n February 71 years ago, Turkey joined NATO. The choice was the result of the first stirrings of the Cold War: the Soviet Union had asked Turkey, which refused, military bases and new conditions for access to the Turkish straits. The United Kingdom, which at that stage had abdicated its role as a great world power, had left its burden to the United States, ready to reserve the Truman doctrine for the Aegean context. Thus, the role of bridge between West and East that Byzantium had always played, was now harnessed in the Atlantic Pact and, indissolubly, in the destinies of Western countries: a function of buffer and guardian of those two straits, sacred in every age.

Ankara’s (old) ambitions

Yet the relationship between Ankara and NATO has not always been idyllic, experiencing ups and downs between pragmatism, “clashes of civilizations” and mutual accusations. However, for Turkish citizens as well as for Recep Erdogan, as someone said, evidently it feels safer “to stay here”. Only in the last handful of years, Erdogan has given Europe a series of reasons to continue to wonder what was the point of Turkey in NATO: the exchange of villainies with Emmanuel Macron, the blackmail on Syrian refugees, the issue of the Armenian genocide, the “sin” of the S-400 from Russia to the strange and complex situation of the last year and a half, which has made Erdogan a sort of free player, moreover cheered by his re-election. Enough to put NATO in check again, yielding to Stockholm’s ambitions, but putting on the table the most difficult of demands: entry into the European Union. A textbook Realpolitik maneuver, a seasoned tightrope walker of geopolitics. Or blackmail, if you prefer, not yet clear on whose skin.

Turkey-EU: a difficult union

The dream that Turkey caresses since the late eighties therefore seems to return to shine after years of turbulence and relative stasis that have been repeated for at least twenty years, within which we have witnessed everything and the opposite of everything: from the absolute no of Giscard d’Estaing for demographic issues to the feverish enthusiasm of Jens Stoltenberg, passing through a sofa gate and a label (for Erdogan) of “dictator we need”.

Now that the agreement has served, and given the speed with which Ankara promises to ratify Sweden’s entry into the Alliance, it is to be expected that the European Union will now take this responsibility, in the face of which double games or procrastination will not be allowed, since the stability of the Atlantic Pact and its internal peace is at stake. It is now entirely in the hands of the Union, finally at its test of maturity, and is intertwined with Turkey’s accession process. The difficulties that this union will have to face are many and reciprocal: it will force Europe and Turkey to deal with their mutual ghosts. Will the EU be willing to treat it as an equal? Will the EU have to turn a blind eye to human rights? Another age-old issue: Islam. Is Europe culturally and politically ready to welcome 80 million Muslims as European citizens?

If Turkey stops being a bridge and buffer

But if we want to go beyond this point, it is the strategic changes that will become epochal. As General Giorgio Battisti, first commander of the Italian contingent of the Isaf mission in Afghanistan and member of the Atlantic Committee, pointed out to Adnkronos, the Baltic Sea would now become a western lake under the control of the Atlantic Alliance, disturbing Moscow and its fleet that “could be subject to restrictions or limitations by NATO and in case, we hope never, of a NATO-Russia conflict, the Russian Baltic fleet would still be trapped because all the coasts of the Baltic Sea, both northern and southern are coasts of NATO member countries”.

But above all, Turkey would cease to be a bridge and buffer, abdicating a historical function. Same thing for the former Iron Curtain countries, also former bearings transformed into friction zones. In the aftermath of Vilnius, therefore, the Anatolian peninsula would be transformed into the last outpost, increasingly armed, of NATO and the European Union: it must be remembered that Ankara has, in fact, asked for a greater role in the Alliance, asking the US for a new supply of 40 F-16s and a few thousand missiles. The bridge that has become a bastion will now extend, in an assertive position, both eastwards towards Russia and the entire former Soviet Caucasus, but also towards Africa and the Middle East, becoming a (closed) border rather than a passage.

On the Turkish side, this attitude can find different explanations, including a partial weakness of Erdogan, aware of the dangerous relationship with Moscow and of the possible advantages that European membership would give him. But perhaps it is the Union that is not clear that stretching its offshoots beyond the Bosphorus, for NATO and Western (and therefore also European) countries will mean losing that clearing house – halfway between East and West – exposing itself to new risks. Even greater than those resulting from Ukraine’s rapid entry into the Pact. Europe, like the United States, must recognize that the wheat deal, as well as the mediation of prisoners or the project of a phantom gas hub, worked because of Erdogan’s two-faced Janus. Will Turkey, with a dual affiliation, still be a credible mediator in elsewhere other than Europe? Conversely, what would happen if once in the Union, Ankara continued to act as a free player?

L'articolo Why admitting Turkey could be a risk for the European Union proviene da InsideOver.

Once again Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has amazed the diplomacies of half the world in july by receiving his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky and freeing the commanders of the Azov regiment. At the NATO summit in Vilnius, it gave Sweden the green light to join the organization while continuing to intercede in negotiations for the renewal of wheat agreements. This whirlwind of foreign policy interventions confirms his role as Turkey’s most powerful man with an indisputable influence in the entire Eurasian chessboard. Analysts wonder who, however, will one day be able to succeed such a cumbersome figure who, after the recent victory at the polls, has already announced that he does not want to run again.

The Sultan would actually already be working to ensure political continuity by focusing on an equally popular compatriot. This is Selçuk Bayraktar, brother of Haluk, the CEO of the Baykar company that produces the Bayraktar TB2 drones. An engineer developing avionics technology, Selçuk is also Prime Minister Erdogan’s son-in-law – he married Sümeyye, his youngest daughter – and for a growing number of observers may be interested in following in his father-in-law’s footsteps. A signal in this direction came from his visit to the areas affected by the violent earthquake of February 6 that between the south of the Anatolian peninsula and Syria caused more than 50 thousand deaths and hundreds of thousands of displaced people. In a video posted on Twitter, Selçuk promised to edificate buildings in order to house people impacted by the disaster. The words of comfort and civil commitment pronounced by the lord of drones also nicknamed the Turkish Elon Musk make one think of the dress rehearsal of a dolphin in pectore and follow his presence in the delegation that last year accompanied President Erdogan to Ukraine.

In the past, the possibility had taken shape in the Sultan’s family circle that another son-in-law, Berat Albayrak, the husband of his eldest daughter Esra, could be indicated as his possible successor. Appointed finance minister, in 2018 Albayrak faced a devaluation of the Turkish lira against the dollar of more than 30% and a severe recession, a dual crisis in which he demonstrated his incapacity. The image of the then minister wiping sweat in the midst of the economic storm at a press conference marked the sunset of his star.

Unlike his disgraced brother-in-law, Selçuk seems to have a promising future ahead of him even if at least for the moment he dismisses as gossip the rumors of his interest in governing the country. Yet, if he wanted to, the chief technology officer could win over the electorate by focusing on the winning image of the innovator at the top of a company that has become a symbol of Turkey. In fact, Selçuk is the real creator of the unmanned aircraft that, well before Ukraine, have distinguished themselves in Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, all areas in which Ankara’s interests have come into conflict – often prevailing – with those of Moscow. It is no coincidence that the Bayraktar brothers have publicly expressed anti-Russian positions.

