Το τουρκικό παραμύθι για ''αμοιβαία μείωση εξοπλισμών'',όπως αναδεικνύεται στο άρθρο: ''Tell it to your boss, Minister Bağış '' του δημοσιογράφου BURAK BEKDIL

Tell it to your boss, Minister Bağış 

Sipping my ouzo on a peaceful island in the Aegean Sea, I watched the quiet assault boats the Andromeda and the Toxotis, moored silently in the harbor and proudly waving their Hellenic flags.

Only a day before my arrival, I had seen a similar boat rapidly cruising on “this side of the Aegean,” proudly boasting its Turkish flag. Two boats featured blue on their grey bodies; the other orange.

Thinking about the thousands of tons of metal that must once have been the Turkish or Greek “firepower,” but are now possibly scrap, I read with amusement a New York Times article quoting Egemen Bağış, Turkey’s chief negotiator with the European Union, as faulting France and Germany over an arms sales to Greece.

The always flamboyant Minister Bağış was criticizing Germany, along with France, for seeking to sell military equipment to Greece while pressing the Athens government to make drastic public-spending cuts as a result of the country’s dire financial crisis. Naturally, I smiled.

Mr. Bağış, the EU/defense/foreign/everything minister, said that to help Greece escape its economic disaster and reduce regional tensions, Ankara would reciprocate if the Greeks froze or cut their defense procurement. “One of the reasons for the economic crisis in Greece is because of their attempts to compete with Turkey in terms of defense expenditures,” Minister Bağış said.

He realistically added: “Greece doesn’t need new tanks or missiles or submarines or fighter planes, neither does Turkey. Neither Greece nor Turkey needs neither German nor French submarines.”

The Times noted that the combined Turkish and Greek defense spending in 2008 was 18.4 billion euros, according to NATO (6.9 billion euros for Greece, or 2.8 percent of its gross domestic product; and 11.9 billion euros for Turkey, or 1.8 percent of its GDP).

Of course, not all that money was spent by the Aegean neighbors on war toys designed for deterrence against only each other. True, there is an asymmetry here; the Greek shopping list is always more “exclusively anti-Turkish” than vice versa. But neither Greece nor Turkey is keeping its defense forces up and running only to fight the other.

All the same, there is wisdom in Mr. Bağış’ words that “neither Greece nor Turkey needs neither German nor French submarines,” as this column has often argued in the recent past. When we are talking only about “the new submarines” on both sides of the Aegean, we are talking about a combined sum of 5 billion euros. All the same, we ought to remind Minister Bağış of a few facts.

First, weapons manufacturers are not illegal entities. They are not drug dealers. Like any other commercial entity, they exist for the sole purpose of profit maximization. So there is no point in accusing the supplier of supplying any legal produce, arms or snacks. It’s the buyers who buy. If Minister Bağış has objections to the “means of selling the commodities on the arms market,” he can always file a complaint with the prosecutor’s office.

Mr. Bağış is also wrong to single out two countries as the “culprits” in an armament race that may eventually have sunk the Greek economy. Neither Turkey nor Greece buys solely from either Germany or France. As a matter of fact, France is still on Turkey’s “black list of arms suppliers,” although in practice, it is not. Minister Bağış should be able to understand that it’s us who buy, not them who sell.

Last week, a readers’ poll in daily Hürriyet showed that 51 percent of Turks favor the idea of arming up against Greece. That percentage would probably have been higher if the Greeks were asked the same question.

It is ironic that Minister Bağış thinks “new tanks or missiles or submarines or fighter planes” are not needed on either side of the Aegean. Speak first for yourself, Your Excellency. It is your prime minister who signed the Defense Industry Executive Committee decision authorizing a Turkish company to proudly design, develop and manufacture the first Turkish national battle tank, the Altay. And at what price tag? I say several billion euros when (if) the program has been completed. Any bets? Not on that.

The same committee has endorsed Turkish participation in a multinational program for the next-generation fighter aircraft, the F-35. Here, we are talking about more than $10 billion. It is the same committee that will soon decide which anti-missile defense systems should make up Turkey’s air-defense architecture. Add another billion or more to the bill.

Mr. Bağış, do you have any idea which Turkish prime minister sealed the decision for the acquisition of six German-designed U-214 type submarines from a German shipyard? Let me remind you. His initials are RTE. That’s another $3 billion.

Mr. Bağış, do you have any idea which Turkish prime minister ordered six anti-air-warfare frigates with a price tag of $3 billion? Same initials, before anyone asks.

And, finally, which Turkish prime minister, do you think, must have given the go-ahead for a program that entails the procurement of landing platform docks (landing ships) able to carry up to eight helicopters and numerous hovercrafts – exclusively designed for “landing” in foreign territory? It’s a silly coincidence that his initials, too, are RTE.

So, please stop trying to fool everyone with your heroic, peace-loving rhetoric and talk to your boss about your ideas on the stop-arming-on-the-Aegean utopia. It’s not the readers of the New York Times who can stop it on this side of the Aegean, but the man with the initials RTE

BURAK BEKDIL

''Hurriyet''

April 1, 2010

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