Aftermath of WWII and the Transatlantic Alliance

The factors driving Europe into a second war, provoked the traditional political culture wherein not institutional but personal attitudes, passions and choices dominated the state affairs³⁶⁸. This tendency was ended up with the leaders’ acquisition of a deepened and expanded freedom which sidelined institutionalization and led them into a position where statespeople were shielded by privileges and immune to the rule of laws. The ones engaged in politics and public administration and management had their

363 Ahmad, Bir Kimlik Peşinde Türkiye, 121.

364 Baskın Oran, “1939-1945: Savaş Kaosunda Türkiye: Göreli Özerklik- 2”, Türk Dış Politikası:

Kurtuluş Savaşından Bugüne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar (1919-1980), ed. Baskın Oran, 13th ed., v. 1 (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2008): 397.

365 Ahmad, Bir Kimlik Peşinde Türkiye, 121.

366 It has to be noted that since the country signed an alliance agreement with Britain and France on the eve of war (on 19 October 1939) Turkey is defined as non-belligerent, not a neutral country.

367 Oran, “1939-1945: Savaş Kaosunda Türkiye: Göreli Özerklik- 2”: 391.

368 Heper, Türkiye’nin Siyasal Tarihi, 43.

inclination to exhibit a position of all-or-nothing; that they had never been seeking to reach a common decision or solution³⁶⁹. This peculiar type of doing politics stimulated political figures to criticize others’ failures and mishaps not for finding a middle ground but for the other’s defeat. The Turkish political leaders that once they were elected, remained in the office until they were toppled; due to the weak democracy the resignation remained not very common in the Turkish culture³⁷⁰.

War conditions and her decision of avoiding it precluded Turkey from starting any attempt or initiative concerning the events in her neighborhood, thus her involvement remained limited with non- military forms of intervention such as humanitarian aid. In the perspective of Greek-Turkish relations, such cases were recorded during the Great Famine in Greece, between the 1941-1942 German occupation³⁷¹.

Although, she stayed neutral during much of the war, Turkey declared war against Germany on 23 February 1945 approximately 2 months before the end of the WWII.

Turkey aimed to guarantee her place in the emerging international system following the war and be a member of the United Nations together with the Allied countries that were the victors of the war. İnönü’s decision to make a transition to multiparty politics can also be evaluated in this light, i.e. as an effort to side with the USA and Allied powers. Democracy was emerging as a predominant value of the US-led Western system following the defeat of fascism. Although Turkey succeeded in her commitment to stay out from war, the economic and social conditions of the country worsened than ever³⁷². As a result of mobilizing approximately one million men for the possible war, Turkey’s production rates decreased and even the most essential agricultural products went on the black market. Consequently, at the end of the war, a new bourgeois class consisted of those accumulated their capital through the war took their place on the scene of politics³⁷³. Moreover, in the post-war period, the links with the West strengthened, and Turkey established closer ties than ever; not only

369 Baskın Oran, İlhan Uzgel, “Türk Dış Politikasının Teori ve Pratiği”, 20.

370 ibid, 37.

371 About the destructive effects of the mass starvation in Greece and the humanitarian relief supported by Turkey via the famous Turkish cargo ship –Kurtuluş–, see, Elçin Macar, İşte Geliyor Kurtuluş:

Türkiye’nin II. Dünya Savaşı’nda Yunanistan’a Yardımları (1940-1942) (İzmir: İzmir Ticaret Odası, 2009).

372 As to exemplify the condition of the country; it has to be recorded that in 1945 the country’s agricultural production ratio was 60 % less than the rate of 1939; moreover, in 1942 the inflation rate soared to 93,7 (a year ago it was 38,5%). See, Oran, “1939-1945: Savaş Kaosunda Türkiye: Göreli Özerklik- 2”, 389–90.

373 ibid, 391.

ideological but also economic and military. The strong desire to become an integral part of the West stayed as the main motive behind the Turkish foreign policy decisions during the Cold War years –under the threat of the Soviets³⁷⁴. To this end, the Turkish bureaucracies and elites fostered a sort of positive tendency towards the West and took a position against communism in order not to get shattered up to their country's foundations. The Turkish identity and nationalism, therefore, nurtured mainly with anti-communist premises of the Western Bloc³⁷⁵.