Selçuk’s profile is that of an internationally successful businessman. 43 years old, looking like a movie star, a passion since childhood for technology and, in particular, for airplanes with studies in engineering in Pennsylvania and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Returning to Turkey in 2007, he helped develop the drone division at Baykar, the company founded in the eighties by his father Ozdemir. The turning point came a few years later when they won the contract for the supply to the Turkish army of unmanned aircraft that will be used in the anti-terrorist campaign against the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK). At the moment Selçuk looks with pride at the successes of the company – which has grown seven times since Erdogan’s arrival in power in 2003 – and says he is more interested in programming codes than politics, but since his entry into the Sultan’s family his public image has been marked by the publication of religious quotes on Instagram and Twitter and by support for educational initiatives.

Meanwhile, Baykar’s drones gained such recognition that in Kiev they dedicated songs to them and a lemur from the zoo of the Ukrainian capital was given the name of the Turkish company. The deadly unmanned aircraft have in fact given such a turning point in the initial phase of the war to upset Moscow’s plans to crush the enemy in a few days. Rich Outzen, a Turkey expert at the U.S. State Department, commented on the use of the Bayraktar TB2 stating that it “allowed an operational revolution in the way wars are fought”. The next challenge for Selçuk may be to transfer this revolution from technology to national politics. But this is a story that has yet to be written.

L'articolo The Turkish “Drone Lord” who can succeed Erdogan proviene da InsideOver.

The success story of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan remains a puzzle to many analysts. He has won more elections than any other politician in the history of the Turkish Republic. His party AKP has provided extensive social services and welfare programs to millions of Turks, while supporting pro-business policies. Moreover, the party has underscored the importance of conservative values, largely based on Islam, to gain a moral advantage over its competitors.  It is not a coincidence that Erdoğan has invoked God’s name more and more often.

Against this background, the Turkish president has promoted a new notion of nationalism that emphasizes Muslim identity as the defining element of Turkishness. The AKP claims to act as a force of democratization that represents most of the population against a tiny minority of non-genuine Turks. Thus, the party has mostly drawn support from devout Sunni Muslims who were largely marginalized by the Kemalist regime for decades. Not surprisingly, Turkish foreign policy has been influenced by Erdoğan’s Islamo-nationalism.

Under President Erdoğan, Turkey has pursued an assertive strategy towards its neighbours. The Turkish military has been involved in conflicts in Syria and Iraq supposedly only to pursue Kurdish insurgents. While the Kurdish factor does weighs heavily in Ankara’s calculations in the region, there is an ideological element that cannot be easily dismissed. Both Syria and Iraq are now failed states which used to be part of the Ottoman Empire. Erdoğan has coined the term “borders of our heart” to challenge the sanctity of existing borders in the region.

Hence, Turkish incursions into Syria and Iraq are likely to continue.

Furthermore, the AKP has attempted to export its own model of governance to other Muslim-majority countries. In 2012, for example, Erdoğan visited post-Arab Spring Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia to promote the AKP model. Although his offer was perceived by many as interference in the domestic affairs of these countries, the Turkish leader has remained popular among the Arab public. He has developed a reputation of an honest and straight-forward politician who supports Muslim causes. The Turkish leadership has sought to normalize its relationship with the Sisi regime in Egypt. This effort will continue in the coming months. Yet, Ankara’s military intervention in Libya has produced uncertainty over Turkish intentions in North Africa. In late November 2019, the signing of the Turkish-Libya delimitation agreement infuriated Athens and Cairo which remain skeptical of Ankara’s presence in the war-torn country. 

Moreover, Erdoğan’s call for the revision of the Lausanne Treaty, which established Turkey’s borders with Greece, is not a coincidental development. Turkish officials have hinted at territorial claims against Greece, although the Eastern Aegean islands are populated exclusively by Greeks. And yet, this is only part of the Mavi Vatan (“Bluewater Homeland”) vision that Erdoğan and his lieutenants have openly endorsed in recent years. It was first declared by the Turkish leadership in 2019, claiming a sea area of 178,000 square miles for Turkey. Ankara has also sent drilling ships to the Cypriot Exclusive Economic Zone, infuriating Nicosia and the EU. In December 2019, the US Congress approved the Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Partnership Act to support energy cooperation among the US, Greece, Cyprus, and Israel. The increased US involvement in the region has not been perceived by Ankara as a positive development. But Ankara has agreed to restore full diplomatic relations with Jerusalem, despite occasional rhetorical outbursts directed at Israeli leadership. Although the recent catastrophic earthquake in the Hatay province has led to a Greek-Turkish rapprochement, Ankara will not easily abandon its claims in the Eastern Mediterranean,

In any case, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has dramatically changed the security dynamics in the wider region. Not only has Ankara avoided imposing anti-Russian sanctions, but it has deepened its partnership with Moscow. Trade between the two countries doubled in the first nine months of 2022 compared to the previous year, reaching $47 billion. Furthermore, Russian tourists in Turkey have significantly boosted the Turkish tourism industry due to travel restrictions in the European Union. The Russian company Rosoboronexport has also been selling weapons systems to the Turkish armed forces, including the advanced S-400 antiballistic missile system. Russia is Turkey’s largest natural gas supplier, mainly through the submarine pipeline Blue Stream; Moscow also builds new nuclear power plants in the country.

Simultaneously, Turkey has supplied Ukrainian armed forces with combat Unmanned Arial Vehicles and has refused to recognize the annexation of Crimea and other Ukrainian provinces. Additionally, the Erdoğan regime has voiced concerns about the human rights of the Tatar Muslim minority in Russian-occupied Crimea. Perhaps most importantly, Turkey was pivotal in brokering a deal to allow grain exports from Ukrainian ports through a safe corridor in the Black Sea.

Turkey’s neutralist stance has deteriorated its relations with Washington which seeks to form a unified front against Moscow. The dire status of the Turkish economy may force Erdoğan to de-escalate tensions with Western countries. However, Ankara is highly unlikely to turn against Moscow as other NATO countries did. Despite Western hopes, there is a growing domestic support for a Eurasianist shift in the Turkish foreign policy. 

In the South Caucasus, Ankara has maintained its special relationship with Baku. In fall 2020, the success of the Azerbaijani blitzkrieg in Nagorno-Karabakh was partly credited to Turkish military support. The current normalisation of relations with Armenia will continue as long as Yerevan remains isolated and is under the threat of facing a greater political crisis. During his third term, the Erdoğan regime may show more interest in developing closer relations with the Turkic republics of Central Asia. 

Overall, Turkey has attempted to maintain an independent foreign policy by distancing itself from the West. While this has not been always possible, it is clear that the Turkish foreign policy is ideologically-driven and geopolitically ambitious. Ankara will maintain an active role in the Black Sea, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Eastern Mediterranean for the next five years. Undoubtedly, Erdoğan’s Turkey aspires to become a regional power and its foreign policy will reflect this fact.

*Dr Emmanuel Karagiannis is a Reader in International Security at King’s College London’s Department of Defence Studies.  

L'articolo The foreign policy of Turkey after Erdogan’s re-election proviene da InsideOver.

