US and European acquiescence in Turkey’s long-standing refusal to honour Kurdish ethnic, cultural, and political rights came home to roost when Turkey initially objected to Finnish and Swedish membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Ultimately, Turkey postponed potential conflict in NATO by dropping its initial objection to Finland and Sweden’s application.
Nevertheless, Turkey maintains a sword of Damocles over the process. NATO’s 30 member parliaments have to ratify the two countries’ membership. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that ratification by the Turkish parliament would depend on the Nordic states putting their money where their mouth is and in effect adhering to Turkey’s anti-Kurdish policies.
Even though Turkish ratification will be the ultimate litmus test, NATO appears to have moved on since Turkey allowed Finnish and Swedish membership to move forward. NATO does so at its peril.
What Mr. Erdogan was actually saying was that the issue of Nordic membership had been temporarily resolved, not permanently. The president warned that parliamentary ratification would depend on Sweden and Finland implementing the provisions of a memorandum signed by the two Nordic countries with Turkey on the eve of last month’s NATO summit in Spain. The memorandum persuaded Turkey to lift its initial objections to their membership.
The Turkish sword of Damocles resembles Saudi and Emirati efforts to pressure US President Joe Biden to take greater account of their concerns about Iran and fortify the United States’ commitment to Gulf security during his visit this week to the kingdom. Saudi Arabia and the UAE will likely take heart from Turkey’s initial success in getting its way, particularly considering a US failure in recent years to respond to attacks by Iran and/or their Yemeni Houthi allies on critical oil and other infrastructure in the kingdom and the Emirates.
The Nordic memorandum with Turkey suggests that Finland and Sweden went a long way in meeting Turkish demands. Pressured by NATO, Finland and Sweden promised that they would not support Syrian Kurdish groups that Turkey considers a threat to its national security. These include the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a US-backed Syrian Kurdish group that played a crucial role in defeating the Islamic State,
Turkey’s initial threat to block Nordic membership sparked debates about the country’s controversial place in the North Atlantic defense alliance. The debates died down once Turkey lifted its objection.
However, Turkey’s involvement in the Kurdish issue, whether at home, where Kurds, an ethnic group spread across south-eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northern Syria, and western Iran, account for up to 20 per cent of the population, or in Iraq or Syria, where Turkey intervenes militarily, will inevitably revive questioning of the country’s place in the alliance.
Turkey’s initial NATO objection already increased the spotlight on Turkey’s long-standing suppression of Kurdish rights and identity under the mum of a fight against terrorism and separatism.
Turkey’s critics assert that Turkish military interventions in Syria aims to prevent the emergence of a Kurdish autonomous region similar to the self-governing Kurdish entity in northern Iraq.
Turkey regularly attacks bases of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) in the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq. Alongside the United States and the European Union, Turkey has designated the PKK as a terrorist organisation. The group has waged a decades-long insurgency against Turkey in which tens of thousands have been killed.
Turkey has also cracked down on the country’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP) after the party won enough seats in the 2015 general election to threaten Mr. Erdogan’s parliamentary majority.
HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas, one of the most high-profile of thousands of politicians, journalists, academics, judges, and civil servants jailed in Turkey in recent years, faces more than 100 mostly terrorism-related charges. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Demirtas’ detention violates “the very core of the concept of a democratic society.”
The Turkish effort to impose its policies on its fellow NATO members spotlighted the Middle East’s ability to act as a disruptive force if its interests are neglected against the backdrop of uncertainty about how committed the United States remains to the region’s security. The US commitment is likely to be clarified during Mr. Biden’s visit this week to the Middle East. Closer Arab Israeli security cooperation could facilitate clarification of the degree of US engagement.
On the positive side, clarification and Turkish ratification of Finnish and Swedish NATO membership would allow the United States and Europe to benefit from Turkish efforts to capitalise on endeavours by Central Asian governments to limit their reliance on Russia and soften the fallout from economic sanctions against the Kremlin because of its invasion of Ukraine.
