This policy failed, maybe quite expected, both internal and abroad. Its ideas were based on a number of assumptions of which some were maybe to ambiguous. One of them was that Turkey would be equally interested in normalising the relations with Armenia as Armenia was with Turkey. The other was that Nagorno Karabakh, in one way or another, could be reunited with Armenia and they could at the same time establish normal relations with Turkey. The third was that the Armenian rulers expected the Turks to "forget" the issue of the genocide, since Armenia had put it aside. For the fourth, they assumed that the question of solidarity, not to mention the racial affiliation, relations and Pan Turkish emotions were not essential in Turkey and would not hinder the policy which HHSh regarded as highly rational. And finally one must add the poor judgement of HHSh, or maybe the ignorance, in regard to the political views of the ruling Turkish class and the public opinion in Turkey.
In order to comprehend the reasons to this failure in a better way, we shall render a short view of the Turkish foreign policy and the political feelings in Turkey at this moment in time.
Perspective and patterns of argumentation, based on Pan Turkism, has dominated the general stream in Turkey since mid 1980s. The most common news papers, such as Hürriyet or Milliyet, referred diligently to the Turkish people in the Soviet Union as "dis Türkler" (foreign Turks). The leading ideology among the ruling elements and many established academician and intellectuals came from the right winged think tank "Aydinlar Ocagi" (The heart of the intellectuals). At the creation of Aydinlar Ocagi in the 1970s, its ideas defined, in the highest degree, the party program for the fascist and the Pan Turkism party of Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi (National Movement Party), MHP. As an expert has stated: "the striving of Aydinlar Ocagi to present a legitimate front for the extreme nationalistic and racist ideas is extremely important if MHP should be able to establish its own version of the Turkish nationalism." 100 Nevertheless, from the late 1970s, the communications and the contacts between the Kemalist military-civilian bureaucracy and Aydinlar Ocagi increased, which resulted in the legitimacy of this think tank.
Aydinlar Ocagi does in no way propagate for a simpler version of Pan Turkism, but suggests a "federation of the Turkish speaking states, including the Persian Tajikistan, under the leadership of Turkey." 103 The solidarity with Azerbaijan is a natural part in this ideology.
It was under the influence of similar ideologies that the Turkish public was almost euphoric about the possibilities of Turkey's foreign policy at the beginning of the 1990s. The Communism and the Soviet Union had collapsed and from its ruins new sates, miraculously, were rising, states populated with Muslim ethnical cousins. But in the overall view, the Turkish foreign policy remained quite conservative until 1991, since the foreign department was able to withstand the pressure from this enthusiasm. 105 But in the beginning of 1992 the ministry realised that "there was no possibility for pursuing of the traditional policy about status quo as such, since the old status quo did not exist no more". 106 A new world, full of opportunities, was opening before Turkey and Turkey could form this new world. Hence the new "active foreign policy" (aktif dış politika) of Turkey was born, also known as "Neo-Ottomanism". 107 Since Azerbaijan played a vital role in this policy, Turkey would neither allow any consolidation of the Armenian victories in Nagorno Karabakh nor show any tendencies for normalising its relations with Armenia.
|
