do with Turkey’s internal political processes or narrow domestic interests, because, for us, EU membership is still a strategic objective. So, when we see such worrisome trends in Europe, of course we are the first to express our feelings and thoughts about it. We still want to be part of the EU, but we don’t want to be part of an EU which is xenophobic, inward-looking and no longer producing any values and standards for its neighboring regions. And I believe that Turkey’s criticism is constructive. The remarks by President Erdogan you mentioned came after a very serious crisis between us and the Netherlands. I don’t want to criticize anyone, but just take an objective look at what happened – one of the Turkish ministers traveled to the country and was denied even a meeting with her own country’s General Consul, which is against every single article of the 1963 Vienna Convention which arranges these diplomatic privileges and immunities. Such a violation, of course, draws our reaction. But once again, I hope that in the near future, common sense will prevail and we will be able to see things more clearly and sensibly. Then we’ll understand what’s at stake for our common interests and thus find a way to work together rather than against each other.

And still, it’s hard to believe that your President puts as much stock in common sense as you do. After all, it was Erdogan calling Merkel “a fascist” and not Merkel calling him “an Ottoman’. Where do you see common sense here?

First and foremost, it’s not productive to go over each and every statement made by this or that politician. I think we need to be able to have a wider outlook on what is happening between Turkey and Europe. And when you look at that, it is Europe, it’s a fact, not delivering on its end of the bargain, and then criticizing Turkey for not complying with democratic standards. This is something we cannot agree with. We have well established formats of dialogue where we can constructively criticize each other and work together. But doing so publicly and unilaterally is not the way to proceed. And let us not forget that in certain European countries the level of attacks against Turkey has gone beyond democratic and agreeable terms. For example, do you know what happened just a week ago in Switzerland? In front of the parliament building, there was a demonstration by the members of a terrorist group, PKK, which NATO, EU, US and everyone else agrees as being a notorious terrorist organization. And yet, its members were allowed to have a demonstration in front of the parliament building. But the story doesn’t end there: then they opened a large banner with a picture of President Erdogan and a gun put to his head. The inscription on the banner read “Kill Erdogan”. And nobody has so far been brought to justice. When something like this happens in the heart of Europe, of course Turkey reacts to it. And we do so also because we care for our common values and principles. Because, if you allow this kind of thing to happen, then we’ll have real problems within Europe, too. This is not the way we want to go. We want cooperation and integration which is going to be beneficial for all of us. For instance, you mentioned the refugee agreement. With or without Turkey being a member of the EU, whatever happens in Iraq, Iran, Syria or Afghanistan also has direct repercussions on the European Union. So, isn’t it much better for us to work together when we are faced with such common risks and opportunities? In a nutshell, what we want is to work together on the basis of our common values and interests. Turkey is ready to realize the promise of our great potential with the EU.

You mentioned Islamophobia, and recently foreign Minister Cavusoglu predicted some kind of religious war in Europe. How justified or realistic is this kind of statement?

It’s not a prophecy and it’s not something we’d like to see happen. And this is not the first time this issue has been brought up. From the very first days of the post-Cold War period, people have been talking about a possible clash of civilizations. And, in fact, it has always been of paramount importance for us in Turkey, together with our partners and allies, to deny that sort of grim possibility. Indeed, we have been trying to prove that a clash of civilizations is not our fate and that, instead, an alliance of civilizations is possible. But this can only happen if we have a real dialogue between different cultures and religions. We believe that between Turkey and Europe, Far East or Latin America, there is so much more that unites us all under the wide umbrella of humanity than what divides us on the basis of our cultural and religious belonging. We have to underline our commonalities rather than our differences. This is what Minister Cavusoglu wanted to say in essence. If those ultra-right politicians start categorizing people daily on the basis of their cultural or religious belonging, then this will inevitably bring a clash of civilizations. A person in a European country or anywhere else in the world should not identify himself or herself merely along religious or ethnic lines. We have to focus on our common values and aspirations. And we have plenty of those.

