new leadership praising the progress that's already been made despite this questions remain whether nato air campaign it complied with the u.n. resolution last friday in a unanimous resolution of the un recognized the national transitional council as the country's official representatives. next peter lavelle and his guests to explore the role turkey may play in the arab world following the revolutionary wave that has swept through the region our debate show cross talk is coming up on r.t. . hello and welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle turkey and the evolving geopolitical order in the middle east and arab world is ankara making a bid to play the role of the regional head to mine on the back of the arab spring and at the expense of western powers or is it merely following

a foreign policy based on national interests. to cross-talk turkey's external ambitions i'm joined by john feffer in washington he is co-director of foreign policy in focus at the institute for policy studies also in washington we have joseph he is an adjunct professor at the american university school of international service and in london we cross to rachel xabi she is a journalist and author of not the enemy israel's jews from arab lands all right folks this is crosstalk that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it but first i guess it's an understatement saying turkey is a country on the move and didn't hear turkey has squandered no time taking its in gaijin strategy with the arab world to a new level last week prime minister recha type erdogan held what observers have dubbed the arab spring tour visiting tunisia egypt and libya and aiming to augment the country's clout in the region facing political change addressing crowds of

libyans in tripoli and extending offers of help or don't want to show that he was acutely aware of the importance of his timing. the. procedure is ending totalitarian regimes and disappearing. experts say are the ones upswing in diplomacy reflects turkey's growing inhibition to become a leading political force in the region itself assurance driven by here is of having the unique ability to negotiate with all sides of conflicts in the middle east as well as conduct successful trade relations with its neighbors any government that engages like this has a selfish purpose a sense of mission that this area is in turmoil and that since we are in this area we are much more qualified to intervene turkey has in mind the role of an important regional power and with the recent upheaval in the arab world that sense of mission has become aggrandized and arguably more aggressive on the same visit to tripoli are to one vehemently condemned government's crackdown on dissent in syria up until

recently turkey's ally and earlier in cairo he called to uphold the palestinian bid for statehood rallying for the palestinians cause has in fact become one of the pillars of very soft power strategies much to the detriment of ankara's relations with televisa throwing the ball in israel scored early on said some countries in the region cannot read the changes that are happening on top of which israel experts say that turkey is a player to reckon with if that's the case how enduring exactly will its influence in the emerging regional or prove well give its competitors a run for their money or overplayed its hand a big spends of its western partnerships back to you peter thank you very much ok rachael if i go to you first in london are we seeing a new paradigm we see in the washington riyadh tel aviv axis being replaced by ankara and cairo and maybe other capitals in the arab world what i'm getting at are

we seeing a major power change in the region. it's starting to look that way i mean turkey has seemed to be able to read the changes in the middle east. brought about by the ira but risings it's been able to read them very well and it's been able to read them in a manner that other nations other players in the region have not been able to do so precisely at the time when the western when israel can no longer rely on compliant repressive regimes in the middle east like egypt like syria to basically underwrite israeli foreign policy in the region precisely at that time. steps in on the stage the turkish prime minister. he goes on this middle east and tour where he is greeted like a rock star billboards massive billboards of him of his picture lining the arab streets. there are crowds cheering his welcome in cairo so he seems to

have understood the situation and played it very well joseph i'm going to you in washington i'd like to ask the same question but in a slightly different way is our countries like turkey and egypt on the right side of history as opposed to the western powers that constantly keep stumbling over themselves in trying to understand the people but it's been going on most of this year in the arab world. first of all let me say that the capital of israeli generals and not all of it was all good as well i think that's a different topic for a different program but go ahead and of last about the it was mentioned that it is between capitals and then it was mentioned tel aviv tel aviv is a nice city about digitals i mean the capital let me come back to your question right. well if it's dead right or wrong side of history time will say i mean you know you story is being written now and later on we should analyze the retrospect what really is being easterly a whole world was just passing winds or whatever but look. talking about democracy

in the middle east is not something that should have any problem with israel on the contrary i mean as you know for many years israeli leaders and by the way also prime minister netanyahu made the point that there could be and there should be peace only when that is the real democracy in the arab world so in that sense that is no problem for us and i would very much welcome democratic changes in all doubt of confidence not just in their one or two that all of the of the counter disses situation for example in syria i would be much more optimistic about the possibility say off an agreement between israel and syria which is democratic rather day and their futility of all the efforts that have taken place for so many years between us and they are genes i mean hafez and then they bashar said so altogether i don't think that this is a question that can be already decided what is exactly the type of feast really well it's really you know it's kind of interesting that it's made this but it's very interesting as the people on the ground seem to understand the countries in

