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Nur Cetinoglu Harunoglu
With the foregoing in mind, this chapter, which aims to examine Turkey’s approach
towards Iraq in the post-Cold War period, is divided into two main sections. The first
section looks at the Gulf crisis, which serves as a basis for investigating the main challenge
Turkey faced with the end of the Cold War and to briefly describe the new strategy it
attempted to apply. The second section of the chapter studies the Turkish approach to the
Iraq War in 2003, and its aftermath, by revealing elements of continuity and change in
Turkey-Iraq relations, and at the same time serves as a platform for understanding current
relations between Ankara and Baghdad in light of recent developments.
The Gulf crisis in 1990-1991 and its aftermath
The inevitable impact of the end of the Cold War on Turkey’s foreign policy was the
country’s deviation from the non-interference policy it had been hitherto applying. In effect,
Turkey had developed a foreign policymainly based on the notion that regional problems were
to be solved by regional countries, that Turkey was to adopt the principle of non-interference
in other states’ domestic affairs, as well as regional crises, and was to rely on diplomacy for
the resolution of conflicts. According to this policy, Turkey was to refrain from “appearing to
administer the business of others”
2
and was to act in as neutral a manner as possible. It was
largely believed by the then Turkish decision makers that this was the only way for Turkey
to minimize the costs of surviving in a world ideologically and strategically divided by two
superpowers. According to them, this policy was also the only way for Turkey to reconcile
“the requirements of Turkey’s NATO alliance with the need for good neighbourhood
relations”.
3
The ultimate consequence of the adoption of Turkey’s foreign policy approach
in the 1960s was revealed in subsequent decades by its neutrality; “the equidistance” that
Turkey endeavoured to adopt in regional conflicts by keeping itself at a similar distance from
parties in regional conflicts, despite both its NATO membership and close relations with the
US.
4
During the Cold War period, Turkey’s non-interference policy was inevitably facilitated
by a series of circumstances, namely the fact that international society was divided between
two camps, the UN Security Council was trapped between two superpowers and therefore
paralyzed and, lastly, due to the prioritizing of state objectives over human rights’ issues.
A
new world order
However, the outbreak of the Gulf crisis in 1990 coincided with the beginning of a new
period in world politics. Within this framework, the end of the division of world politics
into two ideological and strategic camps and the subsequent evolution of international
society into one that embraced human and global concerns much more comprehensively
than before had an unprecedented impact on Turkey’s foreign policy, and which was
ultimately felt in Iraq.
2 Aykan MB (1994).
Turkey’s role in the organization of the Islamic Conference: 1960-1992,
New York:
Vantage Press, p. 62.
3 Aykan MB (1996). Turkish perspectives on Turkish-US relations concerning Persian Gulf security in the
Post- Cold War Era: 1989-1995.
The Middle East Journal
.
Vol. 50, No. 3, p. 348.
4 Altunı
ş
ık MB (2009). Worldviews and Turkish Foreign Policy in the Middle East.
New Perspectives on
Turkey.
No. 40, p. 175.