Heads up – Embassy 29 – December 2010

Middle man

Turkey’s new Ambassador to London, Ünal Çeviköz, has a curious hobby: he collects matchboxes from the many places he has served during his eventful 30-year career.

As a specialist in transitional countries – many of them on Turkey’s long border – the Ambassador’s collection includes matchboxes from the former Soviet Union, Central Asia, the Balkans and the Middle East. And like the boxes, the political situations the Ambassador encountered have been rather combustible too.

He was seconded to NATO when the dissolution of Yugoslavia ignited the Balkan wars and he went on to head the Balkan department during the run-up to the Kosovo war. But the most challenging posting was Baghdad, where he served for an intense 25 months from November 2004 to December 2006.

“It was a very important period because the country was in transition,” explains the Ambassador. “People talk about peace-building but we actually lived through a state-building process.”

His tour of duty was at the height of the insurgency: “There were a lot of terrorist attacks,” recalls Çeviköz, whose embassy was situated outside the Green Zone. While that made him more vulnerable to the insurgents – he survived an attack on his convoy – he also had more contact with the country’s many ethnic and religious groups.

Turkey was able to play a key role as honest broker in Iraq, having not participated in the invasion, adds Çeviköz. In the months leading up to the war, Turkey convened a meeting of the foreign ministers of Iraq’s neighbours in an effort to find a diplomatic solution. The group has remained active as an important mechanism bringing together neighbouring countries involved the reconstruction of Iraq.

The initiative is an example of Turkey’s dynamic new foreign policy, summarised by the Ambassador as “zero problem with neighbours”. Turkey’s stabilising influence in such a tough neigbourhood has been welcomed and recently the Turkish President Abdullah Gul received the Chatham House International Statesman Award.

Even the historical dispute with Armenia, over the treatment of Turkey’s Armenian minority during the First World War, is being addressed. It is hoped that diplomatic ties will be established, the border will be reopened and a historical commission will investigate their painful shared history.

The rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia has also galvanized the peace process between rivals Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno Karabakh territory.

Stability in the trans-Caucasus region is key to the revival of the ancient Silk Route, which today is a vital transport and energy corridor, says Çeviköz who served in Baku (2001-04) and attended the groundbreaking ceremony of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline that feeds oil from the Caspian basin to the energy-hungry West.

One outstanding problem remains: Turkey’s as yet unconcluded bid to join the EU. Some EU members, chief among them Britain, believe that Turkey can strengthen European defence and security; as a secular state with a predominantly Muslim population, it is a link to the Islamic world; and its fast-growing economy and young population can counterbalance Europe’s sclerotic economies and aging population.

But Turkey’s membership remains a cause for concern among some of the EU members, who worry that the country’s size will affect the balance of the EU and that Turkey’s majority Muslim population does not share Europe’s values.

These arguments the Ambassador dismisses. Firstly, he says Europe should not fear Turkey’s size but see it instead as an opportunity to tap into a new market. Worries over Turkey’s different cultural values are also unfounded, he adds: “Turkey and Europe share universal values. If Europe wants to become a major global actor, it has to go beyond those narrow European values.”

The unresolved issue of Cyprus may prove a stumbling block as well. “Accepting the Greek Cypriot side as a member of the EU before resolving the problem was a serious mistake,” says the Ambassador, who anticipates that Cyprus, now a member, may throw up barriers to Turkey’s membership.

“Turkey has met the Copenhagen criteria,” he says. “But there may be a certain bias against us – they [the EU] are making us work harder and putting up additional barriers.”

However, he is quick to reject observations that these frustrations are causing Turkey to drift eastwards. “There is not a shift of focus. Turkish closeness to Europe and Turkey’s involvement with its neighbours are complementary. It makes the Turkish bid for accession much more important if Europe wants to be a player in the region and globally.”

He also thinks the talk of a schism between Turkey’s pro-Islamic and secular supporters reveals a misunderstanding of rapid social change taking place in the country. Thus the Ambassador sees it as a priority to create a greater cultural understanding of Turkey, starting with the recent opening of the Yunus Emre Cultural Centre in the UK. He wants to show the cultural influence of the Turkic family of nations, which draws together east and west with Turkey as the buckle in the middle.