China is widely accused by human rights organizations of oppressing Uyghurs, one of the country’s largest predominantly Muslim minorities. Those including Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have accused Beijing of incarcerating tens of thousands of Uyghurs in “camps” in Xinjiang and resorting to other means in blatant violation of international laws in a bid to strip off the minority from its Muslim identity.

In September 2022, the UN released a report on alleged violations of the human rights of ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China. The report found that mass detentions in China’s Xinjiang region from 2017 to 2019 were marked by credible documentation of torture, sexual violence, and forced labour, as well as forced abortions and sterilisations. The 48-page report concluded that “serious human rights violations” were committed by the Chinese government against the Uyghurs and other Muslims under China’s policies to fight terrorism and extremism.

Taking a cue from the above report, Turkey publicly criticized China for the first time over Beijing’s treatment of its Uyghur minority. It is worth noting that Turkey has been one of the most hospitable countries to Uyghurs, with whom Turks share ethnic, religious and linguistic connections. Roughly 50,000 Uyghurs live in Turkey, forming the largest Uyghur Diaspora outside Central Asia.

At a press briefing on December 29, 2022 Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu stated, “Our defending the rights of the Turkic Uyghurs in the international arena disturbs China. But this is a humanitarian issue”. He told reporters that Beijing was irked by Ankara’s refusal to grant extradition requests for Uyghurs who were Turkish citizens and settled down in Turkey.

The Foreign Minister further emphasizedthat Turkey wanted to cooperate with China in a transparent manner but Chinese authorities did not allow the Ambassador in Beijing to freely visit the region where Uyghurs reside instead they wanted him to follow a “programme that they provided”. He reminded Beijing about the commitment made by Chinese President Xi Jinping five years ago of allowing a humanitarian delegation from Turkeyto visit and examine Xinjiang region and questioned Chinese authorities for impeding the visit.

Though Turkey’s public criticism of China is a rare happening, there have been instances in the past where Ankara has taken on Beijing for ill-treatment of Uyghurs. In 2019, Turkey had brought up the minority’s plight at the United Nations, condemning Beijing of “torturing” more than a million people. The condemnation had prompted the Chinese Ambassador in Ankara to openly warn the Turkish government against publicly criticizing Beijing by saying that it could have commercial and economic consequences. Beijing followed the warning by suddenly announcing temporary closure of its consulate in Turkey’s Aegean province of Izmir, which is planned to be the last port in China’s multibillion-dollar infrastructure project One Belt, One Road initiative, linking Asia and Europe.

In another spat, in 2021, the Chinese Embassy in Ankara directly targeted Turkish opposition leaders for commemorating the deaths of the Uyghurs. At that time the Chinese embassy had said, “The Chinese side reserves its legitimate right to respond” prompting the Turkish foreign minister to summon the Chinese ambassador.

Besides the confrontation on Uyghur issue, tensions have also cropped upin economic cooperation field. Recently, Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, threatened its Turkish partner telecom operator Turkcell over a defence tender. Huawei allegedly warned Turkcell with freezing its contracted operations when the latter refused to bow to pull down the bid in the defense tender, citing cost effectiveness concerns, according to a report by France-based Intelligence Online website. The company’s aggressive competitiveness “damaged its good relations” in Turkey, the report noted.

Despite this tension, trade and infrastructure investments have not been affected between Turkey and China. According to figures by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, the trade volume between the two countries reached nearly $40 billion in 2021. It will be interesting to watch whether Ankara will stand firm against Beijing over Uyghur issue or succumb to Beijing’s pressure in the wake of economic problems that the country is currently facing.

L'articolo Ankara’s support for Uyghurs irks Beijing proviene da InsideOver.

The European Union enters 2022 with a dangerously declining ability to set the security agenda along its southern borders in the face of the strategic advances made by Russia, Turkey, and China in North Africa. A house divided, the EU delivery deficit in establishing a sustainable security architecture in the Mediterranean basin, particularly in Libya, created a vacuum that has been filled by the increasing military presence of Russia and Turkey in North Africa. As Russia and Turkey rewrite the rule sets in North Africa, China has also continued to gain strength strategically in the region and will seek to increase its military footprint along the southern rim of the Mediterranean basin.

Here are some of the key developments that have altered the strategic equation and will influence the trajectory of North African geopolitics and Europe’s ability to exercise a strategic impact on security matters along its southern flank.

The Resurgence of Russia power in the southern Mediterranean

The resurrection of the Russian-Egyptian military partnership is Moscow’s most stunning strategic comeback in the Mediterranean.  It is also one of Russia’s most strategically significant regional defence relationships.  Egypt is the largest nation by population in the entire Mediterranean basin and has one of the largest militaries in the region.  In the late stages of the Cold War, the United States had succeeded in peeling Egypt away from its alignment with the Soviet Union, turning Cairo into one of the most reliable American allies in the Middle East.  But that tight relationship frayed in the aftermath of the ‘Arab Spring’ uprising in Egypt that toppled the country’s long-time strong man Hosni Mubarak when U.S. President Barack Obama embraced the short-lived Muslim Brotherhood-led government. The 2013 ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood by the Egyptian military with popular backing and former General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ‘s 2014 election as Egypt’s president led to a rift with the U.S. and NATO that persists to this day.

As Sisi was consolidating his power, Russian President Vladimir Putin demonstrated Moscow’s mettle with Russia’s successful 2015 military intervention in Syria, ostensibly to fight ISIS and other jihadi militants.  President Sisi turned to Putin’s Russia for assistance in combatting jihadi militants in Libya to secure Egypt’s eastern border. This led to the 2016 establishment of the annual ‘Defenders of Friendship’ joint Russian-Egyptian military exercises. Expanding in scope over the past five years, the original 2016 exercises involved joint tactical actions that paved the way for the 2017 deployment of Russian special forces and drones to Egypt’s Sidi Barrani air base near the Libyan border to assist the Egyptian-backed, Libyan General Khalifa Haftar to gain full control of Benghazi in July of that year. In late 2017, following that success, Cairo granted Moscow permission for the Russian air force to use Egypt’s air space and air bases, requiring only 5 days advanced notice.

During 2016-2020, Russia also became Egypt’s largest arms supplier with Cairo purchasing 41% of its weapons imports from Russia,  a laundry list of weapons that includes attack helicopters, fighter jets, and air defense systems.  In 2018, Egypt purchased 24 Su-35 fighter aircraft from Russia for $2 billion. In 2020, Egypt reportedly agreed to purchase 500 Russian T-90MS tanks that would be assembled in Egypt at a facility built by Russian tank manufacturer Uralavagonzavod.

Building on its deep defense cooperation with Egypt, Russian power has become entrenched in Eastern Libya, from the coastal city of Sirte, the western entrance to Libya’s oil crescent, to the highly strategic al-Jufra air base further south.  Utilizing upwards of 2,000 mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group backed by Russian air force assets, Moscow has succeeded to emerge as one of the main power brokers in Libya with a much lighter commitment of personnel and hardware than in Syria. The Wagner Group has extended Russia’s influence across adjacent regions of sub-Saharan Africa, most recently in Mali.

