A New Ottoman Empire?

1 Hasan Cemal, Sabah, 30 April 1992, quoted from Isil Kazan & Ole Wæver, `Turkiet mellem Europa og europeisering', Internasjonal Politikk, No. 2, 1994, pp. 139-75, at p. 161.

2 Quoted from Kazan & Wæver, 1994, p. 161. On the Turkic ties to the former Soviet republics, see also Turkkaya Ataov, `The Language Bond - The Turkic-Speaking People of the Former USSR', NATO's Sixteen Nations, Vol. 38, No. 4, 1993, pp. 67-72.

3 The Black Sea Economic Cooperation Community was initiated by Turkey, and Turkey plays a leading role. It includes Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. In Ukraine, Demirel referred to the Crimean Tatars as Turks and as a `bridge of friendship' between Turkey and Ukraine. (Vladimir Socor, `Demirel Asserts Turkish Interests in Ukraine and Moldova', RFE/RL Research Report, Vol. 3, No. 31, 12 August, 1994, pp. 19-20.)

4 Peri Pamir, `Turkey, Transcaucaus and Central Asia', Security Dialogue, Vol. 24, No. 1, March 1993, pp. 49-54, at p. 51.

5 Keesing's Record of World Events, 1992, p. 38930.

6 Keesing's Record of World Events, 1992, p. 38973.

7 Pamir, 1993. See also Kazan & Wæver, 1994. The Azerian lobby in Ankara sought to convince the government of the necessity of a Turkish intervention (see Morton Abramowitz, `Dateline Ankara: Turkey after Özal', Foreign Policy, Vol. 91, Summer, 1993, pp. 164-181). On 20 May 1992, Prime Minister Demirel ruled out the use of force in Nakhichevan (Keesing's, 1992, p. 38925). However, in early September 1994, Prime Minister Tansu Çiller said: `If one spot of Nakhichevan is touched, I will go to the Parliament and obtain authorization for war'. On 9 September, after meeting with Yeltsin, she stated: `We see no immediate threat to Nakhichevan'. (Keesing's, 1993, p. 39650).

8 Bruce R. Kuniholm, `After the Gulf War: Turkey and the East', pp. 453-466 in Herbert Blumberg & Christopher French, eds, The Persian Gulf War (Lanham, NY & London: University Press of America, 1994),

9 Marko Milivojevic, `Russia and Turkey: Reasons for Rapprochement', Middle East International, 22 July 1994, p. 17.

10 Iver B. Neumann, Regional Great Powers in International Politics (London: Macmillan, 1992). Because of the weakening of Iran and Iraq and Syria's new orientation after the Gulf War, Turkey's position has become relatively stronger. Turkey also controls the rivers of the Euphrates and Tigris (See Beate Slydal, `Tyrkiske utenrikspolitiske ambisjoner i en ny internasjonal setting', in Bernt Bull & Anders Kjølberg, eds, Et nytt Øst-Vest skille i Europa, Oslo: Cappelen/Europaprogrammet, 1994).

11 Uffe Østergård, `The European Character of the Ottoman Empire', pp. 87-107 in Lars Erslev Andersen, ed., Middle East Studies in Denmark, Odense: Odense University Press, 1994. Constantinople was a cosmopolitan city with Greeks, Turks, Arabs, Jews, Italians, Russians, as well as many Balkan peoples like Bosnians, Albanians and Macedonians trained for the Ottoman bureaucracy. More than one tenth of the present Turkish population is said to derive from various Balkan peoples. Even Serbs, who have created an identity as warriors of Christianity, were present. Today, Serbian tradition glorifies the battle against the Turks in Kosovo 1389, not the battle against Tamerlane in Ankara 1402, where the Serbian flank of the Ottoman Army was the most heroic one - `fighting like lions', to quote Tamerlane.

12 Ole Wæver, `Europe's Three Empires: A Watsonian Interpretation of Post-Wall European Security', in Rick Fawn, Jeremy Larkins and Robert Newmann, eds, International Society After the Cold War (Macmillan & Millennium, forthcoming). See also Adam Watson, The Evolution of International Society (London: Routledge, 1992).

13 Eric Rouleau, `The Challeges to Turkey', Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 5, 1993, pp. 110-126. See also Keesing's, 1992, p. R127.

