ERDOGAN TALKS TOUGH BUT PROCEEDS WITH CAUTION / GEOPOLITICAL FUTURES

Erdogan Talks Tough but Proceeds With Caution

By: Hilal Khashan


Shortly after Recep Tayyip Erdogan became prime minister of Turkey in 2003, his minister of foreign affairs, Ahmet Davutoglu, said Turkey would embark on a “zero problems policy” with its neighbors. His remarks came after Turkey had pursued European Union membership for years to no avail.

Even before Erdogan’s Justice and Development party, or AKP, rose to power, Turkish prime ministers in the 1990s realized that Turkey stood no chance of becoming part of the European Community. In 1997, Turkish Prime Minister and leader of the Islamist Welfare Party Necmettin Erbakan founded the Organization for Economic Cooperation, which included eight Muslim countries, after seemingly giving up on EU membership.

Even secularist prime ministers like Mesut Yilmaz and Tansu Ciller gave up hope of ever joining the bloc, and their skepticism appears well founded. In 2002, former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing said many European politicians privately believed that “Turkey must never be allowed to join the EU.”




Turkish leaders have instead chosen to pursue stronger relations with Turkey’s Middle East neighbors. In 2009, Bashar Assad said he considered Turkey Syria’s best friend; Erdogan responded by recognizing Assad as a brother. In 2010, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi awarded Erdogan his international prize for human rights.

After the 2011 Arab uprisings, Erdogan believed that Turkey’s moment had arrived with the rise of Islamists, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, in Egypt, Tunisia and Syria. He believed his country was on a path to economic success in the Middle East. When things didn’t go as he planned, however, Erdogan refused to adapt his policy toward the region.

He continued to behave as if Turkey had regained its Ottoman grandeur. In 2014, he built a $615 million presidential palace, and in 2018, he acquired a $500 million presidential plane as a donation from Qatar. Former friends turned into adversaries, save for a couple of exceptions like blockaded Qatar and Libya’s beleaguered Government of National Accord in Tripoli.

Erdogan’s neo-Ottomanism alienated him from Egypt after the overthrow of Muslim Brotherhood-backed President Mohammed Morsi in 2013. Turkey’s ambitious objectives also alarmed United Arab Emirates leaders, who feared the rise of political Islam, and Saudi leaders, who did not forget the destruction of the first and second Saudi states in the 19th century at the hands of the Ottomans and their allies.

But perhaps the most significant challenge to Turkey’s plan to boost its position in the Middle East came from Russia, a major economic partner for Turkey. The two countries support opposing sides in the conflicts in Syria and Libya, though their engagement in these conflicts is driven by very different goals.

Russia’s Libya policy is pragmatic and driven by economic interest. After Gadhafi’s regime collapsed in 2011, Russia lost contracts worth $10 billion. Western support for the GNA fell well short of what the UAE, Egypt and the Saudis were giving to Khalifa Haftar, the leader of the opposition Libyan National Army – and Russian President Vladimir Putin seized on the potential opportunity to win lucrative post-conflict contracts by offering Haftar much-needed support.

Mercenaries from the Kremlin-associated Wagner Group played a decisive role in pushing GNA forces to the gates of Tripoli. However, had the GNA prevailed against Haftar and promised Russia significant reconstruction deals, Putin could have switched alliances and instead supported the GNA.

After all, unlike Greece, Cyprus and Egypt, Russia does not have a real issue with the GNA’s maritime deal with Turkey, which revamped existing economic zones in the Mediterranean. So even though the Turkish SADAT security group has sent some 2,400 members of the pro-Ankara Syrian National Army to fight alongside the GNA, the divide between Russia and Turkey is not over Libya.

Rather, it’s over Syria.

In Syria, Turkey’s vital national interests do not sit well with either Russia or the United States.

The lingering issue between the U.S. and Turkey pertains to the fate of Syrian Kurds. In October 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump warned Erdogan against pushing the Kurds too hard. In a letter addressed to Erdogan, Trump said he did not “want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy” should Turkey refuse to protect the Kurds during an offensive in northern Syria.

Erdogan understands geopolitics and knows he cannot go far in challenging U.S. regional policy without compromising Turkey’s national interest, which vehemently opposes cross-border linkages between Kurds in Turkey and Syria. The U.S. seems to have come to terms with Turkey on this sensitive issue.

Similarly, Erdogan understands Turkey’s history with Russia and is wary about military escalation. After all, the Ottoman Empire’s decline in the Balkans and North Africa was ushered in by the Russian Empire’s victory at the Battle of Stavuchany in 1739 and the subsequent Russo-Turkish wars in the 19th century. In 1853, Russian Czar Nicholas I named the Ottoman Empire the “sick man of Europe.”




Erdogan does not want a military confrontation with Russia or the Russian-backed Syrian army.

Rather, he wants a political deal with Russia, even though he does not trust Putin. Turkey’s involvement in Syria is not popular at home, even within the AKP. And Erdogan also knows that Russia does not want to get bogged down in another drawn-out war, as it did in Afghanistan during the 1980s, which is why Moscow’s participation in the Syrian conflict has been limited to providing air support to the Assad regime.

But Turkey lacks real options to stop the fighting in Idlib. Erdogan will fight in Idlib only to the extent that Putin allows him. He realizes that he has to settle for the establishment of a demilitarized zone along the border to accommodate refugees fleeing Idlib, and he is not willing to jeopardize Turkish interests elsewhere for the sake of victory in northern Syria. Turkey’s economic prosperity is not contingent on seizing Idlib, but it is reliant on cooperation with Russia.

More than 7 million Russian tourists visit Turkey every year. Turkey’s nuclear energy program depends heavily on Russian technical expertise and support. The TurkStream natural gas pipeline, which runs from Russia to Turkey, is vital for the country’s economic development. Erdogan wouldn’t allow his anger over Russia’s violation of the Sochi and Astana agreements, which called for de-escalation in Idlib, to obstruct his vision for Turkey. The Syrian regime’s territorial gains following its offensive in Idlib that started in April 2019 and resumed in December are irreversible.

The Turkish army can still control the border area, allowing Syrian Arabs to form a buffer zone between themselves and the Kurds. Assad is amenable to such a move because Idlib’s population is not central to his model for a post-conflict Syria.

Putin did not launch Russia’s intervention in Syria to try to end the conflict. Instead, he wanted to make Russia the dominant military power and decisive political player in Syria – and he has succeeded in doing so. Just like in Libya, Russia has economic interests in Syria. In 2018 and 2019, Russian rail transport, agriculture, heavy equipment, hydrocarbons and construction companies were key participants in the Damascus International Fair. And Turkey likewise has economic interests there. It has an opportunity to join in Syria’s reconstruction if it can come to an accommodation with the Syrian regime, which is only a matter of time.

Turkey’s opposition to the Syrian government has therefore become counterproductive.

Turkey is an ascending regional power that needs to make peace with its neighbors and focus on economic development instead of aggrandizing power. Russia, however, aspires to play a leading role in the construction of a new security order in the Middle East.

Nostalgic about its Soviet past, Russia refuses to accept its status as a regional power and wants to engage the U.S. as its equal.

So while Erdogan uses a lot of rhetoric about trying to restore Turkey's former glory, his approach to the Middle East will be more pragmatic.