Concurrently, Russia revitalized and expanded its long-standing military relationship with Algeria. Shrewdly, Russia’s Putin cancelled Algeria’s Soviet-era military debt of $4.7 billion while Algeria committed to purchase almost twice that amount from Russia with future oil and gas revenues. The deal resulted in Algeria becoming Russia’s third largest arms buyer during 2016-2020, surpassed only by India and China. Algeria’s astounding Russian weapons shopping spree included 203 T-90SA main battle tanks, 300 ‘Terminator 2’  BMPT-72 armored fire support vehicles, 38 Pantsir-S1 air defense missile/cannon systems, 100 SA-17 Buk-M2 air defense missile systems installed on tracked vehicles, and 12 Iskander mobile short-range ballistic missile systems.

Algeria also possesses 6 Russian-made, Kilo-class submarines. As a sign of Moscow’s renewed power projection into the western Mediterranean, Russia and Algeria conducted a landmark joint naval exercise of the latter’s Mediterranean coast.  Russian-made Kalibr Club-S type cruise missiles fired by those Kilo-class submarines and Algeria’s land-based, Russian-made Iskander ballistic missiles are capable of striking the Spanish coast.

The distance between Russia’s naval and air bases in Syria and Egypt’s massive Mediterranean military base at Marsa Matruh is approximately 900 km. Combined with Russia’s extensive military presence in eastern Libya and deep defence relationship with Algeria, Moscow now presides over an arc of hard power across the southern rim of the Mediterranean spanning the southern border of Turkey and the eastern border of Morocco.

Turkey’s Strategic Advance in North Africa

The resurgence of Russian power across the Mediterranean basin has been matched by Turkey’s impressive advances to become one of the top powers in the region.  Turkey is the second most populous nation in the Mediterranean with one of the region’s most powerful militaries. Turkey’s efforts to expand its power projection capabilities in the Mediterranean is part of Turkey’s wider strategic agenda to establish forward bases in the Middle East and Africa, an ambition enabled by the impressive transformation of its domestic weapons manufacturing to become an industry leader in several categories.

Following Russia’s Syria intervention, Turkey conducted four cross-border interventions in Syria to carve out a buffer zone in northern Syria along the length of the Syrian-Turkish border. However, the turning point for Turkey’s Mediterranean military footprint came with Turkey’s 2020 military intervention to preserve the Government of National Accord then ruling western Libya.  Ankara’s first intervention far from its land borders and shoreline was an unqualified success – stopping Haftar’s Wagner-assisted assault on Tripoli in its tracks and then pushing Haftar’s forces 450 km eastward to the Sirte-Jufra line. Ankara now stands as the main security provider in western Libya, creating an important strategic beachhead for Turkey in the central Mediterranean.  Turkey maintains an air power deployment at the re-captured al-Watiyah air base, located 27 km from the Tunisian border, and is reported to be developing a naval base in Libya’s coastal city of Misrata.  Its first Mediterranean forward basing beyond North Cyprus, Turkey’s outsized military presence in Libya is nothing short of a strategic breakthrough, enabling Turkey to project its influence into the western Mediterranean.

The Libyan intervention also showcased the power of Turkey’s home-grown combat drone and electronic warfare technology that would be later used by Ankara to assist Azerbaijan in the Autumn 2020 Karabakh war that ended 30 years of stalemate against Armenia and changed the map of the South Caucasus.  In 2020, Tunisia bought $150 million of Turkish armaments, including Anka medium-altitude long long-endurance (MALE) drones, Kirpi mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, and Ejder Yalçin armored combat vehicles.  The sale of three Anka drones and their ground control systems to Tunisia was Turkish Aerospace Industries’ first foreign sale of the Anka UAVs.

For its part, Algeria has kept Turkey at arm’s length when it comes to military cooperation.  Despite Turkey being one of Algeria’s leading foreign investors – Turkish investments in creating local factories and businesses have made Turkish firms collectively into Algeria’s largest foreign employer –  Turkey has not been able to translate its growing economic clout into Turkish arms sales to Algeria.  The Algerian military and political elite have been divided over Turkey’s role in Libya and especially Ankara’s use of Syrian jihadis as mercenary forces. In its effort not to become too over-reliant on Russia as its principal weapons supplier, Algiers has opted for German and Chinese-made weapons.

More recently, as Algeria-Morocco tensions have intensified on their border and in the disputed Western Sahara between Morocco and the Algerian-backed Polisario Front, Rabat has turned to Ankara as a weapons supplier.  In 2021, the kingdom purchased 13 Bayraktar TB2 drones, the system that has repeatedly proved itself effective against Russian air defense systems in Syria, Libya, and the South Caucasus.  Members of Morocco’s Royal Armed Forces has traveled to Turkey during the second half of 2021 to receive training in operating the drones and Morocco reportedly ordered an additional six TB2 drones at year’s end. The Turkish system complements Rabat’s recent purchases of Israeli drones as well as Israeli anti-drone technology.  Moroccan media has also reported that Rabat is now engaged in negotiations with Ankara to purchase naval vessels – 7 fast attack craft and an Ada-class corvette. While the warship purchase has not been confirmed, Turkey’s military cooperation with Morocco, should it expand, has long-term implications. Already the managed competition between Turkey and Russia sets the agenda for the security environment in Syria and Libya. This same dynamic could become influential in the western Mediterranean as well.

A Chinese Naval Base in North Africa?

At the close of 2021, the Wall Street Journal broke a story revealing Beijing’s plan to create a permanent military facility in Equatorial Guinea to provide China with its first naval base on the Atlantic ocean.  Could a Chinese naval base in North Africa be next? China is already poised to dominate the commercial ports across the entire southern and eastern arcs of the Mediterranean basin.  In addition to its massive transhipment hub in Piraeus, Greece, China upgraded and built ports in Tripoli, Lebanon and in Haifa bay in Israel. Hong Kong-based Hutchison Port Holdings similarly operates Egypt’s major Mediterranean port of Alexandria port and its auxiliary El Dekheila port. Hutchison is also an equivalent capacity port at Egypt’s nearby Abu Qir Peninsula that is scheduled to start operations in 2022. In the western Mediterranean, China is constructing Algeria’s El Hamdania transshipment port 60 km west of Algiers with three times the capacity of Egypt’s Alexandria port. China is also one of the main investors in Morocco’s Tanger Med port, which has surpassed Spain’s Algeciras and Valencia ports in container capacity to become the Mediterranean’s largest port.

With so much at stake for Beijing’s in China’s Mediterranean commercial network, an increased Chinese naval presence in North Africa is not a matter of if, but when.  China has already delivered a two frigates to Algeria and will deliver a Type 056 (Jingdao-class) corvette to Algeria in 2023. Egypt has purchased drones from China and Chinese-made Wing Loong II drones, purchased by the United Arab Emirates, have been a mainstay in Haftar’s arsenal in Libya. Should China establish a naval base on Africa’s Atlantic coast in addition to its Red Sea corridor naval base in Djibouti, then a base on the North African coast becomes Beijing’s missing puzzle piece for establishment of Chinese sea lines of communication from the Suez Canal to the Strait of Gibraltar. The logic for a Chinese base in the central Maghreb is compelling for strategic planners in Beijing.

