Modern Turkey is a nation which has been a bridge between Asia and Europe from the beginning of time. Once, as the Ottoman Empire, it ruled a huge area of the region around its borders as far southwest as Egypt including what is now Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. As the end of the millennium approaches, Turkey finds itself embroiled in a religious war within its own boundaries. In mid-May, 1997 Turkey was ruled by a fragile coalition including the Welfare Party headed by Necmettin Erbakan who vacillates between a secular state and one true to Islam and the True Path Party headed by Tansu Ciller. She has been charged with financial corruption, but denies any wrongdoing. On November 24,1997 The New York Times reported that Erbakan had just completed three days of a hearing before Turkey's Constitutional Court. A case had been brought that might impose a ban on his party, the Welfare Party. The prosecutor had alleged that this party had undermined the country's secular government and turned it into an Islamist state. The ruling coalition had been reorganized. Necmettin Erbakan had resigned, having seen the handwriting on the wall. His successor was Mesut Yilmaz who inherited an ugly civil war between Turkey and the Kurds. No one believes it has a military solution, and one member of Parliament, Leyla Zana, waived her parliamemntary immunity so she could make her point from prison. In 1994, the State Security Court convicted her of supporting Kurdish terrorism in violation of the AntiTerror Law (Law 3713). In 1991, Human Rights Watch described this law as A "New Restrictive AntiTerror Law." Mrs Zana's letters to Prime Minister Yilmaz and President Clinton noted that "Being in prison is an inevitable, unavoidable and necessary price to be paid for peace, brotherhood, and a democratic Turkey." Mrs Zana is a widely known in Europe as a symbol for Kurdish nationalists who are working for an autonomous Kurdish or independent state in Southeastern Turkey. It is no accident that this location may be used to transport Caspian Sea oil to the West through this area via pipeline, but this Turkish coverup of its brutality against Kurds and those who help them should have a negative effect on support for these proposed pipelines.
In mid-December, 1997, Turkey's 33 year bid to enter the European Union was rejected. The decision angered Turkish officials, who threatened to reduce, if not eliminate their contacts with Europe. EU leaders had offered Turkey a new role in the European Conference, but Turkey declined to accept a role that did not lead to almost immediate membership. The EU's western leaders commented that Turkey had made no progress on human rights. Moreover, it continued its aggressive policy against Cyprus. More recently, Kurdish refugees had landed in Italy where they were welcomed. Germany, a leader in allowing Turkish workers to find employment in Germany, led the vote against inviting Turkey to become a member of the EU. Both countries are members of NATO, as is Greece, which imposed unaccepteble conditions on Turkey's bid to become a member of the EU. A political survey taken for the Turkish Daily News on April 25, 1997 suggested an overwhelming majority of the voters polled favored the termination of this coalition which favored Islam. They also see anti-secular trends as more serious than the threat of Kurdish separatism. Traditionally, the Turkish army has acted as a brake on Islamic fundamentalists acting to upset the secular coalition. Since 1960, the Turkish army had intervened three times to install a secular government, i.e., non-Islamic. In an interview in Ankara, Turkey's Deputy Chief of Staff, General Cevik Bir pointed to the country's constitution as the army's rationale for displacing a civilian, but anti-secular government. Article 2 of the Constitution established that Turkey shall be a secular nation. Article 4 declares that this provision may never be changed.Finally, it was not until mid-January, 1998 that the Constitutional Court ruled that the Welfare Party should be banned as threatening to undermine a secular state. This case appears headed for the European Court of Human Rights. To defuse protests from NATO, Bir emphasized the military's duty was to defend the political system as defined in the constitution. NATO, however, insists its members rely on civilian democracy, not a military government. On June 18, 1997 Erbakan stepped down pending elections to be scheduled at least four months from the date of his resignation. Erbakan remained as a caretaker until his successor was selected by the President of Turkey, Suleyman Demirel. As the guardian of the constitution, the army has often noted there is no Muslim formula for running the nation's affairs and deplored the retreat from secular government adopted in 1925 under Kemal Ataturk.
Turkey
In 1923, modern Turkey was largely secular, but almost seventy years later, secular Turks, (and they include a vast majority of the military) are threatened by fundamentalists. In the southeastern area of Turkey, a region known as Batman -- an administrative region -- is unsettled by Kurds. They resent the loss of Kurdish identity; Kurdish newspapers have been closed and Turkish schools will not allow the Kurdish language to be taught, and this war costs Turkey an estimated $5 billion a year. Turkey has been a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization since 1954, and it is also a member of the Council of Europe. The Council's members accept the European Convention on Human Rights as an article of faith. However, Turkey's record on human rights is the worst of any of the Council's twentyone members. Turkey, for example, invaded Cyprus in 1974 and brought about a de facto partition of Cyprus, conduct condemned by the European Commission on Human Rights, the division of the Court of Human Rights that hears evidence and makes findings of fact. Turkey has no oil of its own, but it would like to see one or more pipelines carry Caspian Sea Basin oil to one of its ports on the Mediterranean Sea, such as Ceyhan or Iskenderum. However, its responsible leaders see the potential for pipeline disruption if its route goes to Ceyhan via territory occupied by Kurds (PKK). The territory occupied by Kurds has no fixed boundaries. However, World War I ended with a series of treaties in which the former Ottoman Empire was dismembered. The Treaty of Sevres was one of these, and it came close to establishing an independent Kurdistan. No contemporary map shows Kurdistan; the Kurds were betrayed by Great Britain and France. The Kurds were not permitted to establish their own state; they were divided up among Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Today, Kurds claim some oilrich portions of Iraq as their own, but France and Great Britain sided with Ataturk who suppressed the Kurds at various times from 1925 to 1937. Iraq was an artificial creation of Great Britain after World War I, but the Kurds boycotted the referendum in which the British sought local approval of their selection of Emir Faisal as the King of Iraq in 1921. After World War II, the Kurds tied their policy to the Shah of Iran who needed a fighting force to keep Iraq at bay. Jonathan C Randall, author of After Such Knowledge What Forgiveness: My Encounters with Kurdistan, charged Richard Nixon with "unwittingly contributing to the Shah's downfall and to epic instability in the Middle East by encouraging the monarch's naturally autocratic ways and his insatiable appetite for U.S. military hardware. This combination helped burn out Iran's economy and undermine confidence in the Shah, thereby paving the way for the Ayatollah Khomeine's Islamic revolution a halfdozen years later." When Islamic Iran was attacked by Iraq, the Iraqi Kurds allied themselves with Iran. Saddam Hussein did not forget this alliance. After his defeat in 1991, Iraqi aircraft pursued the Kurds who had to retreat in the face of superior firepower. As one observer noted, the Kurds were never more than a political or diplomatic card to play in the Middle East. The United States betrayed the Kurds by selling arms to Iraq during the war with Iran. Hussein used this generosity to launch the first use of gas after World War I in violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning the use of chemical weapons. Some 110,000 Kurds were killed by Iraqi gas between 1987 and 1990. Were fighting to break out in the Middle East in the next few years, Iran might well resort to the use of nuclear weapons. Russia has sold the technology to Iran and sent experts to advise Iranian physicists.