In 1947, when the Truman doctrine was introduced, Turkey’s western alliance became cemented and furnished with further developments including her acceptance to OEEC³⁷⁶ in 1948 and to the Council of Europe in 1949, and eventually to NATO in 1952, which was instilled as an utmost important membership of the country in the traditional Turkish nationalism. In fact, not only her zeal for westernization but also her perception of the intense Soviet threat had been effective in determining international relations of the country get anchored in the western camp³⁷⁷.

During the Cold War era, including three military coups³⁷⁸ (in 1960, 1971, and 1980), a common understanding was formed about the reliability and consistency of the

374 Bozdağlıoğlu, Turkish Foreign Policy and Turkish Identity, 58.

375 In fact, confining Turkish nationalism only within the-right-wing nationalist parties would not display the true image of the country’s nationalistic overtones. The Republican Peoples Party and afterward The Democratic Left Party, for example, were left-wing parties with nationalistic preferences observable in the speech of the latter’s leader -Ecevit, following the Cyprus movement of Turkey, he makes reference to the Justice Party of Süleyman Demirel during whose government poppy planting was banned, and to the Nationalist Movement Party of Alparslan Türkeş- for explaining the distinctive nature of his nationalism. In his words : “We do not take nationalism lesson from Demirel and Türkeş.

Dear sisters and brothers, we had written the nationalism, not on the street walls, but on the lands of Cyprus, on the seabed of the Aegean. We had written the nationalism on the poppy fields of Western

Anatolia”. See, Bülent Ecevit’in Tarihi Konuşması,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZzBkG8EEzU. [13.08.2019].

376 Re-organized and re-named as OECD in 1961.

377 Turkey’s allegiance to NATO and the West continued relentlessly; that when the USSR, following Stalin’s death in 1953, tried to forge a close bond with Turkey, the government replied that there was no one –neither in the Democrat nor in the Republican Peoples Party– who would take a step that would damage her relations with the USA. Another Russian attempt to restore friendly relations and launch peace offensive with Turkey took place shortly afterward the fall of PM Adnan Menderes. In response, PM İsmet İnönü stated that Turkey was integrated into the Western system and therefore it would be impossible for her to become neutral or an ally and cooperate with the USSR. According to Feroz Ahmad, post-27 May coup period was more dependent on NATO and America than the Democrats had been, following his words: “Turkey had opted for the hard American position in the cold war and was reluctant to abandon it even after Washington had done so”. See, Feroz Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy 1950-1975 (London: C. Hurst & Company, 1977), 393.

378 Although the military had been kept out of politics during the rule of Mustafa Kemal, following his death they got involved in taking necessary measures “for the protection of the existence and independence of the State, the unity and indivisibility of the country, and the general interest, and peace and security of society” as part of their intrinsic task. See, Metin Heper, The State Tradition in Turkey (North Humberside: The Eothen Press, 1985), 126.

country's security arrangements that were almost completely backed by NATO forces, with the exception of two events: The Cuban Missile Crises of 1962 and the Cyprus Crisis of 1964 (and so-called Johnson letter³⁷⁹). Turkey, for the first time, questioned her rigid Western alliance, especially her NATO membership and the assurance given to her, and the disadvantages of pursuing US-based interests and policies³⁸⁰. In other words, the western bonds of the Turkish identity and the sense of trust were bruised.

These developments, especially the obstruction of the US President Lyndon Johnson on Turkey’s accessibility to the NATO ammunition and equipment in a struggle for her individual interests (namely intervening in the conflicts so as to secure the Turkish minority in Cyprus) formed the basis of the long-term Anti-American sentiment in the country.

In fact, leaving its neutral stance and balance foreign policy, her pursuit of US policies gave the impression that Turkey was an American satellite country. This opinion led the country to get isolated and diminished its efficacy and role of inspiration among the other countries that were struggling against the Western world for their independence³⁸¹. Turkey was left alone in the UN (most Third World countries did not support Turkey³⁸²), on 18 December 1965, about the resolution of General Assembly to restrict the limits of Turkish rights and interests on Cyprus.

During the coalition government of Republican Peoples and National Salvation Parties, in 1974, after the first and the second ones (in 1964 and 1967, respectively) suppressed –in a sense abated; the third Cyprus crisis sparked, with riots and revolts

379 For a detailed study on the effects and repersuccions of the Johnson letter in the Turkish foreign policy and society, see, Haluk Şahin, Gece Gelen Mektup: Türk-Amerikan İlişkilerinde Dönüm Noktası (İstanbul: Cep Yayınları, 1987); On the other hand, another derogatory statement, by the same name, was being screened for Greece: “F*** your Parliament and your Constitution, America is an elephant, Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If those two fleas continue to itch the elephant, they just may get whacked by the elephant’s trunk, whacked good". These intemperate words were reportedly spoken to the Greek ambassador in Washington by President Johnson in 1964. See, William Mallinson, A Modern History: Cyprus (London and NewYork: I.B. Tauris, 2005), 1.

