A balanced Turkey key to suppress East-West conflicts

Fresh off a critically scrutinized election season, Turkey is beginning to shape its foreign policy for the next five years under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his new Cabinet of Ministers.

According to a number of experts, Ankara’s hotly debated international approach will allow Turkey to become more independent without severing its ties with the West, and the selection of Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and the head of the National Intelligence Organization (NIS) Ibrahim Kaln means that security experience will shine. and diplomacy.

Professor Mesut Hakk Can, deputy chairman of the Center for Strategic Studies, member of the President’s Ministry of Security and Foreign Affairs, said that the appointment of new officials, especially Fidan and Kaln, is proof that Turkey has mastered a new way of conducting responsible foreign policy. Policy Council.

“We were talking about smart diplomacy here,” said Can. “Turkey’s foreign policy backed by a more confident military will be more dynamic and didactic,” he said, referring to new defense minister Yaar Gler, who claimed Can has inspired more support within the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK).

As the head of intelligence, Fidan played a key role in the normalization talks with Israel and Syria in the early 2010s, as well as peace talks with the PKK terrorist group. Kaln, a former spokesman and political adviser to the president who also participated in negotiations with Syria and Russia, is widely known as a “black box” confidant for Erdogan.

Another expert Mehmet Zkan, author and foreign policy expert currently serving at the Joint Warfare Institute and National Defense University, Mehmet Zkan is evidence of how security and diplomacy are intertwined in this era. “It also underscores Erdogan’s emphasis on power-sharing.”

Expert Ouz Elikkol also praised Fidan and Kaln as “experienced, skilled and valuable personalities” who will contribute to Turkey’s foreign policy.

“It will be an advantage to strengthen the international position,” said academic Elikkol, who previously served as Turkey’s consul general in Los Angeles, as well as its ambassador to Syria, Greece, Iraq and Israel.

Experts agreed that there would be no radical change in Turkey’s international position, but stressed that it would deepen to consolidate the achievements made in the field and at the negotiating table over the past two decades under Erdogan’s leadership.

“A new foreign policy that will not deplete the Turkish economy will coincide with defense industry sales and expand Turkey’s parameters to the Caucasus, China, the Black Sea and the Balkans, while still firmly rooted in the Middle East and Africa.” can argue.

Erdogan himself emphasizes a comprehensive and harmonious “national foreign policy” based on the principle of “Peace at home, peace in the world” put forward by the founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as the core of Turkey’s foreign policy in 1931.

According to Can, this means that Turkey will stick to its position of neutrality as long as it can, especially as international politics take on an increasingly Cold War-like atmosphere with US-China and Russia polarization. including uncertainty in the Asia-Pacific region, where superpowers are competing for influence, and rising tensions in the Balkans, particularly renewed Serbian aggression in Kosovo.

For Zkan, this points to Ankara’s growing reputation as a more proactive player capable of bringing stability to many points of conflict in the Middle East through its quest for order.

“The normalization of relations with Syria, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Armenia and others should be interpreted in the same way,” he said.

Decades after Ankara sided with Western powers and later joined NATO during the Cold War to protect its southeastern border against Soviet expansion, global systemic changes have transformed Turkey’s political, economic, and social structure, thrusting its pro-Western presence into center stage. In the 1980s, the Turkish mentality expanded, hoping to influence a vast region stretching from the Balkans to Central Asia.

The East-West scale has been running on largely the same frequency since then, and Turkey’s self-proclaimed “bridge” between the two has evolved to occupy a crucial place in international politics, and today Ankara’s ability to easily engage in dialogue with any state and provide it with military equipment is evidenced. It is strengthening and brokering key agreements in hot spots like Libya, Syria, Palestine, Ukraine, even Sudan and most recently Kosovo.

However, that ability has become increasingly heated in Ankara in recent years, particularly in the wake of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, as Erdogan’s working relationship with Putin has been widely criticized despite Turkey’s role in reining in Moscow in Ukraine.

According to Zkan, the idea that Turkey is “stuck” between the East and the West under such conditions is “wrong” and every step taken by Ankara aims to “ensure that this does not happen”.

“Turkey is the third way,” he said. “Ankara’s policy is to ensure its strategic autonomy and the ability to act independently in order not to be caught between the two blocs while establishing relations with both the West and the East.”

For Zkan, Turkey wants more “corporate and calm” relations with its allies, but Can expects new clashes between the US and China and Russia over the Asia-Pacific and the Baltic Sea, creating regional problems.

“And this means that Turkey will be devoted to a foreign strategy that will unite and prioritize the interests of Turkey and its people,” Can said.

Meanwhile, Ankara tolerates the United States stalling the NATO relations, especially Sweden’s accession process.

Washington, along with its other Western allies, has been putting less-than-subtle pressure on Turkey to ratify Sweden’s membership until next month’s summit in Vilnius, despite Ankara insisting on security concerns about terrorist groups and sympathizers operating in Sweden.

Can said that his stability means that nobody will allow Turkey to “wake a finger”, which indicates the essence of “national foreign policy”.

“Turkey announces its presence in the Balkans and the Black Sea, but declares that it will not pursue a foreign policy with coercion. It will be on its own terms,” ​​Can added.

As for Western criticism of Ankara’s anti-terrorist operations in Syria and northern Iraq, it will not last long as Turkey can better legitimize its position against terrorist groups, according to Zkan.

“The international community should understand that terrorist groups like the PKK should be fought while the political processes are going on, that they are creating a big problem, because the violators and other nations will support Turkey,” he said. “At least they won’t criticize it.”

As it has now made its national interests clear, Turkey’s stance on Sweden’s NATO membership is also a clear message that its anti-terrorist approach is being taken into account, Zkan added.

The PKK, a terrorist group banned in Turkey, the US and the EU since the 1980s for killing more than 40,000 people, revoked another “ceasefire” decision on May 28, immediately after Erdogan’s re-election. wounded a pair of Turkish soldiers and hit the southeastern districts.

Jan called the ceasefire a “trick” and said that Turkey’s operations “will continue to hit the PKK persistently because it is a matter of Turkey’s security and eternity.”

“An agreement with the PKK is possible only if they put down their arms,” ​​he said, rejecting the idea that peace talks with the group could be resumed.

“There are two options in politics,” said Can. “The nations of the world will either make peace with Turkey against Russia and China, or continue to criticize it. Otherwise, Turkey will, as they say, build its own fence.”