His future depends on this: Can Erdoğan forge a new relationship with Trump?

Source: The Guardian
Translation: Telegrafi.com

For more than two decades, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has walked a fine line between the West, Russia, and China. Turkey has benefited from assistance from both sides in Russia’s war against Ukraine; expanded its influence and military presence in Syria, Libya, the South Caucasus, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Persian Gulf; spread soft power in Africa, Central Asia, and the Western Balkans; and built a powerful national defense industry.

When international relations experts analyze this, they turn to the term “balancing act.” Turkish analysts speak of “strategic autonomy,” which means the ability to defend the country’s interests against all threats, without depending on any external power.

But can Erdoğan continue this geopolitical acrobatics and take advantage of Trump's second term? Trump's first term was characterized by a close relationship between the two leaders, but there were also clashes and misunderstandings that created deep distrust between Turkey and the US.

“This is the fifth American president that Erdoğan has worked with … he’s not actually afraid of the Oval Office,” said Aaron Stein, a Turkey expert and president of the US Foreign Policy Research Institute, at a meeting at the Center for European Policy. The relationship between the two countries, he said, is characterized by unstable stability, and as long as the two countries don’t get along better with each other, “the connection with NATO will not be broken.”

During Trump's first administration, the US excluded Turkey from the fighter jet consortium. F-35, after Ankara ignored Washington's warnings and purchased an advanced air defense system from Russia.

On the other hand, Erdoğan accused the US of harboring and supporting Fethullah Gülen, the Pennsylvania-based Turkish Islamic preacher whom he blamed for the 2016 coup attempt that nearly ousted him from power. Gülen died last year, eliminating a major source of tension.

At one point, Trump publicly threatened Turkey with economic devastation if Erdoğan sent troops into Syria to attack US-backed Kurdish forces, which Ankara considers an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Turkey's greatest internal enemy.

However, Erdogan was one of the leaders who most enthusiastically welcomed Trump's election to a second term. Trump, for his part, has called Erdogan a friend and expressed admiration for Turkey's role in toppling the Assad regime in Syria, which was overthrown in December by the Turkish-backed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group.

Trump's return brings both opportunities and risks for Turkey. Trump is less inclined than Joe Biden to isolate Erdoğan for human rights abuses, restrictions on media freedom, and state capture, but he may be tougher on Erdoğan's aggressive stance toward Israel and support for Hamas.

During Biden's presidency, Erdoğan was never welcomed into the White House and relations remained frosty, while Trump continues to return his calls. The new administration understands that Turkey, with 85 million people and a key strategic position between Europe, Asia and the Middle East, controlling access to the Black Sea, has become an independent middle power, with influence from Central Asia to Africa and the Arab world.

Although it has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine and has recently sought – unsuccessfully – to join the BRICS group of emerging non-Western powers, dominated by Moscow and Beijing, Turkey remains anchored in the West as a member of NATO and as a permanent, albeit hopeless, candidate for EU membership.

On the positive side, Turkish and American experts see an opportunity to overcome the dispute over the Russian S-400 missiles. A possible compromise would be to place the unused Russian system in storage at Incirlik Air Base, where the US Air Force has one of the largest concentrations of troops in the Middle East. In exchange, Washington would lift arms sanctions on Turkey and sell it F-35 jets, although it is not clear whether Ankara, which is already developing its own fighter jet, is still interested in returning to the program.

There may also be an opportunity for closer cooperation between the US and Turkey in Syria, where relations have been strained since Washington backed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish militia in northeastern Syria that Ankara sees as an offshoot of the PKK. Stein called the alliance “the greatest sin” in Turkey’s eyes.

As part of his efforts to withdraw from the "permanent wars" in the Middle East, Trump attempted unsuccessfully - during his first term - to withdraw US special forces operating alongside the SDF against the Islamic State in Syria.

Relations with perennial regional rival Greece are in a more constructive phase, following Erdogan's threats to bomb his Aegean neighbor during his last presidential campaign.

Ankara has also followed the US Treasury's discreet warnings to restrict the activities of Turkish banks - suspected of helping sanctioned Russian oligarchs move money abroad and facilitating trade with Moscow in goods banned by the US and EU. Turkey's trade with Russia has almost tripled since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, although Turkey has suffered losses in the Russian tourism sector. However, Ankara has continued to supply Kiev with weapons, including drones. Bayraktar which played a crucial role in the early days of the war and are now being produced in Ukraine.

Some Turkish analysts speculate that Erdogan could offer to mediate between Trump and Vladimir Putin. But former Turkish diplomat Alper Coskun said he does not believe Putin would want to “give the glory” of a deal with the US to any third party, especially Turkey after recent events in Syria.

On the negative side is Erdoğan's outspoken support for Hamas and the Palestinian resistance - accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of "genocide" and comparing him to Hitler, which could put him at odds with the pro-Israel Trump administration.

However, Erdoğan was close to hosting Netanyahu in Turkey, shortly before Hamas' massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. The subsequent heavy military attack on Gaza by Israel caused a new crisis in relations between the two countries.

Last year, Ankara officially severed trade relations with Israel, but Mustafa Aydın, the president of Turkey’s Council on Foreign Relations, told me that oil from Azerbaijan continues to flow to Israel — through Turkish ports. Meanwhile, trade with “Palestine” has increased by 2,400 percent, according to official Turkish statistics, suggesting that the businesses continue under a different name. Israeli media also report that the head of Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, held secret talks with his Turkish counterpart, Ibrahim Kalın, in November.

Pragmatic and Western-educated advisors, such as Kalın and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, are thought to have gained more influence in Erdoğan's circle, while hardline nationalist military and political advisors appear to have been sidelined.

Perhaps the biggest unpredictable risk to U.S.-Turkish relations is the possibility of a direct clash between Turkey and Israel in Syria, where the two countries have become effective neighbors in the post-Assad security vacuum. Aydın noted that Israeli politicians and academics are increasingly citing Turkey as a threat to the Jewish state, while some Turkish military strategists fear that Israel, in secret cooperation with Kurdish fighters, could become a threat to Turkey.

An Israeli-Turkish clash could derail Trump's plans to pacify and withdraw the US from the Middle East. But Erdogan seems smart and pragmatic enough not to allow such an escalation. /Telegraph/