It is tempting to see in Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent diplomatic maneuvers a return to Turkey’s vaunted “zero problems” foreign policy doctrine of the late 2000s, when Ankara aspired to amity with the wider Middle East. Having spent most of the past decade burning bridges across the region, Erdogan now seems keen to repair the damage, but one problem remains: Erdogan himself.
The president’s predilection for flame-throwing remains undimmed, and when faced with political difficulty at home, he tends to train his incendiary rhetoric on Turkey’s friends, near and far. For instance, he has likened Israel to Nazi Germany (Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov might have been taking notes), accused the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of destabilizing the Middle East and said he would never talk to Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi.
If Erdogan is conciliatory now, it is not because he has seen the error of his ways, but because the country’s economic problems — many of his making — require him to seek succor wherever he can get it. That also means he can easily perform another U-turn when it becomes politically expedient. Even with outside help, Turkey’s economic fortunes are unlikely to improve dramatically before the presidential election early next summer, and Erdogan might find himself in need of smoke and fire to distract a dissatisfied electorate.
Erdogan’s visit to Saudi Arabia late last month caps a flurry of conciliatory gestures that have included a trip to the UAE and outreach to Egypt, Israel and Armenia. (Nor is this program of propitiation limited to the region: The Turkish leader has even been making nice with Emmanuel Macron, having not long ago questioned the French president’s mental health.)
Some of these gestures have been accompanied by Turkish concessions on contentious issues. Ankara has reportedly assured Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE that it would scale back support for the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group regarded as a threat by the ruling elite in Cairo, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. The Brotherhood’s TV channels in Turkey were last year told to mute their criticism of the Egyptian government, and since Erdogan’s visit to Abu Dhabi, speculation has grown that he would encourage the Islamists to scale back their operations in his country.
Erdogan had an additional offering for Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: On the eve of his visit to Riyadh, Turkey ended its trial of the 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and transferred the case to Saudi Arabia. The killing occurred in the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate, and the Turkish president helped stoke international opprobrium against Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler while using the opportunity to increase his own stature in the Middle East. (A subsequent US intelligence assessment concluded that the prince ordered the operation, which he denies.)
The Turkish president has no such gift for Israel, but the government of Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet would nonetheless be grateful for Erdogan’s relative circumspection during the recent clashes between police and Palestinians in Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque. In comparison with his thundering denunciations of Israel’s actions in previous years, his criticism over the past month has been tame. Erdogan told Israeli President Isaac Herzog he was “very upset” when Palestinians were killed or injured.
Herzog has built a remarkable relationship with the Turkish leader, and made a landmark visit to Ankara in March that Erdogan declared a “turning point in relations” between the two countries. Earlier this week, Erdogan wrote to his opposite number on the occasion of the Israeli independence day, and Herzog reciprocated on the telephone with Eid greetings.
More important, the improved ties have already yielded an economic dividend: Turkish exports to Israel are up, and Israeli tourists are keen to make the most of the thaw. That would be good news for the Turkish economy, as would the Emirati and Saudi investments that have been promised in the wake of Erdogan’s visits. The imminent appointment of a Turkish ambassador to Cairo, after a nine-year hiatus, would also be good for trade with the most populous Arab nation.
However, can Turkey maintain these improved relations? The architect of the old “zero problems” policy, then-Turkish minister of foreign affairs (and later prime minister) Ahmet Davutoglu, has long since broken with Erdogan and is now in the opposition. The current foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, has neither the international stature of his predecessor nor his strength within the Ankara ruling elite. He will be keeping his fingers crossed that his boss does not bring out the flame-thrower again.
Bobby Ghosh is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering foreign affairs. Previously, he was editor-in-chief at Hindustan Times, managing editor at Quartz and international editor at Time.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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