By early in the 21st century, Turkey may find itself on the brink of a struggle over oil and gas. On the east, Turkey borders Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran. To the south Turkey shares a border with both Syria and Iraq. On the northeast, Turkey shares a border with Georgia, one of the Confederation of Independent States (CIS) made independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Most of Turkey lies in Asia; its capital city is Ankara. Turkey controls the two exits from the Black Sea, the Straits of Bosporus and the Dardenelles. Ships leaving the Black Sea must transit the straits via the Sea of Marmara before moving into the Mediterranean Sea. Great Britain almost succeeded in closing the Straits of Bosporus in 1915 when it had naval forces off Gallipoli. As Phillip Mandel wrote in his book, Constantinople, "Panic swept Constantinople (now Istanbul) when a British submarine broke through the Dardenelles and started sinking ships in the Bosporus: by the end of the year Allied submarines had brought daytime traffic on the Sea of Marmara almost to a halt."
Russia has different ideas. It has invoked the 1936 Treaty of Montreux which guarantees free passage through the Bosporus and the Dardenelles during peacetime. Recently, however, there were as many as 110 vessels weighing as much as 200,000 tons, often carrying oil, gas, chemicals, nuclear 9 wastes, and other hazardous materials pass through the straits each day through the tortuous route that literally splits Istanbul, a city of eleven million people, in two. In 1994, Turkey, citing environmental concerns, adopted regulations regulating sea traffic through the Bosporus Straits. Two potential disasters had already occurred. In 1994, the oil tanker Nassia collided with an empty cargo ship at the entrance to the Bosporus. The Nassia was carrying 19 million barrels of crude oil from the Russian Black Sea port of Novorosisk. The Nassia caught fire and burned for a week causing damages of about $1 billion. In 1979, a collision occurred between a Greek freighter and a Rumanian tanker near the lower entrance to the Bosporus. The resulting explosion shattered windows on shore, and the cargo of oil burned for weeks.Turkey has solicited bids to build a radar system making the Bosporus more navigable. However, nations using these straits have been reluctant to say they would help pay for an expensive system.
With the increase in oil traffic projected as a result of the Central Asian oil fields, it seems grossly unfair for Turkey to assume the risk for the health of both the environment of the straits and the inhabitants of Istanbul. With these concerns quite evident to Turkey, it approached the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency, and successfully got I.M.O approval of the 1994 regulations. See " Regulating Traffic Flow in the Turkish Straits: A Test for Modern International Law at 10 Emory International Law Review 333. The flow of oil from the Russian terminal at Novorosisk has more than doubled since the end of the Cold War in 1991. It is evident that Russia resents the possible loss of its monopoly of transportation of oil by Russian pipelines. Many experts argue that a pipeline through Turkey bypassing the Kurdish separatists is by far the best route for oil from Central Asia.
Turkey touches Europe at Greece and Bulgaria. During the Gulf War in 1990 and 1991, the United Nations approved sanctions with the effect of cutting Iraq off from the world markets for oil; it closed the oil pipelines that cross Turkey carrying oil from Iraq. In late 1996, the Security Council allowed Iraq to sell $2 billion worth of oil so the government might buy food and medicine for people suffering because Saddam Hussein had tried to seize Kuwait's oil in August, 1990. Turkey could close off water to Iraq flowing through the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers around Baghdad, 10 because water for these huge rivers originates in Turkey. The Ottoman Empire was probably one of the two or three great empires that survived into the early 20th century. After World War I, the Ottoman Empire disappeared. Some of its territory was taken to form the wholly invented boundaries of Iraq. Part of its land was set aside as the Mandate for Palestine to be ruled by Britain until 1948, and another part was set aside for the French and became Lebanon. Syria was carved out of this land in what was really a cartographer's nightmare.
The part of Turkey located in Asia has been named Anatolia since ancient times going back 5,000 years. Late in the third millennium B.C. waves of invaders speaking IndoEuropean languages crossed the Caucasus Mountains into Anatolia. These were the Hittites who lived during the bronze age. They took their name from the Hatti indigenous tribes whom the invaders subjugated. The Hittites adapted their language, using the cuneiform alphabet. The invaders also imposed the political and social organization they brought with them, probably from the Balkan Peninsula, on their subjects in the Anatolian interior and northern Syria. The indigenous peasantry supported the Hittite warrior caste with rents, services, and taxes. In time, the Hittites won the reputation of being merchants and statesmen who schooled the ancient Middle East in both commerce and diplomacy. However, the Hittite state collapsed in 1200 B.C. when the Phrygians rebelled and burned the ancient city of Hattusas. In 1906, systematic excavation of the site yielded archives containing cuneiform tablets that had been baked by the same fire that consumed the city. The deciphering and interpretation of this material brought to light the history, literature, laws, and religion of a people initially known by language from the Bible with references to "Hittim" in the Old Testament.
During the period between the twelfth and ninth centuries B.C. Anatolia was in constant turmoil. The Assyrians from Mesopotamia, now part of Iraq, were on the march. The kingdom established by the Assyrians was overthrown by the Cimmerians, a nomadic people who had been pursued over the Caucasus into Anatolia by the Scythians. They in turn were overcome by the Lydians, a Thracian warrior caste who enriched themselves from gold found in great quantity in the area ruled by Croesus. The successive Lydian kings controlled western Anatolia until the kingdom fell to the Persians in 546 B.C. Part of the Persian Empire is now modern Iran. Armenians and Kurds also shaped the linguistic diversity of Anatolia. Armenia had been established as a client of the Roman Empire to guard the frontier against the Persians. The Roman empire gained control of Anatolia in 138 B.C. Cicero, a great writer -- he wrote in Latin -- said of this acquisition of Anatolia that its importance lay in "the richness of its soil, in the variety of its products, in the extent of its pastures, and in the numbers of its exports, it surpasses all other lands." Under a succession of Roman emperors, Rome expanded over the next three hundred years.