380 Until then Turkey did not distinguish any conflict between her own role and the role cast by NATO for her and see no harm in leaving her neutral policies. Such examples could be as: Turkey detached herself from the movement of non-alignment at the Bandung Conference, Turkey voted against the independence of Algeria at the UN, etc.

381 Baskın Oran, “Bağlantısızlar ve Türkiye”, Türk Dış Politikası: Kurtuluş Savaşından Bugüne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar (1919-1980), ed. Baskın Oran, 13th ed., v. 1 (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2008): 677.

382 Due to the fear of being dragged into a new war and Stalin’s threats, Turkey adopted anti-communist government policies as a state tradition. Thus, it continued as a routine of governments until the detente.

For a brief list of the western-oriented activities of the governments, see, Tunçay, “Siyasal Tarih (1950-1960)”, 180.

that disrupted public order. This time the attempt to land Turkish troops on the island succeeded and Turkey confronted the arms embargo imposed by the USA which caused shortages of military supplies and equipment and rocketing of their prices. In this period of détente, Turkey embarked on forging a healthy relationship and closer ties with the USSR to re-maintain her traditional balance-diplomacy between the two superpowers. According to Yücel Bozdağlıoğlu, this re-orientation of Turkish foreign policy “was not a result of an identity crisis” and “Turkey’s identity crisis was in most part related to her relations with Europe rather than the United States”³⁸³. Not only the US embargo but also the decline both in the Soviet threat perception and in the strategic importance of Turkey could have caused this shift and provided appropriate conditions to adopt a much neutral stance in her international relations. Yet the country was both not sure and not ready to retreat into neutrality. According to Feroz Ahmad,

“[t]he East-West détente always worried Ankara, for the foreign policy specialists argued that Turkey’s geographical position was too delicate to enable any government to pursue neutrality”³⁸⁴. Therefore, for a long time, the country had retained to be the only one within the other NATO members that had not improved her relations with the USSR³⁸⁵.

In the wake of her foreign policies’ reversal, Turkey was trying to balance her relations with western and eastern initiatives and commitments, by keeping a high profile in the NATO missions and supporting the US policies, as well as, making several agreements with the USSR³⁸⁶ especially on trade and technology³⁸⁷. Westernization throughout the Cold War was not limited to NATO affiliation, Turkey in order to obtain a formal western identity decided to follow a second track shaped by long-term foreign policy calculations of the country. This decision, however, would lead her into a ceaseless pursuit of Europeanization that was maintained also in the difficult times of the country; such as the periods of fragile coalition governments and of coups. Probably

383 Bozdağlıoğlu, Turkish Foreign Policy and Turkish Identity, 67.

384 Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy 1950-1975, 402.

385 Erel Tellal, “SSCB’yle İlişkiler”, Türk Dış Politikası: Kurtuluş Savaşından Bugüne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar (1919-1980), ed. Baskın Oran, 13th ed., v. 1 (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2008):

775.

386 Although several Russian-Turkish attempts recorded in this period, according to Feroz Ahmad

‘Turkish foreign policy changed its structure but not its foundations’ because ‘Ankara’s relations with Moscow were modified, in keeping with guidelines established by NATO’. See, Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy 1950-1975, 421.

387 Such were also included funds for the establishment of Aliağa Oil Refinery, Seydişehir Aluminum Factory, Bandırma Sulfuric Acid Factory, Artvin Timber Factory, İskenderun Iron and Steel Factory.

See, Tellal, “SSCB’yle İlişkiler”, 782.

of the belief that the country was a sound member of the West, under the premiership of Adnan Menderes, subsequent to her NATO membership, Turkey made an application for associate membership of the European Economic Community in 1959.

Apart from reasons such as strengthening the economic development or proving the Europeanness of the country, the ‘Greek factor’ as has been marked by a good many of scholars could have been another motive that triggered Turkey to apply for an association agreement only after two months later than the Greek application. The-then FM Fatin Rüştü Zorlu stated that “If Greece is jumping into a swimming pool, it is essential to follow her even though that pool is empty”³⁸⁸. However, in this period, Turkey’s European venture remained limited and problematic due to political turmoil and economic downturn in Turkey which made the fulfillment of commitments under the Association Agreement and Additional Protocol impossible.

