U.S. Policy Towards Turkey

Deputy Assistant Secretary Bryza: Thank you so much for the introduction. I'm incredibly humbled to be here. I don't know if I'm more humbled to be sitting next to our Consul General, Deborah Jones, or with Bill Schneider, or Zeyno Baran, or Daniel Pipes, whose scholarship guides us and inspires us with its profound insights into the challenges of combating extremism. And Daniel's presence reminds me of another Pipes, Richard Pipes, with Polish blood like my own, who taught me very much of what I've ever learned about Russia. I'm humbled here as I look toward the Bosporus Bridge to my right, and remember that the last time I was at this vantage point was when I was working at the White House, and President Bush was giving a speech with that same backdrop.

I'm very grateful for a chance to talk a bit about how we in Washington and in the Administration are thinking about Turkey. I don't want to make any news tonight. I don't want to say anything that's exciting, or different. I just want you to understand how we feel about Turkey, why Turkey matters to us. And I hope I'll leave you with the impression that we actually are thinking and trying to understand Turkey in a deeper way, in a more profound way that reflects the history and the culture, and the current dynamics of this country. I'm not claiming we have any deep insights, but we're big, and if we don't have those insights we can create problems. And if we follow those insights, we can make something really useful happen, something great happen.

So, everybody, obviously, has been wondering about our views on the last couple of amazing and tumultuous weeks here in Turkey, with regard to Turkish democracy. And I know the whole mission of this Global Leaders conference, and really of this university, is to generate energy among leaders in government, business, civil society, and academia to rejuvenate Turkish strategic thinking. I know the students here and the faculty and people here gathered for the dinner, are ready to play a decisive role, whatever that may be. So let me just say, first of all, we are trying to focus in our government, in responding to what's happening here in Turkey in a way in which we are not the story; we are not participants, we are observers;, observers who care very much about what happens in Turkey.

And so we try to reflect our understanding of the situation and our respect for Turkey's special form of democracy, by focusing on three key concepts: democracy, secularism, and constitutionality. It's hard, in Washington, for some of us to understand and appreciate the significance of secularism. In our country, we just naturally evolved from a situation where the fundamental values of our culture that gave birth to our country were all about separation of church and state. And that is exactly how the first settlers came to our country. So for many in Washington, the concept of secularism and its deep importance to Turkish democracy is lost. And one of the reasons why I cited Daniel Pipes in the beginning of my speech, whom I have never met face to face, but I've read so much about, is that what you talk about, underscores for us how crucial it is that we take a wise and a sober look at the evolution of modern societies that have Muslim majority populations. And Turkey's great strength and strategic importance for us, is precisely that it is a secular democracy with a Muslim majority population. And one in which that doctrine, the principle of secularism that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk used to establish the Turkish Republic in 1923, creates a separation in society that allows private life and political life to exist separately. Politics and private life are thus free from religion or free from the tendency, perhaps, of Islam to have seek an all-encompassing role in society. Our tradition is much different, as the United States began from the separation of church and state. What I just said right now is difficult, sometimes, to understand in Washington. But in the uppermost reaches of our foreign policy team, people increasingly understand this. They do understand it. And they understand it in an Administration, by the way, in which religious faith is obviously something very important to our President, to many of our most senior policy makers, and often, they don't like to talk about any difference, or any type of democracy. They don't like us to qualify democracy as being called secular versus, I don't know, some other type of democracy. So, nonetheless, I think we are succeeding in making clear in our statements, that we appreciate these three core elements of Turkey's political culture. Constitutionality, secularism and democracy.

Constitutionality, by the way, really means that the outcome of these exciting events right now, tumultuous events, will be decided, ultimately, by elections. And that's what Secretary Rice said yesterday. But elections will occur in this complicated and uniquely Turkish context of secularism and democracy.

