The time of crisis for Turkey seems to be approaching. The global energy crisis exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is driving the world back into Cold War-style camps. This adds to the sense of urgency in the US to clarify Turkey’s orientation.
Ankara is negotiating hard, aiming to extract maximum trade-offs to remain on a western trajectory. At the same time, it clarifies that its will is to maintain a degree of autonomy for its foreign policy. Turkish diplomacy is trying to convince that this is also in the interest of the West!
The US is still “suffering” from the geopolitically valuable Turkey syndrome. This has led them to an unprecedented display of tolerance towards Ankara’s flagrant anti-alliance attitudes, which often manifest themselves in blunt blackmail, as in the case of Sweden and Finland joining NATO.
The excessive Western tolerance towards Turkey, on the one hand, led to dramatic compromises that hurt the infamous “principles and values” that the West invokes at every opportunity, but these compromises have not solved the problem. Regardless of the reactions that have erupted inside Sweden and Finland, Turkey continues to warn that if its conditions are not met, the Turkish National Assembly will not approve the entry of the two countries into the Atlantic Alliance.
NATO has a first-class opportunity to realize that it will henceforth be walking in entanglements if it does not establish a “red line” of tolerable behavior on the part of Turkey. If it does not send a clear message, it will continue to fuel Ankara’s belief that it can extort bargains in return. It would be such a message if all NATO member states officially declared that they would defend Sweden and Finland in the event of a threat, so as to neutralize Turkey’s blocking of membership.
The West does not need Turkey so much as Turkey needs the West
Westerners must realize that Turkey needs them more than they need Turkey. If and when such a message is sent, along with actions that will give it credibility, only then is there hope for Ankara to bounce back. Western strategists cannot proclaim that it is an advantage for a country to belong to the West and forget it whenever the discussion concerns Turkey.
For now, the fact that Erdogan will fight the 2023 election with his popularity tarnished is leading the US to take a wait-and-see attitude. They hope that with another president, Turkey will change its attitude towards the West. This, however, in strategic terms is not a given. We remind you that the Turkish opposition does not qualitatively differentiate itself from Erdogan in foreign policy and especially in Greek-Turkish terms it accuses him of being submissive!
We will not engage in this article with the convenient ideology that Erdogan’s departure will return Turkey to the year 2000 in terms of its relations with the West. Washington’s entire strategy rests on this ideology and therefore fails to recognize the significant changes that have taken place in Turkish society in the twenty years of neo-Ottoman rule.
The boundless tolerance shown by the West towards Erdogan is helping his re-election bid! At the same time, he leads any of his successors to the conclusion that blackmail tactics work…
In practice, this Western attitude of waiting is also accompanied by steps to appease Turkey. The Americans may be declaring that they are still “supporting the Kurdish allies” in Northern Syria, pretending not to realize that they come from the same matrix as the “terrorist PKK”.
But at the same time – according to information – American oil companies are withdrawing from Kurdish oil fields in Kurdish northern Iraq, leaving them at the mercy of the Turks. Just as they invaded Syria under the pretext of fighting terrorism, they are doing the same in Iraq. Such actions send the most wrong messages to the Islamofascist regime in Ankara.
The Flawed Appeasement Strategy Continues
At this dramatic juncture for the West’s energy security and the failure of the “green transition” strategy due to China’s control of the supply chain of critical minerals and rare earths, Turkey announced the discovery of “the second largest deposit of rare earths of land worldwide which contains 10 of the 17 of the relevant list”.
What will the West do? Will he accept to be under Turkish hostage, among others, so as not to lose access to such a critical deposit, if its existence is confirmed? Because the timing of the Turkish announcement is suspicious in two dimensions: The need to give hope to the Turkish voter who abandoned Erdogan because he destroyed the economy. Second, to secure tolerance from the West for reasons already explained.
Unfortunately for the champions of this strategy, the reality of the energy crisis and the role the Eastern Mediterranean will play in solving the problem is rapidly leading to doomsday. At this point, Greece must carefully investigate what the US plan is and weigh its compatibility with the Greek national interest.
Turkey insists that the islands are not entitled to maritime zones, while it unreservedly claims half of the Eastern Mediterranean, abolishing any Greek sovereign right, relying on international law of the sea. If the American strategy considers that “for the good of NATO” international law will be violated exclusively for Greece, the Greek society has the right to know clearly how the government stands on this.
They must explain how they see it logically possible to bridge such a distance with Turkey through diplomacy. And especially when Ankara refuses to have the legitimacy of its claims judged by the International Court of Justice.
The USA and NATO must finally stand up to the fact that government partner Bakhtseli presented a map, which shows half of the Aegean islands and Crete as Turkish! The US needs to take a clear stand on the daily Turkish statements challenging Greek sovereignty if it really wants to avoid a conflict on the Alliance’s southeastern flank.
Because if this happens, it will certainly not be “for the good of NATO”, on the contrary, it will fundamentally shake it, exerting dissolving pressures on it. This is Greece’s duty to highlight it.
