•  ankara
• Monday, March 28, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Turkey's volte-face Thursday evening to make a sizeable military contribution to NATO's intervention in the Libyan crisis, after two weeks of fierce opposition to the Alliance's mingling with Arab affairs, has further blurred Ankara's position in the North African conflict.

The Turkish Grand General Assembly voted in a closed-door session Thursday in favour of the country's military participation in NATO's plans to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which calls for the establishment of a no-fly zone over Libya, and other measures aiming at restraining the activities of Muammar Gaddafi's forces fighting anti-government rebels in the country.

The Turkish maritime contribution, proposed by the government in Ankara, will consist of four frigates, one support vessel and one submarine. Five other countries have already committed one ship each, making Turkey's contribution rather substantial. The NATO naval force's mission, under Italian command, will be to prevent weapons and ammunition destined for Gaddafi's army from reaching the Libyan coast. In another surprise move on Friday, Ankara offered NATO its air force infrastructure in Izmir to host the Alliance's operations headquarters for creating the no-fly zone.

Several hundreds of demonstrators, mostly from opposition parties and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), gathered during Thursday's vote outside parliament and the U.S. Embassy shouting slogans against Turkish involvement and the presence in Ankara of NATO's top military commander, U.S. Adm. James Stavridis, who was having meetings with Turkish senior officers about the crisis in the Middle East.

The Security Council passed Resolution 1973 on Mar. 17 with 10 votes in favor and 5 abstentions (Brazil, China, Germany, India, and Russia) in a 55-minute session. The resolution falls short of authorising regime change, a move that China and Russia might have blocked through the use of their right of veto at the Security Council. Turkey has sought since the break out of the civil war in Libya to influence western powers to stay out of the conflict, fearing a backlash of Arab public opinion against Europe and the U.S.

In an effort to dissuade a vote by the Security Council, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had on Mar. 14 said that 'Any NATO military operation in Libya would be unhelpful and fraught with risk,' a stance he continued to take in subsequent speeches, calling for an immediate cease-fire in Libya and saying he opposed foreign military intervention, including a no-fly zone operation.

But the French initiative, backed by Britain, to begin bombing Libya two days after the U.N. resolution was passed, seems to have played a role in Ankara's change of strategy. The formation of an ad hoc coalition by a small number of Western powers, including Britain, Canada and France, and U.S. President Barack Obama's decision for his country to assume a vital role, at least temporarily, has changed the lay-out on the chess board.

Turkey's foreign policy has been, since the Israeli Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 against Hamas in Gaza, to assume a regional political power role in the Middle East, tapping on the privileged relations of Ankara with the Muslim world. This has led to severing military ties with the Jewish state and diplomatic cold war between the two countries, which has resulted in boosting Erdogan's popularity in the Middle East.

Turkey's new regional agenda, labeled by political observers Neo-Ottomanist, has guided Ankara's moderate and conciliatory position in the events in the Arab world since last December. Erdogan and Turkish President Abdullah Gul have been very active in trying to advise national leaders in revolt-torn countries, including Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, to show restraint and move towards democratic reforms. Ideology is the façade of such diplomatic fever. Turkey's economic interests in the Arab world are paramount to the government's credibility less than three months before the next national elections.

Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party won -- for Turkey -- an unprecedented victory in the 2007 contest with 47 percent of the vote, mostly because of the country's growing prosperity, fuelled by strong exports to the Middle East, which have increased by 600 percent to 30 billion U.S. dollars since the AKP came to power in 2002 and which represent one-third of the country's total exports. Turkish foreign direct investment in Libya alone exceeds 15 billion dollar.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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