Page 67 - bne_Magazine_September_2018

bne September 2018
Opinion 69
aggressive political campaigning among expatriate Turks living in Western Europe, and Germany in particular, has been another source of strife. That and Erdogan’s treatment of basic human rights during the two-year-long state of emergency declared after the July 2016 attempted coup, which he blames on Gulen, led to some sanctions from Berlin and the grinding to a halt of Turkey’s application to join the EU.
Differences over Syria and Russian defence deals
Turkey’s interests in Syria, meanwhile, are totally misaligned with Washington’s: Ankara has been fighting Kurdish rebels that claim land in the east of the country, but to Turkey’s fury Washington has been backing (and supplying) the same forces as the most effective fighters against Islamic State (IS) terrorists in Syria and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government forces.
Putin’s offer to supply both advanced Sukhoi fifth-generation fighter planes as well as Russia’s highly advanced S-400 SAM system, and Erdogan’s acceptance of the offer, could be the issue that breaks the camel’s back. There is nothing in Nato rules that preclude a country from buying non-Nato compatible weapons systems, but Washington has been very unhappy with the decision, threatening to cancel a contract to supply Turkey with advanced F-35 fighter jets if the Russian deals go ahead.
Trump upped the ante by slapping a 50% tariff on Turkish steel exports on the same day that the lira went into free fall. The Turkish economy subsequently tipped over into a full- blown currency collapse that threatens a debt and liquidity crisis, presenting Moscow with a golden opportunity.
”To further reduce imports of steel articles and increase domestic capacity utilisation, I have determined that it is necessary and appropriate to impose a 50% ad valorem tariff on steel articles imported from Turkey, beginning on August 13, 2018,” Trump said in a statement released by the White House on August 10.
Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross confirmed that the US will double the tariff on imports of Turkish steel to 50%, because “the previous level of 25% had not been enough to sufficiently reduce Turkish exports to the US.”
“Doubling the tariff on imports of steel from Turkey will further reduce these imports that the [commerce] department found threaten to impair national security,” Ross added.
Ankara suggests it may pull out of Nato
Ankara immediately started making comments that it may pull out of Nato as a result of the US actions and throw its lot in with Moscow, which would be a disaster for the West. There are also rumours coming out of Moscow that the Kremlin is offering a small bailout to Ankara if it agrees to order the bases in Turkey hosting US forces, such as the Incirlik air base, to close: Putin and Erdogan talked by phone on August after the US metal sanctions were announced.
Erdogan has hit back at Trump with an opinion piece in
the New York Times, in which he wrote: “Before it is too late, Washington must give up the misguided notion that our relationship can be asymmetrical and come to terms with the fact that Turkey has alternatives. Failure to reverse this trend of unilateralism and disrespect will require us to start looking for new friends and allies.”
The criticism of US “unilateralism” has been getting increasing play recently. Putin has long complained of American unilateralism and the central tenet of his foreign policy is
to create a “multilateral” world, with a body like the UN coordinating international affairs – an objective that is
shared by Beijing. Last week, the Kremlin openly criticised Washington for declaring “economic war” on Russia with another round of sanctions. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, meanwhile, lambasted Washington saying its planned ban on buying Iranian oil will fail because the world is “sick and tired of US unilateralism.”
"The countries currently the US is negotiating with have
told Washington that they will continue their oil purchases from Iran," Zarif was quoted as saying. China, Turkey and EU member states are among nations that have so far made it clear to the US that they will continue buying Iranian oil and conducting other business with the Islamic Republic.
Echoes of Vilnius 2014
The situation now looks very similar to the run-up to the EU’s Vilnius summit in 2014 where the EU was trying to persuade then Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych to sign off on an Association Agreement that would have tied Ukraine into the European trade system and taken it out of Moscow’s orbit.
At the eleventh hour Yanukovych refused, partly because the EU would not drop its insistence that Yanukovych release opposition leader and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko from jail and partly because the EU didn't offer any cash up front to close the deal. Instead Yanukovych accepted an offer from Moscow for a $15bn bailout, of which $3bn was paid immediately in the form of eurobonds that are now in dispute.
Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, drove home the growing danger to Nato with a tweet stating that "the US runs the
risk of losing Turkey as a whole. The entire Turkish public is against US policies that disregard Turkey's legitimate security demands. Threats, sanctions and bullying will not work. It will only increase Turkey's resolve.”
An alliance with Moscow makes a lot of sense for Ankara, espe- cially as Erdogan becomes increasingly authoritarian. After the late June presidential election triumph that saw Erdogan’s power greatly expanded by a newly introduced executive presidency, the prospects for more clashes with Brussels over Turkey’s already poor human rights record only increased. And the US’s increasingly aggressive use of trade as an economic weapon for its own commercial benefit is creating an “axis
of the sanctioned” that also includes China and Iran.
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