[Column by Uluc Gurkan: "When Armenia Sneezes..."]
The OSCE is an international institution where Turkey has influence. In particular Turkey has built a significant weight in the parliamentary wing of the agency with the support of Central Asian nations. Turkish parliamentarians have been repeatedly elected as deputy presidents of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.
On the government wing of the OSCE Turkey became a candidate in 2001 to serve as the term president for 2007. However last week it withdrew its candidacy in a surprise decision.
This outcome is likely to shake Turkey's prestige in the OSCE substantially.
The current term president of the organization is Bulgaria. Slovenia will assume the presidency in 2005 and Belgium in 2006. Having given up on 2007, Turkey will have to wait until 2011 by the most optimistic estimate.
When asked about why Turkey's candidacy was withdrawn, the Foreign Ministry replies: "There will be elections in Turkey in 2007." When people are surprised and ask "what the connection is," the ministry replies that Turkey cannot serve as term president with the effectiveness it desires if it is too busy with elections. However the ministry is not credible.
First, the ministry fails to explain why elections in a democratic country should hamper its service in international organizations. In addition no one knows whether elections in Turkey will really be held in 2007. Though it is true that 2007 is the last year by which elections must be held at the end of five years of government tenure according to the Constitution, thus far all general elections in Turkey have been held before governments completed four years in office. This time, too, it does not seem likely that elections will be held off until 2007.
Thus there must be a reason other than the elections. Could Armenia's threat to veto Turkey's term presidency have scared off our Foreign Ministry?
Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington last month, Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said that his country might veto Turkey's term presidency of the OSCE. He renewed this threat at his nation's capital, Yerevan, two weeks ago. Noting that "Turkey does not have diplomatic relations with Armenia," he argued that it is unacceptable for any OSCE president not to have diplomatic relations with a member country. In addition he complained that Turkey is not impartial with respect to Armenia's occupation of Karabakh which belongs to Azerbaijan.
The United States exerted considerable pressure on Armenia to change its posture. Turkey's decision to withdraw its candidacy despite these efforts and in a manner that surprised U.S. diplomats was an act of diplomatic weakness. Indeed, the Armenian diaspora lost no time to portray this development in foreign media as "Armenia's first diplomatic victory against Turkey."
In truth Armenia did not have the means to carry out its threat. It is true that in the OSCE term presidents are elected by a method called "consensus" which requires the approval of all member states. However Turkey's presidency would have been approved as a routine matter because it was the only candidate.
Opposition by Armenia was entirely out of the question regardless of what it said.
Some have argued that in Turkey's foreign policy taboos have come down not only in Cyprus, the Aegean, and northern Iraq but also in relations with Armenia.
Could this be true? Is Turkey really tearing down taboos or is it contradicting itself? By raising the issue of a "veto" with regard to the OSCE's term presidency, Armenia, in one sense, "sneezed." So what did Turkey do? By withdrawing its candidacy did it not in a way try to protect itself from "catching pneumonia"?
Could such a policy mean breaking of taboos for Turkey?
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