| | Welcome back to Turkey Briefing! The biggest story world over was of course the “plane crash” that killed the Russian mercenary boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin (Anton Mardasov wrote an interesting piece on this for us). Many of my Turkish friends commented that his death must have served as a chilling reminder to many, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan included, of just how far Vladimir Putin can go when he’s cheesed off. Turkey got a sampling of it in 2015 after shooting down a Russian fighter jet over Syria. Ten days ago, Russian naval forces fired shots at and boarded a foreign-flagged Turkish cargo ship in the Western Black Sea. Little wonder, then, that Ankara isn’t so keen on the alternative route being reportedly touted by America and backed by Kyiv to export Ukrainian grain after Russia axed the Black Sea grain deal. Sure, Ankara wants the deal back because it gets lots of kudos for its role in it. But equally, does it really want to provoke Putin by backing the American plan that leaves Russia out in the cold without meeting any of the demands cited for its scuppering of the previous scheme? Barin Kayaoglu has more on that here. |
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| From Al-Monitor Pro: With Gulf charm offensive, Turkey’s Erdogan sets up dealmaking deluge |
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A Turkish drone factory is coming to Saudi Arabia following a $3.1 billion deal with defense firm Baykar — one of many key deals that should soon take flight across numerous sectors as Turkey deepens cooperation with former Gulf rivals. The factory news arrived in early August, shortly after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan kicked off his third term by touring Gulf capitals, the latest salvo in his efforts to repair ties and attract foreign investment needed to revive Turkey’s moribund economy. So far, Gulf states appear open to Erdogan’s pitch and could compete to invest. That’s headlined by the UAE inking agreements worth $50 billion during Erdogan’s visit — double what Turkey had hoped for across the entire trip. Details on deals in the pipeline remain vague, but won’t be for long. Expect a dealmaking deluge across the defense, energy and other fronts in coming months, as Gulf wealth funds and players like Aramco and ADNOC target business with Turkey. Read more. |
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Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, met with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy in Kyiv today, as our Ezgi Akin reported, and the grain deal was top of the agenda. There was no word of a breakthrough as of this writing. Just as Fidan was making the rounds in Kyiv, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Putin was expected to hold talks in person with Erdogan “soon.” He did not say when or where. Erdogan wants the meeting to be in Ankara and with Prigozhin out of the way, Putin may well feel confident enough to travel. But ostensibly, an agreement needs to be in place first. That is certainly the case for Erdogan’s potential trip to Iraq. It is unlikely he will go until a deal is reached on the resumption of Iraqi oil sales — the bulk of it Kurdish — via Turkey. No deal was reached. Unnamed Turkish officials speaking to Bloomberg suggested the main problem was between Erbil and Baghdad. The Kurds want revenues from their own oil to be transferred to their own accounts. Baghdad has reportedly told Ankara to give the Kurds only 12% of the revenues, mirroring the national budgetary allocation for the Kurds, and wants to pocket the rest. However, we also know that Ankara wants Baghdad to drop an arbitration case against it over its role in exporting Kurdish oil. Baghdad wants a bigger share of the waters of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. I wrote about this mess here. |
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Fidan spent three days in Iraq before jetting off to Kyiv, meeting with the widest array of Iraqi actors conceivable. The president, the prime minister, the defense minister, the foreign minister, Turkmen leaders, Kurdish leaders, Shiite leaders — hardly any ethnic or religious actor was left out. The Turkish Foreign Ministry posted photos of all the encounters on Twitter, save one: that between Fidan and Qais al-Khazali, the leader of the US-designated, Iran-backed Shiite militia and political party Asaib Ahl al-Haq. The assignation was, however, splashed all over local media. Khazali’s group is believed to be behind the sporadic attacks on Turkish troops in Bashiqa and during the meeting he apparently said Turkish forces needed to leave. Asaib Ahl al-Haq is also said to pay salaries to the Sinjar Protection Units, the Yazidi militia in Sinjar that is closely affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Throughout his trip Fidan repeated the same mantra, that Iraq should designate the PKK and help expel “this virus” from its soil. That is unlikely to happen anytime soon. As if to reinforce his message, Turkish drones killed seven PKK members inside Iraq in twin drone strikes. Though I have zero evidence that he did, I am hoping that Fidan used his face time with Khazali to push for Israeli-Russian scholar Elizabeth Tsurkov’s release. His men were initially thought to be involved in her abduction in Baghdad in March. Turkey would score big brownie points with the Israelis if they could aid in her freedom. Plus it's the right thing to do. Either way, all roads lead to Tehran and the conventional wisdom is that poor Liz is being held for a hostage swap and will only be freed when Iran gets its way. |
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| More material for Menendez |
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On the diplomatic front, the other big story was the run-in between Turkish Cypriot forces and UN peacekeepers over the construction of a road encroaching on the UN-protected buffer zone, prompting a flurry of unusually harsh condemnations by the UN, France, Britain and the United States, among others. You can read all about that here. The big question is why Ankara would have sanctioned the move just as it’s seeking to mend fences with the West. Bob Menendez, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who is fiercely opposed to selling F-16s to Turkey, was in Cyprus this week, ostensibly to find out. On the domestic front, the big news was the Central Bank’s surprise decision to raise interest rates by a whopping 750 basis points from 17.5% to 25%, prompting Turkey’s embattled currency to rise by 3%, as detailed by Ezgi Akin. Turkey continues to be afflicted by wildfires that are erupting across the globe amid soaring temperatures. Things got so bad that Turkey had to temporarily halt traffic through the Dardanelles Straits. Ezgi had that story too. Finally, if you have some spare time check out Turkey Recap’s profile of Turkey’s new spy boss, Ibrahim Kalin. Thanks for reading, Amberin |
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