And I'd also just like to underscore that this unique experience of Turkey as a secular democracy with a Muslim majority population, is precisely what makes Turkey so significant to us in a strategic sense, now. Sure, we're deeply grateful that we have a chance to re-supply our troops in Iraq through Incirlik Airbase. We are deeply grateful that we're able to move so much cargo through the Habur Gate. 25 per cent of all the fuel that coalition forces consume in Iraq moves through the Habur gate. Something like 29 per cent of all the food and all the water consumed by Iraqi civilians moves through the Habur Gate. So, if we look at what's happening in Iraq, yes, the Incirlik Airbase that had been really in many ways the centerpiece of strategic relations between our countries, of course matters. But, if we think in a more abstract, a more strategic sense, what really matters to us is Turkey's success as a secular democracy with a Muslim majority population. And Turkey has a tradition of modernizing and groundbreaking reforms that goes even beyond 1923 and the founding of the Turkish Republic. It goes well back into the late Ottoman period of the 1840's and 1850's and the Tanzimat period, reflected in the Dolmabahce off to your right and the Yildiz Palace over your shoulders, all near by us, here. It was you and your ancestors, the Ottoman Turks, who brought modernizing and groundbreaking reforms, 150-160 years ago, to Damascus and to Cairo, and to other great cities in the Middle East. So there's an element of modernization, of broader political and economic freedom that Turkey has been developing for a long time, for almost as long as the United States has been a country. And we want to work together with Turkey to try figure out how to transform this region and beyond, in ways that we mutually agree upon. So it really is the secular democracy that is a cornerstone of our strategic relationship now. I hope I've convinced you that we don't just say that as empty rhetoric, but we really feel that now.

So that means, obviously then, we have no interest in influencing, in any way, the outcome of the debates going on right now here, in Turkish politics. That's up to you, and that's why this moment is so exciting. For us, what matters is the organic life of democracy in Turkey, however it plays itself out, as long as it plays itself out in accordance with secularism and constitutionality.

But there's a lot more as well, on our agenda. I've been working on Turkey for quite a long time. I know what the public opinion polls look like, and it's painful for me. I love this country. It's painful to feel how significant anti-Americanism is here. We know the causes; it's not a natural state of being, actually. I've never felt, on personal level, an ounce of anti-Americanism, in all my years and I don't know how many dozens of trips here. But anti-Americanism is a reality. And a lot of that, obviously, or maybe almost all of it, has to do with international relations today. And because of that, we have made a real effort, a deliberate effort, to try to rebuild our relationship with Turkey in an official sense, by putting in place a vision of our relationship, as well as specific mechanisms to develop that relationship. So, almost a year ago, in July, Secretary Rice and Foreign Minister Gul, agreed on and signed a Shared Vision statement that articulates about ten areas in which we think we share very significant interests. And that shared vision statement also identified four mechanisms to make sure we're not just talking, we're not just giving speeches, like I am here tonight, but that we're following up and creating concrete results. And I'd like to talk just about a couple of those areas, and then I'll free you for dinner, or for questions, and get on with a great evening.

An area in which I've been passionately involved is energy. It was our relationship with Turkey on Caspian energy, a decade ago, I would argue, that genuinely created a sense of strategic partnership in our relationship. Think back a decade ago, to the mid-nineties, when relations still weren't that great between us. We were grateful for Turkey's help in Northern Iraq with Operation Northern Watch, and we worked hard with the international financial institutions to help Turkey through its various financial challenges, which I'm happy to say seem to have vanished due to some great fiscal management and monetary management by your former central banker, Serdengecti, by Kemal Dervis, and now, by Ali Babacan. We have to admit that the economic reforms of the last decade have been a huge success for Turkey, as demonstrated by how smoothly the market weathered this current political storm. So that's a real sign of success. But we didn't really have a sense of partnership in our relationship until we started working together on Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, and the South Caucuses gas pipeline. And there were many, many people, I can't even count how many, who said those projects could never happen. In fact, I was at a meeting with a Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia about two and a half months ago, and somebody on his team who was supposed to be the energy expert, actually said to me, "well, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan is not a commercially viable project. It's purely political, and there's not enough oil in Azerbaijan to make it a reality." And I just laughed, and I said, you know, it is a reality. And the investors in it, they wouldn't build it as a favor to America. They built it because they're making a heck of a lot of money off of it. And if you talk to BP or Statoil, they are proud of this like no other pipeline project in the world, because it's the most complex oil pipeline ever developed. Complex, because of the technical aspects, and complex because of the politics. It traverses three countries, right near Nagorno-Karabakh, through Georgia, which itself has two separatist conflicts, through northeastern Turkey, where are some sensitive areas, and among countries that were just emerging on the world stage, in fact, when this whole set of developments began. So Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan is an enormous success, geo-strategically, and it's an enormous success for what we want to do now with Turkey, on energy. And when I say Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, I also mean the South Caucuses gas pipeline, which doesn't follow all the way the same route as Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, it doesn't go to Ceyhan, it goes to Erzurum, but nonetheless, these two pipelines have opened up a new era and a new generation of major energy investments linking the Caspian Sea to Europe.

