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Turkey: an increasingly aggressive partner

2020-10-01T23:32:52.887Z


Erdogan's bid to militarize foreign policy to protect the economic interests and influence of the Eurasian country puts his partners in the EU and the US on alert


If a decade ago Turkey was applauded in Western foreign ministries for its policy of "zero problems with neighbors", in recent years the Eurasian country has begun to turn them on their heads.

Clashes with France in the waters of Libya;

deployment of frigates in the waters of Greece and Cyprus;

military interventions against the allies of the US and Russia in Syria;

occupation of mountains and gorges in northern Iraq;

involvement in the war for Upper Karabakh;

conflicts with Egypt, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

What to do with a country that is one of the oldest members of NATO, but seems to have become the

bad boy

from the neighborhood?

Of course, the speeches of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, do not help calm the spirits: “Ours is a civilization of conquest.

We are ready to do whatever it takes from a political, economic and military point of view.

So we invite our interlocutors to stay apart and not make mistakes that could mean their destruction, "he said at the end of last August.

Turkey's attempts to influence its neighborhood through economy, culture, and diplomacy collided with the more expeditious methods that Middle Eastern regimes used to prevent change during the

Arab Spring

, in many cases with the acquiescence of states. States and the European Union.

Aaron Stein, research director at the US Foreign Policy Research Institute, notes that “Turkish military and political elites have concluded that past

soft-power

policies

were a failure, and have opted for a tougher foreign policy ”.

The handling of the US invasion and the postwar period in Iraq, the Western support for Kurdish armed groups that attack in Turkey or the coup against Mohamed Morsi in Egypt have convinced the Erdogan Executive that he will not enforce his interests for good, so - allied with the military with a nationalist tendency - it has embarked on an increasingly coercive foreign policy, which implies intervening in various scenarios.

"Turks from across the political spectrum have watched with frustration as their Western allies have created a regional order while ignoring their interests and that has fueled a revisionist current," writes Bill Park, Defense Research Fellow at King's College.

There are constant calls by the Turkish president to review some international treaties such as Lausanne, which gave birth to the Republic of Turkey and established its borders with Greece;

or to reform the right to veto in the UN Security Council ("The world is greater than five", is one of his favorite slogans in reference to the five permanent members of that forum).

"Erdogan has been trying for a long time to expand his area of ​​influence, put Turkey on the map and be taken into account in international politics," says Bruno Lété, security expert at the German Marshall Fund.

An ideological component comes into play here, “extending influence to the former Ottoman territories,” explains Turkish columnist Burak Bekdil, but there is also a pragmatic component: “Turkey has very competitive companies in different countries.

In Africa, for example, Turkey tries to imitate China.

She makes political, military and strategic investments hoping that one day they will pay off ”.

Not surprisingly, Professor Michaël Tanchum, from the University of Navarra, compares this policy with the Chinese strategy "Pearl Necklace", based on a chain of commercial and military ports abroad.

To bypass the bloc of adversaries that surround it, Turkey has established military bases and signed strategic cooperation agreements from the Maghreb and the Sahel - for example with Niger and Mali, whose new Military Junta has been rushed to visit by the Turkish Foreign Minister. -, to the Indian Ocean: exercises with Pakistan, bases in Qatar and Somalia, maneuvers in the Bab el Mandeb Strait ... All this has led him to clash with the interests of France and the United Arab Emirates, a small state that it has become a regional power with its bases in the Red Sea and its intervention in the wars in Yemen and Libya.

Both Paris and Abu Dhabi have sent warships and warplanes to the Eastern Mediterranean to help Greeks, Cypriots and Egyptians contain the Turks.

Ankara fears that attempts will be made to close its maritime accesses: if Greece declares, as allowed by the Convention of the Sea, that all its islands have 12 miles of territorial waters, the Aegean would become a completely Greek sea, which would make it impossible to pass through. Turkish military ships.

For this reason, the Erdogan government has assumed the

Mavi Vatan

(Blue Homeland)

doctrine

, which consists of claiming for its exclusive use almost half of the waters of the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, where important gas reserves have also been discovered.

