Princeton Üniversitesinde Düzenlenen Kitle İmha Silahlarının Yayılmasının Engellenmesi Hakkında Konferans (İng.)

Onur Öymen Contribution to a Seminar Organized in Princeton University, November 2004

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to share with you my thoughts about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and combating international terrorism.

Coming from a country neighboring the potential producers of these weapons, and delivery vehicles, I would like to express you our threat perception and some suggestions on the possible ways of eliminating this threat.

As a matter of fact, Turkey is the only NATO country, which has borders to the Middle East. We are following very closely, the efforts of some countries of the region to produce nuclear and other WMD, and missile systems.

Some of them have eventually produced and tested these systems and missiles. Turkey is within the range of delivery vehicles produced by some Middle Eastern countries. There is a correlation between these countries and those supporting international terrorism. Therefore, our response should be a comprehensive one aiming at an effective deterrence. I believe that our efforts to deter these countries from producing WMD and from supporting terrorism should have various components.

First of all, we should have reliable intelligence and share it among us. The failure of intelligence community of some leading NATO countries in Iraq should lead us to reconsider our ways of gathering intelligence and testing available information.

My second point relates to political determination. Our reaction to the countries producing these weapons and supporting terrorism should be firm, and consistent. We should all have a principled policy in dealing with those countries violating the rules of non-proliferation and supporting terrorism. In reality, the past experiences show that in some cases, the western nations have an a la carte approach vis-à-vis these countries. Their reaction to India and Pakistan is a case in point.

During the first phase of the nuclear programs of these countries, our American friends have shown a strong reaction and tempted to use sanctions against these countries. They urged other NATO nations to strictly control the export of materials of dual use that India and Pakistan could use in their nuclear programs. But all these efforts failed and these two countries were able to produce and test their nuclear weapons and missiles. But soon after American operations against Taliban and el Kaida in Afghanistan and the assistance and cooperation of Pakistan and India to American forces became crucial. Probably this situation forced our American friends to soften their position vis-à-vis theses countries nuclear programs.

Today, it is hard to say that Americans are as determined as they were in the beginning on this subject. This policy change might lead other potential producers to think that our stand against proliferation might not be as sustained and firm as we have presented it in the beginning.

As regards to combating terrorism, we were the first country to applaud the firm stand of American administration against international terrorism after September 11. I was then the Turkish ambassador to NATO and the person who said: “Today we are all Americans.” We supported strongly President Bush when he said, “We have no gray area. Either you support us, or terrorists. We will fight against all terror organizations of the world until the full eradication of terrorism on earth.”

We appreciated that Americans included in their list of terrorist organizations, not only those directly aimed American interests like el Kaida, but also the terrorists organizations attacking the interests of other countries like PKK, responsible of the killing of 30.000 people in Southeastern part of Turkey. Right after the American military operation in Iraq, we were expecting from Americans a strong action against four to five thousand PKK terrorists stationed in northern Iraq. Unfortunately, 1,5 years after the end of American military operation, no action what so ever has been taken against these terrorists.
Today, we have difficulties in explaining our people, why we should take risk by sending our soldiers to Afghanistan to combat the terrorists threatening America whereas the Americans are reluctant to take any risk in Northern Iraq against PKK.

We have a similar experience with European countries. They were quite late in including PKK in their list of terrorist organizations and the day they did it PKK changed its name. It took us about a year to persuade them to add Kongra Gel, the new name of PKK in their list of terrorist organizations. I am sorry to say that we are not fully satisfied with their level of cooperation in repatriating to Turkey the arrested terrorists.

Again, as in the case of producers of WMD, in fighting international terrorism, we need a principled policy and non-selective approach. Any hesitation in taking actions against any terrorist organization that is not posing a direct threat to our own security interest might be interpreted as a sign of weakness and may encourage these organizations to intensify their activities.

In the political front, I we believe that our best option is to expand democracy to the regions of the world where authoritarian regimes prevail.

We are of the opinion that a democratization process with free elections, free press, transparency, check and balance system will be conducive to a better environment for combating international terrorism and maintaining peace and stability. On this point we agree with President Bush when he expressed similar views in a speech he delivered in North Caroline University in the spring of last year presenting his Greater Middle East Project.

In fact, it is generally agreed that there will be no war among democratic countries. What is missing in the Middle East is that besides Turkey and Israel, there is no real democracy in the area. Therefore, we should join our efforts to support the peoples of these countries aspiring for democratic governance.

One should not forget that most of these countries are Muslim nations and democracy cannot flourish in a Muslim society unless you have a secular system. The reason why Turkey is the only democracy among 54 Muslim nations is that we have a secular government in the last 70 years and we made secularism as one of the basic pillars of our Constitution.

We appreciate the efforts of our American friends aiming at the democratization of Iraq. But we regret that some members of the American administration stated that they could live with a Muslim democracy in Iraq.

There is not such a thing as Muslim democracy, while if you implement fully the rules of Sheria you cannot observe some basic rules of Western democracies like gender equality. Therefore if our American friends want to present Turkey as a model to these countries they should stress the secular aspect of our society and refrain from suggesting Turkey to become a “Mild Islamic Republic”.

More meetings of this king bringing together scholars and civil society groups will be very beneficial for a better understanding of each others opinions and for profiting from each others experiences. Therefore I would like to express once more my gratitude to the organizers of this seminar.

Thank you.