If you look around Europe and listen to what President Barroso of the European Commission says, Europeans are finally waking up to the reality, I'm sorry to say, that Gazprom isn't always the most reliable partner for them. Thank goodness Gazprom exists.. Gazprom has provided heat and light - we could use more heat, I guess, tonight - but heat and light to Europe for several decades. We don't want that to end. We don't want to disrupt that. May Gazprom live a market-based life, as long as we are around. But it's not living a market-based life right now, because it is a monopoly by law, and it benefits from deeply distorted gas prices whereby it can almost dictate a price of 100 dollars per thousand cubic meters of gas in Central Asia -- in Turkmenistan, in Kazakhstan -- and sell it here for 285 dollars and sell it north of here, let's say, in Romania, for 300 dollars per thousand cubic meters.

Why do I care about this? I don't care about this question of eliminating the disparity in gas prices because American companies or American investors will benefit. There's not a single American company, for better or for worse, involved in Caspian gas development at this point. I care, or our government cares, because those huge differences in the gas prices between Central Asia and Europe, generate enormous rents, which almost by definition, are distributed non-transparently, and as we see, from the gas deal between Russia and Ukraine of a year ago, help organized crime prosper, provide, or undercut energy sector reform, and allow then Gazprom to keep on functioning as it does -- as a monopoly that seeks to block competition rather than to maximize the return on its share price by competing. That's bad for the United States. That's bad because, number one, the European market is functioning in a dysfunctional manner, inefficiently, based on the price differentials I described. We really believe our national security interests are best served when markets function efficiently. It's bad for us, as well, because obviously we don't like the advance of organized crime. Obviously, we want to see these countries along supply routes reform their energy sectors. And it's really bad for us because in some corners of Europe, political leaders are timid when they sense that it's possible their primary gas supplier could get angry if those governments behave more robustly or vigilantly, opposing behavior that maybe the rest of us in the Euro-Atlantic community might not like by Russia. So we really want to work as hard as we can to expand the gas shipment to Europe from the Caspian Sea as much as possible. The more gas that moves from Central Asia and Azerbaijan to Europe via Turkey, the better. Because Gazprom then will be forced to look elsewhere for gas. It won't be able to dictate a low gas price of 100 dollars in Central Asia. It will have to develop its own fields with western technology, from companies that we hope will demand greater transparency and more market-based behaviors. So what I'm getting at is our goal is not to be anti-Gazprom. We don't want confrontation with Russia in any way. But we want greater competition. And Turkey is at the very center of all of this. Turkey is at the center because of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, and because of the South Caucuses gas pipeline of a decade ago which only in this last year have begun functioning. And Turkey is in the center of all of this now because Azerbaijan, within the next five to ten years, will become a huge supplier of natural gas and wants to get it to Europe via Turkey. Via the Turkey-Greece-Italy pipeline and via the Nabucco pipeline.