Unprecedented tension

The deployment of naval forces in the area has led to unprecedented tension since the 1990s, when Greece and Turkey clashed over islets.

Then, the war was avoided by American mediation, but now Washington is not there, nor is it expected.

What's more, the arms race has exploded: the White House has just lifted the arms embargo on Cyprus (in force since the 1974 war and division of the island) and Athens has announced that it will acquire 18 fighters, four frigates, four helicopters and anti-tank weapons, mostly to France, to face a Turkey that has almost doubled its military spending in the last five years, has modernized its Armed Forces and has created an important military-industrial complex.

The national industry already supplies 70% of Turkey's defense needs, three times more than two decades ago, and the goal is to be self-sufficient in the next decade, which would allow it to be immune to arms embargoes decreed in the past. by countries such as Germany and the US, as well as becoming an exporting country, something that would increase the influence on its customers.

Turkey has not been afraid of confronting more powerful countries either, and it has not gone wrong: it has turned the tables on the war in Libya despite Russian, Egyptian, French and Emirati support to the other side;

she has managed to get Moscow to contain the Syrian regime in its offensive against the town of Idlib and for Trump to withdraw support for the Kurds in Syria and withdraw most of her troops;

it has saved Qatar from the Saudi-Emirati blockade with an airlift and the deployment of the military ... “Coercive diplomacy is based on the initiator feeling that he or she commands the escalation.

But if the adversary believes that responding is more convenient than bowing to the threat, the initiator will face a dilemma: or withdraw, which implies damaging his reputation;

or upping the ante, which could lead to a military clash, ”writes Turkish professor Saban Kardas.

Until now, Turkey's advantage was that it was willing to risk its troops, while its rivals were not.

The problem is that, in the Eastern Mediterranean, Ankara faces a growing coalition of adversaries and, although all the analysts consulted dismiss the possibility of a war, they also point out that there is always the possibility of an “accident” that ignites the Wick, more so now that informal contacts with middle levels of the Turkish bureaucracy do not work, since everything passes through Erdogan's hands.

In this increase in the conflict of Turkish foreign policy, domestic politics plays an indisputable role.

“The economy is in free fall and Erdogan's support is dwindling, especially among young people.

Turkey is a very nationalist country and Erdogan has understood that with an aggressive foreign policy that he presents as a defense of national interests, the rest of the parties cannot oppose him ”, says Gareth Jenkins, of the Institute for Security & Development Policy.

But it would be wrong to identify everything that happens exclusively with Erdogan.

In fact, Ünal Çevikoz, former ambassador and advisor to the CHP, the main opposition party, acknowledges that although the Turkish president's foreign policy "is full of strategic errors" and is "hypocritical", his training shares the background of the Government's demands in the Aegean and the Mediterranean.

Concessions

Lété admits that in Brussels it worries that Turkey seeks control of energy sources in the Eastern Mediterranean - it also has a growing importance in the distribution of gas and oil to Europe - and uses this issue, together with immigration, as a lever to obtain concessions .

“Turkey no longer feels completely anchored to the West and is less and less concerned about the reactions from Brussels and Washington.

It does not mean that you should stop talking to the Turks, but you should not trust that they will share American or European interests, ”believes Aaron Stein.

So, what to do?

In Paris, they advocate a tough answer.

“We have to listen to what Erdogan says, take it seriously and be prepared to act with all means.

If our ancestors had taken seriously the Führer's speeches between 1933 and 1936, they could have prevented this monster from accumulating the means to do what he had announced ”, has warned the thinker Jacques Attali, former councilor of several French governments.

Not surprisingly, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, has been one of the most vociferous leaders against Turkish ambitions.

But Jenkins thinks he is wrong: “If you confront Erdogan in public, he will do the same and use it for his own benefit.

[German Chancellor Angela] Merkel has understood better.

In public, the EU has to be firm - not aggressive.

In private, it must be made clear to the Turkish authorities that if they continue down this path, harsh sanctions will be imposed. "

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-10-01

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