Turkey: the case for Western first aid

Press, 19 January 1979, Page 10

Turkey: the case for Western first aid

From the “Economist,” London

The continued crumbling of the Shah’s regime in Iran has suddenly concentrated the West’s mind on the troubles of another of the Soviet Union's southern neighbours, Turkey. The four Western leaders who met in Guadeloupe on January 5 and 6 to chat about the world’s problems in Caribbean sunshine took at any rate one decision. Prodded by Mr Schmidt of West Germany, they agreed that Mr Buient Ecevit’s Government in Turkey should be granted substantial help. The Turkish Prime Minister has been pleading for help ever since he took over

from Mr Demirel’s Coalition a year ago, when he inherited, in the words of his Finance Minister, '‘a series of impressive records — record debts, record inflation, record unemployment and a record trade deficit.”

His pleas have not been falling on entirely deaf ears. An International Monetary Fund team has been hopping in and out of Ankara, promising the Turkish Government in April a S4SM loan over two years, but urging it to take stringent austerity measures which Mr Ecevit rejects. The O.E.C.D. countries agreed in May to , reschedule $l.l billion of Turkish debts (private foreign banks are being less co-operative), and at the end

of last year N.A.T.O.’s Foreign Ministers agreed in principle that Turkey should be given more aid.

Sympathy for Turkey’s economic plight has been abundant: what has been lacking is any sense of urgency. The riots in the town of Maras just before Christmas, which killed more than 100 people and obliged Mr Ecevit to impose martial law in 13 provinces, have now generated the urgency.

The roots of the violence are ideological (Right versus Left) and religious (Sunni versus Sh’ia Moslem) more than economic. But the roots are watered by the economic stotm. With foreign debts totalling some $l2 billion, a trade deficit of over $2.2 billion, and no foreign exchange to pay for imports of oil or industrial

machinery, Turkey’s manu-facturing-output has been cut to under half its capacity. A fifth of its workforce is unemployed, its growth rate has dropped from 7 per cent to

around 3 per cent and the inflation rate is above 50 per cent a year. The frustration these things help to cause is fertile ground for political and religious extremists.

Putting money into Turkey is a gamble. If it reestablishes Turkey’s creditworthiness, and enables Mr Ecevit’s Government to make some headway with its promised social’ reforms and development projects. Turkey’s insecure • democracy may survive the present crisis. But it is by no means certain that it will. The extreme Right has a formidable leader in ex-Cblojiel Turkes, whose combination of nationalism and socialism looks increasingly like national socialism, and the extreme Left is almost as threatening.

Nevertheless, the offer to help Mr Ecevit is justified. Despite his reservations about his country’s relationship with the West, and his overtures to the Soviet Union and the non-aligned world, the Turkish Prime Minister has not cut his ties to N.A.T.O. or abandoned his country’s interest in a link with the European community.

These Western connections are not shared wholeheartedly by a Moslem people who have felt the counter-puli of Islamic resurgence. and some of whom still blame European powers for the break-up of the Turkish empire. To turn a blind eye on Turkey's desperate economic trouble would only increase its slide away from the West.