Meanwhile, throughout a telephone name with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that every one terror teams working in Syria have to be eradicated.
“President Erdogan stated that Syria has entered a interval when its individuals will determine about the way forward for their nation. And it is important to eradicate all terrorist organizations, together with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and Islamic State (to defend its territorial integrity,” Erdogan’s workplace stated.
Erdogan advised Nehammer that Syrian refugees start to return to their homeland and famous that this course of will depend upon residing situations in that nation. “President Erdogan additionally acknowledged that assist from the worldwide neighborhood is required to get better Syria and its infrastructure destroyed because of the civil warfare,” it added.
Turkey’s Wicked Game?
The outstanding position performed by Turkey (Türkiye) in toppling the over five-decades-long Assad-family regime in Syria has as soon as once more introduced focus to a rustic that’s enjoying an outsized position in international geopolitics regardless of a wrecked financial system, extreme home disturbances, and few true mates on the worldwide stage.
From Libya in northern Africa to Cyprus within the Mediterranean, Syria and northern Iraq within the Middle East to the borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan, there may be one frequent thread: Ankara. Turkey’s reckless overseas coverage is on full show in all these states.
By destabilizing these areas, one state at a time, Turkey is slowly however definitely increasing its strategic footprint from northern Africa to the Middle East, Asia Minor and the Caucasus, the Black Sea and the Balkans, and the Mediterranean.
Turkey has efficiently weaponized the refugee drawback to blackmail and arm-twist the European Union whereas on the similar time recruiting these refugees to export mercenary Jihadist fighters from Syria to Libya.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is attempting to place himself because the chief of the Sunni world, a neo-Ottoman Sultan, and concurrently specializing in the revival of a “higher Turkey” that renews a classical, civilizational mannequin of the Ottoman Empire’s legacy.
Ankara’s promotion of a pan-Islamist, Neo-Ottoman ideology has harmful implications for the entire Middle East, the japanese Mediterranean world, northern Africa, Asia Minor, and the Balkans, and its ramifications are felt so far as in Pakistan, south-western China, and Malaysia.
It is exceptional how Ankara is pulling this off regardless of a flailing financial system with one of many highest inflation charges on the earth, extreme home upheavals within the Kurdish-majority areas, and a critical lack of real mates on the worldwide stage. It is usually a textbook case of punch above your weight within the international area.
Syria And Iraq
Turkey has by no means made a secret of its involvement in Syria and Iraq. When the Syrian insurgent offensive started in late November, if anybody had doubts relating to Turkish involvement, Erdogan made it clear in a press release on December 5, two days earlier than rebels captured the Syrian capital and Assad energy base Damascus.
“Idlib, Hama, Homs, and, after all, the last word goal is Damascus. The opposition’s march continues,” Erdogan stated. “Our hope is that this march in Syria proceeds with none accidents or troubles.”
Erdogan reminded that he had invited Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a number of instances this yr for talks to “decide Syria’s future collectively,” however Assad didn’t reply positively to such a gathering.
Turkish newspapers have reported intimately the assist Syrian rebels obtained from Ankara.
Hurriyet newspaper reported that the National Intelligence Organisation, Ankara’s intelligence company, has been “intently monitoring the sphere for the previous three months and has made all vital preparations via each diplomatic and intelligence efforts.” The report additional stated that the Turkish intelligence property had been “absolutely on the bottom.”
The newspaper additional claimed that wherever Russian property had been on the bottom, they had been knowledgeable prematurely to vacate the world to keep away from direct clashes with Russian forces.
While Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led the primary offensive, it was primarily backed by the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA). Some of the SNA battalions, just like the Sultan Suleyman Shah Brigade and the Sultan Murad Division, are even named after Ottoman figures.
Leila al-Shami, a Syrian creator and human rights campaigner, advised Middle Eastern Eye that “The SNA is de facto pursuing a Turkish, not Syrian, agenda.”
Assad Was A Sideshow, Turkey’s Main Target Is AANES
Analysts say that Turkey has few targets in Syria – to topple Assad and reduce to dimension the US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces (SDF), assault the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), and weaken the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
While headlines had been dominated by the autumn of Damascus and the inglorious escape of Assad, it needs to be famous that Damascus fell with none combat. The actual, intense combating in Syria occurred round Manbij, a metropolis in Northern Syria managed by US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces (SDF).
Here, intense battles had been fought between Turkey-backed SNA and the Kurdish SDF. On December 9, Turkish officers advised the media that Manbij had fallen to SNA forces.
The Kurdish SDF is the primary ally in a U.S. coalition towards Islamic State militants. However, Turkey says it’s spearheaded by a terrorist group intently tied to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who’ve fought the Turkish state for 40 years.
As the occasions are unfolding in Syria, it’s clear that so far as Turkey is worried, Assad was solely a sideshow, and their fundamental goal is to assault the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).
