Erdoğan is both a bully and a
menace. Europe ignores him at its peril
(The Guardian)
Turkey’s aggression towards its rivals and allies
alike is posing a threat to regional stability, yet nobody is prepared to act
Sun 16 Aug 2020 08.08 BST
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Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan speaks at a press conference in Ankara about tensions with
Greece on 10 August. Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock
Much opprobrium has
been heaped in recent days on the “elective dictatorship” of Alexander
Lukashenko and his violently fraudulent bid to secure a sixth term as president
of Belarus. Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, led a chorus of
condemnation, rejecting last Sunday’s poll as “neither free nor fair”.
Yet
Europe’s righteous wrath and sanctions threats seem a tad confected. Nobody
really expected Lukashenko to play fair. Democratic reform in Belarus, a
country firmly stuck in Russia’s orbit, is not an EU priority. There is no
discernible appetite for the kind of robust intervention that might actually
make a difference.
Europe’s
harsh public criticism of Lukashenko contrasts sharply with its reluctance to
openly denounce the latest aggressive machinations in
the eastern Mediterranean of another elective dictatorship, that of Turkey’s
long-entrenched leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Turkey is
a Nato member, key EU trade partner, border gatekeeper and influential actor in
Syria and the Near East. Unlike Belarus, it has real strategic importance.
Perhaps that explains the awkward silence of many governments, including the
UK’s. It does not excuse it.
All
the same, there is one telling similarity with EU policy towards Belarus: there
is little sign of concerted action to curb Erdoğan’s excesses. Anybody who
doubts the “dictator” tag need look no further than Erdoğan’s repressive new social media law, which
replicates his evisceration of traditional independent media. The law will
greatly increase online censorship, said Tom Porteous of Human Rights Watch.
“An autocracy is being constructed by silencing all critical voices.”
In
his approach to Turkey, as in other respects, Emmanuel Macron is an exception
to the European rule. France’s president was enraged in June when Turkish
warships, escorting a vessel suspected of smuggling arms to Libya, went to
battle stations when challenged by a lone French frigate, obliging the latter
to withdraw. This was not the behaviour of a supposed ally. Further incensed by
Turkey’s expanding oil and gas exploration operations in Greek territorial
waters, Macron sent naval reinforcements to
the eastern Mediterranean last week and told Erdoğan to back off.
Both
Greece and Turkey have mobilised their navies and air forces. Turkey claims
current international law governing continental shelf energy deposits is
unjust. Greece says its territory is being invaded. Both claim to prefer
dialogue to military confrontation. But on Thursday, as Ankara vowed to defend
its “rights and interests” and Athens warned of the growing danger of a
military “accident”, two Greek and Turkish ships collided.
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The
escalating crisis, which also touches Cyprus, Israel and Egypt, provoked a
belated flurry of diplomatic activity last week. The EU foreign affairs council
met in extraordinary session. Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, got on the
phone to Erdoğan as she has in previous crises, trying to talk him down. Athens
appealed to the US.
Erdogan needs to reproduce his
swashbuckling image every day
Yavuz Baydar
Tensions
between Greece and Turkey are nothing new. But
this sudden, provocative intensification of a long-running dispute smacks of
deliberate calculation. It prompted the respected commentator Yavuz Baydar to
ask what Turkey’s president was trying to achieve.
His
answer: an insecure Erdoğan, beset by economic, pandemic and currency crises,
wants to reinforce his dominant reputation as a strong leader and
commander-in-chief upholding Turkey’s honour and rightful place in the world.
“He needs to reproduce his swashbuckling image every day,” Baydar wrote.
Secondly, Erdoğan hopes to insure Turkey’s position in the Aegean, eastern
Mediterranean, Syria and Libya against a change of administration in
Washington. Wannabe strongman Donald Trump envies Erdoğan his
elective dictatorship. He has given him free rein. Joe Biden could apply the
brakes.
Be
that as it may, Europe’s Erdoğan problem has grown steadily worse since he
survived a coup plot in 2016. Indiscriminate repression at home, involving the
jailing of tens of thousands of real and imagined opponents, has been matched
by destabilising, Ottoman-revival adventurism abroad.
Driven by a faith-fuelled nationalism, Erdoğan has doubled down in his role of neighbourhood bully. On Tuesday, for example, a reported Turkish drone attack inside Iraq drew a furious response from Baghdad. The incident followed Turkey’s launch in June of yet another uninvited, cross-border military offensive against Kurdish separatists based in Iraq
Turkish-backed forces in the Syrian
town of al-Ghazawiya, near Afrin in the rebel-held northern countryside of
Aleppo province, on 28 July. Photograph: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP/Getty Images
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Under
Erdoğan’s direction, Turkey has plunged headlong into Libya’s proxy war, taking
sides with Islamists against Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Partly it’s about
competing with rival Sunni leaders; partly it’s about oil. It’s
certainly not about the welfare of Libya’s people.
By opening Turkey’s border with
the EU to displaced Syrians in February, Erdoğan forcefully reminded Europe he
was fully prepared to use refugees as a political weapon. Turkey continues to
deploy thousands of troops deep inside northern Syria. Ostensibly they are
peacekeepers, in reality occupiers and jailers.
Erdoğan
maintains a constant state of friction with Israel, partly by supporting Hamas.
He denounced last week’s diplomatic breakthrough with the UAE as a betrayal of
the Palestinians. Further burnishing his neo-Islamist credentials, he
gratuitously offended Christians and secularists alike by turning Hagia Sophia,
Istanbul’s former cathedral and museum, into a mosque.
If
all this were not trouble enough, Erdoğan’s lurch to Russia, symbolised by
Turkey’s purchase of S-400 surface-to-air missiles, has left Nato members asking whether he can be
trusted. The fact that Trump, anxious as always to please Vladimir
Putin, failed to insist on Turkey cancelling the deal will not prevent it
becoming a major point of contention should Biden win.
Head-in-the-sand
European leaders must surely realise their Erdoğan problem cannot be ignored,
dodged, or downplayed indefinitely in the hope that he will eventually go away.
Turkey turning rogue is a very real, immediate and dangerous prospect. Nobody
seems to have an Erdoğan containment plan. One is increasingly required.
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