Submitted by: Donald Hank
received a setback after military intervention that unseated Egypt’s Morsi”
FULL TEXT:ANKARA – Turkey’s assertive foreign policy, promoting itself as a
role model for the Muslim world, has received a setback after the military
intervention that unseated Egypt’s president Mohamed Morsi, analysts say.
Turkey’s Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), which faced
down the most widespread protests in its 10-year tenure, had forged close
alliance with Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood.
The Egyptian army’s ouster of the country’s first democratically elected
leader has raised eyebrows in Ankara, which has ambitiously promoted itself
as a regional powerhouse and model democracy in the Middle East.
“Working myself in the Middle East, I doubt there ever was a global ‘Turkish
model’ in the eyes of the Egyptians,” Marc Pierini, a scholar at Carnegie
Europe, said.
“The only model Egyptians see in Turkey is the economic policy where Turkey
has indeed achieved both discipline and growth since 2001,” he said.
Under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s control, seen as increasingly
authoritarian, the AKP has won three election victories in a row since 2002
having presided over a burgeoning economy, ending an era of rocky and
unstable coalition governments punctuated by military coups.
Once Israel’s closest ally in the Muslim world, Erdogan’s government has
taken advantage of an Arab vacuum in the wake of popular uprisings in the
region to foster its soft power and a supposedly successful model of
blending democracy with Islam.
At his party’s annual congress in September, Erdogan told a crowd packed in
an Ankara sport hall: “We have shown everyone that an advanced democracy can
exist in a predominantly Muslim country. We have become a role model for
Muslim countries.”
Morsi was among more than 100 foreign guests at that congress which gave
Erdogan the ticket for party leadership for a third and final time as the
Turkish strongman is expected to run for president in elections next year.
A day after the army ouster of Morsi, Erdogan cut short a holiday to hold an
emergency meeting with his intelligence chief and ministers.
On Friday, he condemned the Egyptian army intervention, saying: “Those who
rely on the guns in their hands, those who rely on the power of the media
cannot build democracy.... Democracy can only be built at ballot box.” Ozdem
Sanberk, a veteran diplomat and former foreign ministry undersecretary,
believes that Turkey has not lost its credentials to become a role model
“but the AKP’s foreign policy diagnosis toward the Muslim world has proved
to be wrong.”
“In the Middle East... Turkey has been alienated. It is clear as of today
that Turkey does not know the Middle East unlike it claims,” he said. Under
the AKP’s rule, Turkey established partnership councils with Syria, Iraq and
Egypt.
But now Turkey has cut off ties with Syria, after its former ally President
Bashar Al-Assad’s deadly crackdown on popular dissent.
It is also bogged down in tensions with Iraq after refusing to hand over
fugitive Iraqi Vice President Tariq Al-Hashemi, found guilty of running
death squads. “It’s very risky to make diplomacy in the Middle East,” said
Sanberk.
Despite their harsh criticism of the army’s actions, Turkish leaders hinted
they would not break ties with the new leadership emerging in Egypt after
the military uprising.
Analysts said what happened in Egypt after days of bloodshed and protests
demanding Morsi’s resignation, would put the AKP and Erdogan on the
defensive, especially after mass anti-government demonstrations by mainly
secular Turks opposing creeping Islamism and the government’s increasingly
authoritarian agenda. Henri Barkey, professor of international relations at
Lehigh University, insists though that the AKP remains a formidable party
“and still an effective one.” “In some ways Morsi’s failure demonstrates and
emphasizes AKP’s unique success,” he said.
Erdogan’s AKP has sought to curb the powers of the military, which has long
considered itself as the self-appointed guardian of Turkish secularism and
staged four coups in half a century, throwing hundreds of army officers
behind bars for alleged coup plots.
But the number one lesson from Morsi’s failure that all governments and
movements need to heed is that confining democracy to elections does not
work, according to the analysts. “The interim lesson we can take from the
last 12 months in Egypt is that the ballot box cannot resolve the country’s
complex issues without being complemented by an inclusive dialogue between
the various segments of society,” Pierini said. – AFP
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