So, as I wrap up my remarks on energy,, I want to make an appeal to all of our leaders in the Turkish community here, to think through the implications of not waiting for this gas from Azerbaijan, and focusing too much on the single, predominant gas supplier that is already providing you almost 65 per cent of your gas here. Azerbaijan's gas is going to provide a huge supply volume for the next four or five decades. The investors building the new pipelines, the Turkey-Greece-Italy pipeline and the Nabucco pipeline are anxious. They want to fill their pipelines with gas right now. They want to expand the Blue Stream pipeline through Turkey tomorrow, or by 2012. And the gas from Azerbaijan won't quite be ready in 2012, but it should be ready in 2014 or 2015, so we need strategic thinkers and future foreign ministers, to be working with your neighbors: the Azerbaijanis, the Bulgarians, Romanians, your extended neighbors, the Greeks and Italians, to persuade the pipeline investors to be patient and to be ready for Azerbaijan's gas in the near future. So, to sum it all up on energy, Turkey is right in the middle of a tremendous new effort that will reshape Europe's strategic map, if the U.S., if Turkey and if private investors work with Azerbaijan and some of Turkey's other neighbors to make sure there's competition for European gas markets.

Last couple of things I'll talk about, I'd like to talk about at least, is how well we've been working with Turkey on security relationships. Oh, and before I do, I should also note Samsun-Ceyhan, I'm sorry. I didn't talk about oil pipelines at all, and I don't want to get too much into that. I just want to say, we worked so hard for Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan to be realized. There's a new pipeline that has reached political agreement, Burgaz-Alexandropolis, among Russia, Bulgaria, and Greece. Of course we wish that project well. Bulgaria, Greece, they're NATO allies. The American company, Chevron, will likely participate in that project. So we wish it well. We hope it proves its commercial viability and that it prospers. And we also wish the Samsun-Ceyhan pipeline success. The driving force behind that pipeline, Ahmet Calik, is a great friend of anybody who has been working on Caspian energy for the last decade. He's a man of great business vision. And it seems like maybe that project is developing some significant momentum now, as we saw recently, with some international oil companies, now maybe pledging some oil for it. So, we wish that project well, as well.

Getting back to security cooperation. We also have a great record of strategic cooperation with Turkey in Afghanistan. We are grateful for what Turkey has done in leading the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan twice. It now has joint command of the NATO force in Kabul. Turkey is leading a provisional reconstruction team in Vardak province, and Turkey has offered a hundred million dollars for reconstruction of Afghanistan and in fact, is dispersing that, quickly, in an initiative that is unique for Turkey. Turkey has never at this level, with this high volume, developed an assistance program quite like this. That's a sign that Turkey is really emerging as a crucial partner, not only of the United States, but of all those who seek to perpetuate the same sorts of modernizing reforms I talked to a few minutes ago, that began, well 150-160 years ago, during the Tanzimat period. We are also grateful for Turkey having pulled together Presidents Musharraf and Karzai on the 29^th and 30^th of April, for a very important meeting, a constructive meeting. There's a long way to go in building the relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but Turkey has made a contribution. Turkey has made important contributions in Iraq, not only in terms of the Incirlik Airbase, not only in terms of Habur Gate, but also in terms of supporting the evolution of more democratic political processes in Iraq. Turkey has provided a lot of training for Sunni and other politicians in Iraq. And Turkey and the United States, I would argue, are coordinating quite well, in general, much better than we were a couple of years ago. And you'll probably ask me about PKK in a moment. Let me just say that General Baser and General Ralston are changing the equation. I can't give you a date on the calendar, when you'll see something concrete. I can tell you that we know, and we, I mean our highest superiors know, that we better produce some concrete results quickly. We've committed to doing so. Our President has committed to the Turkish Prime Minister and President, repeatedly. And all I can leave you with is that, not only that we've heard the message, but that the way we go about planning is uniquely different right now. I don't mean to sound cute or enticing, I can't go beyond that. I can just say that we are planning to achieve concrete results, and soon.

