Page 5 - MEOG Week 07

MEOG Commentary MEOG
beyond). Perhaps the catalyst for the apparent change in Turkey’s position was the massive influx of refugees from Syria, with the knock-on presence of their departure or otherwise for countries to the west.
Turkey was caught in the moral crossfire of helping these refugees or encouraging them to move on elsewhere, which in turn brought inter- national relationships into play.
Seeing itself as the main recipient of these refugees and with the various changes arising from the struggles for power in Iraq and Syria, including the rise of a semi-autonomous Kurdis- tan, was perhaps behind a change in the mindset of Turkey’s President Erdogan.
The other factor has been the resort by the ruling AKP to a policy of ever-growing Mid- dle Easternisation of Turkish policy. In this, the Erdoğan government has made Turkey a party to all conflicts in the broader Middle East. Turkey has sided with Qatar in the Gulf, is part of the conflict in Syria, supports hamas on the Pales- tinian issue, the Sunni sections in Iraq, the Mus- lim Brotherhood in Egypt, Ennahda in Tunisia and the Sarraj government in Libya. Another potentially problematic involvement comes in Somalia, and in the past week President Erdogan has seen fit to enter into the rights and wrongs of who owns Kashmir.
Turkey hosts opposition figures on its soil, provides financial, military aid and training to warring factions, sets up military installations and directly engages in conflicts. It should be noted that none of its involvement in regional disputes has brought any kind of benefit for Tur- key, and the country has to devote resources to these ongoing conflicts, most of which have no end in sight.
Turkey’s over-engagement in the Middle East does not help it balance its ties with the West. Initially, the idea was that an influential Turkey in the Middle East could have been a valuable ally of the West, and eventually it could have played a constructive role in bridging this region with Europe. however, Ankara’s deep involve- ment in the region has turned out to have had mixed results, and instead of playing a positive role, Turkey has been grappling with the conse- quences of its engagement.
With Turkey’s ties with the West having become problematic, and its relations, image and position degraded internationally, what Ankara needed was to have stable relations with the
Middle East. Middle Eastern issues have come to play a central role in Turkey’s relations with the EU and the US.
With an authoritarian regime, growing Isla- misation of the education system, the rise of religious brotherhoods and their expanding infiltration into the government offices, and a foreign policy that almost solely focused on Mid- dle Eastern problems and intra-Arab conflicts, Turkey has now turned into a Middle Eastern country from a state that was trying to democra- tise itself domestically and pursue EU member- ship only a decade ago.
The tensions had come to a point where Erdoğan threatens the EU with sending it the Syrian refugees and the EU is imposing sanc- tions on Turkey in response to the latter’s drilling activities in the Mediterranean.
Turkey’s isolation is very visible in the Eastern Mediterranean. Out of negligence or malprac- tice, Turkey has been completely marginalised in the geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey confronts regional actors, global energy companies and global powers concurrently. It has no or downgraded diplomatic ties with four countries, and is trying to cling to the Tripoli government in desperation. There is not a sin- gle actor that Turkey can ally itself, work with, or co-operate. Ties with Israel, Greece and the Republic of Cyprus have been eroded and these countries have been quick to fill the vacuum, and together with Egypt, they have begun to domi- nate the regional and energy politics, sidelining Ankara.
Turkey’s only friends, Russia and Qatar, have proved a poor counterbalance to the former friends it has lost and with the recent flare-up in the Syrian situation, the former is now close to being seen as another antagonist.
The newly established Natural Gas Forum for developing gas in the East Mediterranean was initiated by Egypt and excluded Turkey. In an attempt to break its marginalisation, Turkey has sent its two drillships (see next article) and navy vessels to prevent Italy’s Eni drilling around Cyprus, thus further deteriorating its relations with the EU. The US Congress has passed a bill that urges the administration to strengthen the security ties with Cyprus and remove the imposed arms embargo on the island state. Whether in Libya, the Mediterranean, Syria, the Black Sea or even Somalia, Turkey’s next move is hard to predict and will be worth watching.™
Week 07 19•February•2020 w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m P5