Turkey has recently expanded its footprint by signing trade and defense agreements, stepping up arms sales, and Mr. Erdogan conducting high-profile meetings with his counterparts in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Mr. Erdogan recently wrapped up a two-day trip to Uzbekistan and left with 10 agreements and a pledge to increase their annual bilateral trade volume to US$10 billion.
Similar trade agreements were concluded during a visit to Turkey by Uzbek President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in May. With China too seeking to benefit from the consequences of the Ukraine war, the United States and Europe would be able to partially compensate for their neglect of a region at the heart of Eurasia that some describe as part of a greater Middle East.
That is particularly true if Turkey succeeds in positioning itself as a viable alternative to Russia on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which ferries goods from western China through Central Asia and Russia to European markets. The sanctions undermine Russia’s role as a key transit node on the BRI.
“The Central Asian states, and Kazakhstan in particular, are seeking greater Turkish engagement because of changes in connectivity patterns across Eurasia,” said Emil Avdaliani a scholar at the European University in Tbilisi and director of Middle East studies at the Georgian think tank Geocase.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has heightened European interest in Central Asia. In a first response, European Union officials said that the EU would become the top investor in the world’s tallest dam in Tajikistan. The move was aimed at helping Central Asia cut its reliance on Russian energy and constitutes part of the EU’s answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
To be sure, playing the Kurdish card benefits Mr. Erdogan domestically, particularly at a time that the Turkish economy is in the doldrums with a 70+ per cent inflation rate.
Mr. “Erdogan always benefits politically when he takes on the Kurdistan Workers Party (the PKK) and groups linked to it, like the YPG in Syria… In fact, attacking the PKK and the YPG is a two-for-one. Erdogan is seen to take on genuine terrorists and separatists, and at the same time, he gets to take a swipe at the United States, which taps into the vast reservoir of anti-Americanism in Turkey,” said Middle East scholar Steven A. Cook.
Kurdish rights figure only tangentially in debates about Turkey’s place in NATO even though the country’s policy towards the Kurds has long violated criteria for alliance membership that include “fair treatment of minority populations.”
When Kurdish rights are mentioned, it is primarily as a prop for taking Turkey to task for its slide into authoritarianism. Even so, past US and European failure to stand up for Kurdish rights has complicated the fight against the Islamic State, stymied Kurdish aspirations beyond Turkey’s borders and enabled repression of Kurdish rights in Turkey.
However, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was not completely wrong when he accused the United States of making ”a selective and discriminatory move” when it decided in May to exempt from sanctions against Syria regions controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) but not areas controlled by Turkey and its Syrian proxies.
The problem with the US decision was that it was driven by support for its allies in the fight against the Islamic State rather than also a quest to achieve Kurdish rights. The decision complicated the US position during a recent United Nations Security Council debate on maintaining humanitarian aid to rebel-held areas in northern Syria. Mr. Erdogan is expected to discuss Syria at a summit in Tehran next week with his Iranian and Russian counterparts, Ebrahim Raisi and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
The failure to hold Turkey accountable for its repression of Kurdish ethnic and political rights within the framework of the Turkish state has enabled Ankara to establish adoption of Turkish policies as a condition for NATO membership even if they violate NATO membership criteria.
Those policies include defining the peaceful expression of Kurdish identity as terrorism and the rolling back of Kurdish language and cultural rights since the collapse in 2015 of peace talks with the PKK. Turkey lifted the ban on Kurdish languages and the word Kurd in 1991. Until then, Kurds were referred to as ‘mountain Turks.’
The governor of the south-eastern Turkish province of Diyarbakir, widely seen as a hub of Kurdish cultural and political activity, forced this writer under treat of death to leave the region for using the word Kurd rather than mountain Turk in interviews in the 1980s.