14 Different views appear in Moscow between `Europeans' and `Euro-Asians' and between `realists' and `alarmists'. `Euro-Asians' stress the ties developed between Russians and the peoples of Central Asia; `alarmists' view the Turkish and Iranian influence as a threat to vital Russian interests. See Vitaly V. Naumkin, `Russia and the States of Central Asia and the Transcaucasus', pp. 183-215 in Robert D. Blackwill & Sergei A. Karaganov, eds, Damage Limitation or Crisis? - Russia and the Outside World, CSIA Studies in International Security No. 5, Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (Washington & London: Brassey's, 1994).

15 Pamir, 1993, p. 52. Some authors believe, however, that `Iran may be Russia's preferred partner to counterbalance Turkish expansion'. See Alexei Arbatov, `Russian National Interests', in Blackwill & Karaganov, 1994, at p. 71.

16 Shireen T. Hunter, Turkey at the Crossroads: Islamic Past or European Future, Centre for European Policy Studies, CEPS Paper No. 63, 1995, p. 94.

17 Bruce R. Kuniholm, `Turkey and the West', Foreign Affairs, Vol. 70, No. 2, Spring 1991, pp. 34-48.

18 Iver B. Neumann & Jennifer Welsh, `The Other in European Self-Definition', Review of International Studies, Vol. 17, No. 4, 1991, pp. 327-348.

19 Samuel Huntington, `The Clash of Civilizations?', Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3, Summer 1993, pp. 22-49, at p. 42.

20 Alan Cowell, `War on Kurds Strains Turks' Ties to Allies', International Herald Tribune, 18 Novenber, 1994. The number of Kurds in Turkey is a quite controversial question, and intermarriage between Kurds and Turks makes it even more difficult to give anything but a rough figure. Morton Abramowitz cites a figure of 10-15 million (Abramowitz, 1993, p. 174). The official Turkish figure is lower.

21 Hugh Pope, `Radical New Message', Middle East International, 22 July 1994, p. 13. See also Rouleau, 1993.

22 Keesing's, 1994, p. 40244; TT-AFP, Dagens Nyheter, 12 October 1994, p. 15; and Alan Cowell, 1994. According to Akin Birdal from the Turkish human rights organization, 2,540 Kurdish villages and hamlets had been destroyed by Turkish military forces as of autumn 1995 (Seminar on the Kurds in the Middle East, Oslo 24 September 1995).

23 Hunter, 1995, p. 62.

24 Cowell, 1994; Hunter, 1995, pp. 48 and 62. See also Hugh Pope, `In for a Rough Ride', Middle East International, 29 April, 1994 p. 14; and Abramowitz, 1993, pp. 174-175.

25 Hunter, 1995, pp. 74.

26 Michael Bishku, `Atatürk's Legacy versus Religious Reassertion: Secularism and Islam in Modern Turkey', Mediterranean Quarterly, Fall 1992, pp. 75-93.

27 Slydal, 1995.

28 Hunter, 1995, pp. 60 and 65.

29 Dilip Hiro, `Turkey's Islamists Challenge the Establishment', Middle East International, 29 April 1994, p. 17. Keesing's, 1994, p. 39923.

30 On this I am indebted to comments made by Pavel Baev.

31 Rouleau, 1993. See also Shireen T. Hunter, 1995.

32 Among others, the Laz, the Arabs and the Alavi Shi'ites. The above use of organic metaphors - to `amputate arms and legs' from `the nation's bleeding body' - reflects real perceptions and real mental processes forming today's nation-states. Such organic metaphors played an important role for nation-building during the last century and for nationalist parties up to World War II. Today, these perceptions are re-appearing, which justifies the use of an organic political language including `family', `blood' and `body'. Such concepts - when they correspond to actual perceptions but contradict general `political correctness' - create a critical distance.

33 Wilfried Herz, `Auf dem Trittbrett aufwärts', Die Zeit (Wirtschaft), No 38, 16 September 1994, p. 25.

34 Dmytro Pavlychko, `Europa vidchula sjtsjo vona bilsha nissj zdavalosj', Viche, No. 8, November 1992.

35 The existence of this letter was confirmed by Yegor Gajdar at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo, Spring 1995.

36 John Lough, `Defining Russia's Relation with Neighboring States', RFE/RL Research Report, Vol. 2, No. 20, 14 May 1993, p. 60.

37 Ola Tunander, `Inventing the Barents Region', pp. 39-44 in Olav Schram Stokke & Ola Tunander, eds, The Barents Region - Cooperation in Arctic Europe (London etc: SAGE 1994)

38 Huntington, 1993.

39 Rouleau, 1993, p. 111.