In 285 A.D., Emperor Diocletian undertook the reorganization of the Roman Empire, dividing jurisdiction between its Latinspeaking and Greekspeaking halves. In 330 A.D. Emperor Constantine reigned from 306 to 337. He had established his capital at the Greek city of Byzantium strategically situated on the European side of the Straits of Bosporus at its entrance to the Sea of Marmara. There he could watch both Persia's empire and the Goths across the Danube River. For nearly seven centuries the city, renamed Constantinople, remained the capital of the Roman Empirebetter known in its continuous development as the Byzantine Empire. John Julius Norwich has written an engrossing history of this period, A Short History of Byzantium which grew after 330 AD and ended in 1483. Norwich had written a three volume history of this period. They first told the story of the Empire from its foundation to the establishment of its western rival, the Holy Roman Empire, with the coronation of Charlemagne on Christmas Day 800. The second followed its fortunes through the dazzling dynasty of the Macedonians to the apogee of its power under the terrible Basil II Bulgaroctonus, the BulgarSlayer, but ended on a note of ill omen: the first of three great defeats of Byzantine history, suffered at the hands of the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert in 1071, only five years after William the Conqueror landed in Great Britain in 1066. The third and last volume showed just how fateful the defeat at Manzikert proved to be, robbing the Empire of most of Asia Minorthe principal source of its manpower weakening it and impoverishing it to the point that, rather more than one hundred years later it was powerless to resist the onslaught of the grotesquely misnamed Fourth Crusade. That obscenity, and the fiftysix years of Latin rule that followed it, proved to be the second blow from which Byzantium never recovered. The the Ottoman Empire emerged. The Metropolitan Museum of Art had an exhibit, The Glory of Byzantium, which finally closed on July 7, 1997. No ruler in all history can equal Constantine the Great. It was his decision to adopt Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, and he transferred the capital of that Empire from Rome to the site of old Byzantium where it was to be known for the next sixteen centuries as Constantinople.
Christianity was introduced into Anatolia through the missionary activity of St. Paul, a Greekspeaking Jew from Tarsus. Christians already constituted a majority of the population in Anatolia; this religion had been granted official toleration under the Edict of Milan in 313. The Armenians of Anatolia had been converted to a form of Christianity at variance with the orthodox tradition of the Greek church. They were Greek Orthodox in religion, a fact that would have fateful consequences in 1915. However, the Byzantine Empire tolerated all religions including Muslim by the end of the Seventh century. It ruled not only Anatolia and Greece, but also Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Sicily, most of Italy, and the Balkans. It lost Syria to Muslim conquest in the seventh century. While the Byzantine Empire slowly diminished in size with frequent waves of Goths, Slavs, Persians, and Arabs, it generally remained on the offensive until the eleventh century. During this period of perhaps 700 years, migrations out of Asia continued with Turks leading in numbers and settling in Anatolia. Thus, did the beginnings of the Ottoman Empire emerge from the remains of the Seljuk Empire with an intervening spasm following the Mongol invaders led by Genghis Khan in the 13th century. Mongol horsemen assembled the largest land empire the world had ever seen, including most of what is now the Peoples' Republic of China. This empire stretched from the Yellow Sea bordering on Korea to the Mediterranean Sea. Even today, there are traces of the Mongol presence in parts of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, together with Kiev in Ukraine. Mongol hordes sacked Baghdad in 1221 and occupied Samarkand in 1219.
In their march into Asia Minor, the Mongols drove nomadic Turkoman tribes before them. They in turn spread terror through the Seljuk Empire. Its rulers were threatened with extinction and finally disappeared never to emerge again. Mongol power itself, like the power of other nomadic peoples over a settled society, proved ephemeral, lasting in Asia Minor -- essentially all of Anatolia -- only a single generation. Other refugees third volume was the story of the Empire's last two centuries, from which driven before the invaders were Muslim who had fled from Turkestan and Persia. They rekindled Turkish enthusiasm for war against the infidels in Anatolia. They were reinforced by Turkoman tribes. Collectively, these two groups were known as Ghazis. These Ghazis were driven by religious fanaticism and poured unresisted into western Anatolia beginning about 1300. This century marked the rapid decline of the Christian Byzantine Empire and the rise of the Moslem Ottoman Empire. In 1453, Mehmed II marched into Constantinople as conqueror of all before him. This city's population was overwhelmingly Christian, a remnant of the Byzantine Empire.
Islam is a religion with revolutionary implications. Rulers are considered legitimate only if they live by and enforce the sharia, or Islamic jurisprudence. Its holy laws are based on the teachings of the Koran. Conflict between dynastic power and Islam emerged throughout the history of Constantinople. The Ottomans were all Moslem, and this single fact was to affect the destiny of eastern Europe, the Republic of Venice, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia, and Austria. In Constantinople, however, Mehmed II gave Christians protected status. He also supported the restoration of the Orthodox Christian faith with the appointment of an Orthodox Patriarch who played an important role in raising taxes for the Sultan Mehmed II. The Sultan was short of military manpower in Constantinople, so he ordered Turks from Anatolia to move to the capital city and supplement his fighting Janissaries for conquest outside of his immediate domain.
In 1529, the Ottomans had decided to invade Europe with the excuse that a dispute with the Habsburg family in Hungary had not been settled to Suleiman's satisfaction. Turkish forces were stopped at the gates of Vienna after an army of professional soldiers had been assembled to defend Vienna. Suleiman, the Ottoman Turkish ruler tried again a few years later, but once again the Austrians defended themselves well. The invaders were forced to withdraw. Even before this unsuccessful invasion of infidel Europe, the Ottomans had created what would become an empire. By 1512, the empire began its expansion by various wars against Italy and Spain; even France was not immune from Suleiman's soldiers. Perhaps the only positive feature of all this violence was that people were just beginning to establish a few of the boundaries that would endure until the 20th century. Suleiman waged war on two fronts at times. He moved against Persia three times as his other forces were engaged elsewhere. Persia was the enemy on the basis of religion. The Turks were orthodox Sunnis, while the Persians were heterodox Shi'ites. In 1533, Suleiman marched against Baghdad -- Iraq was not then a nation with defined boundaries -- entering its gates in 1534 and liberating this city from the Persian Shi'ites. On the western front, another naval encounter ended in a disastrous defeat for the vessels of the Ottomans at Lepanto in 1571.
Here, the Turkish Crescent and the Christian Cross met in the last great naval battle in the history of Europe. A year later, a new Turkish fleet sailed into the waters surrounding Crete. This threat caused the Venetians to cede Cyprus to the Ottomans. In today's world, the Turks felt they had a right to occupy half of Cyprus after the slaughter of many Greeks on the island.Three years after Lepanto, the Ottomans struck again. By the end of the 18th century, they claimed Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli as territory of the Ottoman Empire. The Turks had made seven different attempts to breach the gate to Europe, either at Vienna or at Budapest. All of them failed. The Ottoman Empire, however, had a new determined enemy, Peter the Great of Russia. He was determined to gain access to the Mediterranean Sea via the Black Sea. During most of the 18th century, the Ottomans struggled to reacquire what they had lost to the Austrians. During this period, diplomacy flourished. France, for its own reasons worked out various arrangements with the Ottomans, while Russia failed in its war against Sweden's King Charles VII, the socalled Baltic War. The Treaty of Belgrade in 1737 settled some disputes that had led to war in the past. This treaty, having humiliated the Austrian Habsburgs, frustrated the Russians and gave relief to the Ottoman Empire. No Russian vessel, whether warship or merchantman, could enter the Black Sea. The survival of the Ottomans now depended on agreements with the powers of Christian Europe. Catherine the Great ruled Russia, and she was determined to extend her empire to the shores of the Bosporus by dismembering the Ottoman Empire. She also sided with Prussia's Frederick the Great to partition Poland. Russian warships finally entered the Mediterranean Sea after first resupplying their ships in England. It was Catherine the Great's ambition to liberate Greece from the Turks.This effort failed, but the Turkish fleet was almost totally destroyed. Its admiral failed to consider access to the Black Sea from the south. The delay allowed the Turks to erect fortifications on both sides of the Dardenelles. In the meantime, however, the fortunes of war favored the Russians in the main theater of operations. In 1771, Russia overran the Crimea, and three years later, the Turks agreed to peace which, among other things, allowed Russia access to the Black Sea.
