Interview by Gulay Kilic (JTW)
Translated by Fýrat Guzeldag (JTW)

Journal of Turkish Weekly conducted an exclusive interview with Professor Sedat Laciner on the NATO Lisbon Summit and Turkey's sensitive position. You can read the full text of the interview below.

Q: How do you evaluate Turkey's attitude in the NATO summit?

A: There are huge differences between Turkey and NATO's perspective towards the issue. Especially within NATO; France, Germany, United Kingdom and the United States seems Iran, Al-Qaeda and similar countries or actors as major threats to the West and world peace. Therefore, they strongly believe that there is a need for a missile and nuclear defence system against these threats. In that respect, the risk of a nuclear attack by a terrorist, and/or smuggling a nuclear weapon from an uncontrolled country has been discussed about in the U.S. since last few years. Moreover, the White House and Department of State have led the propaganda for this assertion in order to influence public opinion. This propaganda grounds on; "if there is smuggling on nuclear weapons and, somebody attacks New York with those nuclear weapons as it happened in 9/11, the number of dead people would be around 10-15 million or more, and we cannot deal with it'. On the other hand, the U.S. also accepts that, the possibility of this kind of graceless scenario is vey little and more importantly, they are much stronger than they were in the past. However, the real confusing question here is that "if smuggling occurs on nuclear weapons what will we do?" All discussions and comments are aimed to find a response to this rhetorical question.

Turkey's perspective to the issue is quite different when we compare it with its allies in NATO. In other words, Turkish point of view towards the issue is more moderate, local and regional, and more importantly, does not want a second Iraq War in its region. Moreover, Turkey holds a belief that the current behavior of the West feeds the radicalism and violence at the state and terrorist organization levels. Besides, Turkey also argues this kind of Western attitude is the main reason for the violence and the terrorism. In the light of these approaches, there is a huge difference, no doubt, between the two perspectives. Therefore, Turkey's priority is to reduce the differences between East and West, and to establish a constructive dialogue channel rather than the actual missile defence system.

However, we have to accept that Turkey is one of the 28 NATO member states, although certainly not the strongest one. If some country wants to attack Iran, they do not need to get permission from Turkey. Moreover, US on also can do it on its own; outside of the NATO framework as it has already even done it in Iraq. In fact, U.S. can make an intervention easily today because of the support from France, Germany and U.K.

Turkey is aware of its power and prefer to staying closer to the Western system but its demands always aims to prevent the probable conflicts between the East and the West in Lisbon or in other summits. Moreover, Turkey has tried to prevent the alienation between NATO and Iran in the Lisbon summit. Furthermore, of course, Turkey also has advocated its national interest directly and tried to take the appropriate precautions.

Q: What were the demands of Turkey in the NATO summit and to what extent were these demands met?

A: In the summit, there were three demands that Turkey made regarding the missile shield. These demands are as follows:

1) Turkey, firstly, argues that the name of Iran or any other country should not be mentioned as enemy in summit decisions. From this point, Turkey defended demand by saying, "We are establishing this system for defence and will use this system for whoever attacks thus there is no need to mention Iran explicitly; moreover, NATO is a defence system and organization that had defence purposes in nature."

2) The promise of complete protection, not just partial protection of Turkey by this missile system. According to the first drafts discussing on the news; the system did not protect the Eastern Anatolia. As a result, there might be some serious technical problems. For example, in order to protect the eastern side of Turkey, the shields might needs to be placed inner Anatolia, which could ultimately increase the cost of the system. Regarding this issue, Turkey ask "Patriot' missiles in the context of defence system, by free of charge. Interestingly, Turkey also has been planning to buy Patriots before so these instruments also enable the defence of the rest of the country. It is possible to say that Turkey does not have long range ballistic missiles therefore it has an endeavor to decrease the cost of missiles to minimum level. In other words, Turkey has tried to balance the political axle with economic return.

3) Management of this missile defence system should be depends on collective decisions more importantly, solely belong to NATO and the decisions during any steps of the project wouldn't be left to the decision of a single country. However, this situation was reduced to a simple "who will push the button' discussion in the public opinion. Bear in mind that the person appointed as the commander pushes the button. When the missile is launched from a country against NATO members, 28 member states of NATO will not have a long time to make a summit in order to discuss situation. Therefore, whoever becomes the commander for the sake of response, will have the authority of making the final decision and execution. But, the persistence of Turkey in this issue results from the fact that the project is extensive and integrated. For example the formation phase of the project covers a period of more than 10 years and there are many countries, weapons, systems and radars etc. in consideration. Therefore, Turkey naturally seeks for to take part in all phases and to be informed during the process.

