Rasmussen trading

From what is understood from the remarks of Erdoğan, as well as from reading between the lines of statements of President Abdullah Gül, Turkey has agreed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's naming of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the new secretary general of the alliance in exchange for a verbal guarantee from President Barrack Hussein Obama of the United States.

What was that verbal guarantee? Not only would Rasmussen apologize to the Muslim world for the 2005 publications in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper of a set of cartoons of a man said to be Islam's Prophet Mohammed, including one wearing a bomb-shaped turban and another showing him as a knife-wielding nomad flanked by shrouded women that were found insulting, pejorative and slanderous by the Muslim masses throughout the world, but also the Danish government would investigate links between the Kurdish Roj TV channel and the separatist Kurdish Workers’ Party, or PKK, gang and if involvement of the TV station in terrorist activities could be verified, it will be shut down. More? Turkey will be given both the newly-created powerful deputy secretary-general post of the alliance while Turkish generals will be appointed to some top military posts of NATO.

That is, not only Turkey has rubbed the nose of Rasmussen on a wall to lift its "veto challenge" to the Danish premier’s candidacy for the top NATO post by forcing the Danish premier step back both on the cartoons crisis and the Roj TV issues, but also secured a "diplomatic victory" by getting a very senior NATO post as well as some key positions in the military command of the alliance.

While the "one minute" Davos intervention of the premier and his famous "You know well how to kill" yell to the face of Israeli President Shimon Peres was considered a manifestation of the "confrontation" and "aggressive" style of the Turkish premier as opposed to the European "compromise" and "civilized dialogue" understanding, the Strasbourg Rasmussen trading will most probably be taken as proof, as enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn suggested to Finnish state broadcaster YLE, of Turkey failing to internalize such European values as freedom of expression or Alexander Dobrint, the secretary general of the Christian-Social Union, Angela Merkel's sister party, put it is proof of Turkey putting "Islamic propaganda above the future of NATO and our European system of values" and thus "has nothing to look for in the EU."

Winning loser or loser winner?

At this junction, we may have two different approaches to the issue. Firstly, while the Strasbourg Rasmussen trading ended with smiles on the faces of both Gül and Erdoğan, it has to be perhaps questioned to what extend it will help Turkey’s long-term strategic interests, like EU membership. It is obvious that at one point France and Germany will make Turkey pay for the Strasbourg Rasmussen trading, though through Obama’s intervention they might be compelled for the time being a tit for tat deal they might be not so comfortable. On the other hand, it could as well be argued that Turkey has finally learned the EU-style policy making, devised a very well calculated "tension policy", held the entire NATO hostage to its demands and at the last minute, when all hopes of compromise started to fade away, agreed to a lucrative way out and helped resolution of the crisis in exchange of some very advantageous gains it would otherwise not have had the chance to obtain.

Which one of these evaluations is more realistic and can indeed be the eventual outcome of the Rasmussen trading will become clear of course sometime later, perhaps towards the end of this year when the European leaders will converge to make an assessment of the Turkish conformity with the terms and conditions of the accession talks process.

The contacts and remarks of President Obama in Turkey today and tomorrow, as well as the expected press occasion Rasmussen may hold on the sidelines of the Alliance of Civilizations summit on Tuesday will perhaps help shed more light to the terms of the Strasbourg horse trading. The bottom line, however, is the fact that NATO has averted one of its most important internal crisis with the skilled diplomacy of Obama and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.