BAZAAR DIPLOMACY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000400380060-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 8, 2004
• Sequence Number: 60
• Publication Date: May 16, 1979
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For R e 10JN(2 TC11V-RW01315R
Article appeared 16 May 1979
on page A-24
Bazaar Diplomacy
URKEY NOW SAYS that before letting Ameri-
can U2 reconnaissance planes into its airspace to
help verify Soviet compliance with a new SALT
treaty, it must ask Moscow's approval. On the face of
it, this is startling behavior for an ally and fellow
NATO member that presumably benefits from the
greater stability and security being pursued in SALT.
When you look more closely, however, it is confirm-
ing evidence that relations between the United States
and its longtime partner in the eastern Mediterra-
nean are in a state of near crisis. That is why diplo-
macy between them has become a matter of the ba-
zaar.
The Turks are in a terrible state. World economic
conditions have aggravated the pains of moderniza-
tion to a point where they need prompt and massive
infusions of outside aid to stay upright now and to
put their economy on a strong longterm basis. To get
the aid, however, they are being asked to accept the
usual painful terms that international creditors, even
friendly ones, enforce upon hard-pressed debtors. At
the same time they are being asked, in regard to the
vexing Cyprus question, for concessions that are en-
tirely justifiable and even minimal in terms of
Cyprus itself but which are offensive to Turkish na-
tionalism, especially in its currently inflamed state.
The Turks are being asked to do all this while dealing
with internal tensions of the most savage sort, and
continuing to rule themselves by democratic means.
It is, then, unsurprising that Turkey is showing
signs of the strain. This is most evident in its use of its
strategic assets for bargaining with the United States.
In truth, these assets are considerable: the airspace in
which U2s could fly, the four sites used for ground-
based SALT-monitoring facilities, the NATO bases,
Turkey's very loyalty to and membership in the-West-
ern alliance. The Turkish government wants various
forms of economic and military cooperation, plus po-
litical reassurances and, the satisfaction of being
treated as a sovereign equal. It is not only a very ex-
pensive proposition but a politically delicate one as
well.
And it is worth it. The Turks are difficult but they
have shown by 30 years of security cooperation and
by their efforts to maintain a democracy that they
are very much a part of the West. If Turkish-Ameri-
can diplomacy borrows heavily from the ways of the
bazaar, then it is not a bad idea to have relations
based on mutual and hardheaded notions of self-in-
terest. It is hard to exaggerate how trying the effort
to keep the relationship on the track will be, but it is
an effort that-on both sides-must be made.
Approved For Release 2005/01/12 : CIA-RDP88-01315R000400380060-4