Sean Foley: Turkey and the Gulf States in The Twenty-First Century
[Sean Foley is an Assistant Professor of History at Middle Tennessee State University and will be a Fulbright research scholar in Malaysia from September 2010 until July 2011. He specializes in the Middle East and religious and political trends in the broader Islamic world.]
In October 1927 Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Ataturk delivered a historic speech in which he explained why Turks had to abandon the Ottoman Empire and embrace his new state. Ataturk pointed out the high cost and futility of seeking an empire extending beyond Turkish-populated lands:
"Do you know," he asked, "how many sons of Anatolia have perished in the scorching sands of Yemen?" In future, Ataturk promised, Turks would no longer die in wars in Yemen or the Arabian Peninsula—a region of the world that had become synonymous with the plight of the Ottoman soldier in Turkish folklore and popular songs. Ataturk's successors closely adhered to his warnings and put a priority on Turkey's relations with the United States and Western Europe over its ties to Arab states during the Cold War.
For their part, many Arabs emphasized their suffering under four centuries of Ottoman rule and their resistance to the Turks. During a banquet in Mecca in 1931, the King of Saudi Arabia, Ibn Saud, pointed his finger at an Ottoman prince and described how his ancestors had fought those of the prince rather than call themselves servants of the Ottoman Caliphate. Decades later, Saudi school textbooks hailed their kingdom as the great "torch" that had lit the "path of liberation" of the Arab world from the yoke of Ottoman rule and European imperialism.
Few disagreed in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Arab world when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser declared Turkey persona non grata in the Arab world in 1954 after Ankara opposed Algerian independence. As recently as 2002, Turkey and Saudi Arabia accused each other of committing "cultural" massacres after Ankara criticized Riyadh for razing a historic Ottoman-Turkish Fort in Mecca to make way for a new housing project.
A year later, however, a series of events began a rapid improvement in relations between Turkey and the Arab world—especially the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Not only has bilateral trade and investment blossomed, but Ankara and GCC governments have also synthesized their approaches toward many (but by no means all) foreign policy challenges in the Middle East. When Saudi King Abdallah made his landmark visit to Turkey in 2006, his guards told their Turkish counterparts in Turkish that they had come to their "second homeland."
Other Gulf leaders have followed Abdallah to Turkey, and Turkish leaders expressed warm words when visiting the Gulf. During Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan's trip to Riyadh in January 2010, he stated that Turkish cooperation with Saudi Arabia was just as important as Turkey's desire to join the European Union....
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In October 1927 Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Ataturk delivered a historic speech in which he explained why Turks had to abandon the Ottoman Empire and embrace his new state. Ataturk pointed out the high cost and futility of seeking an empire extending beyond Turkish-populated lands:
"Do you know," he asked, "how many sons of Anatolia have perished in the scorching sands of Yemen?" In future, Ataturk promised, Turks would no longer die in wars in Yemen or the Arabian Peninsula—a region of the world that had become synonymous with the plight of the Ottoman soldier in Turkish folklore and popular songs. Ataturk's successors closely adhered to his warnings and put a priority on Turkey's relations with the United States and Western Europe over its ties to Arab states during the Cold War.
For their part, many Arabs emphasized their suffering under four centuries of Ottoman rule and their resistance to the Turks. During a banquet in Mecca in 1931, the King of Saudi Arabia, Ibn Saud, pointed his finger at an Ottoman prince and described how his ancestors had fought those of the prince rather than call themselves servants of the Ottoman Caliphate. Decades later, Saudi school textbooks hailed their kingdom as the great "torch" that had lit the "path of liberation" of the Arab world from the yoke of Ottoman rule and European imperialism.
Few disagreed in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Arab world when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser declared Turkey persona non grata in the Arab world in 1954 after Ankara opposed Algerian independence. As recently as 2002, Turkey and Saudi Arabia accused each other of committing "cultural" massacres after Ankara criticized Riyadh for razing a historic Ottoman-Turkish Fort in Mecca to make way for a new housing project.
A year later, however, a series of events began a rapid improvement in relations between Turkey and the Arab world—especially the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Not only has bilateral trade and investment blossomed, but Ankara and GCC governments have also synthesized their approaches toward many (but by no means all) foreign policy challenges in the Middle East. When Saudi King Abdallah made his landmark visit to Turkey in 2006, his guards told their Turkish counterparts in Turkish that they had come to their "second homeland."
Other Gulf leaders have followed Abdallah to Turkey, and Turkish leaders expressed warm words when visiting the Gulf. During Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan's trip to Riyadh in January 2010, he stated that Turkish cooperation with Saudi Arabia was just as important as Turkey's desire to join the European Union....