The most important political development during the cold war years, with its transformative effect on the Turkish identity can be the 1980 coup. In Turkey, although the military had ousted the democratically elected governments for two previous times the 1980 takeover left behind a painful scene which was like ‘a battlefield’; that it approximately blacklisted two-millions of citizens –ranging from trade unionists, politicians, teachers to journalists; in brief almost anyone with leftist or right-wing worldview³⁸⁹. With the 1980 coup, the military was such strongly aspired to make a new start in Turkish politics³⁹⁰ that even the archives of the political parties

“disappeared and were probably destroyed”³⁹¹. Traditionally, the military professionals were barred from involving in statecraft by the Ottoman dynasty and the Turkish bureaucracies, respectively. This attempt, however, had never succeeded and the coup’s grievous damage to the democratization of Turkish identity³⁹² resulted in

388 Sadık Rıdvan Karluk, Avrupa Birliği ve Türkiye (İstanbul: Beta Yayınevi, 2002), 465.

389 Bülent Tanör, “Siyasal Tarih (1980-1995)”, Türkiye Tarihi 5 - Bugünkü Türkiye 1980-1995, ed. Sina Akşin, 2nd ed., v. 5 (İstanbul: Cem Yayınevi, 1997): 92.

390 According to Akşin, 12 September made the most brute Atatürk enmity while saying that they were the Atatürkist. During this period, they also attempted the Turkish-Islamist synthesis to become the state’s official ideology. See, Sina Akşin, “Düşünce Tarihi (1945 Sonrası)”, Türkiye Tarihi 5 - Bugünkü Türkiye 1980-1995, ed. Sina Akşin, 2nd ed., v. 5 (İstanbul: Cem Yayınevi, 1997): 221.

391 Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, 279.

392 The 1980 coup d’état imposed many prohibitions and restrictions on the young Turkish democracy, with the promise of ensuring the safety of citizens in the public sphere such as universities or streets.

This new secure freedom zone –the 1980s Turkey– brought limitations on personal freedoms, which was particularly perceived by the detention and arrest in the name of security investigations. Among others striking ones could be listed as; freedom of religion and belief (by forcing the students of primary and secondary education to take compulsory course of Religious Culture and Knowledge of Ethics based on a single sect which would paradoxically be propagated as the secular state’s religion), freedom

re-wakening of armed authority fear among the citizens and raising apolitical generations³⁹³. Consequently, the Turkish culture and the everyday life were extraordinarily depoliticized; that making politics was confined between the politicians and paradoxically the military of the country.

The 1980’s junta took significant steps also in the Turkish foreign policy, such was the case with Greece’s re-admission to NATO’s military wing³⁹⁴. Previously, Turkey had demanded from Greece to demilitarize the Eastern Aegean island in compliance with the Treaty of Lausanne but the Turkish demand was refused by the Greek authority declaring that Greece had a right to defend her territory. Subsequently, NATO Alliance excluded Limnos (located on the northeastern part of the Aegean just off the Turkish shores) from its ‘threatened area’ assurance because of Turkey’s objections to fortification of the Greek islands. Due to its condition of unanimity, decisions on admitting new members to the Alliance had to be taken unanimously, as was laid in Article 10 of the Washington Treaty. This condition caused another deadlock between Turkey and Greece when the latter’s request for re-entry into NATO had been blocked by the refusal of the first since 1976. Subsequent to the 1980 Turkish coup, the-then Greek Foreign Minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis extensively aired the Greek warnings to NATO and threats to the USA that if a solution for the Greek re-admission to the Alliance could not have been achieved the American military bases in Greece would have been removed³⁹⁵.

of mass media (firmly cemented with the establishment of Radio and Television Supreme Council in 1994), freedom of science and arts, freedom of association (including right to strike and syndicate), freedom of assembly and demonstration, and the state of emergency implementations became common and continual. See, Tanör, “Siyasal Tarih (1980-1995)”, 91–98.

