Turkey must revise Mideast policy: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with William Jones, representative of the Executive Intelligence Review in Washington, about Turkey’s former President Abdullah Gul calling on the Turkish government to reconsider its policy toward the Middle East and Arab governments.

Following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: This is interesting comments coming out of the former President Abdullah Gul. Why do you think that he is saying what he is and now as far as the timing?

Jones: Well obviously there is a critical situation in Turkey at the moment. The elections did not turn out too well for President Erdogan. There has been a discussion within his party and within the country with regard to the direction that he was trying to take Turkey away from the Ataturk model of a secular Islamic democracy to that of a more Islamic, more religiously or into the Islamic state.

Prime Minister Gul I believe has been in opposition to this. There have been tensions between the two men although they work together within the government and I think he is adapting a more realistic approach. Turkey has lost significantly by that turn by Erdogan in the region and has also created a lot of unnecessary tensions within the country itself over the direction of his policy and I think he is taking that into consideration making these comments.

Press TV: Well in general if we look at the direction that Turkey has gone on, is there a way for them to go back now? It seems that they have really got involved in the Syrian situation and also with Daesh or ISIL and it appears that the government once upon a time as the former President said, Abdullah Gul, which was trying to at least on the surface befriend those in the region has basically added to a lot of the disruption and disarray that is taking place. Why do you think that Ankara went into that direction to begin with?  

Jones: Well I attribute that to the goals of President Erdogan. I do not know if he still has visions of reviving something like the Ottoman Empire or something like that. I cannot read what was in his mind but it was clearly a shift in policy. Turkey had been playing prior to that relatively positive role in the region. All of the hotspots that had existed Turkey was trying to negotiate and to mediate and then all of a sudden it was a change. And you cannot walk it back entirely.

Daesh is there. It has grown. It has become a force. It is going to be very difficult to deal with but it is very important if the Turkish government then revises the policy with regard to Syria and with regard to their position on Iraq to try and revive a state structure in these regions that possibly can hold the breach against the advance of Daesh. That would be a positive move and I think it can be done but I think there is still a fight ahead because there are people in Turkey that are resisting them.  

Press TV: How likely these decisions that the Turkish government has made up into this timing dealing with the support of Daesh or trying to overthrow the Syrian government to backfire? We have seen some incidents, we have seen some incidents of terrorism taking place inside of Turkey itself but in general do you think that with the direction that it has gone, that it could lead to a backlash inside of Turkey itself?

Jones: Well it already has. We saw that the result in the vote which went against Erdogan’s policy and we have seen it in the region as a whole. The collapse of a viable state governments in both Iraq and Syria and of course the Turks had shifted policy to push for the overthrow of Assad has created the vacuum in which Daesh has moved. So they are directly responsible for that and I think there has to be changes in Turkey’s interest and it is in the interest of the region and I hope it is successful.  

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