Page 46 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine October 2024

46 I Southeast Europe bne October 2024
In Erdogan's thinking, there is no need for Turkey to make its mind up one way or the other. / Nevit Dilmen, cc-by-sa 3.0
Turkey will deepen ties with East while facing West, says Erdogan
bne IntelliNews
Nato member Turkey will not stop deepening ties with the East, including the BRICS group of nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), but at the same time it will continue to face West,
the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was reported as saying at an event in Ankara on September 18.
Erdogan stated that debates over Turkey going through an "axis shift" were unfounded, but that Turkey had to adapt to new "centres of power" in terms of economies, production and technology, while ensuring it remained open to potential presented by every structure and actor, Reuters reported.
"That is the approach that lies behind our country's will to expand the basis of dialogue with all of them, from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to
www.bne.eu
BRICS and Asean," Erdogan was quoted as adding.
And he said: "Of course, our face is turned to the West, but this certainly does not mean that we will turn our backs on the East, that we will ignore the East, or not improve our ties with the East."
The National Interest on September 17 published an opinion piece headlined “Turkey: A Ship Headed Eastwards”, written by Robert Ellis, an international advisor at RIEAS (Research Institute
for European and Amerian Studies) in Athens.
Ellis noted that Erdogan said in a speech four years ago: “Turkey has the political, economic and military power to tear
up the immoral maps and documents imposed on it.”
Suggesting Turkey always sets out to have its cake and eat it, Ellis concluded: “There seems to be no limit to Turkey’s cakeism.”
A BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia,
to be held in October, is set to
evaluate Turkey’s BRICs membership application, as well as an application from Ankara’s close ally Azerbaijan. The club of emerging nations is made up of its five original members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and four members who joined earlier this year, namely Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Egypt.
In June, Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek, during a talk at London’s Chatham House think tank, described BRICS as “a dialogue platform” compared to a formal economic bloc such as the EU.