Kurdish language programs in universities have dwindled in recent years amid administrative hurdles, while Kurdish parents complain of pressure not to enrol their children in elective Kurdish courses. Most Kurdish-language services and activities created by local administrations were terminated by government-appointed trustees who replaced dozens of Kurdish mayors ousted by Ankara for alleged links to the PKK. Many of the ousted mayors and other leading Kurdish politicians remain behind bars.
The caving into Turkish demands and the failure to take Turkey to task early on for its policy towards the Kurds takes on added significance at a time when NATO casts the war in Ukraine as a battle of values and of democracy versus autocracy that will shape the contours of a 21st-century world order. For his part, Mr. Biden has sought to regain the moral high ground in the wake of the Trump presidency that broke with American liberalism by declaring “America is back” in the struggle for democratic and human rights.
However, Mr. Biden and Europe’s problem is that their credibility rides on cleaning up at home and ensuring that they are seen as sincere rather than hypocritical. That’s a tall order amid assertions of structural racism on both sides of the Atlantic; controversy over gun ownership in the United States; preferential arrangements for Ukrainian refugees as opposed to non-Europeans and non-whites fleeing war, persecution, and destruction; and foreign policies that treat violations of human and political rights differently depending on who commits them.
In the case of the Kurds, meeting Turkish demands regarding perpetrators of political violence is one thing; acquiescing in the criminalization of legitimate Kurdish political and cultural expression is another. That is a tough bargain to drive home in Ankara. However, it would offer a compromise formula that could serve everyone’s interest and help Turkey solve a problem that promises to be one of the Middle East’s multiple exploding powder kegs.
As a result, the Kurdish issue is likely to influence where Turkey will rank as the world moves towards a bi-polar or multi-polar power structure. From that perspective, the battle over perceived Scandinavian, and mainly, Swedish support for Kurdish aspirations involves the degree to which the United States and Europe will continue to kick the can down a road.
The Kurds are not the only issue to cause friction in the relationship between Turkey or Turkiye as the country wants to be known going forward. Turkey, like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, is attempting to carve out a place of its own as a middle power in a reconfigured 21st century world order by trying to walk a tightrope in their relations with Russia as well as China.
A refusal by the Turkish parliament to ratify Finnish and Swedish NATO membership risks reenergizing a debate about Turkey’s membership in NATO, much like Prime Minister Victor Orban’s opposition to a European embargo of Russian energy has raised questions about Hungary’s place in the EU.
“Does Erdogan’s Turkey Belong in NATO?” asked former US vice-presidential nominee Joe Lieberman and Mark D. Wallace, a former senator, in an oped in The Wall Street Journal. Unlike Finland and Sweden, the two men noted that Turkey would not meet NATO’s democracy requirements if it were applying for membership today.
“Turkey is a member of NATO, but under Mr. Erdogan, it no longer subscribes to the values that underpin this great alliance. Article 13 of the NATO charter provides a mechanism for members to withdraw. Perhaps it is time to amend Article 13 to establish a procedure for the expulsion of a member nation,” Messrs. Lieberman and Wallace wrote.
The two men implicitly argued that turning the tables on Turkey would force the obstinate NATO member back into line. It was an argument supported by Turkish intellectuals, academics, and journalists, who fled Mr. Erdogan’s increasingly autocratic and arbitrary rule. “Giving into Ankara’s demands amounts to letting an autocrat design the security architecture of Europe and shape the future of the Western system,” said journalist, analyst and scholar Cengiz Candar.
A Turkish exit from NATO, which no one really wants or expects, would deal a body blow to the North Atlantic alliance. Nevertheless, while Turkey’s circumstances differ from those of other Middle Eastern players, the country’s NATO dispute suggests that the Ukraine crisis may no longer be a far-from-my-bed show for the region. To be fair, the question never was if but when Ukraine would arrive on the Middle East’s doorstep.
Two centrifugal forces threatened to push Middle Eastern nations off their tightrope: an increasingly bifurcated world populated by a multitude of civilisational leaders in which “you are with us or against us,” and a mounting need for consistency in the US and Europe’s application of international law and upholding of human and political rights standards.
