that is my take it is tricky in the real political order in the middle east and it is a cruel making to be to play the role of the regional picture mine on the back of. a book about you without your life or must go on to share the headlines now the palestinians are taking to the streets from across the west bank to show support for their leaders big so when you. left us russia tries to help the plan through despite opposition from the u.s. and. the united states is accused of being encouraging the arab spring to achieve its own interests even though it sacrificed the position of its closest ally a lot of israel leaving it in a state of isolation. greece makes some good progress in talks with. the south and hopes to get another aid package to stave off default but the i.m.f.

warns the global economy is in a perilous state the u.s. and eat you close to falling back into recession. right as the headlines here and see do stay with us they were next piddle of elena's cross talk guests explore the role that turkey may play in the arab world following the revolutionary way that swept across the region but cross talk is now. they can. start. to think you are. low and welcome the crosstalk 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 a regional hegemon 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. can.

start. to cast doubt turkey's external ambitions i'm joined by john feffer in washington he's co-director of foreign policy in focus at the institute for policy studies also in washington we have joseph omic he is an adjunct professor at the american university school of international service and in london we crossed a racial xabi she is a journalist and author of not the enemy israel's jews from arab lands all right folks this is cross talk and 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 here turkey has squandered no time talking in some games in strategy with the arab world to a new level last week prime minister rachel player parted on what observers have thought the arab spring tour visiting tunisia egypt and libya and a need to augment the country's clout in the region facing political change addressing crowds of libyans in tripoli and extending offers of help her no one

showed that she was acutely aware of the importance of his timing. the talk or see is ending totalitarian regimes disappearing. experts say are the ones upswing in diplomacy it reflects turkey's growing impatient to become a leading political force in the region itself assurance driven by years 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 and any government that engages life there's a selfish purpose a sense of mission in syria 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 earlier on 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 murder one soft power strategies and much to the detriment of ankara's relations with televisa throwing the ball in israel's court or once 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 spend for its western partnerships back to you peter thank you very much ok rachel i know you first in london are we seeing a new paradigm we see in the washington re i tell of the 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. about by the 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 one steps then on the stage the turkish prime minister. he goes on this middle east into your where he is greeted like a rock star there are billboards massive billboards of him and his picture lining arab streets. there are crowds cheering his welcome in cairo so he seems

to have understood the situation and played it very well adjusted 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. well first of all let me say that the capital of israel in jerusalem not all of it was all yours well i think that's a different topic for a different program but go ahead and know that but it was mentioned that it is between capitals and then it was a nation full of the television i think it was and in the capital well let me come back to your question right away if it's right or wrong side of history to i will say i mean you know you stories being written now and later on we shall know lies in retrospect what really has been easterly a whole world was just passing winds or whatever we're going to look talking about democracy in the middle east is not something that should be 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 and yell and made the point that there could be and there should be peace only when there is a real democracy in the arab world so in that says there is no problem for us and i would very much welcome democratic changes in all the out of countries not just in there one or two that already have countered this situation for example syria i would be much more optimistic about the possibility say off an agreement between israel and syria which is democratic rather day and futility of all the efforts that have taken place for so many years between us and they are genes i mean half is and then they will shut us up so altogether i don't think that this is a question that can be already decided what is exactly the type of peace truly know it's really you know it's kind of interesting deborah to say this but it's very interesting is the people on the ground seem to understand become trees in the world and leaders in the world 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 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 it will no longer be just a surrogate of the west it's been very clear and of course the recent spat with israel me what i'm getting at is that turkey is really standing up in the region is listening and very. much welcoming. you stance 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 establishes 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 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 that with rachel it's the same time anchors that's not going to follow washington's lead like you 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 sort of written into its geographic or d.n.a.

to be able to straddle both sides you know it has one foot in europe one foot it nature is 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 trying to broker situations in the middle east but certainly it has broken with the u.s. in stance with israel of late and having server diplomatic ties with israel it really changed tack after israel's girls 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 garza. 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 of which turkey has set its ties which is a huge loss for israel and i think our biggest area. of joseph i know you want to jump you go right ahead please do you know it well first before i would take issue with some of the facts that rachel mentioned but i would buy this fall and this is a very important point if we need to understand the a.t.p. came to power president treif own material in order to go out and cool. then. very gradual this policy of making turkey away from the close relationship with the u.s. and also with israel and for example we all remember that they refused to support