The last of the Ottoman sultans was Abdul Hamid II who assumed the mantle in 1876. One year later, Russia declared war on Turkey. Its sultan had to fight without Great Britain whose Queen Victoria had denounced the Turkish barbarians. This war was settled by the Treaty of Berlin which did little more that recognize German and Bulgarian spheres of influence and adjust a few boundary lines. Abdul Hamid had tried an experiment in democracy by offering a new constitution. It was approved by fraud, and Abdul Hamid finally dissolved parliament in 1878. It was not to convene again for thirty years To assure his own personal safety, Adbul Hamid ran a police state and used the newlyinvented telegraph system to issue orders. Moreover, Abdul Hamid saw himself as the ruler of his part of Islam. To reinforce his position, he had to persecute the Christian Armenians who once had protected status. Turkish army units carried out the bloody slaughter of Armenians that followed the Turkish fury fanned by Armenian revolutionaries. This slaughter of Armenians by the Ottomans was the beginning of genocide in the 20th century.
In 1915, the Turkish government regarded its Armenian population as a dangerous Christian element in a Moslem society. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were driven from their homes, massacred, or marched until they died. This genocide lasted until the dust from World War I had settled, and Armenia became an independent nation carved out of eastern Turkey. Its independent status did not last long. By the Treaty of BrestLitovsk in 1918, Russia was forced to cede all of Turkish Armenia and part of Russian Armenia to Turkey. However, early in 1918, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan formed the Transcaucasian Republic. Diversity of objectives brought about the dissolution of this republic. Then, in 1920, a coalition of Armenian guerillas and the Communists proclaimed Armenia a Soviet Republic. In 1922, an overwhelmingly Armenian area, NagornoKarabakh was awarded to Russia by the Treaty of Sevres which imposed order and suppressed Armenian nationalism. This surfaced again in 1990, and led to Armenia's independence in 1991 free of Soviet rule. However, ethnic violence began in 1988. Azerbaijan claimed some of the territory occupied by Armenia, and from time to time, violence still erupts. In retaliation, Azerbaijan imposed a blockade on Armenia, and huge segments of the Armenian population emigrated to other countries, including the United States.
The first three decades of the 19th century saw a spectacular expansion of Russia's frontiers in the Black SeaCaspian Sea Caucasus. In two wars with Persia, the first in 180413, and the second, in 18268, Russia expanded the Tsar's domain by acquiring Baku, Georgia, Dagestan, Ereven, and northern Azerbaijan and part of Armenia. The 19th century saw the extension of sovereignty over what were to become colonies of the great European powers: England, France, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, and the Netherlands. This period has been described as the "New Imperialism," and it lasted until the outbreak of World War I. In this same period, the Ottoman Empire saw a decline in its territorial base and corruption in Constantinople. In 1903, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany announced a plan to build a Berlin to Baghdad railroad, but only after he had signed a treaty with Turkey. Even though the Suez Canal was opened in 1867 providing a route for Britain to send arms and personnel to India quickly, Lord Palmerston, Britain's Foreign Secretary, saw the BerlinBaghdad railroad as a major threat to the heart of Britain's empire in the Middle East and a threat to India. In fact, the railroad ended in Anatolia on the Black Sea and was never extended to Baghdad.
In 1883, German officers began training the Turkish army and modernizing it with arms and equipment made in Germany. When Kaiser Wilhelm II succeeded to the German throne in 1888, he saw that Asiatic Turkey could become a major sphere of German influence. Two years later, Wilhelm II dismissed German Chancellor Count Otto von Bismarck who opposed extending German influence to a Muslim nation ruled as an autocracy. Greece was unhappy with Abdul Hamid and chose to invite the Ottomans to declare war against Greece. In a thirtyday war, Greece was humiliated by the Ottoman forces, but fifteen years later they struck back at Turkey whose military power was illusory. A declining Ottoman Empire had sought alliances with Great Britain whose answer was that Britain could not save Turkey, unless the Turks could save themselves from the internal and external forces producing major cracks in the Ottoman establishment. A war in Europe seemed inevitable, and when Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian Habsburg throne was assassinated by a Serb fanatic. Turkey turned to Germany and soon wound up as an ally of Germany during World War I.
For the years immediately preceding the outbreak of World War I, investors outside the Ottoman Empire and indeed, a few of them in the United States, oil derivatives -- kerosene, gas, and illumination -- offered enough profit to attract John D. Rockefeller. In fact, by 1868, he had put the Standard Oil Company together and invested massive amounts in acquiring production wells, refineries, and pipelines. Until Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, there was very little incentive to build electric utility plants to generate electricity. Henry Ford, however, gave the oil business something to think about, the gasoline engine to fuel the combustion engines of automobiles. Oil and gas in great quantities had been found in California and then, in 1901, Texas, where the best known gusher of all time, Spindletop, came in and started a land rush to Texas. Initially, Spindletop produced 75,000 barrels a day. Sir Marcus Samuel in London heard the news of Spindletop and saw it as a way of diversifying world production, instead of relying entirely on production from one area. He and Henry Deterding, a Dutch oil entrepreneur, finally put Royal Dutch Shell together, and it became Standard Oil's largest, worldwide competitor in 1906. Even this early in history, Joseph Stalin was a troublemaker. He organized oil workers' strikes, one of them in the Baku oilfield on the Caspian Sea. Stalin had been in Tsarist jails eight times and saw the strike as the Great Rehearsal for the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. In 1908, Tsarist officials were fearful of revolution and provided arms to the Moslem Tatars. This Russian largesse allowed the Tatars to slaughter Christian Armenians in what is now Azerbaijan, an echo of the genocide over which the Sultan Abdul Hamid had presided in 1878.