Similarly, Turkey has repeatedly interfered in Iraq, principally to assault the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) bases in Iraq. In 2019, Turkey launched Operation Claw, a land and floor assault that noticed Turkey set up navy bases in Iraqi territory. Since then, Turkey has used these bases to plan assaults and airstrikes, together with testing a brand new ballistic missile in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Libya – The Invisible Turkish Hand
In January 2020, Erdoğan printed an op-ed claiming that the “Road to peace in Libya goes via Turkey.” In this op-ed, Erdoğan exhorted the EU to facet with Turkey and Libya’s authorities within the civil warfare towards Khalifa Haftar’s forces, supported by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Russia, amongst others.
“Keeping in thoughts that Europe is much less fascinated with offering navy assist to Libya, the apparent alternative is to work with Turkey, which has already promised navy help…we’ll prepare Libya’s safety forces and assist them fight terrorism, human trafficking, and different critical threats towards worldwide safety,” Erdoğan wrote in his oped.
However, Turkish involvement in Libya began a lot earlier than this 2020 OPED by Erdogan was printed. Much like Syria, Turkey and Russia have supported opposing sides within the Libyan civil warfare as properly.
While Turkey has been concerned in Libya a minimum of since 2016, Ankara’s involvement deepened in 2019 when it started to extend its degree of engagement with the UN-backed Tripoli authorities by sending navy trainers, planners, Syrian mercenaries, and armed drones.
On the alternative facet, forces allied with Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar obtained various levels of assist from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Russia.
By 2021, rival factions backed by Turkey and Russia have carved out and divided Libya into their respective sphere of affect.
The Tripoli authorities, named the Government of National Accord (GNA) and backed militarily primarily by Turkey, controls the capital and a few of western Libya. Though this authorities is supported by the UN, the U.S., and a few Western nations, Ankara is its fundamental navy backer.
Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s forces, based mostly in Benghazi and named Libyan Arab Armed Forces, management a lot of japanese and southern Libya.
Apart from affect in Libya, Turkey seeks to safeguard its financial pursuits within the japanese Mediterranean as a part of a broader competitors for oil and fuel drilling rights. Notably, Libya has the very best oil and fuel reserves in Africa. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the japanese Mediterranean basin is estimated to comprise pure fuel price US$700 billion. By meddling in Libya, Turkey has successfully established itself as a critical contender for drilling this fuel.
In December 2019, Ankara signed a contentious maritime and navy cooperation take care of the Tripoli-based GNA authorities to create an unique financial zone from Turkey’s southern Mediterranean shore to Libya’s northeast coast.
This maritime deal has thrown a spanner into the works of efforts by Cyprus, Greece, Israel, and Egypt to develop East Mediterranean fuel by placing a barrier throughout a proposed pipeline that will run from Israeli and Greek-Cypriot waters to the European mainland.
This proposed unique financial zone between Turkey and Libya additionally signifies that any worldwide transport route between the Middle East and Europe has to incorporate Turkey.
Incidentally, the proposed I2U2 (India, Israel, US, UAE) worldwide commerce route may also move via this Turkish-Libya unique financial zone, successfully making Ankara a celebration to this proposed commerce route.
Turkey’s message is loud and clear: No Middle Eastern association is feasible by ignoring Turkey.
Turkey Also Has A Colony
While discussing Turkey and its belligerent overseas coverage, individuals usually miss the purpose that within the twenty first century, Turkey is likely one of the few nations that also maintains a colony.
Turkey has maintained a colony since 1974, when it invaded Cyprus in response to a Greek coup d’état that aimed to annex the island to Greece. Turkey occupied 37% of the island and displaced 200,000 Cypriots. In 1983, the Turkish Cypriots declared independence and proclaimed the world the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (TRNC). Only Turkey acknowledges the TRNC.
Turkey follows a coverage of ethnic cleaning of Greek Cypriots and has settled hundreds of Turkish troopers in TRNC to alter its demography. Turkey is implementing a coverage of bringing in hundreds of settlers from Anatolia to settle within the occupied space in an effort to alter the inhabitants and the ethnic traits of the inhabitants.
As a sovereign entity, Cyprus possesses drilling rights alongside its coastal waters as per the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
However, Turkey has not signed the UNCLOS, which supplies a framework for outlining unique financial zones (EEZs). Through the TRNC, Turkey claims fuel deposits in Cyprus’ maritime zone and that any discoveries of pure fuel inside Cyprus’ maritime zone have to be shared with Turkey. Ankara has elevated its naval presence within the area to implement these claims.
Besides, via its unlawful management of TRNC, Ankara could make outlandish claims within the Mediterranean and Aegean seas.
Turkey Replaces Saudi Arabia In Exporting Pan-Islamism
For a few years, Saudi Arabia was the chief financier of pan-Islamism. However, over the last twenty years, Turkey has rapidly changed Saudi Arabia in exporting pan-Islamism worldwide. Turkey is financing the development of mosques throughout the globe, from Latin America to Europe, Africa, and Asia. In many cases, Erdoğan himself officiated the opening ceremonies.
Turkey has additionally emerged as the important thing backer of the Muslim Brotherhood, elevating tensions with Egypt. Turkey can also be changing into a global hub of spiritual schooling via its Imam Hatip colleges (which Erdoğan attended as a younger boy).
