April 3 (Bloomberg) -- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his Middle East ties make him useful to President Barack Obama in his quest to connect with the region. Erdogan’s quarrels with the West may be his best asset.

For his first visit to the Muslim world, Obama picked a country that angered the U.S. by refusing to be a staging ground for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, reaching an energy accord with Iran over American objections and straining relations with Israel by criticizing its December incursion into Gaza.

At the same time, Turkey is cultivating Syria and Iran just as Obama, who arrives in Ankara on April 5, pursues a thaw with those traditional U.S. adversaries. And displays of independence, such as promoting Iran’s involvement in a planned gas pipeline, have enhanced Erdogan’s status with countries suspicious of the U.S.

“Turkey is key to Washington’s design to improve relations with the Muslim world,” said Josh Landis, co-director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma in Norman.

Still, fulfilling that role requires some delicate calculations on both sides. “As Turkey becomes more democratic, its leaders will be forced to oppose U.S. interests in order to gain public approval,” Landis said.

In a reflection of this uneasy balance, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on March 7 in Ankara that the U.S. planned to “consult closely” with Turkey over a “comprehensive peace effort” for the Middle East, even as Israelis were voicing mistrust because of Erdogan’s Gaza criticisms.

Danish Cartoons

In London today, Erdogan said he opposes the candidacy of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to head the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Rasmussen is viewed “negatively” in Turkey because of his defense of Danish newspaper cartoons lampooning Islam in 2005, Erdogan told reporters.

Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party are seeking to overcome a regional perception of Turkey as being pro-Western: The country was a former colonial power during centuries of Ottoman Empire rule and is a current ally of Israel and a member of NATO.

A decade ago, Turkey threatened to invade Syria because it was sheltering Kurdish militants. Last year, it brokered indirect peace talks between Syria and Israel. Obama sent envoys to Damascus last month for the first U.S. discussions with Syria in four years.

“Turkey can still play a role in bringing the points of view of Syria and of the U.S. closer,” said Saber Falhout, a central-committee member of the ruling Baath party in Damascus.

More Mediation

Turkey is ready to resume mediation between Israel and Syria if asked by the two sides, Erdogan said today. The talks broke off after the Gaza war.

Erdogan, 55, also has cultivated ties with Iran, another country Obama says he wants to engage diplomatically. That’s a turnaround for Turkey, which demonized the Islamic republic for decades after the 1979 revolution, accusing it of supporting fundamentalist challenges to Turkey’s secular regime.

Today the neighbors are working on joint power-generation and gas projects. Erdogan’s government plans to include Iran in the proposed Nabucco pipeline to carry gas from the Caspian Sea region to Europe via Turkey, the Turkish premier’s foreign- policy adviser, Ahmet Davutoglu, said last month. The Obama administration says it opposes Iranian involvement in Nabucco.

‘Historic Rival’

“There are few countries in the world that the Iranians have to listen to,” said Mark Parris, a fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey. “Turkey, as a neighbor, as another big Muslim country, as a historic rival for power in that neighborhood, is one.”

Obama shouldn’t turn Turkey’s willingness to do business with Iran into a “litmus test” of commitment to the U.S., the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said a March 29 report.

Turkey can also help the U.S. in Afghanistan, by persuading Taliban fighters outside the group’s military leadership to lay down their weapons and engage in parliamentary politics instead, Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul told Sabah newspaper last month.

Some critics of Erdogan’s government say the West should be disturbed by Turkey’s new pattern of alliances.

‘Explicitly Islamist’

Erdogan’s foreign policy is now “explicitly Islamist,” said Soner Cagaptay, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a U.S. research center. He cited stagnation in Turkey’s membership talks with the European Union, its ties with Iran and the Islamic militant group Hamas, and a February visit to Ankara by Umar al-Beshir, the Sudanese leader charged with war crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court.

“Turkey is going out of its way to meet with, support and make friends with all sorts of anti-Western actors,” Cagaptay said.

There is also a risk that Erdogan’s condemnation of Israel over the Gaza war may have hurt his country’s status as an impartial mediator, said Alon Liel, a lecturer at Tel Aviv University and former director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Erdogan stormed out of a panel discussion on Gaza at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January, complaining he wasn’t given enough time to speak. He told Israeli President Shimon Peres: “You know very well how to kill.”

“The Israeli public today doesn’t see Erdogan as an honest broker,” Liel said. “He did a good job at first, but when things became tense, he lost his temper.”

Hamas Talks

Turkey also upset its allies by inviting the Hamas leadership for talks in Ankara after the group -- classified as terrorists by the U.S., the EU and Israel -- won parliamentary elections in the West Bank and Gaza in 2006.

While the visit “wasn’t well-received by many Western countries, it won Turkey a certain prestige in the hearts and minds of Hamas,” said Yasar Yakis, a lawmaker from Erdogan’s party and a former foreign minister. “Turkey could put this at the disposal of the U.S.”

It may be precisely those ruptures with the U.S. that have focused Obama’s attention on Turkey and the role it can play in his Middle East policy, said Rashid Khalidi, head of the school of Arab studies at Columbia University in New York.

“The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” Khalidi said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Holland in Istanbul at bholland1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 3, 2009 08:28 EDT