Increasingly, it’s evident that it doesn’t take much to throw straddlers off balance.
In fact, if one fades out the ambient noise, it becomes evident that neither Turkey nor other Middle Eastern states have any intention of fundamentally altering their security relationships with the United States, even if the dynamics in the cases of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE are very different. That is likely to be reaffirmed during Mr. Biden’s Middle East tour.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE recognize that there is no alternative to the US security umbrella, whatever doubts they may have about the United States’ commitment to its security. With Mr. Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia, the question was not how US-Saudi differences would be papered over but at what price and who will pay the bill. That may be a question that will only answered over time in deeds rather than words.
A potential failure of the Vienna talks that aim to revive the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear programme could fast track the narrowing of the Gulf’s options. The talks stalled as a covert war between Israel and Iran appeared to escalate while Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia that has no formal relations with Israel, were seeking to tighten security cooperation with the Jewish state.
Saudi Arabia has signaled for some time that it would like to formalize its expanding informal relations with Israel but needs a cover to do so. Moreover, Saudi Arabia has not rejected a US proposal for a regional Middle Eastern air defence system that would include the kingdom and Israel.
In the final analysis, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern states recognise that the United States is the only real game in town. “The US can still easily build global coalitions when necessary. While Russia will be radioactive, more a predatory pariah than partner,” said former White House director for the Gulf Kirsten Fontenrose.
She warned that “it would be foolish for nations that previously enjoyed beneficial relations with Russia to invite that radioactivity onto themselves now, in the emerging world order where Russia is not the unipolar power it hoped to become, but instead a failed bet.”
Qatar World Cup offers lessons for human rights struggles
Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title, Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario and three forthcoming books, Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africaas well as Creating Frankenstein: The Saudi Export of Ultra-conservatism and China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom.
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It’s a good time, almost 12 years after the world soccer body, FIFA, awarded Qatar the 2022 World Cup hosting rights and five months before the tournament, to evaluate the campaign to reform the country’s erstwhile onerous labor system and accommodate fans whose lifestyles violate restrictive laws and/or go against deeply rooted cultural attitudes.
Ultimately the balance sheet shows a mixed bag even if one takes into account that Qatari autocracy has proven to be more responsive and flexible in responding to pressure by human rights and labour groups than its Gulf brothers in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
On the plus side, the initial wave of condemnation of the country’s repressive kafala labour system that put employees at the mercy of their employers persuaded Qatar to become the first Gulf state, if not the first Arab state, to engage with its critics.
Engagement meant giving human rights groups and trade unions access to the country, allowing them to operate and hold news conferences in Qatar, and involving them in drafting reforms and World Cup-related model labour contracts. This was unprecedented in a region where local activists are behind bars or worse and foreign critics don’t even make it onto an inbound flight.
The reforms were imperfect and not far-reaching enough, even if Qatar introduced significant improvements in the conditions for unskilled and semi-skilled workers.
Furthermore, on the plus side, the hosting rights sparked limited but nonetheless taboo-breaking discussions that touched on sensitive subjects such as LGBT rights and the granting of citizenship to non-nationals.
Qataris openly questioned the granting of citizenship to foreign athletes so they could be included in the Qatar national team for the 2016 Olympics rather than medical personnel and other professionals who had contributed to national welfare and development.
Hosting the World Cup has further forced Qatar, albeit in a limited fashion, to come to grips with issues like LGBT rights that do not simply violate the country’s laws but go against its social grain to produce an inclusive tournament.
In some ways, that may have been more difficult than reforming the labour regime if one considers the difference between standing up for democratic freedoms that may have broad public support and the recognition of LGBT rights. In contrast to democratic rights, opposition to LGBT rights is deeply engrained in Qatar and other Muslim societies. It would likely be socially rejected, even if they were enshrined in law.
The difference means that the defense of LGBT and other socially controversial rights forces activists and human and LGBT rights groups to rethink their strategies and adopt alternative, more long-term approaches.