the world and leaders in the world that are on the right side of history if i go to john in washington what do you think about that because you know we have on one hand you know a true turkey is a very interesting example i know it's been said in the past that it's a very good example of islam and democracy a country that has its own ambitions that will no longer be just a surrogate of the west it's been very clear and of course that the recent spat with israel i mean when i'm getting out is that turkey is really standing up in the region is listening and very. much welcoming the cherokees new stance or greater stance. absolutely and turkey is not just kind of responding to what's going on in the middle east it's inspiring what's going on in the middle east as you point out the a.k.p. party in turkey the ruling party in turkey has successfully kind of moved turkey away from what was a military dictatorship and has proved that you can have a majority islam country that embraces democracy and that stablish is a kind of model of a secular state and a religious society i think that is

a very potent example for the rest of the middle east and you know this is something that the people on the ground in the middle east understand it's something that i think increasingly even the neighbors of turkey understand and it's something even the united states is understanding and remember the united states is planning to work with turkey for a post assad syria according to the latest news from the washington post new york times so it's not like the washington it's not like washington is opposed to in many cases washington is working hand in hand with to respond to what's going on in the region but if i could keep going on i would rachel that at the same time anchorage was not going to follow washington's lead like it did during the cold war and for many years since the end of the cold war we've seen a dramatic change in turkey's political fortunes geo politically and there are almost all net positive. it's not going to follow america's lead no but i think turkey does have the capacity and it almost it's written into its

geographical d.n.a. to be able to straddle both sides you know it has one foot in europe wanted it nature it's able to face both sides and it has proven in the past that it's able to do that in the way that it is tried to broker situations in the middle east but certainly it has broken with the u.s. in stance with israel of late and having sever diplomatic ties with israel it really changed tack after israel's gars assault of late two thousand and eight early two thousand and nine after which over a thousand palestinians were killed most of them turned out to be noncombatants. that was when. prime minister. took to the national stage publicly shamed the israeli president shimon peres at the world economic forum in davos where he said to him you know how to kill people before storming off stage that was

cemented last year after a girl's abound was stormed by israeli military commanders and nine turkish civilians were killed. since then despite you know greater terms and some u.s. pressure there has not been a situation brought about where israel has apologized for those deaths as a result which. so evidence ties which is a huge loss for israel and i think a bigger scale really all right joseph i know you want to jump in go right ahead. yelena well first of all i would take issue with some of the facts that rachel mentioned but i would remind us all and this is a very important point that we need to understand the a.t.p. came to power in two thousand and three five not year old and or two thousand and two and they already den started a very gradual but certain policy of taking turkey away from the close

relationship with the us and also with israel and for example breal remember that they refused to support american efforts in iraq i love getting into the merits of it was that they were right or not i'm just putting it in a real property story context however one should remember that israeli government tried to work with the turkish government and there are two on and i would remind us all that the previous israeli prime minister was in a room with her the one when there was a telephone conversation with president bashar assad of syria and the two parties were not that far away from moving along dramatically between israel and syria with turkish mediation then of course the war in gaza was a problem and i would like now to get into all these distorted descriptions of rachel about what happened there but the point really is the point really is that the turkish government as be a ved already for fuel use in a way that in retrospect one can say was kind of creating the groundwork or laying the groundwork for what is the crisis now let me go to john i want to go to john

before the break we for you john do you think the israelis are gambling too much with their relationship with turkey by not being more flexible. well the clear is this is not just israel this is netanyahu this is the netanyahu government good point joseph is right that israel in turkey had a very strong military relationship economic relationship but the netanyahu government has gone way off the right hand side of the political spectrum it's been absolutely nothing to jump let's jump in here we're going to short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on turkey's foreign policy stay with our team. and.

there's the the a. suit. cut thing. this was a city. of about one hundred ninety thousand people and we had eighty thousand people working for general motors. or a job that depended on general motors. general motors if it's not

relation to you it might be your neighbor or somebody you knew so it's kind of a family run business myself i'm third generation my father was working there and you have a lot of two three and four generation families that are there first let's understand that. this is a man doesn't work. then he should not. it is gong. to work. i think for a long time this notion in america that bigger was better was simply an undisputed fact in the twenty first century smarter better general motors simply became too large for their own good and so many brands that they couldn't even keep up with. who became a dinosaur. and

