ISTANBUL – Turkey’s
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has taken on a daunting challenge. After
participating in the nuclear-security summit in South
Korea at the end of March, he went to Tehran
to urge Iran’s
leaders to make a deal during the next round of nuclear talks
between Iran
and the United Nations Security Council’s five permanent members (Britain,
China, France, Russia,
and the United States)
plus Germany.
And Erdoğan will host those talks in Istanbul
in mid-April.
Erdoğan last traveled to Tehran in May 2010 to finalize an agreement that he
had negotiated under which Iran was to send large quantities of its
low-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for nuclear fuel for Iran’s research
reactor. The deal, mediated by Turkey
and Brazil, was
presented to the rest of the world as a groundbreaking confidence-building
initiative.But the US and its allies quickly rejected the agreement as an Iranian ploy designed to halt the growing momentum for additional sanctions. Turkey’s insistence on pressing ahead with the deal caused tension with the US and fueled criticism at home and abroad that Erdoğan’s government was shifting away from its long-standing alliance with the West.
The memory of this short-lived crisis with the US is still fresh in Turkish government circles. So why, despite having burned his fingers two years ago, is Erdoğan taking up the issue again? What did he hope to accomplish in Tehran?
Much has changed in the Middle East during the past two years, and not to Turkey’s advantage. As a result, Turkey is now seeking to contain a rapidly deteriorating regional security situation.
Events in Syria are forcing Turkish authorities to accept the harsh reality of the Assad regime’s resilience – and now its hostility towards Turkey. Iraq, another of Turkey’s neighbors, faces the risk of a protracted sectarian power struggle following withdrawal of US troops.
Given this, Turkey’s main objective now is to prevent a military intervention against Iran. From Turkey’s perspective, an Israeli or American strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities would destabilize the region further, as Iran would undoubtedly retaliate by fueling sectarian tensions and undermining the prospects of a settlement in both Syria and Iraq.
As a result, Turkey wants to prolong, at all costs, the time available for diplomacy. But Erdoğan’s specific objective was more modest this time than it was in 2010, because Turkey does not want to play the role of mediator and will not seek to negotiate the details of an agreement.
Instead, Erdoğan emphasized to his Iranian counterparts the international community’s resolve to bring transparency to Iran’s nuclear program, and insisted on the importance of concrete progress in the next round of the nuclear talks. He warned that Iranian intransigence would doom the talks to failure, raising the prospects of yet another military confrontation in the Middle East.
In particular, Erdoğan stressed the need for Iran to offer a gesture of goodwill about its nuclear program. The Iranian regime should, at the very least, commit itself to halt uranium enrichment at 20%, a figure short of the threshold needed to produce weapons. Having had direct meetings with both Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Erdoğan was in a unique position, as a prime minister of a NATO country, to convey these critical messages to a regime whose top-level decision-making processes remain as opaque as ever to the West.
Paradoxically, however, Erdoğan’s task, while more modest than in 2010, is also more difficult, owing to the prospect of new sanctions on Iran, including a ban on oil exports, that are to enter into force in July. Advocates of sanctions argue that they are having a crippling effect on the Iranian economy. The value of the Iranian rial has fallen by 50% against the US dollar since the beginning of the year, and the country is suffering from a severe shortage of foreign exchange. So now is not the time to pull back.
Moreover, US President Barack Obama, facing an election in November, does not wish to be accused of being soft on Iran, making it difficult for the West to reciprocate potential Iranian overtures.
Yet Erdoğan’s best ally in his risky gambit may be the US consumer. Faced with rising gasoline prices as a result of the ongoing crisis with Iran, Americans’ concerns about the cost of driving have contributed to Obama’s shaky popularity ratings. Thus, the Obama administration may find it more politically expedient to seek a deal with Iran. If Iran displays a real willingness to compromise, the West should hold off on the new sanctions.
It will soon become clear whether Erdoğan’s visit succeeds. If Iran decides to engage the international community with concrete confidence-building measures at the next round of multilateral talks, Erdoğan will take much of the credit for giving diplomacy a last chance – and quite possibly for averting a disastrous military confrontation in the Middle East.
Sinan Ulgen, Chairman of the Istanbul-based Center for Economics and
Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM), is
a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe.