There are concerns that there is a growing rift between NATO member countries and Turkey. What is your take on that? I’d also like to mention the recent decision by NATO to bolster its security in the Black Sea region. Can Georgia accommodate itself in this process?

I agree that now there is a kind of problematic period between Turkey and the EU, but when it comes to NATO, it’s a completely different platform. I don’t see the sort of problematic relationship between Turkey and some European countries spreading over to NATO. When it comes to NATO, we are all allies and we focus on real issues in terms of risks, threats and opportunities. So, I do not see any problems between Turkey and other members of the Alliance. We will have a historical summit at the end of May, with the participation of the new US President, where we will renew our commitment to the basic principles and ideals of NATO. So, all these stories about Turkey possibly leaving NATO are completely false and I would like to assure the Georgian public of that. Regarding Black Sea security, on the other hand, it is obvious that what has been happening since 2014, with the invasion and annexation of Crimea and the war in Eastern Ukraine- you can in fact take it back in time to 2008 war between Russia and Georgia -has drastically changed the balance of power in the Black Sea. And simply put, we are very worried about that. Because Turkey has always argued for regional cooperation and regional ownership for the achievement of lasting security in the Black Sea area. This is why we support the work within the Alliance to analyze the recent developments in the region and come up with ways to strengthen the security of its members and partners. To this end, we made a set of decisions at the Warsaw summit last year, where NATO discussed Black Sea security and agreed on certain measures with land, air and sea components. For us, one of the critical elements of our approach to Black Sea security this is that whatever the NATO and regional countries are doing, this has to be in compliance with the Montreau Convention which is a very important regulator of Black Sea maritime affairs. It’s not an obstacle for anything, but is a very important regulator that gives us reliability and predictability for the future. As to Georgia’s involvement in the discussions on Black Sea security, we believe that it has so much to contribute. This is why, within the Alliance, we are one of the first countries to argue for the inclusion and involvement of Georgia and Ukraine in the Black Sea discussions, even though they are not members. We think that NATO is going to benefit a lot from any input Georgia is going to provide both for the discussion and in terms of actual operations. Finally, I want to stress that we should be very careful not to provoke unnecessary tension while we are dealing with this complex issue. We always need to keep in mind that the Black Sea maritime area has been kept out of hot conflicts for decades because of the sensible policies of the regional actors and all other international stakeholders. We need to make sure that it remains so.

By provoking you probably mean risking the ire of Russia? There is talk in the West about Erdogan being in league with Putin…

Some Western analysts argue that if Turkey has somewhat drifted off the EU, we’re getting closer and closer to Russia. This is not the case, because, first of all, Turkish-Russian relations cannot be alternative to the relations Turkey has with NATO, the EU and the United States. Turkey-West relations are based on such a deeply entrenched foundation of common principles and values that nothing can substitute them. But does it mean that Turkey is not going to have relationship with other parties? Of course not. Given where we are, you cannot expect Turkey to have a one-dimensional foreign policy, ignoring its relations with Iran, the Middle East, China, Africa and, obviously, Russia. Turkey is a very important regional power with a multidimensional foreign policy that has global implications. So, against that backdrop, Russia is of course a very important player in the region, and that’s why we’re trying to have a close reliable and mutually-beneficial relationship with Russia, where we can both protect and maintain our interests. Turkey is a country that can only benefit from peace, security and stability in the region - this is a key component for us realizing our potential. And in this context, we know that Russia is an important actor for the resolution of the conflicts in the region. We need to work with Russia and find ways to act on a common ground with them. And that’s what we’re doing. We’re talking with them about Syria, about Nagorno-karabakh, and we’re talking with them about the Georgian conflicts, too. And when we’re doing that, at each and every meeting, we always say that we’re committed to Georgia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and advise Russia to be more constructive when it comes to the resolution of the Abkhazian and South Ossetian problems. So, neither in Georgia, nor elsewhere should people have any concerns about the nature of the Turkish-Russian relationship. Turkish foreign policy is geared towards generating peace and stability in our neighborhood and beyond, and in all our relationships, this is what drives us.

Vazha Tavberidze

10 April 2017 21:05