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If someone types in the Google search the phrase “Who lost Turkey?” You will see that many publications have dealt with the topic: “Qui a perdu la Turquie?” – Le Monde, «Europa hat die Türkei verloren» – Der Spiegel, «Who ‘lost?’ Turkey? “- El País. The question revolves around how Turkey lost itself to the West and democracy, how it cannot be reconciled with the European countries and the United States. But perhaps the question reveals more to those who raise it than to Turkey today. Perhaps now is the time to redefine expectations.
“Turkey has always done things its way,” said Hugh Pop, director of communications for the International Crisis Group. “One moment it builds bridges and the next it destroys them.” These days, it is President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who is trying to consolidate his power and expand his country’s role on the international stage: he disagrees with the Kremlin on Syria or Libya, but cooperates with Russia even when his troops in Syrian soil is on the brink of confrontation or when in Libya the two countries support completely different camps, but at the same time buy S-400 anti-missile systems, despite the reactions of their allies. A few days ago, Turkey arrested two Russian journalists who were taking photographs at a drone facility, prompting a reaction from the Kremlin, but the construction of a nuclear plant in Akuyu by a Russian company continues normally.
Ankara disagrees with the United States over the purchase of the Russian S-400s and Congress threatens sanctions for months, but Erdogan, through “boyfriend diplomacy,” has direct access to and a relationship with President Trump, who it is also blocking their procedures. investigation into the Turkish Halkbank, which is accused of circumventing US sanctions against Iran. Tayyip Erdogan insults European leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, with harsh words, but despite the strong anti-European rhetoric he has adopted, he does not interrupt his country’s prospect of joining the European Union. Ankara heavily supported Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh militarily and immediately claimed to be part of the peace process.
In the latest episode of the policy “one against a nail and another on the horseshoe”, after two and a half years of intense tension with Israel, a country from which the Turkish ambassador has withdrawn for two years, it became known that they are taking held secret talks between Turkish and Israeli officials in order to normalize bilateral relations. The initiative belongs to the Turkish side and, in fact, one of these meetings was attended by the head of the Turkish secret services, Hakan Fidan, a close associate of President Erdogan. 
In Ankara, writes Al Monitor, there are concerns that the Biden government will not be so submissive to Erdogan’s aggressive policy in the eastern Mediterranean. Since 2016, the Turkish president has carried out military operations against the Kurds in Syria, sent Turkish troops and Syrian mercenaries (many of them jihadists) to Libya and Azerbaijan, and carried out provocative moves against Greece and Cyprus. “They believe that if they get along with Israel, Biden’s team will treat them better,” said a Western diplomat.
“This tactic has worked in the past.” The focus doesn’t stop there. A few days ago, the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom wrote that in an article, Turkish professor Jihad Yagici, Erdogan’s adviser, suggested “finding a solution to the existing differences between Turkey and Israel on the delimitation of their maritime zones.”
A proposal that is governed by the same logic as the corresponding agreement between Turkey and the al-Saraj government in Libya, which completely ignores the existence of Cyprus and its EEZ. This is despite the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fully agrees with Greece’s position regarding the rules for defining maritime zones.
In power for 17 years
All this shows that it is not someone’s fault that “Turkey is lost.” For many in the United States and Europe, Erdogan, who has been in power for 17 years, is the reason the country of 83 million has been “lost.” But that was the case in the past, says analyst Nigar Gokcel. When Necmettin Erbakan, a conservative Islamist, became prime minister in 1996 and opened up to Iran, the New York Times wondered, “Who lost Turkey?” “While it is true that Erdogan’s approach to the world around him has hardened over the past two decades, the rejection of compliance with international norms has long been the basis of progressive, religious or secular Turkish politics. or conservative. “
In the first period after the Cold War, recalls the former editor of the French daily Le Monde, Sylvie Kaufmann, the question that occupied everyone was: Who lost Russia? In the sense that the West could not attract post-Soviet Russia to the Community of Democrats or limit the expansion of Vladimir Putin. Who had the fault? Could the situation have evolved differently? “Today the same question is being asked, this time about Turkey,” Kaufmann said. 
“It is even more painful because, unlike Russia, Turkey is still a member of the Western bloc, is an important member of NATO and has applied to join the EU. Politically, geographically and humanly, Turkey is closer to Europe than Russia. “. . But the two leaders we often compare, Putin and Erdogan, “the czar and the sultan,” are the same challenges. They dream of rebuilding lost empires and they want to rewrite history. They invest in their ambitions to reconquer territories abroad, in order to hide financial problems at home. “They use the same weapons: personal power, religion and military force.”
Turkey, with its two-tier games at all levels and its extremely aggressive policy in the Eastern Mediterranean, contrary to all international law, finds it difficult not to alienate most of its allies. In any case, the country is acrobatic on the tightrope with its many internal problems. The situation in Turkey, and with the appearance of new parties, tends to change. And then we will ask ourselves once again if it is a “lost cause”.
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