margetts. you know what's really happening to the global economy is a report on our. welcome back this hour to you live from moscow. stories thousands of jubilant palestinians pour into the streets over the west bank in support of a bid for statehood at the u.n. the government services and schools were closed down so people could participate in that mr. there's a standoff over palestinian sovereignty brewing and the un general assembly support for palestine could clash with a veto wielding the u.s. which is pushing for a relaunch of peace talks between israelis and palestinians. and the eurozone teeters under its rapidly piling debts with greece trying to speed up cuts before

european commission inspectors descend the i.m.f. meantime is warning global finances and are more vulnerable than at any other point since two thousand and. eight how those are the headlines here and. ellen is cross talk explore the role that turkey may play in the arab world following the revolutionary wave that swept the region because right now and thank you for watching. take. the low end well from the crosstalk i'm peter lavelle turkey and the evolving geo political 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 always had merely following a foreign policy based on national interests. 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 those at all mike 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 in here turkey has squandered no time thinking its english and strategy will bear world to a new level last week prime minister rachael type of on what observers have thought the arab spring toward visiting tunisia egypt and libya and into augment the country's clout in the region based on 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. of all talk or see as ending totalitarian regimes disappearing. experts say are the ones upswing in diplomacy reflects his 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 like this has a selfish purpose a sense of mission that in syria is in turmoil and that since we are in a syria 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 an arguably more aggressive on the same visit to tripoli or 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 verdon soft power strategies and much to the detriment of anchor his 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 about 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 overplay its hand of expense of its western partnerships back to you peter thank you very much ok rachael for i know you first in london are we seeing a new paradigm we see the washington re i tell 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. brought about by the up 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 and tour where he is greeted like a rock star there are billboards massive billboards of him with his picture lining the streets. there are crowds cheering his welcome in cairo so he seems

to have understood the situation and played it very well i just if i'm going to you in washington i'd like to ask the same question 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 and trying to understand the other people but it's been going on most of this year in the arab world. but first of all let me say that the capital of israel is jerusalem not all of it was all you know so i think that's a different topic for a different program but go ahead and all that but it was mentioned that it is between capitals and then it was nation tel aviv television i think it was and i mean the capital that let me come back to your question right. well if it's right or wrong side of history i will say i mean you know you stories being written now and later only shallow lies a retrospect what really has been 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 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 you better there is no problem for us and i would very much welcome democratic changes in all the out of countries not just mean there are no two that already have countered this situation for example syria i would be much more optimistic about the possibility say of in agreement between israel and syria which is democratic the other day and there futility of all the efforts that have taken place for so many years between us in the ass jeans i mean half is in mashallah so altogether i don't think that this is a question that can be already decided what is exactly the type of a story well it's really you know it's kind of interesting that if they decide it's very interesting as the people on the ground seem to understand their countries in the world in 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 actually 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 very very clear and of course the recent spat with israel i mean what i'm getting at is that turkey is really standing up in the region is listening and very. much welcoming. you 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 the established as a kind of model of a secular state in 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 all like washington is opposed to it's 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 was rachel it's the same time anchorage that's 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 not written into its

geographic or 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's tried to broker situations in the middle east but certainly it has broken with the u.s. in its stance israel of late and having so the diplomatic ties with israel it really changed tack. after israel's gars assault of 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 one 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 bound aid flotilla 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 a bigger scale. of joseph i know you want to go right here please to. before i would take issue with some of the facts that rachel mentioned but i would remind us all this is a very important point we need to understand the a.t.p. came to power in two thousand and three for a material in order to go out and cool they already had been. a very gradual but certain policy of taking turkey away from the close relationship with the us and

also with israel for example breal 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 properly story context however one should remember that israeli government tried to work with the turkish government under one and i would remind us all the previous israeli prime minister was in a room with her two on 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 was 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 s.b.a. of the already for fuel use in a way that in retrospect one can say was kind of creating a crown will call laying the groundwork for what is because of our let me go to

john as we go to germany for the break we for you john you think the israelis are gambling too much with the relationship with turkey by not being more flexible. well i am going to be clear is that this is not just israel this is netanyahu this is and yet they are going 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 unconscionable for john i want to jump in here we go short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on turkey's foreign policy stay with our team. and say. look. this was a city. of about one hundred ninety thousand people and we had eighty thousand

people working for general motors. and of them general. general motors as you can see 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 are there first let's understand that. this is a man doesn't work. in he said. it is gone. then 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. general motors simply became too large for their own good and so many brands that they couldn't

even keep up with. as became a dinosaur. download the official t. up location. i pod touch from the. one child's life on the go. video on demand. an r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. can say. welcome back to crossfire computor little remind you we're talking about turkeys changing foreign policy. can

see. 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 you 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 be able to deal with so many different kinds of partners. you're right i mean the a.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 of its predecessors and it's hard 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 warm and 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 is 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 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 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 it we see nato countries invading arab lands killing muslims into what point does 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 that's just doesn't go and does go down with the electorate there. i'm not sure if turkey wall have to decide or at what point it will have to make that decision 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 southern turkey that. as

a nato country as nato is 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 just what we have 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 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 portrayed here about the success of turkish foreign policy. they are almost on the verge of war with cyprus these days as they crept in cyprus and they trek and greece there are only a very very serious collision course rizzi around with the question of syria but coming back to the point about egypt you have to remember that while the plan original plan of the visit was to have a big speech by prime minister ariel on 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 but there are 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 on

a strategic alliance for too long time for two simple reasons because throughout the modern history of the middle east the arab countries have always rejected any attempt by a known our power whether it was iran of the shah which is she or whether it will be now turkey which is up to a german eyes out of politics i can see objections coming to gays from countries like saudi arabia also by the way from egypt and other countries to look what may seem too big 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 from 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 card doesn't work anymore in the says it used to be in the past. one

little example you may remember weeks ago maybe in six weeks and also the syrian regime of bashar surprised to divert attention from the trouble sincerely up towards the border with israel it could eat aroused opposition in syria itself where no people on one occasion these larry fled 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 i would say look you still have two armies that greatly there is no question about it is very popular he's doing well for his country but he may be may cry too good too much in short period of time and that could be leaving push down for 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 in our district kerry in 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 order not going to sunni or whatever division you choose to impose on our part 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 in con 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 a very dangerous ground john 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 work to be practical can be used as a domestic political card home for elections for popularity. make sure it will employ me and your high prices or you know things like that you can say we can pull out the palestinian card i mean there is an element of that as well was unfair . so 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. and the fortunes of everyone we're talking about the economic investments we're talking about the schools one visit you didn't mention that over the summer was the 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 of 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 another other parts of the region whether we're talking northern iraq were threatened and cyprus for instance and 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 in 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 no more finesse now needs to be a lot more finesse now instead of just relying on force. at least we're going to spain we never really liked the paper was really like those who make peace with people so that. those who want to make peace with as we should welcome them and the question is about democracy me let me say maybe fifty. before i repeat a cloud of your city 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 in

a crowd and as i said before for example syria i believe and i have a by the way was a member of his 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 action by 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 what really democracy in iraq about the no chance of any very minute 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. still next time remember rostock news. story

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