393 Contrarily, Göle points out that the post-1980 period was not apolitical, instead, it was a harmonious period where the old polarization and conflicts of the 1960s and 70s between the right and left wings of the country were replaced by coexistence and consensus. See, Nilüfer Göle, “80 Sonrası Politik Kültür”, Türkiye’de Politik Değişim ve Modernleşme, ed. Ersin Kalaycıoğlu, Ali Yaşar Sarıbay (İstanbul: Alfa Yayınları, 2000): 425.

394 In 1974, As a protest Greece left the military wing of NATO following the Turkish Operation of Atilla in Cyprus

395 In Mitsotakis’s words: “We do not want to do it. We do not want to be De Gaulle, but Greece must return to the alliance, or it must withdraw its application for a return before the Greek elections next year. […] It is crucial that the United States try to persuade Turkey to reach a solution in the next few weeks. The new military government will be taking a position during that time, we are not trying to set deadlines or employ blackmail, but this has to be settled well before the election campaign begins” See, Jim Hoagl, “Greece Threatens to Cut Ties to NATO”, The Washington Post, 1 October 1980,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/10/01/greece-threatens-to-cut-ties-to-nato/76ba0fc5-b937-4ab4-8d33-146630b7aadd/. [21.08.2019].

Following these developments, the Turkish junta broke the deadlock and lifted the veto on Greece’s re-entry into the military wing of NATO, holding hopes for a political return in favor of Turkey that was allegedly promised by General Bernard W. Rogers of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe to General Kenan Evren of Turkey³⁹⁶. The relations with the EC, on the other hand, after the coup, were suspended until 1986³⁹⁷. One year after the restart of relations, Turkey made a formal application to join the EC which caught the European by surprise since they were involved in the task of completing the internal market and had already expanded to include Greece in 1981 and Spain and Portugal in 1986. The Commission prepared its opinion on Turkey’s application which put forth that Turkey was not yet ready to become a member. The then PM Turgut Özal in an effort to support Turkey’s application to join the EC published a book in French³⁹⁸ and distributed throughout Europe. It is worth mentioning that according to the official Turkish view in the book, the roots of the European civilization had not nested in the geography of Modern Greece but in Anatolia and Mesopotamia wherein Turks had long settled as ‘home’ since the prehistoric periods. Reportedly, Hittites, Ions, and the first Anatolian Christians were the ancestors of Turks, as by marriages the descendants of the Turks were mingled with the descendants of the Christians³⁹⁹.

396 Answers of Kenan Evren –Chief of the General Staff of the 1980 Coup– to the questions asked (31 years after the coup) by the prosecutor of the coup investigation that took place in 2011 also covered the abovementioned Rogers Plan. His explanation –an extended public hearing– about the developments that could be simplified as ‘NATO decision was a mistake’ were as follow: “Question: Turkey has experienced problems with Greece in the Aegean for years. After the coup, the USA and the states that were effective in the region such as Britain reacted positively to the September 12 military coup.

Accordingly, was Greece’s return to NATO promised, before the coup? Answer: [This question] had always been asked to me. Before September 12, Turkey had been under intense pressure, also from NATO’s Supreme Commander Rogers, for Greece’s return to NATO. And the government was sending a delegation to NATO to negotiate these issues, from time to time. This delegation also included the-then Deputy Chief of General Staff Haydar Saltık. The government was stipulating certain conditions for Greece’s return, but NATO did not accept it. After the seizure of the government, pressures continued on this issue. Rogers said “[if] you let Greece return to NATO, I will make Greece accept your terms. We obtained a promise from them.” I trusted in him and approved Greece’s return to NATO.

However, after our approval, there was a change of government in Greece; [that] Papandreou came and did not accept our terms. We were assured that Greece would sign the conditions we had given Rogers in written. It was a mistake to allow Greece’s return to NATO without a written assurance. See, “İşte Kenan Evren’in Sorgudaki İfadeleri”, İnternet Haber, 18 June 2011, https://www.internethaber.com/iste-kenan-evrenin-sorgudaki-ifadeleri-354051h.htm. [22.08.2019].

397 “Türkiye Avrupa Birliği Kronolojisi (1959-2015)”, TC Avrupa Birliği Başkanlığı, https://www.ab.gov.tr/files/5%20Ekim/turkiye_avrupa_birligi_iliskileri_kronolojisi.pdf. [22.08.2019].

398 Turgut Özal, La Turquie En Europe (Paris: Plon, 1988).

399 Etienne Copeaux, Tarih Ders Kitaplarında (1931-1993) Türk Tarih Tezinden Türk-İslam Sentezine, trans. Ali Berktay (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2006), 357–59.