Sinan Ulgen: 埃爾多安是和平締造者嗎？
伊斯坦布爾 —— 土耳其總理雷杰普·塔伊普·埃爾多安已經開始了一項艱巨的挑戰。在三月底參加了韓國核安全首腦會議后，他便前往德黑蘭，敦促伊朗領導人在與聯合國安理會五大常任理事國（英國、中國、法國、俄羅斯和美國）及德國進行的下一輪核談判中達成協議。四月中旬，埃爾多安將在伊斯坦布爾主持這些會談。
埃爾多安上次前往德黑蘭是在2010年5月，目的是與伊朗最終達成某項協議，該協議規定伊朗向土耳其提供大量低濃縮鈾，而土耳其為伊朗研究核反應堆提供核燃料。該協議是在土耳其和巴西的調解下達成的，作為一項突破性的信心建設倡議呈現在世界面前。
但美國及其盟國很快就拒絕了這項協議，因為它們認為伊朗是在採取伎倆減弱國際社會對其實施額外制裁的增長勢頭。土耳其堅持推行該項協議，結果造成本國與美國關系緊張，引發國內外人士的指責——埃爾多安政府正在脫離與西方國家結成的長期聯盟。
這場與美國相持的短暫危機在土耳其政界仍然聞所未聞。兩年前埃爾多安就曾提出該問題，結果是自討苦吃，那麼為什麼現在又將該問題重提呢？他希望在德黑蘭達到什麼目的呢？
在過去兩年中中東發生了很大變化，但這一狀況對土耳其非常不利。因此，土耳其正努力遏制地區安全形勢迅速惡化的形勢。
敘利亞事件迫使土耳其當局接受這一嚴酷的現實——阿薩德政權具有很大柔韌性，而且對土耳其充滿敵意。土耳其的另一鄰國伊拉克在美軍撤離之后，面臨著一場曠日持久的教派權力斗爭。
鑒於此，現在土耳其的主要目的是為了防止對伊朗進行軍事干預。從土耳其的角度來看，以色列或美國打擊伊朗核設施，將進一步破壞該地區穩定，伊朗無疑將通過加劇教派斗爭的緊張局勢、破壞敘利亞和伊拉克的和解前景進行報復。
鑒於此，土耳其希望不惜一切代價延長外交時間。但埃爾多安這次的具體目標與2010年相比較為溫和，因為土耳其不希望發揮調解的作用，也不會就該協議的具體細節進行談判。
相反，埃爾多安向伊朗領導人強調國際社會使伊朗的核計劃透明的決心及下一輪核問題會談具體進展的重要性。他警告說，如果伊朗不妥協，那麼會談將難逃失敗的厄運，中東地區將很可能面臨新一輪軍事對抗。
埃爾多安特別強調，伊朗必須對其核計劃表現出善意姿態。伊朗政權至少應承諾濃縮鈾生產減少20％左右——小於武器生產所需的閾值。同時，埃爾多安同伊朗總統內賈德和最高領袖哈梅內伊曾經直接會晤，作為一個北約國家的總理，他的地位非常獨特——他需要將這些重要消息傳遞給一個頂層決策過程同以往西方一樣不透明的政權。
然而，奇怪的是，埃爾多安的任務雖然比2010年更溫和了，但同時也更困難了，因為伊朗可能會面臨新的制裁措施，包括七月份生效的石油出口禁令。支持對伊朗實施制裁的人認為，這些措施會對伊朗的經濟可能陷入癱瘓。自年初以來，伊朗裡亞爾（伊朗貨幣單位）對美元的匯價下跌了50％，外匯短缺嚴重。
此外，美國總統奧巴馬面臨著11月的選舉，不希望被指責對伊朗採取姑息態度，因此西方國家很難對伊朗伸出援手。
然而，埃爾多安在冒險開局中最好的盟友可能是美國消費者。由於伊朗危機持續，面對汽油價格上漲，美國人對駕駛成本特別關注，這也導致了奧巴馬的民意支持搖搖欲墜。因此，奧巴馬政府可能會認為，設法與伊朗達成協議是政治上的權宜之計。如果伊朗真正願意妥協，西方應該推遲實施新的制裁。
埃爾多安的訪問是否成功，很快就會變得清晰。如果伊朗決定在下一輪多邊談判中參與國際社會，制定具體的信心建立措施，埃爾多安將會因為給外交創造機會——很可能會因為避免一場中東的災難性軍事對抗而獲得好評。