Turkey's Cold War

Foreign Policy and Western Alignment in the Modern Republic

Saban Halis Çalis

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781784531898
• eBook ISBN: 9781786721075
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

Drawing on a variety of sources, ranging from interviews with key figures to unpublished archival material, Saban Halis Calis traces this ambition back to the 1930s. In doing so, he demonstrates that Turkey's policy has been shaped not just by US and Soviet positions, but also by its own desire both to reinforce its Kemalist character and to 'Westernise'. The Cold War, therefore, can be seen as an opportunity for Turkey to realise its long-held goal and align itself economically and politically with the West. This book will shed new light on the Cold War and Turkey's modern diplomacy, and re-orientate existing understandings of modern Turkish identity and its diplomatic history.

CHAPTER 1

A PRELUDE TO THE GLOBAL CONFRONTATION

Turkey's cold war with the USSR started in the 1930s. What was new in 1945 was in fact the beginning of the second stage in worsening relations. On 19 March 1945 the Soviet foreign affairs commissar, V. V. Molotov, handed the Turkish ambassador, Selim Sarper, a notice stating that his country would not renew the Turkish–Soviet Treaty of Neutrality and Non-Aggression of 1925 so long as Ankara would not express its desire to enter into discussions for a new agreement with Moscow. Having made reference to Turkey's foreign policy, especially during World War II, the Soviets believed that this treaty ‘no longer corresponds with the new situation and needs serious improvement’.¹ According to Necla Yongaçoğlu Tschirgi, however, ‘the Kremlin's decision to terminate the treaty demonstrated the suspicion and hostility that had come to characterise Turkish–Russian relations in the twenty years since the conclusion of that agreement.’² About three months after this notice, on 7 June 1945, Molotov, in a conversation with Sarper, explained that before proceeding to negotiate a new treaty it was necessary to solve the outstanding problems between their countries.³ According to Molotov, Russian–Turkish borders needed to be revised, the Soviet Union should be given bases in the Straits of the Bosporus to guarantee the security of the Straits and the USSR, and the Montreux Convention of 1936 should be changed in favour of Russia.⁴ Contrary to some assumptions,⁵ an examination of these demands clearly demonstrates the significant fact that Turkey's cold war certainly did not originate in 1945, or during or after World War II. Instead, as Molotov disclosed, the demands made by the Russians were all an extension of a centuries old Turkish–Russian rift particularly with regard to control of the Straits of the Dardanelles and Bosporus.⁶ This rift dated back to the Middle Ages, with the emergence of Russians in the steppes of Eurasia. Since the establishment of the Russian Empire in Moscow, the mightiest enemy of the Russians were the Turkic peoples surrounding the Muscovites. Turco-Russian conflict became inevitable when the Muscovites (Russians) expanded to the south and south-west, with the aim of reaching warm waters by occupying the Straits and conquering Constantinople, where they wished to establish an Orthodox empire. It remains unclear how many wars broke out between them, but all of them created an atmosphere of enmity and hatred.⁷ These wars, as George McGhee suggests, ‘have followed a similar pattern: in pursuit of her ambitions, Russia has resorted to overt aggression, alliances with Turkey's enemies alternating with offers of alliance with Turkey herself, construction of spheres of influence over buffer states, encouragement of independence movements, and subversion of religious and other minorities’.⁸ As for the Straits, from 1677 to the end of the Ottoman state, their control had become the focal point of Turkish–Russian relations.⁹