. welcome back to cross talk and people about to remind you we're talking about turkeys changing foreign policy. ok i've got to go back to john in washington john one of the interesting things about turkey is pointed out here is that turkey can deal with hamas hezbollah the taliban while keeping ties with israel the lebanese and afghan governments how far can you go in all those directions without really muddying up the waters and really alienating all partners at one point and it's an amazing foreign policy that turkey has to be able to deal with so many different kinds of partners. you're right i mean the a.k.p. came out with a foreign policy which basically called zero problems with neighbors and this was

in stark contrast with the almost gerritsen like foreign policy of its predecessors and has started to repair relations with greece with armenia cyprus all across the region now that is remarkable from an economic point of view because of course trade relations have followed the diplomatic warming it's definitely. benefits to turkey on the diplomatic side but there are challenges i mean it's very difficult for instance for turkey to have an agreement with the united states for anti-ballistic missile. base or a drone base which is specifically designed to go up against iran while it maintains a very strong relationship with tehran especially an economic relationship so there are definitely going to be stresses here but as rachel said you know turkey believes that it has a foot on both sides it's it's trying to get into the new but it is also said look

we don't get into the e.u. we can handle that it's a nato member but it's gone up against the united states on a number of issues so it's trying to straddle both both camps and many camps at the same time it will definitely had some challenges but every country has challenges when it tries to balance those relations it's just that we don't expect a middle power like turkey to be able to do that we only expect that from a superpower and i think turkey has very grand ambitions as a middle power in that regard. i think it's very interesting and if we can just kind of push out the the envelope right here at what point does turkey have to kind of decide because we see the nato countries invading arab lands killing muslims in it to what point does the public opinion i think have to really point out here is that turkey is a democracy it has its own challenges but the government there is popular it is legitimate and it has to listen to people and the bombing and killing of muslims is something that just doesn't go and go down with the electorate there. i'm not sure

if turkey will have to decide or at what point it will have to make that decision but it does seem as though thus far it has been able to straddle both worlds i mean we've saw just a few days ago turkey committed to. anti missile technology being introduced into southern nato southern turkey that. as a nato country as nato is second largest military country actually. we have seen that even while it has changed the dynamics in the middle east while it's changed its relationship to israel while it has first been very critical of the nato intervention in libya it does take a very very different stance quite often but at the same time it does seem able to accommodate and honor its commitments to nato if i go to. we have recently had the prime minister the turkish foreign minister in cairo news it was mentioned earlier

the program he was greeted as a rock star do you see a new axis being developed in the in the in the region now or where it started out western powers in israel as one of their surrogates in the region so you can start seeing something very very different here and that the united states and israel and other western powers are going to have to start compromising more instead of dictating terms in the region. well i hate to break up the idea of picture that is being portrayed or about the success of turkish foreign policy. they are almost on the verge of war we cyprus these days as they threaten cyprus and they threaten greece there are only a very very serious collision course with iran over the question of syria but coming back to the point about egypt you have to remember that while the plan or regional plan of the visit was to have a big speech by prime minister and one a day to his square they gyptian government refused to allow him to do so because they didn't like him to inflame. people in egypt. got in egypt was very

enthusiastic but there are millions upon millions of people in cairo so i don't know whether we can say it's a majority of vision people or not definitely is popular among certain circles there not by the way among some of the muslim quarters or parties in egypt but look egypt and turkey cannot and will not fall in a strategic alliance for too long of a time for two simple reasons because so out in modern history of the middle east the arab countries have always rejected any attempt by unknown out of power whether it was iran of the shah which is she always or it will be now turkey which is sunni but not add up to a german eyes out of politics i can see objections coming to this from countries like saudi arabia also by the way from egypt and other countries to look what may seem today to be the tide to be the wave upon which the turks are writing i may seem to be totally different in a short period of time depends on many variables amount then also what will really

happen in syria how it will be interpreted by the iranians and their allies in the middle east so look all this is very very complicated and one thing that we know about the middle east is that the politics of black and white don't work there anymore even the israeli current doesn't work anymore in the sense it used to be in the past. one little example you may remember get fuel weeks ago made babies six weeks ago or so the city of the regime of bashar al assad try to divert attention from the top insincerely out towards the border was the israel it at ows opposition in syria itself where not even on one occasion these larry fled was badly distributed it and right away also with regard to egypt there are forces in egypt that cooling down the situation in seoul to get that i would say look at the armies they greatly there's no question about it he's very popular and he's doing well for his country but he may seem a try to do too much in short period of time and that could be leading to his