The Need for European Action

From the Eastern Mediterranean to Libya to the escalating tensions between Algeria and Morocco, the European Union’s continued inability to act in a coordinated manner has eroded the union’s power to set the agenda for relations across its southern borders. The EU’s continued delivery deficit in establishing a sustainable security architecture in the Mediterranean will inexorably result in outcomes that neither represent European values nor serve Europe’s interests.

Prof. Michaël Tanchum is an associate senior fellow in the Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Institute (MEI) in Washington, D.C.  @michaeltanchum

L'articolo Russia, Turkey, and China in North Africa: a challenge for Europe proviene da InsideOver.

In the post-cold war period, many ethnic disputes remain unresolved and revival of nationalist aspiration and interest of external powers in these disputes make it difficult for the resolution of these disputes. One such ethnic dispute is the Cyprus issue. Since the cold-war period the conflict between the two ethnic community-Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots are an important part of international politics. Cyprus dispute is not only between Greek Cypriot community and Turkish Cypriot community but it is also between Turkey and Greece.

Though all the European Union states back Greece’s stand on Cyprus, there are only a few countries that support Turkey’s claim on Cyprus. Pakistan tops the list of such countries. Pakistan and Turkey enjoy close cultural, historical, and military ties which are now expanding into deepening economic relations too. Pakistan considers Turkey to be a reliable defence partner. This is depicted by their placing all the three military (army, naval and air) attachés at the Pakistan embassy in Ankara, which is a very rare practice in Pakistani diplomacy. Turkey’s Islamist internationalism under its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also inevitably led to its deeper alliance with Pakistan.

Pakistan’s strategy

In 2018, Pakistan’s interference in Cyprus was revealed by Pakistan’s Army ex-Lt. Gen. Karamat Ahmed. He had then claimed that Turkey and Pakistan were 2 countries but 1 nation. Retired Lt. Gen. Karamat Ahmed had helped Turkish military in 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation. He was a member of a medical team who was sent to Turkey during the operation to help Turkish military personnel and civilians who got injured. He claimed that the operation took place in 1974, when Turkish soldiers interceded under Ankara’s guarantor status to protect the Turkish community in Cyprus. On July 17, 1974, a Pakistani team, consisting of 30 doctors, nurses and paramedical staff, left for Turkey aboard a special Pakistani military C-130 aircraft. Karamat and his team served in Turkey till September 1974 and returned to Pakistan after completing their duty. Recently, there were unconfirmed reports that Islamabad was considering appointment of a military attaché in the Office of the Representative of Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).

During 2016, Pakistan came to the rescue of Turkey to fill in the void created by sacking of Turkish fighter jet pilots who were considered to be the main conspirators behind the failed coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Nearly 300 Turkish pilots were purged. The purge served a devastating blow to Turkey’s Air Force and severely undermined the country’s military capabilities. Turkish Air Force in its own internal report (January 2016) revealed that the military needed over 500 new pilots including 190 combat pilots to reach its normal level. By January 2017, the country had a shortage of 1,154 military pilots. Realizing the crisis could put Ankara in a serious national security predicament the country then turned to its ally Pakistan to train new pilots in a fast-track program and asked the Pakistani government to send trainers to fly F-16s.

A dangerous axis

It seems Pakistani pilots sent to Turkey have not returned since then as there have been reports of Pakistani pilots flying Turkish jets and violating Greek airspace on numerous occasions. Suspicion about Pakistani pilots flying Turkish fighter jets was reinforced after the November 2019 joint military exercises between Turkey and Pakistan. In November 2019, Greece lashed out at Pakistan for breaching its airspace, during the Dogu Akdeniz-19 (Eastern Mediterranean-2019) joint international naval exercise. On November 13, 2019, without filing a flight plan with Greek authorities, a Pakistani P-3 Orion Naval Co-operation and Information Collection Aircraft was flown into Greek airspace. This was the first time that Pakistan had violated Greek airspace, as this is usually something done only by the Turkish military. Greek military analysts realized that the exercise meant the beginning of a deepening new military alliance between Pakistan and Turkey.

Pakistan’s defence cooperation with Turkey is not limited to capabilities and products alone. During the past decade, Pakistan and Turkey have exchanged a high number of military officers under their bilateral military education exchange program. Around 1500 Pakistani military officers have completed a training course in Turkey during the past decade. Similarly, more than 130 Turkish military officers participated at war colleges throughout Pakistan as well as at their National Defence University.

What should worry Greece more now is the emergence of a China-Pakistan-Turkey nexus on nuclear proliferation. Pakistan, coordinating on capacity building of the three countries has already been flagged by watchdogs and media. Erdoğan has already expressed his desperation on developing the ‘Caliphate atom bomb’ to fulfil his neo-Ottoman aspirations, and China and Pakistan have been facing charges of illegal sale of missiles and creating a clandestine proliferation market. The growing relationship between Pakistan and Turkey could be a cause of concern for Greece. Cyprus issue has been the main conflict between Turkey and Greece for many years. No doubt, Pakistan will go all out to support Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in pursuit of his jihadist ambitions of conquest and revival of the Ottoman Empire that would include Cyprus as well.

L'articolo Turkey-Pakistan nexus: a concern for Greece proviene da InsideOver.

The Eastern Mediterranean has witnessed a relative calm this year in contrast to last year’s dangerous escalation spiral that almost set off a geopolitical maelstrom involving parts of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. But is the current calm just a temporary lull?  Has a stable balance of power been established to create a new equilibrium? Or, has escalation been continuing by other means and the geopolitical storm will break out again in 2022? Here are some of the key factors to consider when looking over the horizon to determine the state of Mediterranean maritime security in the near future.

The 2020 Eastern Mediterranean Crisis was a Turning Point Event

Back in August 2020, the most combustible naval stand-off between Greece and Turkey during the 21st century nearly ignited into open conflict when a Turkish warship and a Greek warship collided at the height of the tensions. Rallying to Greece’s side, France dispatched warships to the contested waters, eventually sending its flagship Charles de Gaulle nuclear aircraft carrier. Egypt conducted joint naval exercises with Greece while the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Ankara’s staunch antagonist along the Mediterranean’s southern rim, sent its F-16 fighter jets to conduct joint air force exercises with Greece in the air space above the conflict zone.  With France, Egypt, and the UAE already in open conflict with Turkey in Libya, international alarm bells sounded that any further escalation could lead to a Mediterranean-wide conflagration.  Although a NATO-brokered de-confliction process achieved a climbdown in tensions, neither side has been idle. Swiftly changing geopolitical currents in the region have created new strategic conditions whose implications need to be examined.

Greece’s New Strategic Depth

In the absence of a convincing security guarantee from its European partners, Greece has spent the last half decade skilfully developing its defence relations with Egypt and Israel, and then subsequently with the UAE and Saudi Arabia.  Athens’ efforts are paying off big.  Combined with engaging select EU members, notably France, Greece is building an effective deterrent capability outside European Union and NATO frameworks. Since the striking demonstration of Middle Eastern solidarity with Greece during its August 2020 naval confrontation with Turkey, Greece’s regional security partnerships have reached an even greater level of strategic cooperation.