The last thing I should probably talk about is Turkey's place in Europe. The very last thing. We're not a member of the EU. It's none of our business who the EU chooses as its members. But we think we have a strategic interest in Turkey being a member of the EU, should it choose to do so. We believe it's important that the doors remain open, that there be no political excuses for blocking the process. If Turkey implements and continues to implement the reforms, it ought to be in the EU, if Turkey chooses to decide to continue implementing those reforms. Since - pick your time in history - you can pick the 600's in the Altai region when Turkic people started moving in this direction, or 1071, the battle of Manzikert, or Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his precepts -- Turkey's natural evolution and movement has been towards Europe, as long as there have been Turkic peoples. So it seems that there's really no way to stop that momentum. It seems in the political and genetic material of what it means to be Turkish, is to be moving toward Europe. There's only so much support the U.S. can offer. The President did so a half a kilometer away from here, and said, Turkey ought to be in Europe. This is our opinion. But what I can promise you is you'll retain and receive our strong support everywhere possible, in Brussels, in all the European capitals as well, to make sure if it is Turkey's choice, and Turkey decides to implement its reforms, then it will keep moving in that direction.

We'll do everything we can, working with our allies to keep the doors open. Turkey can do, of course, a lot to help itself, including on Cyprus. Turkey did a lot on Cyprus a couple of years ago in 2004. We were deeply disappointed that the referenda on the Annan Plan didn't pass on both sides of the island. And now we see a process that could take off, based on the July 8^th agreement last year that was brokered by then- Under Secretary General of the UN, Gambari. In recent weeks there have been ups and downs. Each side, the Turkish Cypriots, the Greek Cypriots, have looked like they're moving forward, then they've been looking like they're moving backward. I would just like to let my last remark be that there is a real opportunity to rejuvenate that process now. We need to grab the attention of the new Secretary General, get him to invest as much energy and interest in the Cyprus settlement process as did his predecessor. And I'm confident we can, precisely because somebody who held this position two evolutions ago, Lynn Pascoe, is now the Under Secretary General of the United Nations, who will be working on Cyprus. So he's somebody who really understands the issue, has a deep affinity for Turkey, and I think would share - I hope would share everything I said tonight, so far. So thank you for your patience. Thank you for listening and I'm willing to take any questions. Thank you.

Question: [Original in Turkish; translated into English] Thank you. I'd like to ask my question in Turkish. I'd like to ask questions based on two separate areas of your speech. The first is secularism and democracy in Turkey, the other is with regard to security. My first question is this: When looking at it from Washington, you said that secular democracy is important for Turkey. The current government -- the main opposition, and an unprecedented turnout at demonstrations perceives it as a threat that will do away with secularism. When viewed from Washington, how does the current government look? Does Washington view the current government of believing in secularism and democracy? This is my first question. Regarding security: on 12 April, the Chairman of the Turkish General Staff indicated that there should be an incursion into Iraq in order to fight terrorism, and that this would be beneficial. He added, however, that on this matter, the armed forces would need to await legal instruction to do so. Currently, there is a large scale operation being carried out in the southeast with the participation of 20,000 soldiers. If the Turkish Armed Forces were to go across the existing Iraqi border for the purposes of fighting terrorism, what will America's attitude be?

Deputy Assistant Secretary Bryza: Thank you. It would be unwise for me to try to characterize what Turkish people themselves are thinking about secularism and secular democracy. As an observer though, I have to say I was personally inspired by what I heard, as one of the primary slogans that were circulating through that enormous crowd in Sisli a couple of weeks ago which was, "No Sharia, No Coup". To me, that says it all. Four words sum up everything. Again, as I understand it, as an outside observer, many of those protesters, a majority were women, and as I've gone through this in my mind over the last few weeks, I keep on having these images of the Museum of Civilizations in Ankara, where much of it is all about the Anatolian mother figure. Back to the Hittites and all the way through Phrygians, and then even into the Turkish period, Ottoman period. To me, that's who I feel was speaking. It was the wisdom of Anatolians, the Anatolian mother figure, in four words, which summed everything up. "No Sharia, No Coup".