It also means that they will have to embrace less Western-centric attitudes frequently prevalent in the campaign to reform Qatar’s labour system. Those attitudes were evident in debates that were also often skewed by bias, prejudice, bigotry, and sour grapes.
Moreover, the criticism often failed to consider the context. As a result, achieving results and pushing for reform was, to a degree, undermined by what appeared to be a ganging up on Qatar and a singling out of the Gulf state.
Labour is an example. Human rights groups and trade unions treated onerous labour conditions in Qatar, even if the World Cup turned it into a prime target, as uniquely Qatari rather than a global problem that manifests itself in other parts of the world such as Southeast Asia and even Western democracies like Britain. Recent reporting by The Guardian showed that expatriate medical and caregiver personnel face similar curtailing of rights and abuse in Britain.
By the same token, Qatar was taken to task for being slow in implementing its reforms and ensuring that they were applied not only to World Cup projects but nationwide.
The fact is that lagging enforcement of policies and legal changes is a problem across the broad spectrum of Qatari policies and reform efforts, including the Gulf state’s high-profile, fast-paced, mediation-driven foreign policy.
Qatar’s handling of illegal recruitment fees paid by workers is a case in point.
The Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, the Qatari organizer of the World Cup, has obliged companies it contracts to repay the fees without workers having to provide proof of payment. Companies have so far pledged to repay roughly USD$28.5 million to some 49,000 workers, $22 million of which have already been paid out.
It is a step the government could apply nationally with relative ease to demonstrate sincerity and, more fundamentally, counter the criticism.
Similarly, in response to complaints raised by human rights groups and others, the government could also offer to compensate families of workers who die on construction sites. Again, none of these measures would dent Qatari budgets but would earn the Gulf state immeasurable goodwill.
Despite diplomatic engagements, restoring the so-called Iran nuclear agreement continues to be hindered by political and technical differences, the UN political and peacebuilding chief told the Security Council on Thursday.
In the landmark accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – reached in 2015 between Iran, the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom – Iran agreed to dismantle much of its nuclear programme and open its facilities to international inspections in exchange for sanctions relief.
In 2018, then-President Trump withdrew the US from the agreement and reinstated the sanctions.
“Achieving the landmark JCPOA took determined diplomacy. Restoring it will require additional effort and patience,” said UN political affairs chief, Rosemary DiCarlo.
Although the landmark Joint Commission to restore the Plan resumed in November 2021, she acknowledged that despite their determination to resolve the issues, the US and other participants are yet to return to “full and effective implementation of the Plan, and [Security Council] resolution 2231”.
Together with the Secretary-General, she urged Iran and the US to “quickly mobilize” in “spirit and commitment” to resume cooperation under the JCPOA.
They welcomed the reinstatement by the US in February of waivers on nuclear non-proliferation projects and appealed to the country to lift its sanctions, as outlined in the Plan, and extend oil trade waivers.
Together they also called on on Iran to reverse the steps it has taken that are inconsistent with its nuclear-related commitments under the Plan.
While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been unable to verify the stockpile of enriched uranium in Iran, it estimates that there is currently more than 15 times the allowable amount under the JCPOA, including uranium enriched to 20 and 60 per cent, which Ms. DiCarlo called “extremely worrying”.
Moreover, on 8 and 20 June, IAEA reported that Iran had started to install additional advanced centrifuges at the Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz and began feeding uranium into advanced centrifuges at the Fuel Enrichment Plant at Fordow.
In his latest report, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, informed the Council that the UN agency’s ability to verify and confirm the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear activities are key to the JCPOA’s full and effective implementation.
Iran’s decision to remove site cameras and place them and the data they collected under Agency seals, “could have detrimental implications”.
Bilateral and regional initiatives to improve relationships with Iran remain “key” and should be encouraged and built upon, according to Ms. DiCarlo.