The 15 September 2020 signing of the ‘Abraham Accords’ normalising relations between the UAE and Israel was a strategic boon for Greece by more deeply connecting its circle of security partnerships broadly aligned to offset the expansion of Turkey’s “coercive diplomacy” in the region. On 18 November 2020, Greece and the UAE signed a security pact that included an Article V-type mutual defence clause.  In 2021, the juggernaut of Greece’s military diplomacy has gathered even more steam. In January of this year,  Israel signed a $1.68 billion, 20-year agreement with Greece – the largest defence deal between the two countries – in which Israel’s private defence company Elbit Systems will establish and maintain an air combat training facility in Greece for the Hellenic Air Force.  Italy’s defence manufacturing giant Leonardo will supply the M-346 advanced jet trainers. The state-of-the-art air combat training academy builds upon Greece’s 2020 agreement with France to purchase at least 18 fourth generation Rafale fighter jets for $2.5 billion, all helping to close the gap in air combat capabilities between Turkey and Greece.  By late September 2021, Paris and Athens signed a new bilateral mutual defense pact between Paris and Athens, accompanied by Greece’s $5 billion purchase of three Belharra frigates and three Gowind corvettes from France.

These relationships provide Greece with much needed strategic depth – geographically, technically, and psychologically. Bolstered by the early stages of an economic recovery, Greece is no longer Europe’s troubled and dependent appendage on the Balkan peninsula, as many in the European Union attempted to portray Greece during the EU’s sovereign debt crisis.  Greece is realising itself as an Eastern Mediterranean power leveraging its strategic links to North Africa and the Middle East.  Greece’s new found strategic depth continues to expand with the Hellenic Republic’s deepening military relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which began its first bilateral military exercise with Greece, Eye of the Falcon 1, in March 2021. Demonstrating the power of its new regional status, Greece hosted the September 2021 “Hercules 21′ exercises – the first multilateral joint military exercise between Greece, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.

Turkey’s Becomes a Blue Water Power

Greece’s recent efforts to gain strategic depth were prompted by Turkey’s impressive advances to become a blue water power. Turkey’s efforts to expand its power projection capabilities in the Mediterranean started two decades ago with Ankara’s $3 billion ‘National Warship’ program, known by its Turkish acronym MİLGEM, to expand Turkey’s capacity to deploy naval forces far from its coastal waters. In March 2012, a decade into the MİLGEM program, then Turkish Navy Commander Admiral Murat Bilgel declared Turkey’s naval objective was “to operate not only in the littorals but also on the high seas,” identifying the Turkish Navy’s goals for the coming decade as “enhancing sea denial, forward presence, and limited power projection capacity.”  Supported by the rapid growth of its domestic defence industry, Turkey successfully implemented its strategic agenda to establish forward bases in the Middle East and North Africa region.

The turning point in this policy came with Turkey’s 2020 military intervention to preserve the Government of National Accord then ruling western Libya.  Ankara’s first intervention far from its land borders and shoreline was an unqualified success and created an important strategic beachhead for Turkey in the central Mediterranean.  Turkey maintains an air power deployment at the re-captured al-Watiyah air base, located 27 km from the Tunisian border, and is reported to be developing a naval base in Libya’s coastal city of Misrata.  Its first Mediterranean forward basing beyond North Cyprus, Turkey’s outsized military presence in Libya is nothing short of a strategic breakthrough, enabling Turkey to move beyond the efforts to contain its influence in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Libyan intervention also showcased the power of Turkey’s home-grown combat drone and electronic warfare technology that would be later used by Ankara to assist Azerbaijan in the Autumn 2020 Karabakh war that ended 30 years of stalemate against Armenia and changed the map of the South Caucasus.  Turkey’s continued advances in drone warfare technology are changing the face of warfare in the Mediterranean and could upend the military deterrence for which Greece has been striving, especially as Turkish-made, unmanned surface and underwater combat vessels come into service.  Changing the Mediterranean’s strategic equation in 2022 is Turkey’s soon-to-be-operational, light aircraft carrier the TCG Anadolu – a landing helicopter dock based on the Spanish Navy’s Juan Carlos I-class design. The TCG Anadolu will be able to carry a formidable arsenal Turkish combat drones to any location in the Mediterranean theatre. As an amphibious assault ship, it will be able to transport a 1,000 troop battalion along with 150 vehicles, including battle tanks, for a marine troop landing. A blue-water power projection vessel par excellence, the TCG Anadolu will considerably augment Turkey’s efforts to set the strategic agenda in the Mediterranean.

Equilibrium of Escalation in 2022? Cyprus could be the Key

Greece’s deeper level of defense cooperation with its non-European partners also prompted Ankara to engage in serious diplomatic outreach to Egypt and Israel and then to the UAE and Saudi Arabia as a counter-balancing measure.  During 2021, Turkey has acted on its need to recalibrate its policy toward its Levantine and Gulf state neighbors to ease its isolation. This diplomatic opening creates the opportunity to increase commercial cooperation among the regional stakeholders that could act as a brake on renewed naval escalation in the future. While there is at least a temporary balance of power, such an opportunity should not be missed.

With its interlinked flashpoints, there is little reason to think that a stable equilibrium has been achieved in the Eastern Mediterranean. None of the underlying core issues has been resolved.  The most vulnerable point in the current security architecture is Cyprus.  A member of the European Union but not NATO, Cyprus was under military embargo by the United States until 2020 and consequently has insufficient naval capabilities to defend itself. Turkey maintains over 30,000 troops on the north side of the island and has established base for its combat drones in the self-declared Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. In 2021, Turkey upped its ante on the issue by formally declaring that North Cyprus should be internationally recognized as an independent state.  If a new cycle of naval escalation does break out in the Eastern Mediterranean in 2022, Cyprus is likely to be in the eye of the storm.

L'articolo Eastern Mediterranean Maritime Security in 2022 – Equilibrium or Escalation? proviene da InsideOver.

Pakistan and Turkey are two nations which have had a historic friendship which seems to have bloomed in the past decades. On 2nd April 1954 the countries signed a treaty of friendship, a little after the formation of Pakistan in 1947. A friendship based on mutual values and on the fact that both are prominent non-Arab members in an Islamic world order that includes mainly Arab countries.

Turkey’s cultural affinity for politicized Islam has through the years resonated deeply with Pakistan’s evolving cultural identity. One needs to look no further than the cultural popularity of Turkish television series in Pakistan or the fan base that Pakistani poets and writers have enjoyed in turkey for decades to realise that this is much more than just a passing romance.

These shared bonds have, over the years, transmuted into a strong and strategic relationship leading to synergies in various sectors, mainly defence.
They support each other across international fora (eg. Turkish support for Pakistan at the FATF) and there is talk of Pakistan and Turkey developing flight technology together.

Surprisingly they also share a common view of the contentious issue of Kashmir which is close to Pakistan’s heart but geopolitically not so relevant to Turkey. Turkish politicians, media and civil society have over the years vocally supported Pakistan’s stance and condemned the Indian forces for human rights violations in Kashmir. In 2019 when the government of India abolished Art. 370 (A law that guaranteed special autonomous stature to Jammu and Kashmir), Turkish President Erdogan and his foreign affairs ministry vociferously criticised this move. Erdogan referred to the Kashmir issue in his last three speeches at the UN General Assembly on three separate consecutive occasions indicating that perhaps the issue is important to him.