The Straits and the Soviets

Initially when the Soviet Union and the Turkish Republic were established in 1917 and 1923 respectively, they enjoyed a period of friendly relations for a while, up to the 1930s. This was the result of a reluctant marriage into which the two countries were pushed by the West in the 1920s. Ideologically they had different ideas. While the Bolsheviks adopted communism, the Kemalists preferred nationalism. Nevertheless, they came together as anti-imperialist nations and had some common interests in foreign policy. Both countries were not happy with the nature and the behaviour of the League of Nations, which had become a puppet of imperialist powers soon after its establishment, contrary to idealistic expectations. They shared the view that countries such as the United Kingdom and France used the League for selfish national interests. For instance, the Turks regarded the League's decision concerning the Mosul question to be merely designed to meet the directives of London.¹⁰ The Soviets never believed the League would play a genuine peaceful role but rather would remain a toy of imperialist nations. This was mainly because the Soviet Union, which emerged as a revolutionary power, considered the traditional methods of diplomatic relations among European powers to be a product of ‘bourgeois culture’ and therefore thought that they were against the interests of the proletariat and the existence of their state. From a broader perspective, there was another reason the Soviet Union and Turkey made an alliance: the Kemalists in Ankara and the Bolsheviks in Moscow, as anti-imperialists, needed each other as friends.¹¹ As a result of these factors, the Turkish–Soviet Treaty of Neutrality was signed on 17 December 1925 in Paris, and this friendship remained essentially unchanged until the 1930s.¹²

As is customary in international agreements, the Treaty of Neutrality began with a statement declaring that it was established on the basis of mutual respect and interest of the two countries. According to Article 1 of the treaty, Turkey and the Soviet Union would be neutral towards each other if ‘a military action should be carried out by one or more powers against one signatory party’.¹³ Under this treaty (Article 2), each party also agreed to abstain from any direct aggression, and participation in any hostile coalitions or alliances against the other.¹⁴ The treaty was originally valid for three years. Later the scope broadened and it was extended, at first for two additional years, then five, and finally for another ten years.¹⁵ But after 1936, Turkey's relationship with Western countries such as France and the United Kingdom began to improve, causing Russia's commitment to their former agreements to weaken and its historical demands, particularly regarding the Straits, to be voiced again.¹⁶

The starting point in the modern Russian–Turkish estrangement and struggle was the Montreux Conference of 1936, which was held at Turkish request, in the town of Montreux, located in the foothills of the Swiss Alps. Having placed its relations with Western powers on a sounder basis than before, thanks in part to Italy's aggressive policies, Turkey had, since the beginning of the 1930s, occasionally sought to revise the provisions of the Lausanne Convention of 1923 concerning the Straits.¹⁷ Under the convention, which established an international commission to oversee the execution of the Straits regime, Turkey had not been given a right to have the Straits in its own possession in terms of security and administration. Also Turkish troops did not possess the right to enter the Straits zone, even in order to defend it. Instead the Four Powers – France, Britain, Japan and Italy – guaranteed its security and thus took control of the Straits.¹⁸ For Ankara it was obvious that this situation was an ‘unacceptable infringement on territorial sovereignty’.¹⁹

Turkey refrained from solving this problem with a fait accompli and a show of power, although such a style of diplomacy was common among European nations in the 1930s.²⁰ Instead Ankara waited for an appropriate time to raise the question through the proper channels of international law. Turkey also hoped that, by utilising such a method, the new agreement would be recognised by all the signatories of the Lausanne Treaty without any doubters.²¹ In the summer of 1935, Turkey first sought the British government's point of view with regard to the issue. At the beginning of 1936, the worsening climate in international relations, and particularly Italy's unpredictable policies, such as the fortification of the island of Leros in the Dodecanese, created an opportunity for Ankara to ask relevant states for the revision of the Straits Convention.²² On 10 April 1936, thanks in part to the events which were to lead to World War II, all states except for Italy, but including Russia, responded favourably to the Turkish request.²³

However, during the Montreux Conference, it soon became apparent that Russia's traditional position had not changed, which was to maintain a hold over, if not directly rule, the Straits regime in order to keep the Black Sea closed to the navies of other powers. Turkey as a small power did not want to stand up alone against this at the very outset of the conference, but the presence of the Western powers, particularly Britain, at the conference was considered by Ankara to be an opportunity to conclude a more favourable agreement. The composition of the participants was an important aspect of the conference, because Turkey viewed it as a forum which could put a brake on the excessive demands of certain countries such as the Soviet Union.²⁴ Turkey expected to establish a balance between powerful countries, for example Britain and the Soviet Union, whose interests in the region were undoubtedly in conflict.²⁵ Taking advantage of balance of power issues was a foreign policy option that Turkey had used since the Ottoman period.²⁶ Consequently Turkey sought to defend its national security and political interests while advancing with great caution to accommodate, at least, the two powers' conflicting views concerning the international legal status of the Black Sea and the control of the Straits.²⁷ By doing so, British friendship and understanding, mainly as a result of the emerging Italian menace to His Majesty's overseas territories, helped Turkey.²⁸ On the other hand, the conference ended with a convention whose terms were also favourable to the USSR as the biggest Black Sea power.²⁹ Furthermore, Russia's aspiration for the navies of countries not bordering the Black Sea to be forbidden entry was satisfied.³⁰

