Turkey Drifts Further From U.S.

When an American ambassador to Turkey asks to see the country’s leader, the meeting usually takes place within days. But recently it took the current envoy six weeks to get an audience with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The delay was another sign, many analysts and policymakers here say, of the deepening rift between Turkey and its most powerful ally. The split reflects anger among Turks over the war in Iraq and their growing pressure on their government to stand up to the United States.

Using exceptionally harsh language, Turkish officials and politicians in recent weeks have attacked the Bush administration, with much of their invective reserved for U.S. policy on Iraq.

The opening salvo came from Erdogan, who last month referred to Iraqi insurgents killed in a U.S.-led assault on the city of Fallouja as “martyrs” and exhorted the Muslim world to unite behind Turkey “against powers that are seeking to assert their hegemony.”

Tensions shot up when Mehmet Elkatmis, a lawmaker from Erdogan’s conservative Justice and Development Party, which has Islamist roots, likened the U.S. occupation of Iraq to genocide and said the American military might have used atomic weapons against Turkey’s neighbor.

“Never in human history have such genocide and cruelty been witnessed,” Elkatmis said. “Such a genocide was never seen in the time of the pharaoh, nor of Hitler nor of [Italy’s fascist leader Benito] Mussolini.”

Angered by the Turkish government’s halfhearted rebuttal of Elkatmis’ remarks, several U.S. officials have warned that the next time Congress considers legislation labeling the mass killings of Armenians by Turkish forces during World War I as genocide, the Bush administration might not quash the bill.

The latest spat comes before a summit Friday of European Union leaders, who will decide whether to open talks aimed at admitting Turkey to the alliance. The U.S. has long lobbied for its membership, and Washington’s influence over seven former Soviet Bloc nations that joined the EU last year so far has bolstered the Turks’ case.

Emerging from a 90-minute meeting with Erdogan on Monday, U.S. Ambassador Eric S. Edelman sought to downplay the chill, describing the talks as “constructive, thorough and frank.” Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul called the tensions a misunderstanding.

“Why would we want to weaken ties with a superpower?” he asked in an interview with the daily newspaper Hurriyet.

But for all the upbeat talk, analysts predict more turbulence.

“Despite 50 years [of partnership], it is clear that Turkish-American relations will remain fragile and replete with mini-crises,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a longtime observer of ties between the two nations.

Turkey, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s sole majority-Muslim member, served as a bulwark against communism during the Cold War. Beginning in the early 1990s, the Turks allowed U.S. warplanes to use bases in their nation to patrol a “no-fly” zone over northern Iraq.

With the threat of communism removed and Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein deposed, Turkey’s support is no longer crucial, Aydintasbas noted. That is one reason, she said, the Turks want to join the EU.

U.S. officials acknowledge that the most immediate cause of mounting anti-American sentiment here is the military occupation of Iraq.

Fierce public opposition to the war prompted Turkish lawmakers to reject a resolution in March 2003 that would have allowed thousands of U.S. troops to use Turkey to open a second front against Hussein’s forces.

The rebuff came as a surprise to many U.S. officials, long used to the Turkish military’s pro-Western views prevailing.

“What the Americans didn’t fully understand then, and perhaps still don’t today, is that Turkey has matured as a democracy,” said Fehmi Koru, a columnist for the pro-Islamic daily Yeni Safak. “Politicians need to take account of the public if they want to be reelected, and Erdogan is no exception.”

The prime minister is under intense pressure from his conservative flank over his government’s quiet support for the U.S. military presence in Iraq. U.S. warplanes en route to Iraq are refueled by tanker planes taking off from the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey. In addition, Western officials estimate that as much as 40% of all noncombat supplies for U.S. forces in Iraq are produced in and shipped from this nation.

“The U.S. sees [Turkey] not as a strategic partner, but as a logistical partner,” said Abdullah Caliskan, a lawmaker from Adana province, where Incirlik is. “We must suspend our ties with the United States. If we remain silent, we will be tainted by America’s tyranny.”

Officials here say about 70 Turkish truck drivers have been killed carrying supplies to U.S. troops. Some critics charge that the Americans do not provide adequate protection for the convoys and speculate that this is punishment for Turkey’s refusal to allow U.S. troops to pass through the country last year.

The same theory is often used to explain why the U.S. has not driven separatist Kurdish rebels out of bases in northern Iraq and to speculate that the Americans want to establish an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq, which could reignite separatism among Turkey’s own ethnic Kurds.

U.S. officials say they remain committed to rooting out the rebels but cannot open a second front when American troops are fighting Iraqi insurgents.

Turkey’s Kurdish separatists broke their five-year truce in September and have resumed attacks against Turkish forces.

“We keep telling the Americans that they need to keep their promise,” said Gul, the foreign minister, in a recent interview.

“So far they have done nothing, and sometimes it seems like they never will.”