Through these steps, Turkey needs to ascertain itself because the chief of the ‘Sunni World.’
A New Ottoman Sultan Rises
In 2016, Speaking on the Recep Tayyip Erdogan University (RTEU) within the province of Rize, Erdogan made a press release that uncovered Turkey’s neo-Ottoman ambitions.
“We can’t draw boundaries to our coronary heart, nor will we enable it. Turkey can’t disregard its kinsmen in Western Thrace (Greece), Cyprus, Crimea, and anyplace else.” This was an open declaration that however Turkey’s trendy borders and worldwide agreements, Ankara can be concerned wherever some remnants of the previous Ottoman regime existed, be it Greece, Cyprus, Levant, Asia Minor, Balkans, or Crimea.
Erdogan has criticized the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which settled the borders of modern-day Turkey, on multiple event.
“Turkey must eliminate the psychology of 1923,” Erdogan declared in 2016 whereas saying the Turkish marketing campaign in Iraq’s Mosul to clear it of ISIS and Kurdish PKK components.
Lamenting the Treaty of Lausanne as “unfair” to Ankara that left the nation too small, Erdogan stated: “The dimension of our lands, which was 2.5 million sq. meters in 1914, decreased to 780 thousand sq. meters once we signed the Lausanne Treaty 9 years later… The actual tragedy is the understanding of accepting this example as the idea and utterly imprisoning ourselves on this shell. We don’t settle for this understanding. The purpose of those that imprison Turkey on this vicious circle is to make us neglect the Seljuk and Ottoman previous. We can’t act with the psychology of 1923 in 2016. Insisting on that is the best injustice to the nation and the nation. I hereby declare: Turkey has utterly left that understanding of safety behind.”
Simultaneously, Turkish state media propaganda is pushing new maps of historic Turkish lands that embrace components of Northern Syria, Iraq, Armenia, Georgia, Cyprus, and even Greece as a part of Turkey.
While these maps of Greater Turkey could be dismissed as exaggerated state-media propaganda, they’re an essential factor of Erdogan’s doctrine, which sees Turkey’s historic claims as spilling over into neighboring nations in Europe, Asia Minor, and the Middle East.
The Mind Behind Erdogan’s Neo-Ottoman Fantasy – The Davutoğlu Doctrine
Erdogan’s rise in Turkish politics positively represents a important shift; nevertheless, the reintroduction of Ottomanism throughout Turgut Ozal’s tenure established the situations for Erdogan’s meteoric rise. At the identical time, the ideological basis for this assertive overseas coverage was laid by the work of Turkey’s overseas minister (and educational), Ahmet Davutoğlu, usually known as the mind behind Erdogan’s overseas coverage.
Davutoğlu was the chief overseas coverage advisor of Erdoğan earlier than he was appointed overseas minister in 2009. As an educational, he has outlined his overseas coverage doctrine in a number of writings, a very powerful of which is his e-book “Strategic Depth,” printed in 2001.
In this e-book, Davutoğlu argues that Turkey possesses “strategic depth” attributable to its historical past and geographic place and lists It amongst a small group of nations that he calls “central powers.”
In his view, Turkey shouldn’t be content material with a regional position within the Balkans or the Middle East as a result of it’s not a regional however a central energy. Hence, it ought to aspire to play a number one position globally.
In Davutoğlu’s view, Turkey is a Middle Eastern, Balkan, Caucasian, Central Asian, Caspian, Mediterranean, Gulf, and Black Sea nation. Thus, Ankara can concurrently train affect in all these areas.
Davutoğlu claimed that “Turkey is destined to grow to be a regional hegemon,” merging geographic determinism with cultural company and Turkey’s historic expertise.
Guided by Davutoğlu’s “Strategic Depth” doctrine, Erdogan is recklessly interfering in virtually all of Turkey’s neighbor’s inside politics.
Conclusion
Turkey has efficiently developed an impartial home military-industrial advanced and has gained leverage by exporting navy programs, particularly its drone know-how. By interfering in nations from Libya, Syria, Iraq, Cyprus, and Armenia, Turkey has expanded its strategic position and its international profile.
However, Ankara should tread rigorously because it faces many home challenges, together with sky-high inflation and unemployment. The Kurdish query is much from settled. Erdogan may need suppressed the 2016 coup, however his more and more autocratic type of functioning has created political instability within the nation.
Also, Erdogan’s adventurism in neighboring nations has spoiled Turkey’s relations with virtually all of its neighbors. Ankara is more and more pushing Greece, Cyprus, Israel, and Egypt nearer to one another. Ankara is more and more remoted in NATO. Its relations with each Iran and Russia are set to deteriorate additional after the Turkish-supported regime change in Syria, and its relations with the U.S. may be strained as Turkey-backed SNA assaults Kurdish-led SDF positions in Syria.
On the worldwide stage, Ankara has few real mates, and Turkey’s adventurism is ready to make extra enemies than mates. Erdogan is, maybe, repeating Putin’s errors, stretching his nation too skinny and consuming greater than he can chew.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of expertise in information media. He has labored with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from The University of Sheffield, UK.
- He could be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com
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