Nonetheless, as Necmettin Sadak (Turkish foreign minister between 1947 and 1950) points out, with the signing of the Montreux Convention, the Soviets' friendly policy towards Turkey, which was principally based on the Treaty of 1925, began changing.³¹ To a great extent this was not a surprise to the Turkish government and diplomats of that time, because the change in attitude had already begun to surface, even on the first day of the conference, when it opened in the Salle des Fetes of the Montreux Palace Hotel.³² It was so apparent that the head of the Turkish delegation, Tevfik Rüştü Aras, could not refrain from conveying his impression to Ankara through a telegram: ‘Russians' behaviour towards us was very much in a negative tone. I could say that it was only the Russians who gave us trouble and even stood up against us on many points on which we did not expect objection.’³³

Publicly Maxim Litvinoff, the Russian foreign affairs commissar, expressed his satisfaction with the results of the conference. However, during and soon after the conference, the Russian press occasionally complained about and accused Turkey of ‘playing the game of the imperialist powers’.³⁴ According to the press, Turkey was a country ‘yielding to the pressures’ of the very same imperialist circles.³⁵ Obviously these opinions in the Russian press, acting as the semi-official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, disclosed the fact that the Soviet government was not satisfied with the convention. Apart from the declarations in the Soviet media, there were other signs indicating the mood in Moscow. From start to end, Russian representatives criticised the conference on the grounds that the convention was insufficient in establishing a reliable security system for the Black Sea and the Straits. For example, Litvinoff seemed very anxious about the fortification of the Straits under the provisions of the convention. Instead of the new system that was set out by the convention, he explicitly proposed a pact that would organise ‘a common defence alignment’ solely devoted to the defence of the Straits. During the conference, he also attempted to gain the support of Romania and Bulgaria in order to establish a new initiative leading to a possible pact in the region. It appeared that the Soviets wanted to establish an organisation that would only involve the Black Sea countries in the defence of the sea and its region.³⁶ However, mainly due to tactful diplomatic manoeuvres by the Turkish delegation, this move was impeded.³⁷ Nevertheless, at the final day of the conference, Litvinoff's talks with Aras in Montreux displayed once again that Russians would never change and would always want more.³⁸

Most European newspapers portrayed the Soviet delegation as people who could not be satisfied. Eventually this forced the head of the Russian delegation to make a statement regarding their position.³⁹ Signed by Litvinoff, the statement read that ‘the demand of the Black Sea states for greater security of their shores does not injure the interests of other states which are given freedom of passage into the Black Sea within reasonable limits for all peaceful purposes’.⁴⁰ For Turkey this exacerbated fears about uncertain Russian attitudes in the long run. Therefore, not surprisingly, Turkey immediately consulted with the British delegation at the conference and tried to develop a common text of agreement, one that would be acceptable to all parties.⁴¹

As a result of Ankara's close co-operation with London, an agreement was at last produced by the conference. It was signed on 20 July 1936.⁴² There was, however, no solid evidence that the attitude of the Russian delegation would change for the better. As was reported by some ambassadors to Ankara in 1936, Litvinoff was the o...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. A Prelude to the Global Confrontation
• 2. World War II and the Soviet Impact
• 3. Twilight Zone between Hot and Cold Wars
• 4. The Beginning of the Cold War and Integration
• 5. NATO and the Turkish Security Concept
• 6. In Defence of the Western Alignment
• 7. Two Decades of Cold War Turbulence
• 8. The Military and Cold War Policy
• 9. The Özal Era and Turkish Detente
• 10. Decision-Making and Cold War Warriors
• Conclusions
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Back Cover