ANKARA: Turkey’s ambitions to become a regional leader with a “zero problems” foreign policy have been left in tatters by the Syrian civil war, rising sectarian tensions and a fresh diplomatic fallout with Egypt.
The predominantly Sunni Muslim Nato member state is now seeking to mend fences with Shia powers Iraq and Iran to restore its waning clout in the Middle East in the wake of the Arab spring uprisings.
The Syrian conflict has upset the balance of power in Turkey’s backyard and dealt a blow to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s lofty regional goals, his stature on the international stage also tarnished by the wave of anti-government protests that gripped the country in June.
Disputes with Israel, Cyprus and Armenia also linger on, while the spat with Cairo came to a head Saturday when Egypt’s military rulers expelled Turkey’s ambassador over Erdogan’s support for ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi. “Today Turkey is a country which is drifting alone in a vacuum,” said Faruk Logoglu, deputy head of the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) and a former ambassador to Washington.
Turkey now has no ambassadors in three key regional states: Egypt, Israel and Syria. “In fact there is ‘no zero problem’ policy left to talk about,” said Sinan Ulgen, chairman of the Istanbul Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies.
“Turkey failed to respond through realistic diplomatic moves to the changes in the region in the aftermath of the Arab spring,” he said. Erdogan, accused by critics of becoming increasingly authoritarian after 11 years at the head of a government with its roots in conservative political Islam, defiantly defended his actions as ensuring that Turkey was on the side of the righteous.
“We have supported the struggle for democracy in the world. We never respect those who do not respect the people’s sovereign rights,” he said.
But Ulgen warned the crisis with Egypt would also have wider repercussions, including an impact on Ankara’s partnership with the oil-rich Gulf monarchies. Turkey, he said, was now on a “quest for a new balance” in its foreign policy, hence the overtures to Iraq and Iran.
Ankara’s relations with the two Shia-led powers have been strained since the Syrian uprising erupted in 2011, leaving them on opposite sides of the war.
Faysal Itani from the Atlantic Council, a US think tank, said Turkey’s “early aggressive stance” against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its fervent support for the rebels had alienated its neighbours. “Turkey probably saw this as a price worth paying. But I imagine they did not expect the regime to hold out against the rebels for so long,” Itani said.
AFP