american efforts in iraq i love getting into the merits of people as if they were right or not i'm just putting it in a real property story context however one should remember that the israeli government tried to well equipped the turkish government under our do and i would remind us all that the previous israeli prime minister was in or always or 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 we still mediation then of course the warring glass eye 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 validly for fuel use in a way that in retrospect one can say what kind of creating think ground will call laying the groundwork for what is a crisis now let me go to john as we 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. really clear is this is not just israel this is netanyahu this is unlike any other pro-government good point joseph is right that israel and 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 and it's been you know absolutely uncontroversial for the germans the german here a girl a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on turkey's foreign policy state with r.t. . this is a city. of about one hundred ninety thousand people and we had eighty fouls and

people working for general motors. or a job that depended on general motors. general motors if it's not relations you it might be your neighbor or somebody you knew it was kind of family run business you know 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 it is that this is a dozen here. in egypt. it is gone who are they. made into work with. 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 it's going to get better general motors simply became too large for their own good and so many brands that they couldn't

even keep up with they just basically became a dinosaur. which was. just. download the official allocation to your body for the i pod touch from the i.q. saps to. life on the go live. video. on tease my old colleagues an r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question on the com. and. welcome back to crossfire computer logo remind you we're talking about turkey's changing foreign policy. can.

live. ok i've got to go back to john in washington john one of the interesting things about turkey as pointed out here is that turkey can deal with hamas hezbollah the taliban are keeping ties with israel the lebanese and afghan governments how far can they go in all those directions without really money up the waters and really alienating all partners at one point tom it's an amazing foreign policy that turkey has to date be able to deal with so many different kinds of partners. and 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 kerrison like foreign policy of its predecessors and it started to repair relations with greece with armenia cypress 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. accrued

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 it's rachel said you know turkey believes that it has a foot on both sides it's it's trying to get into the e.u. but it has 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 its 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 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 and it to what point is the public opinion i think led 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 or something this just isn't going to go down with the electorate there. i'm not sure if turkey wall have to decide or what point it will have to make that decision but it does seem as though that's far it has been able to straddle both worlds i mean we've saw just a few days ago so he committed. anti missile technology being introduced into southern nato sudden turkey that's. as

a nato country as nato second largest military country actually so 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 jersey when we recently had a prime minister the turkish prime minister in cairo as 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 starts out western powers in israel is 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

picture that is being provided about the success of turkish foreign policy. they are almost on the verge of war with cyprus these days as break reconcile process 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 p.g. you have to remember that while the plan original plan of the visit was to have a big speech by prime minister ariel sharon a very square they gyptian government refused to allow him to do so because they didn't like him to inflame. people in egypt actually got in egypt was very enthusiastic about there are millions of people in cairo so i don't know whether we can say it's a majority additional people or not definitely is popular among certain circles there and 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 throughout the modern history of the middle east the arab countries have always rejected any attempt by an all out of power whether it was iran of the shah which is she always or it will be allow 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 so look what may seem to bay to be the tide could be the wave upon which the turks are writing i may seem to be totally different in a short period of time it depends on many valuable smuggling 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 weeks ago maybe six weeks ago or so

the syrian regime of bashar assad tried to divert attention from departments in syria towards the border with israel. aroused opposition in syria itself where not even on one occasion the israeli flag was burned in the streets there and either way also with regard to egypt there are forces in egypt that are cooling down the situation so altogether that i would say look the army is a great leader there's no question about it is very popular out is doing well for his country but he may seem a try to kill 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 what are 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 in our district erin differences is the end of neo colonialism in

the region by the west and i think that's one commonality that the entire region could embrace your respective 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 choose to impose on the facts 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 cannily 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 what do you think about that immunity 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 to support a domestic political card at home for elections for a party where a key. to make sure you be employment or high prices or you know things like that you can say we can come up to you because to me and hard i mean there is an element of that as well was unfair. there certainly is and it has played to a certain extent and perky itself but i think the a.k.k. the ruling party has you know 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 everyone we're talking about the economic investments we're talking about the schools 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 a turkish man carrying aid and that opened the flood gates for other humanitarian aid to go in and this is boosted turkish profile and 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 think 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 it how is israel going to have to really 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 it just relied upon dictators that american help i mean doesn't have a lot more openness now needs to be a lot more finesse now instead of just relying on force. we'll get a spade we never like it was really like those who make peace means that specific people so then look at it's not be issue it goes to want to make peace with as we should welcome them and the question is about democracy to me that he made. before i repeat it now obviously we are in support of democracy all over the middle east because we are a democratic nation we would like to see all other nations being the mcleod taken 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 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 seventy percent is basically downtrodden or surprised by the actual my dynasty i'm not saying that it should 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 what really kind of democracy in iraq but under the no chance really very minor we've 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 next time remember rostock brings.

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