But despite the show of solidarity and goodwill there are questions whether all is indeed well in between the two countries. In Pakistan’s corridors of power there seems to be dissent and displeasure over Turkey’s lack of enthusiasm on Kashmir and uneasiness over Erdogan’s declining fervour. His euphemisms seem to be softening and he went as far as to club Kashmir with the Uighur’s and the Rohingya’s as one of the myriad problems that affect the Islamic world.

Kashmir is an existentialist problem for Pakistan. They are watching closely to determine if Turkey’s fervour has indeed diminished. There are small signs in the landscape like Erdogan’s failure to, mention Kashmir at a state Function hosting the Pakistani president or the absence of a condolence message on the death of Pakistani separatist, and Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani. Geelani’s granddaughter Ruwa Shah is a popular figure in Turkish media.

There is a section in the Pakistani establishment that is cautious and reluctant to overreact to Turkey’s recent toning down on Kashmir taking into consideration Turkey’s other recent attempts to improve relations with almost every country it had earlier antagonised, including Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Amidst a failing economy and dwindling political support it looks like Erdogan needs all the international help and investment he can muster. No matter what Pakistan’s grouse with India is, India is an important country and a major economic player in the world. Turkey cannot afford to ignore it in such a situation. Turkey’s newfound moderation on Kashmir should be perhaps strictly taken in the larger context of its attempts to repair ties with other countries.

Whatever the reason, interestingly there appears to be a near-unanimous opinion within the Pakistani establishment that Turkey’s tone has indeed softened on Kashmir. While some have advised caution, others have expressed disappointment over a core concern of Islamabad being handled so callously by a country they considered a “true friend”. In the complicated, ever-changing world of international relations, perhaps the only thing that remains unchanged is the adage – “there are no permanent friends or enemies, only national interest.”

L'articolo Pakistan and Turkey: the first signs of trouble proviene da InsideOver.

The Turkish parliament ratified the Paris climate agreement on October 06, 2021, making it the last G20 country to do so, after holding off for years due to what it saw as injustices in its responsibilities as part of the agreement. On October 06, 2021, 353 members of Turkey’s parliament ratified the agreement unanimously.

Turkey has been a signatory to the Paris agreement since April 2016. But Ankara had not ratified the deal, arguing that it should not be considered a developed country as part of the agreement, which gives it more responsibility, as Turkey is historically responsible for a very small share of carbon emission. Announcing that Turkey would ratify the deal at the United Nations General Assembly in September, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said countries that have a “historical responsibility” for climate change should make the most effort. Erdogan’s stand till now was, “Whoever made the most damage to nature, our air, our water, our soil, the earth; whoever savagely exploited natural resources needs to make the largest contribution to the fight against climate change”.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change currently lists Turkey in the Annex I group, described as industrialized countries. A statement approved by parliament said Turkey was ratifying the deal as a developing country and would implement it as long as it did not “harm its right to economic and social development.” Turkey has also sent a proposal to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat in Bonn to have its name removed from the Annex I list. The proposal is on the provisional agenda for the COP26 Climate Change Conference to be held in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12, 2021.

If Turkey is removed from the Annex I list of countries, it would be able to benefit from investment, insurance and technology transfer that can be provided as part of the agreement. The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) MP Jale Nur Sullu said it still unclear what the result of ratifying the deal as a developing country would be without the status change being approved at the climate conference.

The Paris agreement aims to limit the global average temperature rise to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and “make efforts” to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The 1.1-degree Celsius warming already recorded has been enough to unleash disastrous weather, including the recent fires in Turkey, Greece and the United States. Some of the worst wildfires in Turkey’s history killed eight people and devastated tens of thousands of hectares of forest in the southwest Turkey in July August 2021. The fires were followed closely by floods in the north Black Sea region, that killed at least 77 people.
In October 2021, the dams that supply water to Istanbul have dried up. The two dams that provide water to Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, each have less than 10% water supply, according to data provided by the Istanbul Water and Sewerage Administration (ISKI).

Turkey has also been experiencing an intensifying drought since 2019. 2020 was the driest year in five years, and conditions in 2021 only worsened – the 2021 summer saw historic wildfires in the country’s south, and intense drought and dwindling water levels throughout the country. At the beginning of 2021, Istanbul’s water storage levels were already at their lowest levels in 15 years – at that point, according to ISKI data, each dam had well over 70% capacity. Now, as this data shows, they are emptier than they have been in recent history. The entire Marmara region is in a state of extreme drought. According to Prof. Lokman Hakan Tecer, the dean of Tekirdag Namik Kemal University, the region has experienced 46% less rainfall than it normally would this year. This drought has been experienced in several western Turkish cities, including Edirne and Kirklareli.

Officially, Turkey is a party to Climate Change Agreement, but in practice Turkey is not a party. The reason for this is that it does not see it as a climate deal; it is using it as a financial opportunity. It is known that there is a $3 billion loan negotiation behind the Paris Agreement. Exactly a week after the breaking of this news, the details of the first installment arrived. On September 28, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) approved the ‘Green Economy Financing Facility (GEFF)’ project, which will provide Turkey with over €500m in funding.

The parliamentary commission is rapidly set up, Erdogan is on his way to New York, a draft of the report comes out, and when he returns, a decision for the 500 million Euros is issued on the day he refers the Paris Agreement to the parliament. It is being promoted in Turkey that with the help of the Paris Agreement, Turkey’s climate policies will change, certain violations would be prevented and that a new era will start. But history tells that it won’t be true. Kyoto Protocol is the proof.

Turkey passed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in its Parliament in 2003 and joined the deal as the 189th party on May 24, 2004. The Kyoto Protocol was approved by the Turkish Parliament on February 5, 2009, and Turkey became a party on August 26, 2009. The UNFCCC was agreed in Rio in 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. Thus, Turkey kept them both waiting for 12 years.

When Turkey became a party to UNFCCC, the first thing it did was to boost coal production through royalties. Imported coal plants boosted and Coal mines mushroomed like crazy. Thus, this system gave birth to brands such as Yildirim Holding, which bought the biggest container port in South America, and Soma Komur Isletmeleri (Soma Coal Enterprises), which is infamous for death of 301 persons in mine accident in Soma.

What did Turkey do when it became a party to the Kyoto ProtocolP? It started the electricity generation model through royalties. Thus, it has invented a model as, “Climate Change Model with Royalties.” Alongside these, it privatized coal power plants. It has launched all climate-changing projects like the Third Bridge and the Third Airport.

With these two agreements, the country’s climate went upside down. The consequences of these policies will be better understood if we summarize them. Turkey, which joined the UNFCCC in 2004 and Kyoto Protocol in 2009, imported 422 million tons of coal from 2004 to 2019, produced one billion tons of coal, paid $612 billion for coal, oil and gas imports. It used half a billion tons of asphalt and consumed 812 million tons of cement. The number of cars increased from 4.6 million in 2004 to 13 million in 2019. It released 6.5 billion tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, making 2020 the third warmest year and a record-breaking year also in the number of extreme climate incidents in Turkey.
Therefore, Turkey, which produced 20 million tons of wheat in 2019 alone, consumed 41.7 million tons of asphalt and 45.4 million tons of cement in the same year, which led to the production of 422 million tons of construction materials alongside them, destroying nature at a fast pace. It burned 42.8 million tons of oil, 45 billion sm³ gas, 125.9 million tons of coal, releasing 399.3 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Turkey paid $41.2 billion from the public money for their importation.

