Washington after Davutoglu

Interestingly, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s Washington visits are following an unplanned agenda for the second time. This time, the visit started on the date WikiLeaks published documents on the Internet; the previous visit was held on the date of the Marmara tragedy. The common point of these two events is that in both of them, the American government was going through tough times. Turkey had the advantage and had the right to get angry. Voicing concerns, embarrassments and apologies was the main subject of the negotiations, as we saw in the WikiLeaks example.

Because of the WikiLeaks case, Obama could not criticize Turkey. So Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and recent national security advisor Tom Donillon could only talk about “crisis management” and “loss assessment” with Davutoglu. That does not mean that if it hadn’t been for WikiLeaks, the negotiations would have been more problematic. Because the NATO summit at Lisbon was fine and there wasn’t a crisis about the “NATO strategic concept,” the Obama administration was pretty happy. That lead to a more positive ambiance than there was a few months ago.

So, what was the impression of Davutoglu’s visit to Washington that happened in the shadow of WikiLeaks? There are three different comments about Washington. For the academic world and think tanks, Davutoglu is being handled in the international conferences positively, as the person who is prestigious and leading Turkish foreign policy with a strategically deep vision of peace with neighbors.

On the other hand, for the Obama administration, the situation is more confusing. Davutoglu’s Iran politics, his hyperactive conception of diplomacy and his pedagogic style are being criticized. The third comment is from the U.S. Congress. Here it is like another planet. Most Congress members and groups — especially the Jewish lobby — get mad at Davutoglu. They are very negative toward Turkey, thinking that Turkey is undergoing a shift in its political axis and starting to follow an Islamic political path. For these Congress members, who see the world as black or white and friends or enemies, this approach is not surprising. The problems in Ankara-Washington relations that began with Iran and Israel issues are being billed to Erdogan and Davutoglu.

Looking at this picture, it is possible to understand that the hardest part of this visit for Davutoglu was Congress. The situation was full of polemics, tense and tough. We should not forget that Congress is very important for both reflecting American public thoughts and being the decision maker on important topics like weapon selling or voting on a resolution regarding the so-called Armenian genocide. Thus, it is vital for Davutoglu to understand the situation first-hand.

Another important part of the visit was the speeches delivered by Davutoglu. As I see it, he spoke at Brookings and Georgetown University and delivered analytically and academically high-quality speeches, as usual. He explained the change in Turkey’s interior and exterior politics and how they are connected to each other. These speeches might be too historical and theoretical for the audiences listening to him. People who are curious about Turkey’s foreign policy’s tangible attitude might not be getting answers. Because of that, as the person who was coordinating the session at Brookings, I remind him that the ordinary people in Washington are curious about the Iran, Israel and Armenia issues. As an answer to these, Davutoglu explained to the audience why Turkey cannot see any solution rather than diplomacy with Iran, why Ankara said “no” to the sanctions, what the Israel problem means for Turkey, and that protocols are still being negotiated with Armenia. As a result, it was another visit, this time under the shadow of WikiLeaks. We hope that some prejudices were overcome by this.