Opinion Analysis by Johnny Achkar, Contributor

February 19th, 2021

Turkey, a vital NATO member and a once-aspiring candidate for European Union membership, has reshaped itself over the past decade or so as a revisionist force actively confronting not only its regional peers but also treaty partners such as France and the United States. The decades long approach of “Zero Problems with our Neighbors” attracted prominence both at home and abroad as it strengthened commercial and trade relations with Arab states as well as Iran, eased visa sanctions with neighboring countries, and also helped mediate some of the toughest conflicts in the region. However, this policy seems to have been all but forgotten by Mr. Erdoğan, having been replaced with “Zero Friends with our Neighbors“. Significant changes have taken place in Turkish foreign policy under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, especially after the attempted military coup in 2016. In order to fulfill his expanding list of goals, Mr. Erdoğan has now burned his bridges with various regional neighbors. 

In a speech at his palace in 2016, Erdoğan revealed a picture of Turkey constrained by external forces that "aim to make us forget our history of Ottoman and Seljuk," when the ancestors of Turkey occupied territories spanning Central Asia and the Middle East. This belief was further expounded when a map of "Greater Turkey" that goes back to the period of the Seljuq Empire and its defeat  to the Byzantine Empire in the 1071 Battle of Manzikert was published by a former lawmaker from Turkey's ruling AK Party. Metin Külünk, a Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan loyalist, has published the map to mark the anniversary of the war on 26th of August. Since a coup attempt failed to oust him in July, Mr. Erdoğan has been riding a wave of patriotism, and his message of a solid Turkey plays well with his fervent supporters. Much has been written about the efforts of Erdoğan to "resurrect" the Ottoman Empire or to design a sultanate for himself. There exists evidence of this. Nevertheless, we need to be clear on which Ottoman Sultan Erdoğan is aspiring to be in order to grasp his political agenda and horizon. 

It was the ninth sultan of the empire, Selim I. The Ottoman Empire expanded from a strong regional force to a colossal global empire during his lifetime. Selim acts in several respects as Andrew Jackson of Erdoğan, a character from the history of symbolic usage in the present. Selim presents a blueprint to render Turkey a global political and economic force. We should be suspicious of Erdoğan's acceptance of Selim's exclusionary view of Turkish political power. It is a historical example of strong government agendas that have led to ethnic conflicts, the attempted persecution of religious minorities and the centralization of global economic capital. This takes the form of Erdoğan's overseas military activities in Libya, Syria, and Nagorno-Karabakh, in addition to his efforts to monopolize natural gas deposits around Turkey.

One does not need to look far in order to identify Turkish expansion in the region. With the occupation of Cyprus in 1974, the construction of Turkish military bases and deployments abroad began and has since expanded to various areas, covering three continents. In 2019, Turkey launched a ground offensive dubbed 'Peace Spring' in northern Syria, which started with the Turkish army carrying out heavy airstrikes and cross-border shelling on strategic military and civilian targets. Turkey's involvement was partly motivated by fears about the increasing presence of Syrian Kurdish parties, which Ankara saw as an expansion of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which had waged a three-decade-long revolt against the Turkish regime. Yet, in its recent activity, Ankara has assumed an expanding position in the vast portion of the territories captured, setting the groundwork for long-term relations with a region of vital strategic significance to Turkey, driven by nationalist sentiment at home. Under Mr. Erdoğan, Turkey seeks to regain territory lost by the Ottoman Empire after its defeat in World War I. Activists accused Turkey of carrying out a "Turkification" program. Turkish-backed rebels have modified street and square names, stripping them of ties to Kurdish history. The Turkish military and its Syrian proxies, which have been trained and fitted, have allegedly committed a number of human rights abuses ranging from summary executions to arbitrary assaults and disrespect for human life. However, given the current evidence of comparable crimes committed by the same or related actors in the northwestern area of Afrin in Syria, these abuses should come as no surprise. Turkey has long treated the autonomous government initiative of the Syrian Kurds on the other side of its border as a danger to national security and has intervened to fight what it terms an emerging 'terror corridor.' However, Turkey's intervention as an external state player with a history of forced migration against its own Kurdish population provides the analysis with a distinctly ethnic dimension. 

Based on cultural relations and shared geopolitical ambitions, Turkey has always sponsored Azerbaijan. However, as Ankara in the Middle East and the Mediterranean has been more assertive lately, its stance towards the Nagorno-Karabakh region has led it to bring Baku even closer. Globally acknowledged as Azerbaijani territory, including by Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh is controlled by ethnic Armenians who split away from Baku during a war in the 1990s. On September 27, 2020, Azerbaijan initiated the second Nagorno-Karabakh war. At the beginning of October 2020, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan celebrated the “great operation both to defend its own territories and to liberate the occupied Karabakh”. While Turkey has always supported the claims of Azerbaijan over the disputed territory in the region in its previous conflicts with Armenia, it did not play a significant rhetorical or military role in supporting Baku. However, this situation has shifted. In the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, expanded Turkish support for Azerbaijan was evident, as Turkey supplied Turkish-made drones spearheading Azeri attacks, and Ankara was likely to have provided logistics and support for those weapons. According to Erdoğan, the support of Ankara for Azerbaijan was part of Turkey's search for its “deserved place in the world order.” It fits into the overall trend of the Middle East and Mediterranean foreign policy of the Turkish government. The regime has denied sending Syrian mercenaries to support Azerbaijan in the fighting, even though the Syrian Human Rights Observatory, a British opposition war watchdog, has confirmed that several hundred Syrian soldiers have arrived in Azerbaijan. This assistance proved pivotal, as Azerbaijan emerged victorious.  Azerbaijan and Turkish proxies have been accused of committing numerous war crimes. However, Turkey emerged as the biggest winner from the conflict. Ankara pressured the governments of Central Asia, with their Turkish and Islamic relations, to help Azerbaijan. It was able to expand its reach in the area while also highlighting the small space of Russia in the South Caucasus for maneuvering. It now needs Turkish assistance in order to impose peace, even though it is in the background. The Kremlin has managed to enforce ceasefires twice, but both times failed. Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat who now chairs the think-tank Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (Edam) based in Istanbul, reported that Turkey intends to become a powerful regional force and wants further stake in the Nagorno-Karabakh problem in a possible political settlement. “Turkey is realistic in the sense that, in Karabakh, the aim is not to eliminate Russian influence,” said Ulgen. “It’s to gain influence, so that Turkey acquires leverage over Russia that it could potentially use in Syria or in Libya.”

Despite the powerful façade, there are signs that the foundations Erdoğan built are cracking. The Turkish opposition is growing, and its foreign policy has proved expensive and onerous. In addition, as former NATO partners turn their backson Turkey, Erdoğan’s circle of allies is slimming down. Nonetheless, Mr. Erdoğan’s ambitions have yet to be abated, even as his own people suffer. As he seeks to carve out a prosperous future for his nation, bypassing signs that this might lead to isolation and economic collapse.