All these three demands of Turkey were reasonable. Since we knew that technical issues would not be discussed in the Lisbon summit, our expectation as USAK and researchers working in the international field was that there would be no significant tension or argument. The summit ends as we expected. In other words, the meeting was mainly based on the basis of principles. All three demands of Turkey were accepted. However, it is not accurate to see this situation as a considerable victory for Turkey, because all these three demands were accepted at the expressional level. Turkey struggle for not to mention any name of countries, and NATO did not mention any country's name in Lisbon Summit decisions. However, Sarkozy affirmed openly that Iran is a threat by saying, "We call cats, as cats". Interestingly, in addition to Sarkozy's comments, U.S. Department of State spokesman made the explanation that, "this system is against Iran" before the NATO Lisbon summit. In brief, almost all NATO member states except Turkey, knew that this system was established against Iran. Moreover, everybody knows, Ahmet Davutoðlu knows, Sedat LaÁiner knows, Sarkozy know this attitude and has Iran in his or her minds. Naturally, Iran knows this attitude as well.

Turkey could not convince NATO members that Iran's not being a threat. Although the absence of Iran's name on the document gave benefit to Turkey, everybody knows that the system established for Iranian threat. In Russia, nowadays, some groups seem Iran as the most important threat in their minds. The issue of covering all part of the Turkey was the second demand of Turkish side. On the other hand, of course, this is a matter of negotiations such as "free of charge patriots" or "what kind of contribution these patriots or missile system could make to Turkey's defence". These questions and issues will be discussed and negotiated between parties. Importantly, there were no guarantees given to Turkey in this summit. Moreover, Turkey has already faced similar situation in the First Gulf War. During that period, Turkey demanded for the Article 5 of NATO agreement to come into force. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th articles of the NATO agreement are very important because they provide collective defence to members against any possible attack or war. These articles mainly contain and materialize both the collective defence and the collective response. Moreover, in these articles, the logic of "all for one, one for all' exists, too. As you know, the decisions are taken by unanimity and if any of the member states are attacked, that attack is considered as an attack against all member states. Hence, if Turkey faces a threat, all other countries have to defend Turkey. However, Turkey has bitter experiences in the past. During the First Gulf War, some European countries did not want to execute Article 5 into operation. They behaved very reluctantly and even objected openly, in terms of the Patriot's coming to Turkey and using NATO's force. More importantly, the answers of this scenario "if a problem occurs between Turkey and Iran, and Iran attacked to Turkey; would France, which seems to be against Iran, defend Turkey in accordance with article 5, and send its air force to Turkey?" is debatable and depends on the implementation. Turkey's third demand aimed to discuss on "who will hold the command" issue and to reach a consensus on commander of the system. As we can see so far, the consensus seems to establish between all parties successfully. All countries, includes Turkey, desires this project as NATO project and insists that the U.S not be the commander in charge. In theory, there seems to be no problem, but when we look at the practice the U.S seems to be the boss since the foundation of NATO. Why? It is reasonable because U.S. have money, technology and worthy military power. Moreover, it's defence spending almost as much as the sum of all the whole world's defence expenditures. Since U.S and other member states are not equal in nature, although you can make demand the right to push the button, the commander -who appointed- will give the order. After the commander pushes the button, some problems might occur within fait accompli. If you do not have the technology and the details of the system, which established, you will face, inherently, problems in task/work sharing.

Turkey had three demands in the NATO Lisbon Summit, and members accepted all three of them. However, the time will show us whether they honestly accepted or not.

Q: At the beginning of the interview, you highlighted a big difference between the NATO's and of Turkey's perspective. Some people linked this issue to either ideological or individual reasons. For instance, according to some groups, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs draw emotional response towards Middle East issue and taking unnecessary risks due to the close relations of the current government with Middle East and the Muslim world. Moreover, according to some groups, participation at the NATO Summit can seem failure of AKP foreign policy. How do you evaluate these views?