Persia -- Iran since 1935 -- found oil in 1908. It had agreed to a concession with the Burmah Oil Co. backed by British interests. After finding oil, all the concessionaires united to incorporate the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. The British now saw Germany as the new threat. The Kaiser supported the modernization of the German Navy with emphasis on oilfueled naval ships. Initially reluctant, Winston Churchill enthusiastically endorsed oil for the expanding British Navy, moved by German belligerence. In 1914, Parliament approved a measure that would guarantee the British Navy access to oil in peace or in war, and Anglo-Persian Oil Co. would be 51 percent controlled by the British government. On June 28, 1914, eleven days after Parliament approved Winston Churchill's bill, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo. Austria declared war against Serbia, Russia mobilized while Germany declared war against Tsarist Russia, and Great Britain declared war against Germany for violating Belgium's neutrality. The world was at war.
After waiting long enough to see what might happen in Europe, Turkey finally declared war on Russia, and of necessity joined Germany. Indeed, by 1915, Turkey was deeply involved with Germany; its army was being trained by German officers and its bankers were so involved with Turkey that joining the Allies would have been unthinkable. Russia, however, had not really prepared for war and applied to Great Britain in 1915 for military intervention. Winston Churchill saw British help as essentially naval in its composition. However, when some opposition to this order of force was heard by the Asquith Cabinet, Britain sent some 249,000 British troops to Gallipoli. This change exposed Britain to the great losses of manpower to Turkish arms led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who later became the father of modern Turkey. By the end of 1915, this land invasion had failed in two costly offensives against Turkish forces, and the British forces had to withdraw. In 1916, however, Great Britain succeeded on another front and destroyed the Rumanian oil fields including Ploesti. It took the Germans a year to restore the Rumanian wells to just 35 percent of their 1914 production, which was not enough to fuel the German army in Europe. Then, advancing through Persia, British forces reached the Baku oil fields. These forces denied the Germans the oil from the Caspian Basin, despite efforts of the Turks to reach Baku first. An exhausted Germany surrendered in November, 1918 and the war was over. The Middle East was effectively rearranged in Paris, where the Allies negotiated the Treaty of Versailles and separate treaties with the defeated Germans and Turkey.
British interests had been responsible for setting up companies controlled from London even before World War I began. One of these companies was the Turkish National Bank. It had been set up to advance British economic and political interests in competition with Germany. London was alarmed when the Turkish Petroleum Company appeared on the scene in 1912. The Deutche Bank and Royal Dutch Shell each owned 25 percent of the stock, and the Turkish National Bank held the remaining 50 percent of the stock. One individual, Calouste Gulbenkian, owned 30 percent of the Turkish National Bank. This very wealthy Armenian therefore owned 15 percent of the Turkish Petroleum Company. When World War I ended, all the Allies knew that oil and its location would dominate their meetings. The United States, Great Britain, France and the Netherlands all knew that Middle East oil was up for grabs. Walter Teagle of Standard Oil of New Jersey, Henry Deterding of Royal Dutch, Ernest Mercier of France, and Charles Greenaway of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company were the principal players. Calouste Gulbenkian was the odd man out who could block any progress by the others. And it was not until 1928 that an agreement was signed covering oil rights in what is now Iraq. A year earlier, a gusher had been brought in near Mosul, so the players knew oil was there; however, they had difficulty agreeing on shares. In the final or Red Line Agreement dated July 1, 1928 -- Gulbenkian had drawn a red line around all the major oilproducing states, except for Persia and Kuwait -- each major player got 23.75 percent of the oil, and Gulbenkian got his 5 percent.
Britain and France played hardball Real politik in the postwar Middle East. Winston Churchill, head of the Colonial Office, got Cabinet approval of his candidate for King of Iraq. Faisal was crowned in August, 1921. His brother, Abdullah was named King of what is now Jordan. Syria was a French mandate under the League of Nations, and Palestine was ruled by Britain as its Mandate for Palestine. Iraq had actually been carved out of the old Ottoman Empire and was a mixed bag of Muslims and nationalism. The Kurds wanted an independent nation, Kurdistan, but Russia opposed this, as did a defeated Turkey. The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 had so alarmed Britain that it had to protect its northern flank against a threat from the Russian Bear and the protection of the British Empire including India.
Before, during and after World War I, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Belgium the New Imperialism controlled what the governments of these countries saw as objectives. Economics was the most important single factor in this New Imperialism (1870 to 1925). The Industrial Revolution created large surpluses of European capital and a heavy demand for raw materials. Colonies in Africa and Asia had the raw materials, except for oil which was abundant in certain areas of the Middle East. Great Britain was spread thin from Suez to Singapore, Malaysia, and India. Its navy had to have oil so its warships might stop at any one of these sites plus Cyprus to refuel. Britain's governments had learned an important lesson in World War I. Without oil, Germany could not continue the war, and no British Cabinet would ever let the British Navy run out of oil. The major players were only marginally sympathetic with British access to oil for its Navy. They needed worldwide markets for their oil, and production wells that were located in a stable political environment. Postwar Arab nationalism and religious fundamentalism made the latter objective difficult, if not impossible. However, the most important objective for the major oil companies was to insulate and protect themselves against government intervention. A single ruler of an oil producing state can cause problems, as Persia's Shah was to demonstrate.
Sir Arthur Cadman of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company -- the British government owned about 50 percent of the stock -- Walter Teagle, president of Standard Oil of New Jersey, and Henry Deterding, president of Royal Dutch Shell were the movers and shakers of oil production and distribution around the world. However, in 1928, they had a major problem; there was an oversupply of oil world wide, and prices were volatile. The Great Depression was to occur a year later, and with new oil from East Texas, it was selling at far less than cost of production, even oil sold in Europe from such countries as Russia, Rumania, and Persia. Its Shah, Reza Pahlevi, unilaterally cancelled Anglo-Persian's concession; oil royalties had declined to the vanishing point, and the Shah was infuriated. Nationalism was only one reason behind this move, as was money. Finally, a settlement was negotiated, but it set a precedent that other oil producing states would find useful in the future. The rulers of host countries would henceforth share in the worldwide profits of the majors, and Persia supplied a higher percentage of workers to these companies. And a huge annual payment to the ruler was guaranteed regardless of any other events. During this period that ended in 1933 with the Persian settlement, Turkey had emerged as a modern nation ruled by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as a democracy.
Women were emancipated and given the right to vote and hold office. The harem and plural wives were both abolished. Ataturk abolished the Arabic script that had been used for centuries in the written language of Turkey. The Latin alphabet replaced it. Ataturk negotiated with the British over Turkey's share of oil from Mosul in what was Iraq. Turkey got 10 percent of the profits from the sale of oil produced in Mosul. Equally important was Ataturk's decision to end the sultanate that ruled Turkey for so long. In the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, Turkey had renounced its claim to Cyprus, a claim it raised again in 1974. Ataturk also established the seat of government at Ankara, essentially to end any lingering attachment to Istanbul, the home of the sultanate for generations. During his rule, the Kurds raised the banner of revolt in the name of Islam. It was put down in 1926, but has surfaced almost every year since then. Ataturk died in 1938 and his memory has lasted until today as the Father of Modern Turkey.
