NATO future seems unclear

Although Turkey has been a member of NATO for more than half a century, opposition to the alliance and the country’s membership persist through today, the organization’s 60th anniversary.

As protestors from all over the world stage demonstrations in Kehl, Germany, and Strasbourg, France, where a summit of heads of state will take place this weekend, their Turkish allies will gather in Kadıköy, on the Anatolian side of Istanbul on Saturday. Their motto is, "No to NATO. The 60-year-old criminal gang NATO should be dissolved."

Former diplomats and mainstream politicians, however, continue to defend the existence of NATO and the benefits Turkey has reaped as a member of the alliance. NATO was founded in the bipolar world of the Cold War in 1949 and one of the main ongoing debates is whether NATO has lost its function since the early nineties when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Retired Ambassador İnal Batu is among those who do not believe NATO has lost its significance. "NATO has gained new functions. It had a significant role in the Balkans and now tries to solve a difficult issue in Afghanistan," Batu said. Former Foreign Minister Hikmet Çetin also believes NATO gains new functions in a world where new conflicts constantly erupt.

"After the Cold War ended, the world was optimistic and hoped for a future without conflicts, wars and tensions. But in a short time it appeared that was not a reality," said Çetin, referring to the Balkan conflicts. Currently NATO also struggles against terror, he said.

However, Ertuğrul Kürkçü, the coordinator of Bianet news site, said NATO created a new enemy after the Cold War to justify its continued existence. "It invented Islam as an enemy," he said.
İhsan Çaralan, the editor in chief of the socialist daily Evrensel, said NATO is being-restructured as the attack force of the United States similar to 50 years ago.

Opponents of the 28-nation bloc generally come from the far left end of the political spectrum and carry with them the related historical perspective. "From its start, NATO was founded as an imperialist alliance, and for around 40 years it has worked to enable the capitalist world to rule the rest of the world," said İhsan Çaralan, the editor in chief of the socialist daily Evrensel. "And now it is used to sustain American imperialism’s sovereignty."

According to Onur Öymen from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, lack of information is behind the objections to NATO. "To view an organization in which Turkey has a veto right this way, means viewing Turkey as an imperialist country," said Öymen, a retired ambassador who was Turkey’s permanent representative to NATO between 1997 and 2002.

Çaralan, however, said the alliance is not only imperialist but has also used Turkey as a "forward police station" of imperialism. "While Turkey was exploited by imperialists, it was also like a police station on duty against socialism," Çaralan said.

For both opponents and supporters, NATO membership symbolizes Turkey’s ties with the West. Batu is among those who have said Turkey should keep its NATO membership as long as its accession to the European Union remains ambiguous. "If [joining the] EU was an aim that could be realized in the short term, membership in NATO might lose its importance, but EU membership is still being debated," Batu said.

Çetin also emphasized that since the foundation of the Republic, Turkey has chosen the West and Western values. "Turkey became a member in all Western institutions, from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to the Council of Europe," said Çetin, who also served as the civil representative of NATO in Afghanistan. "NATO is a Western institution as well."

For socialists, the cost of Turkey’s choice has been high. They allege that NATO established counter-guerilla organizations, known in some cases as Gladio, in all member countries to fight communism. "The Ergenekon gang is what remains of the counter-guerilla organization that NATO founded," Çaralan said.

In the ongoing Ergenekon trial, members of an alleged gang are accused of trying to create chaos in Turkey to topple the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government. Many retired military officers, as well as some journalists and writers known for their secularist beliefs, are on trial. Some accuse the government of instigating a witch-hunt against its secularist opposition, a claim the AKP denies.

"What we call Gladio is a NATO product," said Ertuğrul Kürkçü, the coordinator of Bianet news site. "In France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Turkey and other European countries, NATO runs special war operations and psychological warfare by means of assassinations and sabotages to criminalize the left and disgrace it," he said. "It made Turkey lose its democracy and eliminated the atmosphere for a peaceful domestic policy." Opponents say Turkey could not develop an independent foreign policy because it fell in step behind NATO. "If Turkey cannot show solidarity with Abkhaz in the conflict with Georgia, it is because Turkey cannot develop an independent foreign policy," said Ufuk Uras, the parliamentarian from the socialist Freedom and Solidarity Party, or ÖDP. "Turkey is the oldest ally of the U.S. in the Middle East," Çaralan said. "Since Turkey is a NATO member, it needed to distance itself from its neighbors and Russia."

Those favoring NATO’s existence say Turkey, and especially the country’s armed forces, has benefited from membership. "The financial support Turkey has received from NATO is much more than its financial contribution to NATO," said Hüseyin Bağcı, an international-relations academic at Middle East Technical University in Ankara. "The modernization of the Turkish military, its evolution, is by the virtue of NATO. If it did not exist, the Turkish military would not be different from the Syrian or Iraqi army today."

Moreover, supporters say, NATO has acted as a protective umbrella against the Soviet Union. "It was a great advantage for Turkey’s security to be a NATO member during the Cold War. Turkey remained out of conflicts," Öymen said.

"In difficult times, when the Soviet threat was ongoing, when the Russian government had territorial claims in Turkey, when Turkey was poor and underdeveloped, NATO gave a hand to Turkey for its strategic importance and its great military," Batu said.

But according to Uras, the death of Turkish soldiers in Korea before Turkey became a NATO member was one of the country’s primary losses. "Losing that many people in the Korean War, which had nothing to do with us, just to become a NATO member is shameful when we look at it today."

Kürkçü said if Turkey invested the money it spent on armaments into health, education and industrial development, it would be a much wealthier country today.