downfall later on in terms of foreign policy ok john if i can ask you one of the things go ahead rachel one of things i think is very interesting is that you know in light of what joseph had to say is i don't think that you know we we've always had just black and white from a western point of view looking at the arab and muslim world is very black and white and i think we've been very much surprised over the last few months and i think that's an understatement one thing i think there is a lot of unity not to say terry indifferences is the end of neo colonialism in the region by the west and i think that's one commonality that the entire region can embrace irrespective of your religious sect go ahead. i think i think israel misjudge is this the potential for turkey egypt alliance at its own peril and to attempt to be that dismissive about it and say oh they're not going to accept an arab or they're not going to accept a sunni or whatever division you'd choose to impose on the fact of the matter is that turkey and egypt are already talking about regional alliance and it makes

sense egypt is very keen to punch its regional weight as the largest arab country in the arab world. status that was constantly diminished and downplayed and compromised by the former president hosni mubarak. turkey has candidly understood this kind of regional change and is keen to jump aboard and i also think it's an extraordinary miscalculation to keep saying that the israeli card is irrelevant clearly the palestinian cause is deeply significant across the middle east and until that becomes a focus for israel as well i think israel is running into very dangerous ground john what do you think about that i mean the the relevance here because you know let's be fair here ok i mean this is an important issue among arabs and muslims all around the world i think we all agree with that but then again let's be practical can be used as a domestic political card at home for elections for popularity. to make sure we

employ mentor high prices or you know you can say we can pull up the palestinian card i mean there is an element of that as well was unfair. there certainly is and it has played to a certain extent in turkey itself but i think you know the cape a the ruling party has been popular for id of other reasons namely anomic success as well as foreign policy victories i think you know it's important to recognize that turkey is exerting a great deal of soft power in the region that will last long beyond the a.k.p. in the fortunes of air to one. talking about economic investments we're talking about the schools i mean one visit that you didn't mention that aired over the summer was to somalia this is a place where no foreign leader was willing to go because it was so dangerous and he went there and it's been followed by turkish man and carrying aid and that opened the flood gates for other humanitarian aid to go in and this is boosted

turkish profile in the horn of africa tremendously this kind of soft power that turkey is wielding is far more important in many ways and than the military power that it is unfortunately using and other other parts of the region whether we're talking northern iraq or threatened and cyprus for instance just what do you you know it's very interesting soft power here is played mentioned and i think it's very very important it seems like turkey has done a really good job at mastering it is how is israel going to have to react to this because again we started out the program with democratization is israel feeling more comfortable in a region that is becoming more democratic because there are islamic elements that are involved in these processes that in egypt also we have in turkey is this something that israel has to learn to adjust because for them for decades just relied upon dictators in american help i mean doesn't have to be more of an ass now needs to be a lot more finesse now instead of just relying on force. bit leaders will go to

spain we never like don't dictate those who really like those those who make peace with us for these are the democrats that will be sure to want to make peace with as we should welcome them and they question these about democracy to me that i say make it go. before i'll repeat it now obviously we are in support of democracy all over the middle east because we have a democratic nation we would like to see all other nations being democratic and as i said before for example syria i believe and i have a by the way was a member of the israeli delegation for peace talks with syria in the past i believe that if we would then have a democratic government in syria it will be much more conducive to peace between our two countries than the not so that's just one example but when you talk about democracy what do you mean really i mean if you take for example a country like the kingdom of jordan is it a democratic situation there where the palestinian majority of seven people saying things basically downtrodden or surprised by the answer my dynasty i'm not saying that it to change all i'm saying is when we talk about democracy in the middle east let's face the realities what really are we expected to see and what we mean by

that it's not enough to use the word democracy but really the kind of democracy on the right about but on. a very minute we have run out of time thank you very much to my guest today in washington and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember rostock brings. you. wealthy british scientists like. to talk to guys. like that.

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the international monetary fund says both europe and of us are headed for a double dip recession unless they get their act together on debt and to radically increase growth according to the i.m.f. countries around the world need to revamp their economic policies or face a lost decade the report came as italy was down did by standard and poor's causing more concern over the euro zone's economic outlook. ahead of the palestinian push for full statehood at the u.n. israeli forces prepare for possible what rest. of the trouble is home grown some israeli settlers are protesting in the west bank near palestinian homes this as washington pizza its threat to veto any move to recognize palestine israeli forces are also reinforcing borders and reportedly laying the landmines in some places. and speaking at the u.n. president obama backs libya's new leadership praising the progress that's already been made.