Analysis

Turkey-Iran ties grow, as do question marks

Published Date: November 02, 2009
By Yigal Schleifer



The visit Tuesday of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Tehran is yet another sign of the rapidly improving relations between neighbours and regional powers Turkey and Iran. Over the last several years, the two countries have deepened their trade relations, as well as their cooperation in the areas of security and energy. But analysts suggest that Turkey and Iran's growing relations might be put to the test by Western expectations that Turkey take a harder line on Tehran's controversial nuclear
programme.

I can detect a perception in the US and Europe that Turkey is softer on Iran. They would like Turkey to have a tougher profile and a tougher stance vis-a-vis Iran," says Mustafa Kibaroglu, an expert on nuclear non-proliferation issues at Bilkent University in Ankara. Relations between NATO member Turkey and Iran have improved dramatically in recent years, particularly since the arrival of the ruling liberal Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002, which has pledged to pursue a regional foreign
policy of "zero problems" with its neighbours.

Trade between the two countries, for example, hit $10 billion in 2008, compared to a level of $1 billion in 2000. Iran also supplies close to a third of Turkey's gas supply. Turkish officials, meanwhile, were among the first and only to congratulate Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad after his recent controversial reelection. Turkey and Iran share a 499-km border, and both Turkish and Iranian diplomats like to point out that the two Muslim neighbours have been at peace for centuries.

But Turkish analysts say that the peace that Ankara and Tehran have maintained for so long is based on a delicate balance of military power between the two countries, one that would be fundamentally disturbed if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons. "The bottom line is that Turkey can't accept an Iran with nuclear weapons. A nuclear weapons-capable Iran or a nuclear-armed Iran is not in the interest of Turkey," says Kibaroglu.

The continuation of Iran's nuclear program for peaceful ends is a natural right, but it is impossible to support it if it concerns [the development] of weapons of mass destruction," Erdogan said in 2006. In recent months, though, Erdogan has started taking what observers are criticizing as a "softer" stance on Iran's nuclear program. In an interview in the Guardian published on Oct 26, Erdogan dismissed claims that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons as "gossip".

He also called criticism of Iran's nuclear program by countries that themselves have nuclear weapons as "unfair", singling out Israel, in particular. "The permanent members of the UN Security Council all have nuclear arsenals and then there are countries which are not members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which also have nuclear weapons. So, although Iran doesn't have a weapon, those who say Iran shouldn't have them are those countries which do," Erdogan told the Guardian.

The Turkish prime minister's words have been received warmly in Tehran, where, according to state broadcaster IRIB, Iranian president Ahmedinejad told Erdogan in a Tuesday meeting: "When an illicit regime possesses nuclear arms, one cannot talk about depriving other nations from the peaceful nuclear program," he said. "Your clear stance towards the Zionist regime had a positive effect in the world, especially the Islamic world, and I am sure that everyone was satisfied," Ahmadinejad added.

But analysts suggest that the Turkish position might put Ankara at odds with its Western allies regarding Iran. "While few in the post-Obama era would disagree with the prime minister's assertion that the use of force against Iran's nuclear program would be the road to madness, it is not EU or US policy to dismiss Iran's nuclear ambitions as self-evidently harmless," columnist Andrew Finkel wrote in an Oct 27 piece in Today's Zaman, an English-language Turkish daily.

Says Ian Lesser, an expert on Turkey and Iran with the Washington- based German Marshall Fund: "The question of the messages Turkey brings to Iran will increasingly become more central in the new agenda of US foreign policy." "There are geopolitical considerations to this (nuclear Iran) that need to be taken more seriously by Turkey, and taken more seriously in a demonstrable way," he adds. -dpa