During the period Turkey was modernizing its government and culture. Germany was moving toward war. In 1933, Adolph Hitler was fully aware of German dependence on foreign oil, so he was moved to support I. G. Farben A.G; it had patents on a process that produced high grade gasoline from coal. Farben's scientists had discovered that aviationgrade gasoline could be made from lignite, the cheapest of all coals. In 1926, a Berlin professor devised a way of making this gasoline synthetically, and even more important, inexpensively. Jersey Standard's Walter Teagle toured the German facilities producing synthetic fuel and was shocked. He saw this production as a threat undermining Jersey Standard's dominant position of oil in the worldwide market. Hitler had other objectives. In 1936, he inaugurated his FourYear Plan. The synthetic fuels industry occupied a central place in this plan. By September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, some fourteen synthetic fuels plants were in operation with six more under construction. A year later, they were producing about 72,000 barrels per day, accounting for 46 percent of total oil supply. About 95 percent of German aviation gasoline came from the hydrogenation process in these plants. Rumania, a German ally in World War II, furnished the rest of the oil Germany needed. It was produced in Ploesti, an oilfield that had been a target in World War I. Indeed, the safety of Rumanian oil was not far from the thoughts of Nazi officials, By early 1942, Albert Speer was Minister of Armaments appointed by Hitler. Speer was responsible for repairing Allied bomb damage to the synthetic fuels plants in Germany. Until June 22, 1941 Germany also imported Russian oil, since Hitler had signed a nonaggression treaty with Stalin in August, 1939. Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June, 1941. A few months later, Hitler told his generals who had made rapid progress toward Moscow, that "The most important objective to be achieved before the onset of winter is not to capture Moscow, but to seize the Crimea and the industrial and coal region on the Donets and cut off the Russian oil supply from the Caucasus area." Baku and the oil of the Caspian Sea Basin was the ultimate objective. However, German forces were finally defeated before Stalingrad, thousands of miles from Berlin, but only 200 miles from the northern tip of the Caspian Sea. Germany's Sixth Army surrendered in February, 1943 with only enough fuel in their tanks to drive some 30 miles. In North Africa , the story was no different.
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's legendary Afrika Corps finally outran its source of fuel for both tanks and aircraft. From the island of Malta, the RAF aircraft could sink vessels carrying more fuel from Italy to German forces in North Africa. Then, when American forces landed in Morocco and Algeria, blocking Rommel's retreat route, Rommel's position became untenable. In a book edited by Liddell Hart, Rommel's Papers, the general himself complained bitterly about not getting the fuel he needed to win. Between mid-May and June 6, 1944 the American Strategic Air Force bombed Ploesti, Rumania and German synthetic oil plants within Germany. The theory was that by denying the Luftwaffe gasoline for its aircraft, German fighters would be less able to interrupt the D-Day invasion of Normandy scheduled for June, 1944.
The Air Force continued its heavy bombing of synthetic gas plants after D-Day. Luftwaffe fighters remained on the ground for lack of gasoline. Germany's synthetic gas plants were producing 6 percent of average production in early 1944, from 92,000 barrels per day to just 3,000 barrels. This German fuel shortage may have shortened World War II by as much as six months. As a result Allied ground forces advanced rapidly toward their goal of Berlin. See Chapters 1 and 6 of An Abridged History of the United States for more detail .
The war with Japan had the same problems. Initially, Japan had sufficient oil for its Navy and ground forces. However, beginning in May, 1943 the United States waged a war of attrition against Japanese tankers. American submarines proved very effective. By 1944, tanker sinkings were outrunning new tanker construction. Oil imports in Japan reached their peak in the first quarter of 1943. A year later, its imports were less than half the 1943 figure. Fuel shortages began to affect strategic decisions of the Japanese Navy. Carriers had to remain based in Japan to make rapid use of new carrier aircraft and pilots. On the other hand, its heavy battleships and cruisers were stationed at or near Singapore to take maximum advantage of oil from Sumatra and Brunei. The result was a divided fleet at the very time Japan needed a combined fleet strong enough to deal with the massive American task forces of the Third and Seventh fleets. Their warships could refuel at sea, while the Japanese warships could rarely get enough fuel for any extended operation. The Battle of Leyte Gulf was a complete disaster for Japan. It lost three battleships, all its remaining carriers, ten cruisers and twelve destroyers.
While there is some documentation of the importance of oil in warfare, it is reasonable to state that Russia, the Peoples' Republic of China, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, and the United States all accepted this as an article of faith. Certainly, the foreign policies of all these countries reflected a deep concern for the protection of their access to oil. The main contribution to the Allied cause by Middle Eastern countries was the use of their territories, resources, and facilities. In most of those countries, this was made possible by the military garrisons established during the post-World War I period, in Iraq, Iran, and the oilrich states of the Persian Gulf. Indeed, one of the most important changes in this century was the discovery, exploitation and use of petroleum. Indeed, on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, Russia had supported the search for oil in Azerbaijan. At this time, oil from the fields in Baku on the Caspian Sea was providing some 95 percent of all Russia's oil.
Notwithstanding the battles near its borders, Turkey remained neutral during World War II, that is, until the last few weeks when Turkey declared war on Germany in order to qualify for a seat at the victors' table. As one observer noted, Turkey wanted to be on the guest list, not the menu. When the dust settled after World War II, the Cold War began. In 1949, the United States took the lead in organizing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Turkey was admitted in 1954. The language of the NATO treaty had the familiar text; an attack on the territory of one member was essentially an attack on all members.
NATO was essentially a defensive alliance designed to meet a Soviet military threat in central Europe. In 1951, the Council of Europe had established the framework for solving problems of postwar human rights. Both the Republic of Turkey and the Kingdom of Greece acceded to the treaty in 1952. The Council of Europe invited Turkey to join it. The Court of Human Rights and the Commission of Human Rights were both created and accession to the European Convention on Human Rights was an article of faith for all members of the Council of Europe. Turkey has not accepted all its obligations under the human rights convention. In 1974, Turkish military forces landed in Cyprus with the intention of preventing Greece's move toward Enosis or Union with mainland Greece. Furthermore, Turkey has consistently denied Kurds in Turkey the opportunity of preserving their language and culture. To the government in Ankara, the Kurds are a quarrelsome minority, and the government has not hesitated to use force against them. See http://www.odysseyphoto.com/major/turk.html
In mid-January, 1997, the United States warned Turkey against attacking Greek Cypriot forces on Cyprus. Turkey had accused the Greek Cypriot government of trying to change the balance of forces on the island by buying some Soviet antiaircraft missiles. Washington reacted strongly, arguing that installation of the Soviet missiles would introduce a destabilizing new military element and complicated peace moves. Both Turkey and Greece are members of NATO. The Turks have more to worry about than Cyprus. Each major city in Turkey is about one-sixth Kurd. Turgut Ozal, who died in office in 1993, was the second greatest revolutionary of the twentieth century. He was president of Turkey until his death. Ataturk led the way, but he had one fatal flaw. Both Ataturk and Ozal tried westernizing Turkey, but the Kurds were forgotten. Today, some twenty million of them live dispersed in Iraq and Iran. The war against the Kurds threatens Turkey's social peace, and Ozal died just as he was moving toward a compromise with the Kurds. Turkey has dreams of dominating the area in which it is centered.