When it comes to cross-border operations, your second question, I'd just like to let the words of General Ralston stand. When you've heard what he has said. He's said that perhaps that wouldn't be the most helpful outcome. And really, nobody is talking about that right now. I don't think we need to talk about any sort of unilateral Turkish operation now. General Buyukanit is the military commander of this sovereign country, and he's entitled to whatever opinion he has. I'm not a military man, so I can't comment on the military utility. What I do know, though, is that the level of cooperation, both in terms of the political level, and the level of detail, in planning, and thinking through how to eliminate the PKK threat in northern Iraq, has really shifted in a positive way. Lately, I haven't heard any such claims. Perhaps there's been something else going on in the background of Turkish politics. But I hope that part of the reason why we're not hearing those sorts of discussions anymore is because, I hope, the security establishment here appreciates how serious we are, and how far along we've been moving our planning. Thank you.

Question: [Original in Turkish; translated into English]. I'd like to ask two short questions, too. First, we all see that with respect to U.S. policy regarding northern Iraq, and the Kurdish state that has been established in northern Iraq and on the PKK, the U.S. has lost a lot of its image in Turkey. The same loss of image - and we see this among the Turks in Germany as well. Upon one of the [inaudible] of the American Ambassador, we conducted research as the Turkey Research Center, and found that to a large extent, the Turkish immigrants living in Germany showed a significant negative reaction to America, so much so that the U.S. State Department, especially in its embassies and consulates, follows a very good policy regarding immigration. On this matter, will America take any policy steps? And second, we see the support that the U.S. has given Turkey in its road to joining the EU, however, in two or three large countries, Angela Merkel in Germany, one of the closest leaders to America in the last eight years, and Sarkozy in France, we also know is close to America. But these two leaders are interested in cutting Turkey off on its road to join the EU. Will America take any action with regard to these two leaders?

Deputy Assistant Secretary Bryza: Thank you. I won't comment any more on the PKK, I think that was the first part of your question. Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. Yes, their views about the future of the EU are challenging, when it comes to Turkey. But there's something about political responsibility, once one becomes an elected leader, that softens people's views. And if you remember during the campaign, when Angela Merkel was running, she talked a lot about privileged partnership as the ultimate outcome, her preferred outcome for Turkey in the EU accession process. We never thought that that was a wise way to proceed, privileged partnership, because we think it's precisely the notion of full inclusion in the European family that is again, as I said before, part of what it means to be Turkish, and is something that really does provide the stimulant or the catalyst for the groundbreaking reforms we'd like to see continue. She doesn't talk so much about privileged partnership anymore. I don't know, when was the last time you heard her give a speech about privileged partnership for Turkey? It hasn't happened at all. So, we hope that President Sarkozy will experience a similar, how to put it, softening of his views. I don't know if he will. But I promise you that a major issue on our agenda with Germany and with France will continue to be Turkey's EU membership. And I should liberate you and let you all eat. You've been so kind to let me talk for so long. And please approach me at any time now or later, email me. We can continue this conversation, but I don't want to torture.

Question: Excuse me, can I ask one more question? [Original in Turkish; translated into English]. Do you believe that you will be able to maintain the territorial integrity in Iraq?

Deputy Assistant Secretary Bryza: Just a minor little question to end this evening. Well, what we want is that the future of Iraq's future and Iraq's security is in the hands of the Iraqi people. If what you're really asking me, beneath the surface of your question, is whether or not we support the territorial integrity of Iraq and whether or not we'll do everything possible to sustain the territorial integrity of Iraq, the answer to both questions is of course, yes. We will do everything possible to sustain the territorial integrity of Iraq and have no reason to doubt that it will remain a unified state. We have to go about all of our work on security, including eliminating the PKK's terrorist threat, with Iraq as the primary partner. Iraq is the sovereign territory of the government of Iraq. So our starting point, for anything that has to do with Iraq, is indeed the government of Iraq, in Baghdad. Yes, we have to work with the Kurdish regional government, just as we have to work with regional governments in any country. Yes, the Kurdish regional government has a peculiar degree of influence. But our starting point and our ending point, is that we work with the sovereign government of Iraq in Baghdad. And sure, I have every confidence to believe that we will succeed of course, in sustaining that. Thank you very much.