[ad_1]
The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been struggling to transform its position for almost two decades Anchor in the world. Today, your dreams seem more elusive than ever.
More than 10 years ago, the then Prime Minister Erdogan took a decisive turn in foreign policy. Turkey would no longer beg on its knees at the gates of the European Union to enter.
On the contrary, the Turkey it could once again emerge as a regional power, extending its influence to its former imperial possessions in the East and emerging as a global power that everyone should consider.
This was an idea that sparked his imagination. Erdogan popular base, intensifying its efforts to maximize the scope of its competencies. Erdogan’s allies in Egypt and Syria reaped enormous political benefits in the early years of the Arab Spring, which began in December 2010 and since then Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman dream appears to be taking shape.
However, a decade after these events, Erdogan’s allies in the wider region, mainly large groups allied with the Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood, are now a weakened group.
In addition to its peripheral support bastions Turkey, in the Qatar, τη Somalia Y resigned from the government of National Reconciliation of Fayez al-Saraj in dissolved by war LibyaErdogan’s show of force has left a bitter taste in the mouths of several regional leaders.
At the same time, this tactic by the Turkish president has drawn the ire of countries like France, Greece and Cyprus, which have publicly tried to curb Turkey’s expansion into the Eastern Mediterranean.
With a devastated Turkish economy, whose situation has been seriously aggravated by the effects of the coronavirus, Erdogan has encountered problems with his plans, as his ability to eliminate Turkey’s growing isolation has been reduced.
“Erdogan’s motto was that Turkey would rise from and through the dominance of Muslim-majority states in the Middle East,” said Soner Tsagaptai, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Political Studies in Washington. books on Erdogan’s rise to power.
“However, at this time, with the exception of Qatar, Somalia and half of the Libyan government, Erdogan has absolutely no ties to any other Muslim country in the region.».
Erdogan has enraged European countries, such as France, Greece and Cyprus with its aggressive and provocative movements in the eastern Mediterranean, while “the collapse of the Turkish economy, due to its pandemic coronavirus “It raises new obstacles to their plans and limits their ability to lift Turkey out of its growing international isolation.” With the exception of Qatar, Somalia, and the Saraj government in Libya, Turkey currently does not have good relations with any neighboring Muslim-majority country despite Erdogan’s attempt to claim a leadership role in the Muslim world in the Middle East for his country. Soner Tsagaptai, director of the research program for Turkey at the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy.
Regional forces hostile to Erdogan, such as Egypt, seem to have found common ground with some European countries such as Greece and Cyprus, intensifying their strategic cooperation in the exploitation of hydrocarbons in the Eastern Mediterranean and marginalizing Turkey. France, for its part, which has opposed the Turkish invasion of Kurdish fighters in northern Syria and supports Saraj’s opponents in Libya, is backing the initiative in the eastern Mediterranean, as the UAE appears to be doing. United.
TO United States The Trump administration, which has had good relations with Erdogan, appears to be in alignment with his opponents of late, and State Department head Mike Pompeo warned Ankara that “intimidation is not a way to resolve differences” and expressed concern. by Turkey’s movements in the eastern Mediterranean, while Washington partially lifted the arms embargo on Cyprus. Movements that did not happen overnight, but for at least a decade as a result of the more assertive and controversial foreign policy of Turkey, says Sinan Ullgen, a think tank at Carnegie Europe, which blames the EU and the US for “mismanagement” of relations with Ankara.
Turkey’s involvement in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan
THE Erdogan He again went his own lonely path in the conflict on the occasion of Nagorno – Karabakh of Armenia with Azerbaijan supporting the latter’s military campaign and refusing to comply with the international community’s calls for a truce.
Behind this movement are, on the one hand, the traditional relations of his country with Turkish Muslims, although mostly Shiites, Azeris and the increasingly intense cooperation of the two countries in the energy and defense sector, but Also Erdogan’s wish of the international community, which previously recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, blamed it for “two meters and two pesos” and blamed the ineffectiveness on multilateral institutions like the Minsk Group.
Turkey’s troubled economy
Analysts note that the conditions that allowed Erdogan to draw a new line for his country’s foreign policy have ceased to exist. And if the Turkish economy was galloping in the early 2020s, it is shaking today and it will be difficult to avoid an IMF-type package, as the international media finds out.
Millions of Turks have been lifted out of poverty and their country experienced economic prosperity in the first decade of Erdogan’s rule, but in recent years the Turkish lira has broken record after record against the dollar, with the rise in public debt and rising inflation. gallop.
“The economy is Erdogan’s Achilles heel not only in the country, but also in foreign policy, as its course depends on whether Turkey will continue to show its power.” “If Turkey collapses, it will not have the financial means to continue all these battles on the fronts it has opened.”
Ulgen adds: “This is the biggest dilemma” for Erdogan and the rest of the country’s politics. “It is not the limits of foreign policy aggression, but the damage that this and the pro-war rhetoric are doing to Turkey’s economic prospects.”
Turkey’s combative foreign policy could soon reach a dead end: analysis by Tamara Qiblawi, CNNi
