US President Barack Obama has created a chance to turn Turkey's role in the wider Middle East to maximum advantage simply by going there so early in his term. Turkey, a sometimes prickly NATO ally, holds no magic solutions, but it can help the United States in confrontations and conflicts that stretch from Israel to Afghanistan – via Syria, Iraq and Iran – and from Cyprus to the Caucasus. Obama's April 5-7 visit is a nod to Turkey's regional reach, economic power, unrivalled diplomatic contacts and status as a secular Muslim democracy that has accommodated political Islam. “It's a symbolic piece of public diplomacy at a time maybe not of crisis, but great uncertainty in US-Turkish relations,” said Philip Robins, a Middle East expert at Oxford University. Turkey will not be the venue for Obama's promised major speech in a Muslim capital, but Lawrence Korb, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said his stop there was still a way to emphasize his message of reaching out to Muslims. Obama may unlock the kind of goodwill generated by former US President Bill Clinton when he came to Turkey in 1999, but risks dissipating it all if he uses another G-word, genocide, to describe the fate of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915. “With the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) under control in Iraq and the Americans at least not confronting Iran at the moment, the Armenian issue is the thorniest,” Robins said. In his election campaign, Obama pledged to call the killings of Armenians genocide, and a resolution so to designate them was introduced in the US House of Representatives last week. A similar resolution two years ago was approved in committee but dropped after Turkey denounced it as “insulting” and hinted at halting logistical support for the US war in Iraq. Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks during World War One, but denies that up to 1.5 million died as a result of systematic genocide. Turkish-Armenian breakthrough? Ironically, Turkey and Armenia are perhaps as close as they have ever been to normalizing ties and reopening the border. Omer Taspinar, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, argues that accelerating this process could relieve Obama's dilemma. “This is exactly what President Obama needs,” he wrote, urging Turkey's ruling party to show “visionary statesmanship.” If the Armenian issue can be finessed, Obama has everything to gain from reinvigorated US-Turkish ties, particularly when he is making overtures to adversaries such as Iran and Syria. He has already sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Middle East envoy George Mitchell on visits to Ankara. “Turkey plays a pivotal role in this region,” said Karim Makdisi, at the American University of Beirut. “If you are going down this route of cooperation and dialogue, countries that have open channels like Turkey are the ones you want to talk to.” Turkey, once on uneasy terms with many of its neighbors, now has ties that span faultlines in the Middle East and beyond. “Who else can go to Moscow and Tbilisi, to Tehran and Tel Aviv? Who else can speak to Hamas in Damascus and also to the Egyptians and have good relations with the Saudis?” asked Hugh Pope, an International Crisis Group analyst. US-Turkish ties suffered badly in 2003 when Ankara opposed the invasion of Iraq – and opinion polls show most Turks remain hostile to Washington – but former President George W. Bush's administration began to repair the damage five years later. “The United States is now cooperating with Turkey over Iraq and that has had amazing consequences,” Pope said, noting there had been no big clash for several months between Turkish forces and PKK separatist rebels, who have bases in northern Iraq. Logistical support Turkey, vital to Washington as a logistical hub for US forces that are set to ramp up in Afghanistan and draw down in Iraq, has its own vital interests in regional security. “The breadth of relationships and the involvement of Turkey is huge,” said a Western official in Ankara, citing Turkish mediation between Syria and Israel among other examples. With US-Iranian relations in flux after Obama's offer of better ties last week drew an Iranian demand for US policy changes, Washington values Turkey's input on its neighbour. “Before the president takes any steps on Iran, he wants to hear from the Turks,” the Western official in Ankara said.
