The Agenda

Author:Professor Dr.Ramazan Gözen of Ankara's Çankaya University

We can consider NATO’s Istanbul meeting and its results under three captions.

The first and most important of them is that NATO ministers introduced a fresh initiative within the context of a new operation in Afghanistan. The need for a new initiative is based on the new strategy of the Obama administration, which believes that things are not going well in Afghanistan. The primary objective of the new strategy announced by President Obama on December 1, 2009 is to win the war against terrorism in Afghanistan by 2011 and withdraw US troops from there. Obama placed special emphasis on this goal once again in his State of the Union address on January 28, 2010 because ending the Iraq and Afghanistan operations successfully has been the most important foreign policy target since his election to the Presidency. That is why Obama has concentrated on pulling US troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan within this framework.

However, unlike in Iraq, operations in Afghanistan need the support of NATO members and the other countries to be concluded as desired. The Afghanistan operations have been under the command of the International Security Assistance Force since 2001.NATO earlier said Obama's new Afghanistan strategy would be supported, and 7 thousand additional troops would be sent.

All the concerned countries, US in particular, acknowledge that fighting terrorism through military ways cannot be sufficient. Just like in Iraq, civilian and political methods and channels have to be used for the fight to be effective and to attain its target. The plan is to integrate Taliban and other opposition groups with the system by setting up a dialogue.

In line with the deal struck at the NATO informal meeting in Istanbul, three steps will be taken in the forthcoming period. The first step is for NATO to help train the Afghan armed forces and the police organization. This is believed will bring the Afghan state to the point where it can safeguard its own security. The plan is to build by 2014 a 300 -thousand strong Afghan police force and army. Moreover, the training of more than 100 teams to shape the Afghan police and of 21 military experts to train the army was also decided at the meeting. NATO members will make their contributions to the formation of these teams.

The second step involves the inclusion into the Afghanistan and Pakistan systems of Taliban, considered so far as the source of terrorism. This will entail as a support mechanism the Taliban members and other groups being educated in religion and science. The education model in Turkey will be taken as basis to attain this objective in Afghanistan.

The third step NATO will take is to have Afghanistan embark upon bilateral and multi-lateral cooperation with the concerned countries, Turkey and Pakistan in particular. The contribution Turkey is expected to make as the only Muslim member of NATO is believed to be vitally important.

The second dimension is about the change of method in the fight against international security issues such as terrorism. NATO's classic understanding of security is based on the use of arms because NATO has the aim of securing defense and safeguarding security with the regular armies it has.

However, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union have caused NATO to have to usher in a new security understanding. This understanding which it tried to implement in Bosnia and Kosovo is now on the agenda for Afghanistan.

The failure of the policies pursued by the Bush administration prior to the occupation of Iraq can be said to have brought NATO to this point. The Obama administration and NATO prefer to use the method of peaceful ways, cooperation and dialogue in the fight against terrorism as against President Bush's concentration on war, occupation and conflict in trying to contain terrorism. This is tantamount to a big transformation in international politics in terms of trying to resolve international security problems.

The third dimension of the NATO meeting has to do with the importance and position of Turkey. That the informal NATO gathering took place in Istanbul, which has recently hosted the meetings of many important international organizations has foregrounded once again Turkey's central position. More importantly, Turkey is trying to play a critical role in the context of Afghanistan's re-structuring and fight against terrorism.

Turkey is in the vanguard of the countries expected to contribute to the three steps NATO plans to take. Firstly, it is expected to send teams to Afghanistan for the training of the Afghan army and police force. Turkey, who has all along had a crucial standing within ISAF is believed will have a stronger involvement with a more major role.

Secondly, the education system of Afghanistan and Pakistan is expected to be revamped on a modern basis and religious education is to be supported. Work is reported by the media to be underway to introduce in Afghanistan schools modeled on Turkey's vocational religious schools known as “Imam Hatip”, the basic aim of which is to provide religious education in the light of modern sciences so that Islam can be prevented from being subservient to politics. The Department of Religious Affairs and the faculties of Theology are also expected to come into the fray during this process.

Finally, Turkey is making a lot of efforts to improve the relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Four summits have so far been held among the three countries. The meetings in Istanbul and Ankara in 2007, 2008, 2009 and on January 24, 2010, which brought together President Gül, President Zardari and President Karzai are geared to make for a rapprochement referred to as Af-Pak.