Turkey has always seen the climate as money. It has followed a policy of more or less, “Let me change the climate and get paid for it.” In 2011, development banks spent 90 per cent of their climate funds on, the hydro-electric power plants (HEPPs). Certain groups in Turkey protested that “Climate funds should not be spent on HEPP projects.” Later, Turkey secured a $300 million loan through its Turkish Residential Energy Efficiency Financing Facility (TuREEFF). Even the air conditioning units benefited from these loans. Turkey Sustainable Energy Financing Facility (TurSEFF) provided 666m Euros in financing. Turkey Mid-Size Sustainable Energy Financing Facility (MidSEFF) provided 1.2 billion Euros. About 17 HES projects benefited from some 274 million Euros of these loans. Nobody knows what good this financing has done, but Turkey has been provided with close to $3 billion in finances, and it has increased its emissions by 60 percent in 2019 compared to 2004.

Hopefully, Turkey will be a party to the Paris Agreement. Thus, it will have a $3 billion loan. The money that should be allocated for prevention of climate change will be channeled to the Kanal Istanbul project. More funds will be raised through price increases. The untold story of the Paris Agreement may be considered a drama. It has money and loans, asphalt, concrete, coal-oil-gas, even air conditioning units and hydroelectric power plants. But you cannot find the trace of people or the climate conservation.

L'articolo Turkey’s dubious commitment to Paris Climate Agreement proviene da InsideOver.

It is not important that mainstream political scientists keep underestimating contemporary Turkey and its tough president Recep Tayyip Erdogan: we are facing a great power reborn. The facts prove it. Like the mythical phoenix, this centuries-old imperiality-oriented power managed to obtain new life by arising from its own ashes and is now showing to the entire world what is capable of.

The Turks are more and more present (almost) everywhere, from the Balkans to Mongolia, from the –stans to the Mexican Chiapas, from the Philippines to Europe’s Turkish diaspora – without forgetting Ukraine, the South Caucasus, the Middle East and Africa –, and they only aspire to one thing: to make Istanbul the Sublime Porte again. It’s their destiny to be the Sublime Porte – and to often be at odds with the West (and with Russia) –, that’s why whoever thinks that Erdogan is an accident of history is making a grave mistake.

Several others tried unsuccessfully to turn Turkey into a first-level great power more tied to its own historical identity than to the Western one, but only Erdogan eventually could. He had the vision – a captivating and heterogeneous but well-functioning mixture of pan-Turkic, Turanist and pan-Islamic elements supported by a far-sighted action plan –, the team – the Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is one of the most skilled strategists of our time – and a lot of “luck” – the masses were demanding a return to the origins, as shown by Necmettin Erbakan‘s exploit, accordingly Erdogan only seized the opportunity.

How Turkey’s President has been trying to make Istanbul the Sublime Porte is quite well known: he is being resorted to a wide range of instrumenta regni, among which stand out entertainment, culture, Islam (promoted by Diyanet), pan-Turkism and Turanism (exported via Tika), humanitarian cooperation and the recently-unveiled drone diplomacy.

Maybe Erdogan will fall into the trap of the imperial overstretch, or maybe not, but one thing is already clear today: Turkey did its homework, that is it did learn from the past, from its ever-changing surrounding and from other powers’ fatal mistakes and fruitful strategies. This is the reason why Erdogan got to subdue the European Union by weaponising refugees and European Turks. This is the reason why Erdogan is trying to make Turkey a naval power (again) via the Mavi Vatan doctrine. And this is the reason why that epoch-making event known as the Battle of Lepanto keeps being studied carefully by the country’s scholars, military strategists and foreign policy advisors.

The Lepanto’s Nightmare Is Alive and Healthy

Turkey’s contemporary foreign agenda is not only about the building of a pan-Turkic order extended from Anatolia to Ulaanbaatar, the subjection of the Muslim world under the Turkish flag and the emancipation from the Western yoke. It’s also about the definitive overcoming of all those centuries-old fears and weaknesses that eventually brought the Ottoman odyssey to an end. And those limits, which made the Sublime Porte a giant with feet of clay – similarly to Russia –, correspond to the never-achieved command of the sea, to the army’s backwardness and to the geographical neighborhood’s perennial instability.

Now that Turkey is getting to achieve a certain degree of domestically-driven military modernisation – the Bayraktar TB2 constitute the greatest example of it –, is securing its maritime and land borders via the use of force – let’s only think about Libya and Syria – and is restoring hegemony over its Ottoman-era near abroad – from the Balkans to Azerbaijan –, one of the last fears to face is that of a New Lepanto.

The nightmare of New Lepanto explains a wide range of Turkey’s most recent policies and initiatives across the Mediterranean, most notably the increasing pressure for the recognition of Northern Cyprus – the outpost from whose existence depends the outcome of the Ottoman-Venetian Wars 2.0 –, the maritime deal with Libya’s Government of National Accord – to be put in the wider context of the battle for hegemony over the pivotal Central and Eastern Mediterranean – and non-stop arm wrestling against the 21st century’s Venetians, namely the Italians – who have been forcibly ousted from the Cypriot waters in 2019, silently marginalized in the increasingly Turkish-influenced Balkans and violated in their own territory (the strategic port of Taranto is part of the Turkish Yilport Holding’s portfolio since 2019).

Europe sleeps, Turkey is awake

From North Nicosia to Taranto, without forgetting Ankara’s investments in the Adriatic Balkan area – Vlore is the gateway to Italy – the goal is the same: the making of the central-eastern part of the Mediterranean a safe place put under the maritime primacy of a sole power, that is Turkey. Because the alternative to Italy’s, Greece’s and Cyprus’ encirclements is the scenario of New Lepanto – obviously much more different than in the past –, and Turkey, driven by the dream of becoming something that it never was – a sea power – cannot allow that.

Similarly to the past – the past of the Battle of Lepanto –, Europe is weak, divided and trapped in a noxious “inferiority complex”, whereas Turkey is in the prime of life, as shown by its non-stop expansion across Eurafrasia and the ambitions over the Balkans, the Mediterranean and the Islamic world. And similarly to the past, Turkey is showing the muscles in order to avoid the battle.

The only thing that Europe’s Mediterranean powers have to do is to forge an alliance to take the Balkans and the Mare Nostrum back, possibly by playing the my enemy’s enemy is my friend card – Egypt, Syria and several other Arab players are waiting for joining the game – and starting to put an end to Turkey’s penetration into their own territory and their own near abroad. Acting today is more than necessary, it’s fundamental, because not reacting to Turkish muscularism could eventually lead to a tragical retreat of Europe from its own backyard. And since Turkey lives by the gunboat diplomacy and understands only the gunboat diplomacy, the time has come for Europe to make a Turkey policy based more on realpolitik and less on idealpolitik.

L'articolo Erdogan’s Ottoman Dreams and the Shadow of Lepanto proviene da InsideOver.