Additionally, Member States and the private sector are urged to use available trade instruments to engage with Iran and Tehran is requested to address their concerns in relation to resolution 2231 (2015) on its nuclear issues.
The senior UN official also drew attention to annex B of the resolution, updating ambassadors in the Council on nuclear-related provisions, ballistic missiles and asset freezing.
We hope that diplomacy will prevail – UN political chief
“The JCPOA was a triumph for non-proliferation and multilateralism,” said the UN political affairs head.
However, after many years of uncertainty, she warned that the Plan is now at “a critical juncture” and encouraged Iran and the US to build on recent momentum to resolve remaining issues.
“The Secretary-General is convinced there is only one path to lasting peace and security for all Member States, and that is the one based on dialogue and cooperation,” she said. “We hope that diplomacy will prevail”.
Olof Skoog, Head of the European Union Delegation to the UN, speaking in his capacity as the Coordinator of the Joint Commission established by the JCPOA, to the Security Council, recognized the negative economic consequences that the US’ withdrawal from the JCPOA has had on Iran but affirmed that restoring the agreement is “the only way” for the country to reap its full benefits.
He reminded that the Plan would comprehensively lift sanctions, encourage greater international cooperation, and allow Iran to reach its “full economic potential”.
“It is, therefore, important to show the necessary political will and pragmatism to restore the JCPOA,” said Ambassador Skoog who, while acknowledging the sense of urgency, counselled against “escalatory steps” and to preserve sufficient space for the diplomatic efforts to succeed.
The tree of Iran’s balanced foreign policy approach is on the verge of being a one-year-old child. Stronger than before, Iran is pursuing dynamic diplomacy in a variety of cities such as Doha, Ashgabat, and other capitals. Baghdad will also join the list soon.
While Iran’s top negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani is engaged in intensive negotiations in Qatar with the United States through the European Union delegation, Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi and his oil and foreign ministers are in Ashgabat pursuing transit diplomacy as well as the legal regime of the Caspian Sea with the littoral states.
Prior to his departure for Ashgabat on Wednesday, Raisi spoke to reporters about the purpose of his visit to Turkmenistan.
“This visit is taking place at the invitation of the esteemed president of the brotherly and friendly country of Turkmenistan in order to attend the Caspian Sea littoral states summit,” he remarked.
The President called the Caspian Sea a common heritage and capital for the littoral states with more than 270 million people.
“We have good relations with the littoral states of the Caspian Sea, but in addition to reviewing the legal regime of the Caspian Sea and peaceful use of the sea for the purpose of improving security at the sea, what will be discussed at the sixth summit of the Caspian Sea littoral states is cooperation between countries in the fields of transport, transit, trade, management of marine living resources, environment, as well as preventing the presence of outsiders in the sea, which is also agreed upon by all coastal countries.”
Prior to the beginning of the summit, Raisi met Serdar Berdimuhamedow, Turkmenistan’s President, as well as Chairman of the People’s Council of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow.
During the meeting with the President of Turkmenistan, Raisi pointed out that the implementation of the memoranda of understanding and cooperation documents signed by the two countries during Berdimuhamedow’s recent visit to Tehran will accelerate promotion of cooperation between the two countries.
Later, Raisi met with the Azerbaijani President, Ilham Aliyev.
During the meeting, Raisi reminded Aliyev that the presence of the Israeli regime in any part of the world undermines security there.
The president also had a brief meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the summit.
There’s little doubt that Tehran has not put all its eggs into the basket of the JCPOA revival, as it actively seeks to establish trade relations with the neighbors. It’s short-sighted thinking to assume that Iran has to wait for the United States to return to the JCPOA, while it can enjoy the benefits of regional alliances such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), or BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).
On Monday, Iran’s former Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh, who was holding his last presser, told the Tehran Times correspondent that Tehran has submitted a membership request to the BRICS secretariat via Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian. While dynamically trailing balanced and active diplomacy with the neighbors, Tehran is awaiting Washington’s serious political decisions to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
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