A: Those kinds of views are wrong. The gap between the perspectives of Turkey and NATO began to widen since the first day Turkey joined NATO and the Cold War period. It is reasonable because NATO states, especially the U.K, did not want Turkey in NATO system. They stressed harshly that Turkey is a country from Middle Eastern and therefore it should be in a system, which is particular to the Middle East. Moreover, according to them Turkey was a different country because of its eastern and Muslim identities therefore don't want it in the organization. Well, what did Turkey do? It has insisted too much for the membership. In this regard, Turkey sent its soldiers to the Korean War and with the initiative of the U.S, joined to the NATO. Turkey joined NATO, but always found itself different and isolated within it. In other words, it does not suitable and connects the differences between Turkey and NATO to one government. On the other hand, NATO did not take these differences into consideration because of Turkey's powerless situation. However, the difference on world perspectives between the two parties started to widen after the Cold War ends. Then, NATO experienced a transition period. After 9/11, NATO started to look alike at Iraq and Afghanistan as its important member states; Germany, U.K, U.S did, which is not compatible with Turkey's perspective. While these countries have been defending the usage of more weapons, and fire power; Turkey has been supporting involvement of different instruments and act as more like a country within the region. Therefore, the changes in the Turkey-NATO relationship have resulted from the changing conditions of the period, rather than the current government. This NATO summit should not be seen as a great defeat or victory. At the same time this summit should not be seen as a finish or an end, too. Adversely everything just starts now. Turkey has managed extremely well up until now. However, this "managing" is not finished yet. There will be more difficult phases from now on. Moreover, it must be known that Turkey will continue its ambiguous attitude towards the issue for a while. In the future, it will not be easy not to stay within West while being not an enemy to the East.

Q: Will countries within the region have any concerns with the installation of a missile defence system in Turkey?

A: When we talk about countries within the region such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, these are countries that the United States acknowledges as allies and partners. Moreover, similarly, Turkey views these countries as partners as well. These countries have no problem with the missile defence system to be installed; hence, they do not perceive a threat for themselves. On the contrary, they support every attempt, which is established against Iran. As I mentioned before, missile defence system is a "defence system". So as long as there is no malevolence, this system is not a system that can be used on its own to attack Iran. For this system to be used against Iran, a missile must be launched from Iran, radar in Turkey must detect this and missiles that are fixed in Eastern Europe or on U.S. warships must intercept the launched missile on its route in air. In this case, they can warn Iran by saying "do not launch missiles; there are no problems as long as you do not launch missiles!" If Iran is launching a missile and NATO is using a system to prevent this, then Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan will not concern about this. Iraq is out of the question since it has not formed its sustainable "willpower" yet. Furthermore, this situation will not cause any concerns amongst the Gulf countries, too.

What will cause concerns for these countries is an attack on land to Iran or an invasion similar to that of Iraq. Therefore, such a concern, generally in the Middle East, is currently not the case. Is there any concern in Iran? Indeed there are. However, the concerns in Iran are not towards Turkey. Turkey's statements and manoeuvres appear to have satisfied Iran so far. I would like to highlight Iran's attitude at this stage. For example, whilst the NATO summit in Lisbon was taking place, Iran was carrying out simulation on missile systems. Iran carried out these simulations to convey the message that "we can attack you" and made provocative statements. Whenever Washington made statements like "Iran can launch its missiles to Europe as well", Iran would carry out simulations that can be interpreted as "yes we can!" In this sense, the U.S. and Iran work in the manner of supporting each other as if they give each other the glad eye. Of course, actors such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran could have been uncomfortable with Turkey's association to NATO's missile defence system, but Turkey's recent moves have prevented this. Even if these actors were uncomfortable with this association, these actors do not have many alternatives. Turkey is already a member of NATO, Turkey does not need such a missile defence system. There are atomic weapons in Incirlik, so if these are to be used against Iran, they are already present. Moreover, the US also has over 200 atomic weapons in Europe as well. A significant portion of these is present in Turkey. Turkey is a member of NATO, and its side is almost fully defined.

Generally, Turkey has managed it well. Of course, there are points that may cause us some concern. This system may be exploited by the U.S. or another actor. For example, if a war was to begin as a result of a conflict between Iran and Israel or because of Israel's own initiative, if Israeli war aircrafts were to attack Iran and if Iran was to respond, and during this response, if the U.S. becomes part of this conflict, and if one of Iran's missiles launched for Israel was to hit a supposedly U.S. warship, and if the U.S. was to say "Iran attacked the U.S., let the Article 5 of NATO be put into action", then NATO will instantly find itself in the war against Iran. One should bear in mind that this missile defence system will be activated only when a missile launched from Iran has a destination towards U.S. or Europe. On the other hand, it is not known whether or not this system will be activated if and when Iran was to launch a missile to hit a U.S. aircraft or warship. However, in all cases an attack is a prerequisite for these systems to be activated. As soon as these systems are exploited, Turkey will have time to make a decision. For this reason, one cannot agree with statements like "we have passed over the command, betrayed Iran and left the Islamic world defenceless".