Photo: Fuat Kozluklu

Host: Turkey is a longstanding American ally, but a recent poll by the British Broadcasting Corporation of people in twenty-one countries found that Turks have a very negative view of America's influence in the world. Eighty-two percent of Turks surveyed said they were opposed to U-S foreign policies. Robert Pollock, an editorial writer with the Wall Street Journal newspaper, wrote after a visit to Turkey this year that he found, quote "a poisonous atmosphere - one in which just about every politician and media outlet (secular and religious) preaches an extreme combination of America-hatred and Jew-hatred."

But during a visit by U-S Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkish-U-S relations are at "a positive and mature point." So, what's going on? Is Turkey's political culture and media more anti-American than its government? And if so, why? What are the sources of anti-Americanism in Turkey, and what might change such attitudes? I'll ask my guests: Ali Aslan, Washington correspondent for Zaman newspaper; Bulent Alireza, director of the Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and joining us by phone from New York, Robert Pollock, senior editorial page writer at The Wall Street Journal. Welcome and thanks for joining us today.

Host: Ali Aslan, let me start with you. To what extent do you think there are negatives attitudes toward America in Turkey? Is the BBC poll an accurate reflection of Turkish attitudes?

Aslan: Well I think we should start discussing this issue by saying – by discussing what we mean by anti-Americanism. I think it’s important to define what we mean by anti-Americanism and what those polls mean. If we mean anti-Americanism is like hatred against Americans or hatred against America overall, I think it would be wrong to say that. But if you’re talking about resentments or disappointments with some of the American policies in the region, or some of the attitudes dealing with Turkey, then I think anti-Americanism is on the rise in Turkey.

Host: Robert Pollock, are you there by phone?

Pollock: I’m here.

Host: What did you witness when you were in Turkey? Was it dissatisfaction with U-S policy per se, or would it fall into the other category that Ali Aslan says -- one of disliking America and Americans?

Pollock: Well I wish I could say that it was disagreement with U-S policy, that’s fine, that’s healthy. Turkey is a democracy. Turkey has a right to make its own decisions in the world and I think that anyone who looked at my piece would notice that I was very careful not to criticize Turkey, for example, for not joining us in Iraq. But, what I saw there, and what I’ve observed there -– this was an article that was not written based just solely on one trip. I’ve been observing Turkey as a journalist for eight or nine years and visited many times. What I observed on this trip, I would say is something that is much more than a policy disagreement, and is becoming I think a hatred towards Americans -- a desire to believe the worst about Americans, and a desire to indulge in really utterly silly fantasies. You know of the Turkish press to report stories that are so obviously not true that they would be funny if they weren’t so aimed at creating hatred of America.

Host: What would be an example of that?

Pollock: You know, particularly worrisome is a newspaper called Yeni Safak. That’s worrisome because it’s one of the more influential newspapers now because it’s the one that Prime Minister Erdogan reads. Yeni Safak has reported all kinds of crazy things. They reported that American forces were throwing so many Iraqi bodies into the Euphrates River that local clerics had issued orders to residents not to eat the fish. They reported that Americans used chemical weapons in Fallujah. They reported that there were 1,000 Israeli troops operating alongside U-S forces in Iraq, and perhaps worst of all, they reported that Americans were harvesting the innards of dead Iraqis for sale on the U-S organ market. Host: Bulent Alireza, is that representative of what’s being published in the Turkish media by-in-large?

Alireza: Well, Mr. Pollock has picked up some of the more outrageous examples among the stories that have been out there. And frankly, I don’t know how much good it does to actually repeat stories that may have appeared in Turkish press in a major article in the Wall Street Journal, which, in fact, may exacerbate the situation that Mr. Pollock is in fact trying to improve. But at a broader level, I think what needs to be stressed is that we’ve had bouts of anti-Americanism in the past. In the 1960s sailors over six feet were attacked, the then American ambassador’s car was burnt. In the 1970s Americans were actually assassinated during the left-right guerilla street fighting that was occurring right up to the 1980 coup. So the premise of Mr. Pollock’s article that in fact; “Turkey’s,” lost I don’t share. While I respect his right to actually examine the relationship, I think it’s important not to pick up on these outrageous pieces, and then to conclude from that that the relationship is irretrievably lost.

Host: Well, Mr. Pollock let me send that question then back to you, whether you think that those articles are representative or whether they’re some outlying opinions that perhaps are best ignored rather than being repeated and given more attention to? Pollock: Let me state first of all that I don’t think that the relationship is irretrievably lost, and that’s part of the reason I wrote this article. I wanted to provoke the many Turks that I know value the U-S-Turkish relationship as I do. I wanted to provoke them to make their own voices heard above this din. Unfortunately I do think that the stories I cited earlier are somewhat representative. I think Yani Safak is extreme - it’s something of an outlier - but every newspaper in Turkey indulges from time to time in stories like that. In what kind of country for example does the U-S ambassador feel obliged to organize a press conference to explain to Turkish journalists that secret U-S nuclear testing did not cause the Indian Ocean Tsunami? That’s indicative to me of a country where the level of discourse is spinning out of control in a very unhealthy way. Host: Well, Ali Aslan, the editor of your newspaper, the executive editor of Zaman, wrote recently in response to Mr. Pollock’s article that indeed that journalists in Turkey did have something of a responsibility to be more aggressive in responding to these sorts of conspiracy theories that are out there. To what extent do those kinds of conspiracy theories -– that the U-S is somehow involved in creating the Tsunami or things like that -- do they have much reach or credibility in Turkey? And how are they reported in the press?