The Southeastern Anatolia Project, when completed, will allow Turkey to stop the water flowing into Syria and Iraq for up to eight months without overflowing Turkish dams. This project (GAP for its name in Turkish) will be the world's fourth largest rockfilled dam known as the Ataturk Dam. While it may seem out of place, the manager of this dam sees it as a way of controlling the political conduct of the Arab world. It needs water, and the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers rise in Turkey and flow through Baghdad. The Turks saw water as a weapon to be withheld if circumstances required it. The Ataturk Dam, when completed, will supply power and irrigation for the agricultural area of Turkey.
Early in 1997, the Clinton Administration, going through high level personnel changes had to deal with expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). President Clinton wanted to expand NATO to include Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. At least one reporter on National Public Radio, January 14, 1997. Lee Cullum, a columnist of the Dallas Morning News offered a few cautionary views. "It is awkward, of course, to have to admit that the alliance is being expanded against a [potential] threat from Moscow," she said, "[Russia] is NATO's ally in the partnership for peace..." She also mentioned Michael Mandelbaum, a professor at Johns Hopkins University. His most recent book, The Dawn of Peace in Europe, was published in late 1996, and NATO was covered in depth. In fact, however, the NATO Participation Act enacted by Congress would have to be amended to include these countries, and then the treaty would have to be ratified by the Senate, twothirds concurring. The earliest it could be amended and the treaty ratified would be the year 1999.
George Kennan, who provided the intellectual underpinning of the doctrine of "containment" of the Soviet Union in 1947, has written a column in The New York Times for February 7, 1997. In it he notes that "expanding NATO would be the most fateful error in American foreign policy in the entire postcold war era."
"Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, antiWestern, and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking. And last, but not least, it might make it much more difficult if not impossible to secure the Russian Duma's ratification of the Start II agreement and to achieve further reductions of nuclear weaponry. ... And it [NATO expansion] is doubly unfortunate considering the total lack of any necessity for this move. Why, with all the hopeful possibilities engendered by the end of the cold war, should East-West relations become centered on the question of who should be allied with whom, and, by implication, in some fanciful, totally unforeseeable and most improbable future military conflict?"
The problem has been and still is the reality of postCommunist Europe. Just about everything in Central Europe and run from Moscow for the last forty years has turned into ein Drecknest. This translates from German to "a filthy mess." Bulgaria is a splendid example. One might think a government faced with an unpayable international debt would reject the idea of printing more money with inflation running at 20 percent per day and look for a more sensible solution. In Bulgaria, the Socialist government has lost billions of dollars in trade by adhering to the sanctions imposed on Serbia, even though its most important transit route and trading partner disappeared. Bulgaria's desperate plea for compensation has so far fallen on deaf ears. Rumania, Macedonia, and Albania are in the same boat The International Monetary Fund has not shown any disposition to postpone payments on Bulgaria's huge debt of $12 billion. And the European Union will not lift a hand, until Bulgaria rationalizes its economy, i.e. balances its budget.
Petar Stoyanov, elected as president of Bulgaria in November, 1996, leads the Union of Democratic Forces -- the nonCommunist alternative to the Socialists -- had gone to Brussels to get it to admit Bulgaria as a new member of the European Union. Thousands of demonstrators have blocked the downtown of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria since January 2, 1997. They were protesting against the ruling Socialist Party and mass poverty in this Balkan state. About 80 percent of Bulgaria's population of nine million live below the poverty level. In Ankara, another protest was organized by secular activists. The target of the protesters in mid-April, 1997 was Necmettin Erbakan, Turkey's Prime Minister who governs a coalition that includes Tansu Ciller, Foreign Minister. She is under investigation for alleged financial improprieties during the time she was Prime Minister. However, the protesters were anti-Israel, and they wanted to end the new relationship between Turkey and Israel.
Over the last two years, Turkey and Israel have forged a remarkable program of military cooperation. In April, 1997 David Levy was in Ankara to discuss it with highly placed Turkish officials, including General Ismail Hakki Karadayi, Turkey's chief of the military staff. As The New York Times story said:
The relationship between Turkey and Israel is continuing to develop improving the security of both countries, even as relations between Israel and the Palestinians deteriorate, and as the entire region faces the rise of fundamentalist Islamic movements. In particular, the relationship can only make Israeli leaders more confident they can take tough positions in dealing with their Arab neighbors. An alliance with Turkey could go a long way toward neutralizing Syria in any major crisis. It could also make Syria think twice about stirring up trouble to Israel's north, however preoccupied Israel may be with quelling unrest among the Palestinians.
Turkey ruled a great deal of the territory now known as Syria and Palestine. Both were once part of the Ottoman Empire which ended after World War I. Today near the end of the 20th century, the miniarea surrounding Syria -- Israel, Turkey, and Greece -- has been compared to the Bermuda Triangle, a place where objects mysteriously disappear. In 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus and in effect divided this traditionally Greek island nearly in half. In 1948, Israel was attacked by Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq. For its own security, Israel has to reduce the level of trading land in the West Bank for an ephemeral peace with the Palestinians. For its part, Turkey is faced with Islamic fundamentalism by those who seem determined to roll back the progress made by Ataturk in 1925; he created a secular state that has remained secular with the army warning religious militants not to press it too far. In addition to this state of tension, major American and European oil giants are locked in a dispute over the route that pipelines from Kazakhstan must follow to avoid Iran and probably Russia. Ironically, the People's Republic of China was the winner, signing a development contract for oil and gas in Kazakhstan's Uten field. China has said it will construct two multibillion dollar pipelines. This deal signaled a new Chinese determination to pursue its economic interests abroad. In the waning days of 1997, Iran and Turkmenistan signed a deal selling 12 billion cubic feet of natural gas to Iran, using a 130mile pipeline from Korpedzhe, Turkmenistan to Iran's Kurd Kui. Oil companies in the United States are handicapped by the IranLibyan Sanctions Act of 1996. Republicans designed this nonsense, and Clinton signed it. Unless it's repealed or modified to meet domestic oil companies objections, no U.S. company can route a pipeline through Iran This area of the world is engaged in a high stakes power game.