Aslan: Well unfortunately conspiracy theories are pretty much widespread in Turkey. That’s a general problem, it’s not only about America, it’s the way, unfortunately, people in that part of the world look at the issues. I think we need to reform as media people, as intellectuals, whoever’s related to this issue. We need to change. We need to reform the way we look at things in the world. So it’s a general epidemic, that’s what I should say. How can we deal with it? I think, you know, the more Turkey gets integrated with European Union, the more our education system is reformed, I think we are going to have a chance to have a better democracy and a better intellectual structure – infrastructure, which would not really permit such conspiracy theories to be so much widespread. That’s what I think.

Host: Bulent Alireza, what’s your sense on conspiracy theories and to what extent do they represent the way people in Turkey perceive events in the world, whether they are involving Turkey, per se, or the broader world?

Alireza: I agree with Mr. Aslan, there is indeed a predilection for the conspiratorial explanation of history. But as a historian, and somebody who specialized on the U-S-Turkish relationship, allow me to put it into the broader context. This is a relationship that was born not out of cultural affinity, or out of ethnic links, or geographic proximity; it was born out of mutual need during the Cold War. Once the Soviet Union disappeared and the Cold War ended, forty years of the strategic relationship came to an end; neither side wanted to end the relationship, both sides were eager to continue with it. Nonetheless, they have failed to construct an overarching mutual agreement to continue the relationship. As a result, there are disagreements that occur, such as whether U-S troops should be allowed to go through Iraq; as to what happened in Iraq after the U-S intervention, and these affect the relationship. Until and unless a new relationship is defined by both sides -- and they’ve failed to do so -- I’m afraid we’re going to get these tensions, we’re going to get the conspiratorial explanations, and the articles, which frankly, make it even worse.

Host: Well Robert Pollock, what’s your sense of what basis the relationship between the U-S and Turkey is right now, and whether as Bulent Alireza said, there can be some new basis for a relationship between U-S and Turkey?

Pollock: Well I think there ought to be a new basis and the obvious new basis ought to be all the revolutionary things that are going on in the Middle East at the moment. I think Turkey could -- if it wanted -- play a very constructive role in developments with regards to Syria and Lebanon and Iran and elsewhere, but what we’re seeing right now is quite the reverse. In fact, at a time where Syria is totally isolated -- I mean even the French side with American policy on Syria -- at this time the Turkish president is going to visit to Syria as a show of support. This is -- Turkey has really stepped outside the bounds of even French behavior, and that’s remarkable.

Host: Well Ali Aslan, what do you make of that, the Turkish president going to Syria at this time when you have the U-N and France and the U-S and a growing chorus of voices calling for Syria to remove itself from Lebanon?

Aslan: Well, I think we need to go back and see the overall Turkish foreign policy strategy. For the last at least five, six years, the Turkish national security council and all the governments [and] administrations which have come, try to build better relations with their neighbors -- with Turkey’s neighbors -- because they think the better Turkey’s relations with its neighbors are, the more secure Turkey will be and the less money we’re going to spend for our military and for all other security needs. So because of that reason, Turkey consistently pursues dealing with its neighbors in a more peaceful way as much as it can and building up relations with them. Visiting Syria is part of that overall strategy. I don’t think it’s a show of protest or anything like that against America as far I’m concerned.

Host: Bulent Alireza, do you think that the president going to Syria right now is or is not a protest against American calls for Syria to get out of Lebanon?

Alireza: I think it’s a mistake. I think it is a mistake for Turkey to ignore all the human rights abuses and all of the outrageous behavior of the current Baathist dicatorship in Damascus, and frankly, putting it into the context of improving relations with neighbors ignores the reality that Syria -- a country to south of Turkey -- is really beyond the pail when it comes to its behavior. And frankly, I foresee additional problems in the U-S-Turkish relationship if the current tensions between Washington and Damascus over Syrian troops in Lebanon exacerbate, which I think is entirely on the cards. Again, I go back to my basic premise in examining U-S–Turkish relations: unless there is agreement as to how both sides should behave in this alliance, problems such as what occurred with Iraq where the Turkish government tried right up until the last minute to maintain relations with the Saddam Hussein government, and the current situation in which Turkey is trying to maintain a relationship with the isolated Baathist regime in Damascus, will cause problems in the U-S Turkish relationship.

Host: Robert Pollock, what’s you sense of how those difficulties are going to get resolved?

Pollock: That’s a good question. On the Syria front, I’d just like to make one more point about how remarkable this visit by the Turkish president is. Syria was the main enabler of Abdullah Ocelan, and of the Kurdistan Workers Party which terrorized Turkey to the tune of thirty thousand or more lives. If for no other reason you would think that Turkey would be happy to see the Assad regime be gone for that. Moving on to the future, I think Turkey needs a smarter, more adult government, and I think - partly it needs a smarter and more adult intellectual climate. One of the remarkable things, very unhealthy things in my opinion -- and this again goes across the secular press and the Islamist press in Turkey -- is this fixation on the role of Israel, and the Jews and the so-called neo-cons and their role in determining U-S foreign policy. This is particularly odd because the so-called neo-cons have long been the biggest promoters of U-S-Turkish relations and the Israel lobby has also been one of the strongest allies of Turkey and the United States. They’re the ones who go to Capitol Hill every year and beat back the Armenian genocide resolution. And it’s almost as if Turkish intellectuals and the current Turkish government are going out of their way to alienate their natural long-time friends, and they’ve got no one to replace them. Who’s going to lobby for Turkey in Washington now?

Host: Well, Ali Aslan, what are the risks for Turkey if there is a growing sense in America that Turkey is wallowing some anti-Americanism, perhaps with those issues, but also with the European Union where President Bush, the U-S has been a very aggressive supporter of Turkish membership in the E-U and has put a lot of pressure in Europe on keeping those talks going? How valuable is that American support to Turkey?

Aslan: American support to Turkey and Turkish American relations is very valuable, very important for Turkey. Yes, Turkey is an important country, and America also has to be much more careful the way it deals with Turkey because it’s seventy million people, it’s one of the most strategic countries in the world, and America needs to be careful too. But I think Turkey needs to be even more careful the way it deals with America. First America is a friend. Second, America is a superpower, whatever you call it. And it’s now being much more interested in our region, in the Middle East and trying to change something. So Turkey should not be part of the problem, Turkey should try to be part of the solution. And the more Turkey tries to build better relations with America, I think the more Turkey will have something to say to Americans on their policies if they disagree. They will be more comfortable in raising their disagreements and perhaps change the way Americans think in that region. I think it’s a very valuable relationship and Turkey needs America more that America needs Turkey.

Host: Well Bulent Alireza, on the question of how much Turkey needs the U-S and how much the U-S needs Turkey, how is that going to play out and are those needs going to be enough to establish the new sort of relationship that you’ve suggested is needed?

Alireza: Well in fact, examining the relationship on a bilateral basis can only take us so far, given the fact that Turkey is a now a candidate for E-U membership and is due to start talks with the Europeans in October this year. Now, the new relationship has to be constructed on a trilateral basis involving Washington and Ankara in addition to Brussels itself. Transatlantic tensions have served to make the Turkish-American relationship even more difficult. If those transatlantic tensions ease up, then it will be much easier to construct a healthier, mutually beneficial Turkish-American relationship -- as long as we can somehow ensure that as Turkey enters the E-U it can also maintain its relationship with the Unites States. I think it’s easy to be pessimistic given the current tensions in the relationship. I’m optimistic about the relationship, and frankly I think at some stage the two sides needing each other will come up with a new formula for maintaining that relationship.

Host: Robert Pollock, what’s your sense of how the U-S and Europe and Turkey all work together -- how that relationship works?

Pollock: Well I admit that personally I’ve always been a bit ambivalent about Turkey’s drive to get into Europe, precisely because I always have valued the U-S-Turkish relationship so strongly, and I’ve been concerned about anything that might work to undermine that. The editorial position of the Wall Street Journal has long been firmly in favor of Turkey joining the European Union, as has been the position been of the American government. I would caution though, the Turks not to get overconfident about their prospects of being admitted to the EU, at least anytime soon. I lived in Brussels for five years, I know how these people think. I would guess that if Turkey’s going into the E-U it’s not for at least probably fifteen or twenty years, if ever. That doesn’t mean that the whole process of Turkey trying to get into the E-U hasn’t been healthy when it has in many ways. It’s encouraged all kinds of pro-democratic reforms and other things in Turkey. So I mean, let’s hope that the Europeans, that even if they don’t find a way to give Turkey full membership, let’s hope that they find a way to keep enough carrots dangling in front of Turkey that Turkey does continue its democratic progress.

Host: Well I’m afraid that’s going to have to be the last word for today. We’re out of time. But I’d like to thank my guests: Ali Aslan of Zaman newspaper; Bulent Alireza of the Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Robert Pollock of The Wall Street Journal. Before we go, I'd like to invite you to send us your questions or comments. You can reach us through our web site at w-w-w-dot-v-o-a-news-dot-com-slash-ontheline. For On the Line, I'm Eric Felten.