The center of the action has been Azerbaijan. Since October, 1996, the estimate of oil reserves in this Caspian Sea Basin has escalated wildly to the point where oil in the ground is said to be more than any other region outside the Persian Gulf. The Tengiz field, only a small fraction of the total, is in Kazakhstan, and natural gas has been estimated at over 18 trillion cubic meters is in Turkmenistan. The principal foreign oil consortium in Azerbaijan is the Azerbaijan International Operating Company, known as AIOC. The only real obstacle to participation of American companies in this new field was the 1992 Freedom Support Act. A provision inserted by Armenian supporters in Congress prohibits direct U. S. economic aid under certain circumstances. However, the Azrebaijani Chamber of Commerce with heavy weight American politicians is moving toward persuading Congress to remove the existing limitation.
Armenians have never forgotten the genocide of the period from 1915 to 1924. See http://www-scf.usc.edu/~khachato/genocide/ An Armenian produced this semi-documentary at a site on the Web. Beginning in the year 1915, Turkish soldiers indiscriminately slaughtered Armenians. By 1924, 1.5 million Armenians had been killed by these Turks. Armenians were Christians so they received help from the Soviet Union. Its Soviet military aid helped Armenia, but it tended to muddy the waters for negotiations of the "Minsk Group", which included the United States. In neighboring Azerbaijan, Armenians won a war with Azzeris and occupied about 20 percent of Azerbaijan. Understandably, Armenians feel passionaltely that they will never give up the land known as Nagorno-Karabakh. However, in an election in 1998, Levon Ter-Petrosian, President of Armenia was ousted by the Armenian military for compromising on the process leading to peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The central issue of the political campaign was the fate of Nagorno-Karabakh, the small mountainous ethnic Armenian enclave it had won from Azerbaijan in a war lasting six years. Unfortunately, the breakdown in the peace process has made the economy in Armenia decline even further. In 1998, some 45 percent of the workers in Armenia were unemployed. This misfortune exists in double-measure. Armenia was being considered for an oil pipeline carrying Caspian Sea oil to a Turkish port. Now the oil companies will have to deal with Georgia, and Armenia will lose the income from oil transit fees.
In its own backyard, Turkey has an ugly war with the Kurds. It has lasted some ten years and costs an estimated $5 billion annually. Turkey seems determined to destroy it a crime to be found with even photographs of the Kurds at war. See http://www.akakurdistan.com/. This site offers new insight into this ugly war and should be studied by all historians. The pictures were taken by various photographers and used in Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History, with the Internet version condensed from one by Susan Meiselas in 1997.
While ugly political struggles plague Turkey, its next door neighbor offers the intractable Nagorno-Karabakh problem. The Armenians have occupied about 20 percent of Azerbaijan and were responsible for creating a refugee class of some 1 million people. A small group in Azerbaijan publishes a magazine, Azerbaijan International. Its most recent issue -- August, 1997 -- has dedicated many pages to the revival of Azerbaijan's once flourishing film business. It goes back about 100 years according to one article. The more recent films produced before 1991 feature Communist story lines, and the plots are quite predictable. Azerbaijan has a growing musical culture, and the CD playing features Aziza, a talented performer keyboarding Seventh Truth in the Mugam mode. Essentially Mugam is improvisional piano, and Aziza has performed before audiences in London, Berlin, Paris, Rome, Istanbul, and Tel Aviv. See http://www.azer.com/audio.aziza.four.html
In early 1997, St Martin's Press released a new book, The Kurds and the Future of Turkey by Micheal M. Gunter. Densely written, this book should be on the desk of anyone studying Turkish policy and how it has been challenged by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). In the Introduction, Mr. Gunter wrote that "In analyzing the failure of Turkey to solve its Kurdish problem, I have been impressed by what I call the authoritarian tradition of the Republic of Turkey. This Tradition not only has influenced the general attitudes of most government officials against a successful political solution, but has negatively affected human rights. Turkey has been prevented from taking the final steps towards becoming a genuine democracy, and there is a real possibility that the state will be split up, due to its failure to satisfy the legitimate demands of its citizens of Kurdish ethnic heritage, who constitute approximately 20 to 25 percent of the overall population."
By 1990, some 13.7 million Kurds were living in Turkey, a figure that constituted 24.1 percent of the total population of Turkey. If present demographic trends continue, as they are likely to, in about two generations' time, the Kurds will replace the Turks as the largest ethnic group in Turkey, reestablishing an Indo-European language (Kurdidh) as the principal language of the land. While other considerations were and will continue to be a factor in determining Turkish policy, language was by far the most important. Suleiman Demirel, once Prime Minister of Turkey beginning in May, 1993, observed; "if we let the Kurds have their language, we will have to agree that Kurdistan is a state."
The Persian Gulf War in 1990-91 left Turkey in debt. At the request of the United States, Turkey closed the Iraqi pipeline from Kirkuk in Iraq, to Yumurtalik on Turkey's Mediterranean coast. It did not reopen until late 1996 , and by then had cost Turkey about $30 billion.
In March 1998, Iran made a significant gesture in once again opening a dialogue with the United States. It stopped oil sales made by Iraq in violation of Security Council Resolution 687. During the period from 1991 to the present time, some members of Hussein's family had somehow gotten around the oil sanctions of Security Council Resolution 687. Iran announced a crackdown on shipments of some 100,000 barrels a day that earned Iraq millions of dollars in violation of the sanctions. Iran has been able to restrict the flow of petroleum because most tankers carrying Iraqi oil ave used forged Iranian papers and passed through Iranian's waters until the oil could be delivered to buyers in the United Arab Emirates. Proceeds of these illegal sales generated about $600,000 daily for Saddam Hussein's regime, after bribes and discounts paid by Uday Hussein, Saddam's son, or by some other lower level official. This oil trade was so effective that only about 5 percent of the illicit oil sales were intercepted by the American-led coalition sent to the Persian Gulf in 1990. All of this money from the very beginning should have been paid to Turkey, it suffered a huge loss for the closing of the above-mentioned pipeline.
In its foreign policy, there are plenty of Kurds who would welcome the export of Kurdish aspirations to Germany, France, Britain and the Benelux countries. In Germany alone, some 450,000 Kurds in the 1.8 million citizens of Turkey. Amongst this group, some 4,800 were activists given to violence. In June, 1993, for example, Kurds attacked Turkish consulates, banks, airline offices and travel agencies in some twenty different cities in Germany, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Britain and Denmark. This violence continued until the European Union voted to deny Turkey any membership in the EU. The PKK has been subjected to criticism for its tactics designed to frustrate the objectives of American oil companies. Amongst other things, the PKK is thought to have cooperated with the Armenians as a way to block a possible oil pipeline between Azerbaijan and Turkey.
In late 1995, the PKK pulled significant numbers of its fighters out of southeastern Turkey due to the relentless Turkish pressure and positioned them in northern Iraq. It was clear that the PKK had emerged as a third force in northern Iraq. In the summer of 1996, the situation again deteriorated in Iraqi Kurdistan, as Iran began to support the PUK in its civil war against the KDP headed respectively by Barzani and Talabani.
The government has also organized a national symphony and local composers have written music for performances in a new symphony auditorium.
All contents © 1998 William M. Brinton